Experts differ on safety of GMOs prior to release

Health experts have clashed over the recent move by the government to adopt Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) as the ultimate solution to the drought situation facing the country.

Speaking during Citizen TV’s JKLive Show on Wednesday night, Global Public Health Expert Dr Bernard Muia questioned what he termed as the government’s rushed decision to reintroduce GMOs to Kenyans, arguing that they had not been properly tested hence do not inspire confidence.

According to Dr Muia, the State ought to have conducted trials before going ahead to suggest the adoption of GMOs as a way of guaranteeing food safety to its citizens.

“My basic issue is what scientific evidence have we subjected ourselves to to prove that GMOs cannot cause serious public and medical issues? Which clinical trials have we done for us to show that GM foods are safe and not short-term research?” Dr. Muia posed.

“We need a prospective study, covering globally and not in Kenya; we think globally and act locally. Where in the world have we subjected those trials?”

He added: “Why are we rushing? Biotechnology has got a very strong room in the future …why can't we subject it to various scientific research so that when we come out we have a product which will impact positively humanity instead of rushing?”

Former Agriculture Minister Kipruto Kirwa, on his part, called on the government to revert the directive until the GMOs have been proven safe for human consumption and their adaptability to drought and pests addressed in order to withstand the problems affecting Kenyan farmers.

“Which trials have we done, empirically, for purposes of obviating any issues of harm to human nature given the fact that we are saying we are unbanning GMOs? What they are not telling us is that we are going to face the same problems we are facing with natural crops,” he said.

Director of Research at Kenyatta University Prof Richard Oduor however dismissed Kirwa and Muia’s remarks noting that the GMO adaptation was not an abrupt but rather a sequential process.

He underscored that GMO scientists had taken more than a decade to come up with the products and a lot of tests had therefore been done.

“To generate GMO product, it takes between 12 to 15 years and therefore when they think it is faster, it is not. Before we release that from the lab, we check it to get to know it is fine for that specific trait,” Oduor argued.

Citing his past experience in research, Prof. Oduor intimated that those against GMO adaptation were hypocritical owing to the fact that they considered the same process for pharmaceutical products such as insulin with a similar production process.

“My past work was with Pfizer in the UK, what they don’t know is that when GMO is released, there is post-release monitoring that also happens in the pharmaceutical world,” he said.

“Initially, anyone who is alive right now is suffering from Diabetes, the world over, there is no other source of insulin, all of it is genetically modified.”