Expert cautions on promotion of biotechnology
Manoj Kumar
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, January 5

While the UT Administration is making attempts to attract investors in the bio-technology sector, Dr Krishna R. Dronamraju, Adviser to the US Secretary of Agriculture and President of the Foundation for Genetic Research, has warned against the indiscriminate promotion of bio-technology in the region.

An author of 14 books on bio-technology and its social and economic consequence, Dr Krishna believes that despite overwhelming response from policy makers and scientists, bio-technology was not the only answer to the problems in agriculture and health sector. His publications include “Infectious Disease and Host-Pathogen Evolution’ and Biological Wealth and other essays. He was in the city to participate in the Indian Science Congress.

Hailing from Hyderabad, he migrated to the USA in early fifties. Talking to the Chandigarh Tribune, he claimed that he was also working to help Indian students get admission and jobs in the USA. He had visited India earlier as a member of the delegation with former President of the USA, Bill Clinton.

He said,” If proper checks and balances are not evolved to regulate the developments in the bio-technology sector, it will lead to more problems and complications resulting in the loss of our rich bio-diversity and threatening the public health.” He pointed out that top 10 firms controlled more than 80 per cent of the pesticide market and 53 per cent market share in the world market of pharma. In the food retail business, top 10 companies controlled 57 per cent of the world’s market.

Dr Krishna said due to inconclusive results of the gene therapy, the US Congress had made strict regulations to govern the developments in medical science. In fact, he said,” the death of an 18-year-old patient due to severe immune and toxic response in 1999, and later the occurrence of a leukemia-type disease in a French patient in 2003 discouraged any active gene therapy programme. The FDA has placed a temporary halt on all gene therapy trials involving retroviral vectors in 2003.”

He called upon the students, young scientists and the administration to give due importance to the issues of management, distribution, conventional wisdom besides promoting bio-technology. He said the government and research institutes should also initiate research in the implications of the gene therapy and genetically modified crops. He cautioned against the strict patent laws in the USA and other countries that would affect their recognition in science if they failed to publish their findings in the framework of patent laws.