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Table
4. Motives put forward for GMO rejection: risks, fears and reasons for
refusal. Typology developed by the author on the basis of the themes repeatedly treated in debates, articles and declarations made by the opponents. |
| Types of risk: | Fears and perceived risks | |||
| - troublesome, violent gene transfer process | - transgenesis
= transgression of the barrier between species. - risk engendered by troubling the "order of the genome", which may appear only later. - insufficient knowledge of the genome to authorize such tinkering with the transfer of foreign genes (living organisms are not just “building blocks"). |
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| - health, for example Bt corn, glyphosate-tolerant soya | - allergies,
long term toxicity. - insufficient safety tests: "consumers = guinea pigs". - gene coding for Bt toxin à consuming continuously secreted insecticide toxins. - gene coding for the enzyme which degrades glyphosate à GMOs accumulate products of degradation. |
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| - environmental | - gene flow towards related wild species à “superweeds”, invasive plants, accelerated decrease in biodiversity. | |||
| - agro-economic | - gene
flow towards nearby crops of the same species à impure harvests, "contamination".
- problem of volunteer plants in the following crop (rapeseed). - risk of a drop in Bt or glyphosate efficiency, interesting molecules for use in other agricultural sectors. |
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| - economic | - of
little interest to consumers, "product imposed" by the multinationals.
- increasingly dependent agriculture (farmers must buy seeds every year). - difficulty for developing countries to access such technology (patents) => hypocrisy of saying "Genetic engineering is necessary to feed humanity." - appropriation of genetic resources by a few large multinationals. - GMOs = symbol of privatisation of all resources, now even genetic resources. - "imperialist" technology because coexistence with non- transgenic production is difficult (gene flow). |
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| - agricultural and food production model | - reinforcing of the industrialized
model, the limits of which have already been critically portrayed.
- consumer perception: "They’re playing with our health to make more money." (cf. BSE & contaminated blood). |
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| - more socio-political motives (value systems and beliefs) | - innovation
neither asked for nor desired, but set up solely for the profits
of some multinational firms. - no respect for consumer free choice due to the presence of GMOs in many additives and fortuitous "contamination" of grain through gene flow.
- GMOs symbolize development towards a type of society which is perceived negatively. - "Such progress, why bother?" (a certain loss of faith in science and progress). |
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