Pakistan's recent controversial decision to allow the import of hazardous genetically modified Organism (GMO) soybean seeds, has sparked public outcry given the potential health risks associated with GMO seeds and their products banned widely in the world.
Dozens of countries including France, Germany, Austria, Greece, Hungary, Netherlands, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Bulgaria, Poland, Denmark, Malta, Slovenia, Italy, Croatia, Algeria, Madagascar, Turkey, Kyrgyzstan, Bhutan, and Saudi Arabia have banned the GMO. Nonetheless government in Islamabad granted licenses to 39 companies under what it claims to “ provide a steady supply of high-quality soybean for poultry feed, improving productivity and competitiveness”. The decision is likely to open the floodgate to the import of all kind of banned GMO seeds and their produces, many of which have already made inroads into country's agriculture sector long plagued by prohibited sprays and excessive fertilizers.
Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) are organisms whose genetic material has been altered through genetic engineering techniques to introduce novel properties. This modification enables crops to exhibit enhanced resistance to diseases, insects, and drought, or increased productivity. The Common GMO crops include maize, cotton, soybeans, oilseed rape, and sugar beets. The GMO soybeans differ significantly from their non-GMO counterparts in terms of genetic modification. Interestingly, non-GMO soybeans are typically 30% more expensive. The United States, Argentina, and Brazil are the primary producers of GMO soybeans, dominating the global market." However, there is growing resistance within the US. Hawaii, a US State has completely banned all kind of GMOs .
Religious Sensitivity with GMO
The scientists have utilized pig DNA to develop specific GMO crops, such as soybeans with pig-derived DNA, aimed at boosting pest resistance, something which has raised serious concerns in the 240 million Muslim majority Pakistan, where it is considered prohibited as per Islamic injunctions. In 2009, Pakistan's Supreme Court ordered the destruction of pork contaminated chickens feed suspected to be carrying ingredients of GMO soybean feed.
Pakistan Breaches Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety
Pakistan is among 173 countries who signed the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety protocol in Cartagena, Colombia in 2000. Now 24 years down the line, Pakistan Environmental Protection Agency and other associated state institutions have made a contentious decision by violating the standards outlined in the Pakistan Biosafety Rules 2005. These rules, derived from the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, require licensing applicants to label products containing genetically modified organisms (GMOs), ensuring consumers are informed about what they are buying and consuming. Specifically, the Pakistan Biosafety Rules 2005 mandates that GMO products be labeled, promoting transparency and public awareness.
Asif Shuja, a seasoned environmentalist and a former head of PEPA was appalled over government’s controversial decision. Asif who retired as head of PEPA in 2014 recalls “ I as a chair of Technical Advisory Committee on Biosafety resisted the pressure from powerful elite the then lobbying to allow the import of GMOs seeds and their products. I convinced the then Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz in the presence of scientists and others with empirical data based evidence on how the GMOs can play havoc with human health given the absence of biosafety laboratories and risk assessment mechanism, required under the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety. Hence, the GMO seeds and its products were disallowed to protect public health”, Asif concludes.
There have been unfrequented official authorization to allow the import of GMO soybeans in the past on what many called experimental basis. However, it seems the powerful lobbies this time around have prevailed upon the decision makers more comprehensively than ever before.
The haphazard official decision has raised serious concerns about the potential risks and implications of GMOs on human health and the environment in a country already fraught with political uncertainty and economic turmoil following early this year's general elections, the Opposition parties accused the military and the Elections Commission to have " fraudulently tempered" the final poll results and handed over the power to unpopular political parties who were in fact voted out.
GMO Soybean to Make Chicken More Toxic
The disproportionate amounts of low quality maize and heavy doses of dried blood and fish are mixed in the chicken feed with soybean, wheat, rice, polish corn, vitamins, an already one of the leading source of health hazards in Pakistan. Generally unhealthy chicken birds in Pakistan are believed to be toxic. Mostly they are pumped with drugs to treat against diseases and then are dispatched quickly to the market before the effects of the medicines die down. However, now with the GMO soybeans, health hazards in Pakistan will go from bad to the worst, fear experts.
High Health Risk of GMO Produced Soybeans
Changes in human DNA
Some food scientists noted that food DNA can survive as far as the gut, and there have been concerns that this could affect the immune system. Some people have also raised fears that eating GMO food could lead to genetic changes in humans. However, most of the DNA in food — whether GMO or not — either is destroyed by cooking or breaks down. There is a small risk that GMO foods can trigger an allergic reaction, but this will only happen if the genetic change triggers the production of an allergen.
The World Health Organization (WHO), opposes genetic engineers from
using DNA from allergens unless they can prove that the proteins that the gene
produces do not cause allergies.
Scientists
assess the likelihood of GMO foods causing an allergic reaction in humans
before a product reaches the market and can prevent its launch if necessary. Small
fragments of DNA from food can and do enter the bloodstream and body organs,
GMO Toxicity for body organs
Some researchers suggested that GMO
foods might impact the liver, kidney, pancreas, and reproductive system,
according to National
Library of Medicine.
There have been concerns that eating GMO foods can contribute to the development of cancer by raising levels of potentially carcinogenic substances in the body, reveals the Medical News Today, a US based medical news magazine with nearly 85 million annual readers.
Antibacterial resistance
Some GMOs contain changes that make them resistant to certain antibiotics. In theory, the genes from these plants could enter humans or animals when they eat them. As a result, the person or animal could also develop antibiotic resistance, concludes Medical News.
Email: javedjournalist@gmail.com
0 Comments