Microcephaly, a horrific mutation of the head and brain in new born children, is possibly the greatest man-made medical tragedy since the Thalidomide disaster of the late 1950s, when thousands of babies were born with stumps instead of limbs due to a pill prescribed to counter morning sickness. The Thalidomide babies, some still survive, became a poignant lesson for national governments about testing norms and regulatory procedures for the pharmaceutical industry. Yet today, Big Pharma and the Biotech industry pose grim challenges to humanity and the environment.
Prima facie, the Zika virus that is behind this galloping global epidemic has been caused by the release of Genetically Modified mosquitoes (OX513A) by the British biotech company, Oxitec, in Brazil. Despite the published concerns of many reputed scientists, the modified Aedes mosquito was released and the Zika Virus emerged in virulent form there.
As India is a tropical country afflicted with the Aedes mosquito which spreads malaria, dengue, and chickengunya, it is vulnerable to the Zika virus. The episode is a grim warning against biotech firms callously introducing new genetic constructs into the ecosystem.
To briefly explain what went wrong, the company released modified male Aedes mosquitoes into the wild, to mate with unaltered females and produce larvae with a ‘kill switch’ that would prevent them reaching maturity, provided tetracycline /antibiotics were not present in the environment. The environment was not tested for the presence of these antibiotics, and as Brazil is a large user of tetracycline in farm animals, there is a heavy presence of excretions from farm animals in its environment. These “saved” the mosquitoes that were supposed to die off.
What is unconscionable is that even before the release of the GM insects, scientists had published warnings that a known survival rate of 3-4 percent warranted much deeper study, but the concerns were brushed aside. Now, this genetic pollution, like climate change, is here to stay and endanger humanity.
The Zika epidemic is aggravated by the discovery of a sexually transmitted case in the United States, which suggests that the disease could spread to countries where the Aedes mosquito does not occur naturally. There is also the possibility of other transmission modes as the virus lingers in human sperm and urine.
For Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the lesson of this tragedy is to firmly repel pressures from an entrenched lobby that has battled over the past decade for clearance to cultivate GM food crops on a commercial scale, thereby endangering the survival of all our native food species and possibly contaminating other plant and animal species in unknown ways. Certainly, it is not enough for the Government of India to issue warnings to pregnant women to avoid virus-struck zones, and set up centres to monitor and manage the disease, while allowing new disasters to strike from GM foods.
The GM lobby, nurtured during the UPA regime, cussedly ignores the lessons from the recent collapse of the Bt Cotton crop in Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan, and tries to silence the growing scientific evidence against GM crops the world over, with over 30 countries, led by the European Union and Russia, completely banning GMOs.
The Centre must punish those conducting illicit trials of GM food crops in India. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has pointed out that former Delhi University Vice Chancellor Deepak Pental’s clinical trials of GM Mustard are illegal as they have not been permitted by the State Government.
Illegal trials have been conducted in several food crops across the nation and have tainted Dehradun’s famed basmati rice – a top export item and revenue earner. As Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and others have also objected to GM crops, it would be unwise for the Centre to dither on this score. The ecosystem is too complex to be played with.
ABPLive.in, 4 February 2016
http://www.abplive.in/blog/zika-virus-episode-makes-it-imperative-for-govt-to-curb-gm-lobby