Esta es la otra charla que les prometi Hernán Mauricio Romero Intercollege Graduate Program in Plant Physiology The Pennsylvania State University ------- Inicio de email reenviado ------- Following are draft prepared remarks of Debby Delmer of UC Davis and President of ASPP for the FDA public meeting Monday, December 13 in Oakland: Thank you. My name is Deborah Delmer and I am Professor and Chair of the Section of Plant Biology at the University of California at Davis. My comments are made on behalf of myself and the American Society of Plant Physiologists, a non-profit society of 5,000 plant scientists who elected me to serve this year as the Society's President. As a consumer of food as well as a scientist, I can fully appreciate the public's desire for assurance that the bioengineered foods being sold today are safe. So the brief message I would like to relay to these concerned citizens is that I, as a plant scientist, DO have confidence in the mechanisms that are currently in place to assure such safety. Most of the procedures used to generate bioengineered plants were developed by scientists like myself and my colleagues within the American Society of Plant Physiologists as a part of our ongoing efforts to understand the fundamental aspects of plant growth and development. We use these procedures daily in our own laboratories, and, understanding the mechanisms involved, we also understand that there is nothing fundamentally "unsafe" about the introduction of a foreign gene into a plant. In fact, it is clear that the directed introduction of a single specific gene of benefit into a plant-- such as one that confers disease resistance or ability to produce more of a beneficial vitamin-- is a more controlled and potentially even safer method than the classic mechanism of conventional breeding wherein many genes are reshuffled in a single cross with a wild relative. I am personally sometimes amazed that the same people who express deep worry over bioengineered plants have no qualms whatsoever about ingesting medicinal herbs of unknown and varying composition nor about eating a new exotic fruit. However, I do appreciate their concerns. With the exception of the few radical groups who use scare tactics and coin terms like "Frankenstein Foods" to describe these plants, I think most of our citizens question these new technologies simply from lack of understanding of what they are and how they are being used. Thus, I believe that we scientists who DO understand these technologies have an important role to play in reassuring the public that the benefits of these new approaches to plant improvement far outweigh any potential risks. Of course, no system of food production is entirely without risk. For this reason, we do advocate continued monitoring to ensure that any new gene introduced is clearly safe, and we also support the need for additional research on important issues relevant to these technologies--one example being further research aimed at gaining a more comprehensive picture of the potential for genetic exchange between bioengineered plants and their wild-relatives. Thank you for your attention. Brian Hyps Public Affairs Director American Society of Plant Physiologists 15501 Monona Drive Rockville, MD 20855 301-251-0560 (phone) 301-309-9196 (fax) [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------- Fin de email reenviado ------- Abre gratis una cuenta de email en StarMedia Mail. El mejor servicio de email gratis de toda Latinoamérica. http://www.starmedia.com ============================================================================= Si necesita retirarse de la lista envie un mensaje a: [EMAIL PROTECTED] con una unica linea : unsubscribe r-caldas Para inscribirse en la lista envie un mensaje a [EMAIL PROTECTED] con una unica linea : subscribe r-caldas Los mensajes que circulan en la lista los puede consultar en : http://www.mail-archive.com/r-caldas@colciencias.gov.co
