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Last month's decision by the British government to strengthen the monitoring of genetically modified (GM) foods but resist calls for a moratorium on their commercial planting has been implicitly endorsed by the main UK bioethics advisory body (see Nature 399, 287; 1999).

In a report published last week, the Nuffield Council on Bioethics says that there are many aspects of the development and introduction of GM foods that warrant firm government action (see page 405 in this issue). These range from steps to limit the breadth of patent claims to what it describes as a “moral imperative” to develop GM staple foods for the Third World.

But the report dismisses opposition to GM crops based either on broad claims about their ‘unnaturalness’ or on their potential for misuse. The genetic modification of crop plants, it says, “does not differ to such an extent from conventional plant breeding or other human interventions with the natural world as to make the process morally objectionable in itself”.

The overall message has been welcomed by the agrobiotech industry and the government. Jack Cunningham, the cabinet minister responsible for the government initiatives, said the report was “independent backing for the government's approach”.

The response has been cooler from environmentalist, Third World and religious groups, upset that the report's admittedly utilitarian stance does not pay closer heed to the ways that GM technology has been — and is likely to be — used.

The report, Genetically Modifed Crops: The Ethical and Social Issues, was drawn up by a working party chaired by Alan Ryan, professor of philosophy at the University of Oxford. It outlines three areas in which, it claims, moral considerations are relevant: general welfare, people's rights (for example, to freedom of choice as consumers) and the principle of justice — the fair sharing of burdens and benefits.

From this perspective, while endorsing the patenting of genetic sequences, it urges national and international patent bodies to discourage patents “which allow extensive control over a single crop species,” and to draw up new guidelines for doing so.

The report also strongly endorses the use of GM crops in the Third World, arguing that the British government should allocate a “substantial amount” of its increased aid budget to research and development on GM food staples grown in developing countries.

But it also urges careful attention to the potential environmental impacts of GM crops, as well as to ensuring that farmers in these countries are given a choice between GM crops and traditional varieties.

By sticking to its three ethical principles, the working group rejects the demands of some critics to take a broader ethical stance. “It is the deleterious consequences of our farming techniques to our environment and public health, not their ‘unnatural’ character that should preoccupy us,” the working group says.

Thus, although supporting in principle the labelling of GM foods, it opposes labelling as “not necessary or practical” for foods produced by a GM process where no difference can be detected.

The Third World group Christian Aid, which recently issued a report arguing that GM crops were unnecessary for problems that could be resolved by better food distribution (see Nature 399, 98; 1999), claimed that the council was “out of touch” with the real causes of hunger.

Donald Bruce, who heads a project on GM foods for the Church of Scotland, says that although he agrees with much of the working party's conclusions, the report's dismissal of the ‘unnaturalist’ position is “a dogma rather than a serious argument”.

But Ryan defends the working party, saying that the report “is intended to be read in a highly pluralistic society”.