A scientific group, the Living Science Foundation (LSF), has raised concern over the potential adverse health effects of Genetically Modified Organism (GMO) foods in the country.
The group raised the observation in a statement issued on Thursday, October 24, 2024, at the ongoing 9th annual National Conference on Environmental and Health, in Ile-Ife, Osun State.
The statement was jointly signed by Prof. Joshua Ojo, the president of the group and Dr Adebiyi Oginni, chairman of the organising committee of the conference.
The statement said that the deployment of GMO foods such as maize, cassava, sweet potatoes, in the markets could result in a serious health implication for consumers.
It said that a well-established adverse health effects of chronic ingestion of GMOs included cancers, organ damage, allergic reactions, antibiotic resistance and reductions in nutritional content.
“At the beginning of the year, on January 11, approval was given for the cultivation of GMO TELA Maize in Nigeriaand on the heels of this were the announcements that GMO cassava and potatoes are also on their way.
“Transgenic rice and sorghum are also known to be lurking somewhere in the pipeline and since 2019, Nigerians have been officially eating the world’s first genetically modified beans (Bt Cowpeas).
“The frightening implication of all these, is that virtually all the basic staples in Nigeria are being bioengineered and released for commercial cultivation.
“The germlines for the GMOs being released are proprietary products, designed and developed by multinational monopolies with history of aggressive and ruthless commercial operations.
“There are very good reasons to doubt the thoroughness of the approval processes for these products in Nigeria,” it said.
It said for instance, the Germany-based Testbiotech e.V., Institute for Independent Impact Assessment of Biotechnology, published an extensive peer-reviewed report on the products.
According to the statement, the company documented the utter incredible shoddiness characterising the risk assessment exercise used to greenlight GM cowpea (beans) in Nigeria.
It said the report had been largely ignored by concerned authorities in the country.
“Worse, even the basic legal and reasonable requirement that GMO food products be appropriately labelled (Section 23(2) h of the NBMA Act 2015)10 is flouted with outright impunity,” it said.
It called on the Nigeria Biosafety Management Agency (NBMA) and the National Agency for Foods and Drugs Administration and Control, NAFDAC) to conduct appropriate chronic toxicity testings.
According to the statement, the tests will transparently ascertain the safety of GM food products before their deployment for public consumption in the country.
It, however, applauded the discovery and production of Malaria Vaccine, but warned against the incorporation of it into Routine Childhood Immunisation in the country.
It said that it was not an appropriate public health response and would be a colossal waste of the country’s meager resources.
“The huge amount to be deployed to this can be used to carry out better and sound public health interventions like biological control of the vector and environmental sanitation,” the statement said.
By Olajide Idowu
