Tämän Euraktivin uutisen mukaan ...
Commission expects clarity on GM scope from court ruling on plant breeding techniques... komissio odottaisi tai edellyttäisi jotain selkeyttä asiassa. Minä taasen en oikein saa tuosta selvää, mitä komissio tahtoo, mikä on sen alustava linja asiassa. Tai ehkä muidenkaan osallisten kannoista.
Mutta keskustelu on selvästi avattu.
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IFOAM:in hätääntymisen sentään ymmärtää:
Organic farmers (IFOAM EU) reacted strongly to the Advocate General’s opinion, urging the Court not to adopt this opinion in its final ruling.
“There are no legal or scientific reasons to exempt from risk assessment, traceability and labelling, recently developed genetic engineering which has nothing to do with the mutagenesis of the 1960s, however they are called by their proponents,” IFOAM’s Eric Gall said.
“Exempting this new genetic engineering from a risk assessment would be a blatant denial of the precautionary principle and of the citizens’ right to know how their food is produced,” he added.
Vaikkei sitä, miten se (implisiittisesti) puolustaa (ihannoi?) vanhaa, sattumanvaraista menetelmää, miten siihen tukeutuminen jotenkin noudattaisi varovaisuusperiaatetta?
Mutta luomulajikkeiden "puhtautta" tämä uusi tekniikka todellakin uhkaa.
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Miten Vihreät aikovat tämän estää:
The European Parliament’s Greens/EFA group has warned that the risks of authorising NPBTs outside the GMO framework are too great: once these new organisms are out of the laboratories, they will be untraceable.
This, the group says, would lead to the unchecked cultivation of modified organisms across the EU and make “any future EU regulation virtually impossible”, if unintended, harmful effects come to light.
Tuomalla myös mutageeniset lajikkeet säätelyn piiriin? Vaatimalla joka lajikkeelta täydellistä jalostushistoriaa, jossa joka vaihe on kuvattu ja rekisteröity? Kieltämällä maatiaislajikkeet ja/tai maatiaislajikkeiden jalostuksen kokonaan?
Tässä saatetaan nyt EU:lta vaatia järjestelmää, jollaista ei kertakaikkiaan ole keksittävissä?
Koska näin se nyt on, tässä sitä ollaan:
The EU defines GMOs as “organisms, with the exception of human beings, in which the genetic material has been altered in a way that does not occur naturally by mating and/or natural recombination”.
Supporters of NPBTs argue that plants obtained through these techniques could also be the product of conventional cross-breeding techniques that mimic natural processes and hence cannot be considered GMOs.
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Laitetaan tähän samaan vielä linkki Naturen artikkeliin, jossa on lisää asian pohdintaa:
Europe court suggests relaxed gene-editing rulesEuropean scientists have cautiously welcomed the carefully worded document, published on 18 January. They would like to use precise gene editing, which allows tiny changes to be made to a genome in a simple and highly controlled manner, to create hardier plant species or to improve medical treatments. But legal uncertainty about existing rules has hindered progress in Europe, say researchers.
Sielläkin se keskeinen ongelma on:
The legal confusion arose because the 2001 directive applies to organisms into which whole genes or other stretches of nucleotides have been transferred. However, it exempts organisms whose genomes have been altered by plant and animal breeders using mutagenesis techniques that were available at the time, such as irradiation. Breeders argue that gene editing is a type of mutagenesis because it involves changes to single nucleotides. But opponents say that any changes deliberately made to a gene give rise to genetically engineered products that must be regulated in the same way as other GMOs.
Minun tulkintani vielä tuohon päälle: ja ellei yksikään geeni ole muuttunut, ei oikeastaan ole syntynyt uutta lajikettakaan.
Ja jos muutos on syntynyt "itsestään", mikä takaa, ettei se ole vaarallinen, jos se pääsee "karkuun"?