108 Nobel Laureates Support Genetically Modified Crops
Original headline: 108 Nobel Laureates Sign Joint Letter Supporting Genetically Modified Technology
They demand an end to the campaign against improving crops through biotechnology
In August 2012, in Woodland, California, a worker tends corn in a Monsanto test field. Monsanto is the world's leading producer of the herbicide glyphosate and the largest producer of genetically modified seeds. (Web image: Sina Tech)
San Nong Zhi Tong Che comprehensive report: On the 29th, 108 Nobel laureates signed a joint open letter demanding that Greenpeace stop its campaign against improving crops and food through biotechnology.
The joint letter, addressed to Greenpeace, the United Nations and governments around the world, said that the campaign led by Greenpeace against modern plant breeding repeatedly denies the facts, hinders biotechnological innovation in agriculture, misrepresents the risks and impacts of new technologies, and disrupts approved trials and research projects.
The scientists demanded that Greenpeace stop its campaign against improving crops and food through biotechnology, called on it to reanalyse the experience of producers and consumers worldwide with crops and food improved through biotechnology, and to recognise the research findings of authoritative scientific bodies and regulatory agencies.
The open letter also called on governments around the world to resist Greenpeace's related activities, while giving farmers the opportunity to use modern biotechnology tools, especially the technology for improving seeds through biotechnology.
The open letter stressed that scientific and regulatory bodies worldwide have repeatedly studied the matter and unanimously found that crops and food improved through biotechnology are at least as safe as crops and food produced by other means, and that not a single case has ever been confirmed of an adverse health reaction in humans or animals caused by consuming these products. Multiple studies have repeatedly shown that these crops and food are less damaging to the environment and beneficial to global biodiversity.
This joint open letter campaign was organised by Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine laureates Richard Roberts and Phillip Sharp. In the signatory list published on the campaign's official website, 108 Nobel laureates have signed so far, the vast majority of them Nobel laureates in the natural sciences. (Xinhua News Agency, Los Angeles, June 29 dispatch, reporter Guo Shuang)