Agree:
Venkatraman Ramakrishnan Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry and president of the Royal Society
I am very happy eating transgenic maize. Genetically modified foods can make a difference: adapted to drought or more nutrients in a crop such as Golden Rice, in which precursors of vitamin A are introduced and can help prevent childhood blindness.
Swapan Kumar Datta Well known scientist of rice biotechnology
Several issues such as malnutrition and anaemia can be resolved if genetically modified rice is made available for cultivation
Hillary Clinton US presidential candidate
We talk about drought-resistant seeds, and I’ve promoted them all over Africa. By definition, they have been engineered to be drought-resistant, I mean that’s the beauty of them. Maybe somebody can get their harvest done and not starve, and maybe there’s some left over to sell.
Sir Richard Roberts Nobel Prize winner in medicine
In our letter we call upon Greenpeace and like organizations to end their shameful campaign of propaganda and criminal destruction of crops improved by modern genetic technologies, such as GMOs.
Michael D. Purugganan Biologist and former journalist
A lot of the criticism of G.M.O.’s in the Western world suffers from a lack of understanding of how really dire the situation is in developing countries
Nina V. Fedoroff Molecular biologist known for her research in life sciences and biotechnology
We’re talking about saving millions of lives here
Gurdev Khush World Food Prize winner
There is no scientific justification for this extremism which damages lives and welfare, especially of poor people. There is a moral imperative to make GM technology available for public good.
Randy W. Schekman Nobel Prize winner in medicine
I find it surprising that groups that are very supportive of science when it comes to global climate change, or even, for the most part, in the appreciation of the value of vaccination in preventing human disease, yet can be so dismissive of the general views of scientists when it comes to something as important as the world’s agricultural future.
Martin Chalfie Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry
I’m not so sure we’re any more special than other scientists who have looked at the evidence involved, but we have considerably more visibility because of the prize. I think that this behooves us, that when we feel that science is not being listened to, that we speak out.Disagree:
Greenpeace We're an independent global campaigning organisation acting to change attitudes and behaviour,
Genetic engineering enables scientists to create plants, animals and micro-organisms by manipulating genes in a way that does not occur naturally. These genetically modified organisms (GMOs) can spread through nature and interbreed with natural organism
Nassim Nicholas Taleb Essayist, scholar, statistician, former trader, and risk analyst
There are resilient ways to solve problems, say feed the world, without complicated technologies that entail fragility and unkown possibilities.
