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While appointing consumer advocates to scientific advisory bodies might seem an innocent political practice, it can and probably has had very unfortunate consequences. (440 words).

What if genetically modified crops were a threat to the environment or possibly damaging to human health, but had some trait that made them irresistible to consumers. A duly elected government decided on political grounds (self preservation) that it was necessary to allow their cultivation and subsequent incorporation into the human diet.

And to achieve this, it appointed consumer advocates to technical committees so that the opinions of consumers would be represented. If as a result of these appointments, and against scientific advice, the commercialization of the growing of genetically modified crops was endorsed. And following this an environment disaster or human health tragedy occurred. What would be the response of the responsible politicians?

They would undoubtedly try and evade responsibility by claiming that the appointment of consumer advocates was nothing more than their duty, so that the opinions of consumers were represented. That as democratically elected representatives, this was nothing more or less than their duty. And hence the disaster or tragedy was a natural consequence of the political process. The electorate was to blame.

They would, of course, be wrong. Politicians are elected to represent the interests of their constituents and not necessarily their opinions. They must clearly be considered to have been irresponsible in effectively overriding scientific opinion which provides a better basis for assessing the interests of constituents than their aggregated opinion.

In practice this example is very far fetched. There is no scientific evidence to suggest genetically modified crops will have any adverse effect on the environment or human health and they are unidentifiable rather than irresistible to consumers. In some cases they are even unidentifiable to scientists.

In theory, however, the situation is fundamentally the same as, but the converse of, what we see today. There is no scientific evidence on which opposition to the introduction of genetically modified crops can be justified. But there is popular opposition to their use, particularly in Europe.

And while this is undeniably a challenge for politicians, Orwellian attempts to stifle scientific opinion is clearly not the way to go.

Those who advocate and, indeed, practice the appointment of popular opinion to technical and scientific advisory bodies solely to represent popular opinion have, and will have, lots to answer for when the implication of this practice become apparent.

The direct implications of the unnecessary delay in the application of genetic engineering technology to agriculture in Europe are massive in economic terms. They are, however, probably small in comparison with the unnecessary human suffering in the third world that the European "example" has caused indirectly by encouraging similar delays.

September 21, 2005