Horticulture and Forestry Advisory Board Agenda and Packet 2012 02 02

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GUEST OPINION from page 4 special risks relative to or- ganisms produced by other technologies, and that crops should be assessed for hu- man and environmental safe- ty based on their biological properties rather than based on how they were devel- oped. Rob Knight, Associate Profes- sor, Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry and Biofron- tiers Institute, University of Colorado at Boulder, and Howard Hughes Medical Insti- tute Early Career Scientist; Sharon Collinge, Professor, Department of Ecology & Evo- lutionary Biology and Program in Environmental Studies, CU; Leslie Leinwand, Professor, Department of Molecular, Cel- lular & DevelopmentalBiology, and Chief Scientific Officer, Biofrontiers Institute, CU, and Howard Hughes Medical Insti- tute Professor. This guest opinion was also co- signed by three addi- tional professors in the MCDB and EEB departments at CU. W W W.CO LO RADOH OM ETOW N W E EKLY.COM Guest Opinion Commissioners made the right decision on CMOs By Rob Knight, Sharon Collinge and Leslie Leinwand As members of the Boulder scientific community, we would like to thank the countycommission- ers for voting in favor of allowing farmers to plant GM crops on Open Space lands, and for basing their decision on sound, scientific principles. We also appreciate the commissioners' courage in challenging the crowd of vocal anti -GMO /anti- science activists, who want to ban all uses of GM technology and force the tra- ditional farmers off the lands they have farmed for generations. The anti -GMO activists are to the biological sciences what the climate change deniers are to the atmospheric research community. Both groups believe in fringe sci- ence, and in myths disseminated by activist websites. Both groups also dismiss peer - reviewed studies by mainstream scientists, and both groups are actively supported and funded by billion - dollar corporations as- sociated with the fossil fuel and the organic food indus- tries respectively. Boulder's national and international reputation is based in large part on the work of its diverse scientific and engineering communities, and the many hi -tech companies that have been spawned by their discover- ies. In this context, the claim by the anti -GMO activists that they speak for the Boulder citizens at large, and that their extreme views reflect mainstream Boulder thinking, is inaccurate and also reflects a degree of in- tolerance that is contrary to what Boulder stands for. We note that opposition to earlier technologies, includ- ing grafting, hybridization, and introduction into Eu- rope of crops such as tomatoes and potatoes that were not mentioned in the Bible, was also strong at the time but has now largely been forgotten. In closing, we would like to note that the science (in- cluding the National Academy of Sciences report on this topic) clearly supports the consensus view that or- ganisms developed through GM technologies pose no Please see GUEST OPINION, on 5