GM Science Review Panel - Meetings

[This document is also available in Adobe Acrobat format (15kb) for downloading and printing] Further information is available on our Help page about downloading or reading Adobe Acrobat documents.

GM SCIENCE REVIEW PANEL
MINUTES OF THE SIXTH MEETING
Thursday 5 June 2003
The Royal Institution of Great Britain, 21 Albemarle Street London SW1

THE MEETING WAS OPEN TO THE PUBLIC TO OBSERVE

Present

Members

Secretariat

Apologies

1. Apologies were received from Dr Simon Bright.

Chairman's opening remarks

2. Sir David King welcomed Panel members and observers from the public to the sixth Science Review Panel meeting and invited observers to join the Panel for lunch.

1. Minutes of the fifth meeting (13May)

3. The minutes of the fifth meeting were confirmed as an accurate record of the meeting.

2. Matters arising

Secretary's update

4. The Science Review website has nearly 100 contributions. The Public Debate was launched on 3 June and reference to this was noted on the "latest news" section of the Science Review website. The Secretariat had received comments on the draft Food and Feed chapter from the Food Standards Agency and its advisory committees. The comments had been circulated to the drafting group and were tabled.

3. The Report - first draft

5. The Panel worked linearly through the Report.

General points

6. The Report should be hard hitting and clearly indicate the Panel's views on the issues, identifying what is known and what is unknown.

7. Public accessibility is critically important. The opening chapters must be written in a language that is understandable to the public.

8. The Review must be put in the context of current breeding practices and regulatory processes.

9. The opening chapters must be devoid of bias. This will be important for the reception of the science papers that follow.

Executive summary

10. The draft Executive Summary should be rewritten with the above points in mind and aim to be approximately ten pages in length.

11. One member thought that the Report was potentially very important and very substantial but felt that there was a very real risk that it was going to fall short of that potential. He was concerned that at this stage the Panel was not fulfilling the framework and checklist that it had set itself, and that there was material submitted on the website that is not referred to which was directly pertinent to many of the points the Panel was making. He was also concerned with the draft Executive Summary that was seriously premature.

Introductory chapter

12. This could be made "friendlier", with attention to titles, and show empathy with public concerns.

13. The general public poorly understands the science process, so explain the scientific process.

14. Expand the section on Regulatory process to explain it in more detail and import the section on risk assessment currently in the Food and Feed Chapter into this chapter. Also include a section on the precautionary principle.

Methodology chapter

15. New Figure to explain the relationship between the three stands of the national dialogue and the Science Review Process.

16. A better explanation of the relationship between the framework and checklist.

17. A brief acknowledgment in the Report that sometimes gaps in knowledge cannot be filled because of economic or methodological constraints.

18. Expansion of existing statement to clarify that the second report will not only take into account the comments in the public debate but comments received about the first report.

New chapter on the reliability of GM in plant breeding

19. The current paper on the reliability of GM in plant breeding will form a new chapter and will be expand to put GM in the context of current breeding practices.

Review Chapters

20. During the course of discussions detailed points arose. In addition to giving attention to these and the more general points (mentioned above), the Panel agreed that leading authors on the Panel would be points of contact for further email interaction before the next meeting. From this activity, a second draft would emerge that would be discussed at the next meeting.

21. Members of the draft Food and Feed chapter reported to the Panel the views expressed by the Food Standards Agency and its independent advisory committees on the draft papers prepared.

22. The view of some members of the Panel was that an important statement for the report centres on the potential impact of herbicide tolerant crops in the UK, the role of farmers in the process and the role of the Farm Scale Evaluations.

4. Any other business

23. None.

5. Date and time of next meeting

24. The sixth Panel meeting will be on Tuesday 24 June, 11.45 am to 6.30 at the Royal Institution of Great Britain, 21 Albemarle Street, London SW1S 4BS.

GM Science Review Secretariat
June 2003