The endorsement of GMO safety will rattle member states where
bans are in place (see background), and represents the CSA's
highest-profile policy intervention since Glover became Commission
President José Manuel Barroso's scientific advisor last
December.
"There is no substantiated case of any adverse impact on human
health, animal health or environmental health, so that's pretty
robust evidence, and I would be confident in saying that there is
no more risk in eating GMO food than eating conventionally farmed
food," Glover told EurActiv, saying the precautionary
principle no longer applies as a result.
Glover said she was not promoting GMOs, and added that "eating
food is risky", explaining: "Most of us forget that most plants are
toxic, and it's only because we cook them, or the quantity that we
eat them in, that makes them suitable."
Scarce resources
But she said that scientific evidence needed to play a stronger
role in policymaking, firing a warning shot at countries that have
banned GMOs. "I think we could really get somewhere in Europe if
when evidence is used partially, there were an obligation on people
to say why they have rejected evidence," she said.
GMOs and other scientific advances must be explored in order to
head off the increasing scarcity of energy and other resources and
competition for land use, Glover suggested.
"If we are using land to produce biofuels, we are not producing
food, and that that means we have to intensify food production,"
she said.
Glover, a former professor of biology at the University of
Aberdeen, served as chief scientific advisor for Scotland before
from 2006-2011. She joined the Commission on 1 January.
Her role is to bolster scientific evidence by saying things that
politicians and officials are sometimes uncomfortable with, she
said, adding: "The evidence with which I work is independent, the
evidence with which I work does not change according to political
philosophy. And that should give people a lot of confidence."
Glover said that discomfort around the subject of GM crops in
the 1980s and 1990s was "a generation ago, we've moved on and the
challenges are completely different".
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