“I first organized in my community for Earth Day 1970 — 43 years ago. I was in Grade 10 and it was also the very first Earth Day,” said Green Leader Elizabeth May, Member of Parliament for Saanich-Gulf Islands.

“Issues have of course changed over time, they are probably more complex than ever, but the core principles we were fighting for then have not changed: ecological wisdom, non-violence, social justice, sustainability, participatory democracy and respect for diversity,” said May.

“The waves of environmental concern come and go, but the good news is that each wave leaves a stronger and larger core of committed people. And the better news is that as the popular movement ebbs and flows, the Green Party keeps on steadily building,” said May.

Notes:

• Earth Day Canada’s events listing.
• Elizabeth May’s Earth Day events this weekend.

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It is in this sense that “life sciences” has become a hot commodity. While the Harper Conservatives seem allergic to any kind of science to monitor and expand our knowledge of life on earth—whether fresh water ecosystems (through the killing of federal support for the world-renowned Experimental Lakes Area), the nature of polar atmospheric chemistry in terms of ozone and greenhouse gases (through the closing of the Polar Environmental Atmospheric Research Laboratory), the build up of toxic chemicals in marine mammals (shutting down the DFO marine contaminants program), to name a few, pressing for the commercial advantage of the global pharmaceutical industry is a “life science” Mr. Harper likes.

When contemplating the proposed, and now fast-tracked, Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement (CETA), many Canadians are concerned with the reality that the agreement will assist the pharmaceutical industry in retaining patent protection longer, undercutting generic drugs and driving up prices for critical medicines.

Trade agreements still masquerade as though they were about trade. Little wonder. They still get away with being described as “trade agreements.”   The term “trade agreement” should be reserved for agreements, like the 1947 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT); one of the last agreements actually about trade in goods. Ever since the Uruguay Round of the GATT, leading to the creation of the World Trade Organization, agreements have shifted from the focus on elimination of tariffs and other barriers to trade in goods, to the greater economic integration of national economies in the interest of corporate profits. And the shifting of balance away from national policies designed to improve the health of a domestic economy to assisting transnational corporations in deriving ever-higher profits is well demonstrated in the CETA provisions to aid Big Pharma.

While Canadians bemoan the “health-care crisis,” the single fastest rising component of health care is the cost of pharmaceutical drugs. The costs are “justified” by claims that the pharmaceutical industry invests an enormous amount in research that can only be captured through drug prices that far exceed the actual cost of production of the drugs in question. That allegation is false. Recent studies from around the world have debunked this claim. (Light, et al., “Will lower drug prices jeopardize drug research: a policy fact sheet,” American Journal of Bioethics, 2004.)

Meanwhile, the regulation of pharmaceutical products is failing Canadians. The excellent work by the Therapeutics Initiative at University of British Columbia is well worth replicating across Canada (www.ti.ubc.ca). Using an objective, evidence-based approach, the Therapeutics Initiative (TI) has saved lives and dollars by advising the B.C. government of drugs, approved by Health Canada, which, in their assessment, posed more risks than benefits. Due to the TI assessment, British Columbia did not approve Vioxx or cholinesterase inhibitors for Alzheimer’s patients. In fact, the TI approach was so successful that it was targeted by Big Pharma and pressure was brought to bear on the B.C. government to cease its funding.

This is not the time to abandon scientific rigour when it comes to pharmaceuticals. It is one of the largest corporate profit-centres on the planet, and its ethics are not squeaky clean. GlaxoSmithKline agreed in July to plead guilty to fraud and to pay $3-billion in the United States for illegal promotion of Paxil in what is the largest settlement ever with Big Pharma.

Giving the pharmaceutical industry more power to drive up drug costs faster is not in the public interest—not in Canada and not in Europe. The fact that we are in the midst of negotiations operating on the assumption that this is a worthy policy goal is evidence of just how unhinged the public good has become from public policy.

While discussing life sciences, we need to bring to bear actual evidence-based science in the interest of protecting life. What a novel approach.

Elizabeth May is the Leader of the Green Party of Canada and Member of Parliament for Saanich-Gulf Islands.
Originally printed in the Hill Times.

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Jerry Mander dealt with the problem created by wildly over-optimistic assessments of all that is new in his classic In the Absence of the Sacred (Sierra Club Books, 1991). New technologies are announced with fanfare and down- sides are down-played—from nuclear technology’s early claims (‘too cheap to metre’) to DDT (‘miracle chemical’) to the boosterism for new GMO applications. Mander argued that we had swallowed a ‘pro-technology paradigm’. ‘In a truly democratic society,’ he wrote, ‘any new technology would be subject to exhaustive debate.

That a society must retain the option of declining a technology—if it deems it harmful—is basic. As it is now, our spectrum of choice is limited to mere acceptance. The real decisions about technological introduction are made only by one segment of society: the corporate, based strictly on considerations of profit.

Reports that the US Food and Drug Administration is ready to approve a genetically modified Atlantic salmon brings that problem into sharp relief. If approved, this will be the first genetically-altered animal approved for human consumption in the US or Canada.

The booster is a GMO company called AquaBounty Technologies. Ronald Stotish, the CEO of AquaBounty boasts, ‘This is an Atlantic salmon that is identical in every regard to wild Atlantic salmon. The nutrition is the same, the texture and so forth. … If we were to prepare our fish and other fish of the same size from other sources, you could not tell the difference.’ (Globe and Mail, Sept 20, 2010)

The only difference is that the GMO salmon grows twice as fast as a wild salmon. It has the introduced growth hormone of a Chinook salmon.

AquaBounty has been trying to gain approval through US regulators for a decade. Strangely, the US Food and Drug Administration decided to review the GMO salmon through the process used for veterinary drugs, and not the process for a new food. The Veterinary Medicine Advisory Committee is in charge of the review. If approved in the US, it would be up to the Canada Food Inspection Agency to decide if it was acceptable in Canada. There is no word on whether Canada would treat the GMO salmon as a fish or a veterinary drug. Health Canada is just beginning its review.

The review process by the FDA has drawn criticism from public interest scientists. AquaBounty provided data related to only six fish, and significant allergenic effects were seen in that small group. The key issue for many is the question of health risk to consumers. Michael Hansen, senior scientist at Consumers Union points out, ‘Data from a mere six salmon, which is all FDA presents, is not sufficient nor rigorous enough to conclude that no problem exists.’

Meanwhile, the idea of fish farming with GMO fish has raised concerns even from the usually anti-environmental government in the State of Alaska. Even Alaska doesn’t like the idea of farmed GMO salmon mixing with the wild salmon fishery.

AquaBounty is ready with its response. They promise never ever to grow their fish in the wild. They promise to keep their super-sized GMO salmon in swimming pools far away from our coastlines. They also promise that since they only raise female fish and that since 99% of the fish are sterile, even if they did get into the wild, there would be no problems. Other studies demonstrate that up to 5% of the fish can be fertile.

And, of course, they promise this is all about feeding the world—conveniently ignoring the fact that carnivorous salmon are fed on fishmeal which could be fed to the hungry people who will never be able to afford poached salmon at a restaurant.

This issue is worth watching closely. Genetically modified animals raise even more concerns than GMO corn and canola did. The risk of interbreeding in the wild cannot be dismissed. Even if one believes the hand-over- heart pledges of AquaBounty, once approved and being developed commercially, it is impossible to ensure that there is never a coastal operation.

It is also a precedent for other GMO animal products. And if this fish can be approved pretending it is a veterinary drug, what regulatory processes will be used in future? There is no public policy reason to raise GMO salmon. There is only the profit for AquaBounty.

Elizabeth May, Order of Canada, is the nominated candidate for the Green Party of Canada in Saanich Gulf Islands and leader of the Green Party of Canada.

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