Why "NO" to BT Brinjal

Let us evaluate WHY we sholud say "NO" to BT Brinjal.

1. Effective non-pesticide pest management and Integrated Pest Management exists and is being practised by farmers.
   The question of internal destruction of pests is dangerous to the health of the consumer. The integrated pest management systems, in combination with good farming practices, are the only healthy solution to good crops. A healthy farm ecosystem is the key to pest management. This includes selection of good seeds, appropriate irrigation system and improving soil quality.
2. The experiences with a few other GM crops released in India and other parts of the world, especially Bt cotton, shows that over a period of time the total pesticide usage in GM crops has gone up due to increased secondary pest attacks and in some cases due to tolerance developed by the target pest. The Nagpur case study of the pest attack on Bt cotton plants shows that Bt does not have a foolproof mechanism to remove pest threat.
3. Controlling pests with single toxic molecules either produced in factory or plant cell is an unscientific way of managing pests. Pests should be managed, not killed.
4. The studies on non-target pests at best were inadequate and inaccurate. The studies have been focused on a limited number of insects and for only a limited period of time.
5. The studies were also done with a surrogate protein and not with the modified Cry1Ac used in Bt brinjal.
6. As Bt brinjal is created to produce the Cry1Ac toxin in every cell, the 'pesticides' have actually moved from exterior to the interior of brinjal, and this cannot be removed by washing as in the case of the usual pesticide at present.
7. The studies on soil microflora were for a very short period. The impact of the break down products of the protein Cry1Ac on soil micro flora has not been conducted.
8. India is a centre of origin and diversity of brinjal which has been cultivated here for over 4000 years. There are about 2000 varieties grown across India.
9. The transgene transfer to local and hybrid varieties of brinjal will effectively destroy our brinjal diversity. As a general rule GM crops should not be cultivated in the center of origin as it could lead to the loss of original varieties by transgenic cross pollination.
10. Inadequacy of tests:No third party or independent tests have been conducted so far on the Bt impact on human health.
11. The longest study has been a 90 day sub-chronic test on a healthy adult rat. This does not address the possible health impact on humans of Bt brinjal as brinjal is a regularly eaten vegetable.
12. Significant chronic toxicity studies including carcinogenicity studies have not been conducted.
13. Brinjal itself has an inherent property of allergenecity which may be enhanced further in the Bt variety.
14. When pesticides were first introduced and promoted, they were said to be harmless to human health. However, tough lessons have been learnt since then about the actual effects of pesticides. Genetic Engineering will have huge and as yet unknown implications for human health
15. Brinjal in India is often eaten lightly cooked. In traditional medicine brinjal is used in its raw form. In its raw form the Cry1Ac toxin in the Bt brinjal is active and extremely dangerous.
16. The human digestive system is mildly acidic only in the stomach, where the food resides briefly before it passes to the duodenum. The medium then changes from mildly acidic to alkaline to aid the working of the digestive enzymes of tryptase, amylase and lipase. The rest of the human alimentary canal remains alkaline till the end. Hence if the Cry1Ac toxin is active in alkaline medium, there will be a high absorption of the toxin into the human system leading to high toxicity in the human body.
17. While India at present lacks a labeling and liability regime, there are also concerns that it will not help even if we have a labeling law in place as only a miniscule quantity of Brinjal or, for that matter, any vegetable is packed and sold.
18. Studies on the accumulation or wash-out time span on this specific endo-toxin in Bt. brinjal
    have not been done. Historically the absorption and accumulation of the endo-toxins can be carcinogenic to humans.
19. The existing assessments have completely overlooked the impact of Bt brinjal on the Indian systems of medicine. Given that brinjal and related plants are used in Ayurveda, Siddha and so on this is a significant lapse. It is not clear, therefore, whether the entry of Bt brinjal could make Indian systems of medicine/practices ineffective or even toxic, with regard to use of brinjal.
20. In Ayurveda around 14 varieties of the brinjal are being used for medicinal preparations. Each one differs in its medicinal properties. Any intrusion in the basic nature will alter the Rasa (Taste), Guna (Property), Veerya (Potency), Vipaka (End Taste) and Prabhava (Synergetic Property) of the drug. These properties are coded for each drug and according to these codes the physicians are able to select a particular drug for a specific ailment. Transgenic changes would alter these properties and create a new plant with unknown coding. While doing agronomic studies Bt brinjal has not been compared with best agricultural practices like non- pesticide management or integrated pest management practices being successfully undertaken in the country.
21. Majority of the farmers in India are small and marginal farmers, so the possibility for maintaining isolation distances is inexistent. There is no guarantee that the prices will actually go down. On the contrary increased input costs could increase the price of Bt brinjal. The Bt cotton example shows that the seed cost increases substantially with GM crops thereby increasing the input costs.
22. Organic farmers would be at risk as there would be no mechanism by which contamination by the transgene could be stopped. This would lead them to lose their certification and markets. This is evident from the examples from what happened in the case of Bt cotton.
23. While Mahyco shared the truncated gene cry1Ac construct they developed with the public sector research institutions, there are conditions in the MoU stopping these institutions from developing their own hybrids or having a free hand in marketing of the OPVs.
24. None of the public sector products would reach the market for another two years as they are yet to complete their trials. By then Mahyco, who have their GM brinjal hybrids ready, would completely dominate the markets. Thus the technology sharing is just a Trojan horse to get their product

These are not my arguments, but those i found in the website of Ministry of Environment and Forest, Government of India (http://moef.nic.in)