As G.Onishchenko surprised the academicians
"The microbe that ate oil started attacking dolphins"
Onishchenko told academics about the dangers of GMOsPavel Kotlyar, "Newspaper.
According to him, control over GMOs can save from all this.
On Tuesday, the report announced on the agenda at the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences caused a noticeable stir. Of course, the former head of Rospotrebnadzor, academician Gennady Onishchenko, was supposed to speak to a high scientific audience with a report on a topic that worries many – "Genetically engineered modified organisms: safety assessment, control and global risks".
They were waiting for him not in vain: as before, Onishchenko pleased the audience with new, hitherto unknown facts that left many perplexed.
In his report, Onishchenko, who now works as an assistant to the prime minister, introduced those present to the essence of the issue, in which, according to him, there is a lot of conjuncture, business and politics. He spoke about the national security doctrine adopted in recent years, presidential decrees on healthy nutrition and focused on the role of genetically modified organisms. The challenges facing humanity are global climate change, soil depletion and population growth, and for this, according to him, 27 countries of the world have to grow GMOs. He said that, according to international organizations, to date, humanity has consumed 1 billion tons of products containing GM ingredients. At the same time, "1 trillion tons" was written on the presentation slide.
Having listed the types of GMO products allowed for circulation, Onishchenko told how GMO products are checked in Russia for toxicity, harm to the reproductive, immune systems and allergenic properties. Here the academicians got noticeably tired and began to mumble loudly, drink tea and rattle spoons.
Giving examples of who and how many GMOs are produced in the world and what Russia is doing in this regard, "given our backwardness in the field of biotechnology," Onishchenko spoke about the main danger of these three letters. In his opinion, it consists not so much in replacing traditional agricultural products with GM analogues, as in such a direction of science as synthetic biology. "She designs and creates artificial life that does not exist in nature," he explained. And therefore, the main risks here are accessibility, unpredictability, misuse and the possibility of creating biological weapons!
And as if to prove it, he said an amazing thing at all: allegedly, the United States used anthrax spores against its population in 2001. Apparently, we are talking about cases of mass mailing of letters to people with disputes and the death of several people.
He ended by saying that in Russia, at the level of ministries and departments, it is necessary to create a system of control over the circulation of GM products and a methodology for risk assessment.
From the lengthy report, it was not clear to many present whether GMOs are good or bad, and if it is good, then why regulation is needed.
Academician Gennady Month asked to talk about the recent desire of the government to ban GMOs.
Onishchenko replied that we are talking about a bill introduced by the Ministry of Education and Science – banning the cultivation and breeding of GM plants and animals, except for the purposes of expertise and scientific work, from which he hastened to disown: "As of today, all other documents are valid."
The question of whether science is aware of at least one fact of harm was voiced by a person sitting in the hall:
– Is it true that no case of harm has been detected?
– Yes, not a single scientific case of harm has been found.
– So why limit it?
– Don't say that. You need to limit it. After the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, scientists created a special microbe to eat oil. So the microbe that ate oil began to attack dolphins. We are walking too fast, so we need to control.
Onishchenko got into a kind of skirmish with Academician Dedov, who tried to get an answer from him, what is the position on the issue of GMOs in the WHO and how many times GM potatoes are cheaper than usual.
"This bill prohibits the cultivation, but allows the import of GMOs – don't you see a contradiction here?" asked Mikhail Gelfand, deputy director of the Institute of Information Transmission Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Onishchenko replied that he did not compose this document and could not comment on it. "So, should the Academy of Sciences not express its attitude to such issues?" Gelfand asked.
– I must, RAN is a light. But it should be done not by verbal method and not by voice," the speaker replied. According to him, he came to speak not on behalf of the government, but as a specialist.
In general, many of Onishchenko's answers had a transcendental touch familiar to him and took the person answering far away from the question itself. One of these answers was literally brainwashed by the President of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Vladimir Fortov, who asked Onishchenko what would happen if, suddenly, due to the world embargo, all GM products stopped being imported into Russia. Getting up from the chair for the question, the President of the Russian Academy of Sciences stood for 10 minutes listening to the answer.
Onishchenko thought that we are talking about a possible Russian ban on the import of such products. He began with the fact that today our sanctions do not concern the United States, but Europe, but there is still Turkey, Belarus, "China is a bully", on which the Far East completely depends. Then I moved on to the issues of FANO and the related rupture of research institutes with the Ministry of Agriculture, to the problem of the lack of borders with Kazakhstan, the story of the ban on Bush legs. He ended up with a shortage in Russia of white chicken meat (which is killed at the age of five days) and his own milk.
"Some of us here are pining for Marseilles shrimp, so we'll feed them potatoes. But where are we going to get milk?" - Onishchenko finished. The President of the Russian Academy of Sciences thought deeply and sat back in his chair.
The scientists who spoke after Onishchenko told about their relationship with GMOs. So, Viktor Tutelyan, director of the Research Institute of Nutrition of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, told how their numerous experiments with GMOs did not reveal harm to rats who ate 2.5 tons of GM grain.
Academician Pyotr Kharchenko, director of the Research Institute of Agricultural Biotechnology, clearly showed why it is more profitable for farmers to grow GM beets, spending 7 thousand rubles per hectare on seeds instead of 12 thousand rubles.
Academician Dedov called for support for the introduction of control and immediately asked for money for it, remembering as a medic the importance of proper nutrition of pregnant women in the first trimester of pregnancy and children.
A peculiar result was summed up by the president of RASKHN Gennady Romanenko, who said that transgenic quail eggs weighing 18 grams, which once seemed huge, had become common again after 20 generations, and urged to continue working on GMO products.
"The discussion was sometimes informative, sometimes anecdotal. The fact that the US government used these ulcers against its people is complete stupidity. Surprisingly, at the meeting of the presidium, the number of speeches is noticeable, not just meaningless, but also containing outright lies. This shows the overall level of competence. And Onishchenko was already squirming, just not to comment on the GMO bill. The good thing is that many have paid attention to this bill and its potential harmfulness," Gelfand shared his opinion.
Correspondent of "Gazeta.En", who already tried to find out on the sidelines what is the danger of GMO products, about the harm of which there is not a single scientific article, Gennady Onishchenko also left perplexed with his answer. "I am not a supporter and not an opponent, there must be chastity, otherwise I will be engaged. The same thing happens with pesticides, pesticides. What is happening with Ebola? I am sure that this is a modified scale test, only in real conditions. The test by those who are engaged in active biological work is the United States, because they have not curtailed any of their military–applied programs."
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru28.01.2015