QUEZON CITY, PHILLIPINES — Genetically modified organisms (GMOs), such as Bt corn, Bt eggplant, and ‘golden rice’ pose significant risks to human health and the environment, a gene scientist warned today.

Speaking at a Greenpeace press conference, gene scientist Tushar Chakraborty said GMOs are not safe, have not been independently tested, and have not undergone long-term studies.

Following a landmark case in India last month that called for a 10-year moratorium on GMOs due to safety concerns, Dr. Chakraborty, Principal Scientist of the Gene Regulation Laboratory of the Indian Institute of Chemical Biology, recommended the banning of GMOs in the Philippines as the prudent, science-based approach to the uncertainties surrounding these man-made food crops.

Dr. Chakraborty is among hundreds of scientists in India who have come out in support of a ban on GMO food crops in the subcontinent. He is in Manila at the invitation of Greenpeace, as an expert witness in ongoing Writ of Kalikasan hearings at the Supreme Court, to help substantiate scientific findings that GMOs are unstable and unsafe to be planted, processed, and eaten.

‘GMO technology is highly uncertain, as such, they are inherently unpredictable and irreversible,