ACRE Publications

Letter of 7 June 2002 from Professor Alan Gray to the Sunday Herald

The following is the text of a letter sent by Professor Alan Gray, the chairman of ACRE, to the Sunday Herald in response to an article calling for his resignation. (The article is available on the Sunday Herald's web site at www.sundayherald.com/25133.)

ACRE SECRETARIAT
FLOOR 3/H11
DEPARTMENT FOR ENVIRONMENT, FOOD AND RURAL AFFAIRS
ASHDOWN HOUSE
123 VICTORIA STREET
LONDON SW1E 6DE
DIRECT LINE: 020 7944 5284
DIVISIONAL ENQUIRIES: 020 7944 5229
FAX: 020 7944 5259 GTN CODE: 3533 5284

07 JUNE 2002

Dear Sir

Your article last week (Parliament GM adviser 'should resign') calls for my resignation and challenges the competence of the committee I chair (Advisory Committee on Releases to the Environment - ACRE). It therefore deserves a response, not least to place the facts on record.

First, I was not chairman of ACRE in 1996 when the committee considered the T25 (GM) maize dossier, or in 1998 when the French competent authority on behalf of the European Community granted consent for its commercial use. ACRE do not and have never issued consents. At that time I was a member of ACRE advising on plant ecology and genetics, my area of scientific expertise - although I fully agreed with the committee's conclusion that the GM maize posed no greater risk to the environment and human health than conventional maize.

Second, the so-called ACRE 'consent form' referred to as 'my work' was the sheet of paper used in those days by the ACRE Secretariat to receive official affirmation of the views of ACRE members, following detailed examination and discussion of the scientific dossier. Members who had nothing to add to the previous discussion often left them blank. Details of the regulatory proceedings are on ACRE's web site (www.defra.gov.uk/environment/acre/index.htm). May I refer any of your readers genuinely interested in my actual work to a rather long list (>150) of my scientific publications on ecology, genetics and wildlife conservation - including as it happens several on gene flow and environmental risk assessment for transgenic oilseed rape.

Third, the much-criticised chicken feeding study was not included in the original 1996 dossier. It was first circulated in February 1997 when animal feed experts in MAFF saw it and raised no safety concerns. ACRE did not see it then and were not asked for advice. Following the Chardon LL hearing the Advisory Committee on Animal Feeding stuffs (ACAF) advised on the study in September 2001 and although critical of some aspects, could see nothing to indicate that the GM maize posed more risk as animal feed than non GM maize. ACAF's advice, like that of ACRE, is publicly available. The difficulties of drawing conclusions either way from the study were again brought out at ACRE's open meeting, which I chaired, in February this year (where, among others, Friends of the Earth and Dr Knowles gave evidence). Again the ACRE web site gives details of the evidence presented. From this, with the help of some ACAF members, and on the basis of a wide range of evidence including compositional analysis, we concluded that there were no urgent safety concerns which needed to be notified to the Government. We did question the value of studies such as the chicken feeding trial and recognised the need for accepted standard operating procedures. As you report, we are keeping all the evidence under review.

I reject totally the accusation that ACRE does not have both the scientific competence to advise on GM safety, and, if Dr Knowles has been accurately quoted, the necessary independence. I have complete confidence in the expert skills, professionalism and probity of my committee.

In my view it does no credit to opponents of GM technology, however sincere their concerns, to resort to personal attacks on those charged with giving independent scientific advice to government (especially if ill targeted). I imagine it gives them no pleasure to learn that ACRE's advice and actions are also criticised by keen advocates of the technology. Perhaps this is a more useful barometer of our independence than unsubstantiated opinion. Any interference with that independence, from any source including the political, is for me (and I'm sure for all ACRE members) a real resigning matter.

Yours faithfully

Professor Alan J Gray
Chairman ACRE