Old MacDonald had a pharm

The Guardian has a rather interesting article today about the genetic modification of crops with the intention of producing medicines and drugs, also known as "pharming". I confess to mixed emotions about genetic modification in general but I do not suffer from the knee jerk opposition that many in the green community or on the left seem to do. I do think that GM foods have great promise in helping the world, especially the poor, feed themselves but not in the hands of huge multinational corporations.

As presented in this story the use of crops to produce medicines that could not otherwise be produced inexpensively enough to aid the emerging world would seem to have enormous potential, again not in the hands of huge multinationals.

There is also much to fear. We have to ensure that they stay out of the food chain. The recent experience with GM rice in the United States clearly indicates that that country's protocols in this regard are woefully inadequate and, given the lack of uproar over the incident, are likely to remain that way.

Care, in the form of governmental regulation with harsh penalties that would include explicitly defining the criminal responsibility of corporate executives and boards and ensure custodial sentences, needs to be taken to ensure that:

1. No products are released without sufficient testing to ensure that they products, foods or pharmaceuticals, present no danger to humanity.
2. That all products are marketed in a manner that ensures that they are labelled as genetically modified and that all down stream products (i.e. crops and / or livestock that are fed or treated with GM products) are identified as such
3. That sufficient safeguards are in place and rigidly complied with so that these products cannot "accidentally" get into either the human or animal food chain
4. That sufficient safeguards are in place and rigidly complied with so that these organisms cannot cross breed with other strains and in this matter be released into the wild