Organic Connections<\/a>
\nJune 19, 2013<\/p>\nThe \u201ccon\u00adver\u00adsion\u201d of for\u00admer anti-GMO activist\u00a0Mark Lynas to GMO pro\u00admoter has gar\u00adnered huge media atten\u00adtion, but Thierry Vrain, Ph.D., a for\u00admer genetic engi\u00adneer who speaks out against the risks of genet\u00adi\u00adcally engi\u00adneered foods, has far more credibility\u2013and a far more impor\u00adtant story to tell the\u00a0public.<\/p>\n
Thierry Vrain\u2019s career has spanned the full range of agriculture\u2013from being a pro\u00adpo\u00adnent of \u201cchem\u00adi\u00adcal\u201d agri\u00adcul\u00adture and genetic engi\u00adneer\u00ading to being an advo\u00adcate for organic farm\u00ading and an oppo\u00adnent of\u00a0GMOs.<\/p>\n
A native of France, Vrain earned an under\u00adgrad\u00adu\u00adate degree in plant phys\u00adi\u00adol\u00adogy from the Universit\u00c3\u00a9 de Caen and a doc\u00adtoral degree from North Carolina State University. After mov\u00ading to Canada he taught plant phys\u00adi\u00adol\u00adogy at Universit\u00c3\u00a9 du Qu\u00c3\u00a9bec in Montr\u00c3\u00a9al. Then he worked for 30 years as a research sci\u00aden\u00adtist for the Canadian gov\u00adern\u00adment in Qu\u00c3\u00a9bec and British Columbia where he con\u00adducted research on genet\u00adi\u00adcally mod\u00adi\u00adfied pota\u00adtoes, among other projects. He was direc\u00adtor of the biotech\u00adnol\u00adogy depart\u00adment at the Pacific Agri-Food Research Centre in Summerland, BC.<\/p>\n
After 35 years of research and teach\u00ading of soil and mol\u00ade\u00adc\u00adu\u00adlar biol\u00adogy, Vrain retired to a small farm in Courtenay, BC called Innisfree. Today, Thierry Vrain is a gar\u00addener, a teacher, and a pas\u00adsion\u00adate speaker about organic gardening\u2013from soil health to\u00a0GMOs.<\/p>\n
Ken Roseboro: Tell me a lit\u00adtle more about your background.<\/strong><\/p>\nThierry Vrain<\/strong>: I worked in three research insti\u00adtutes in Montreal, Vancouver, and Summerland. I was the head of a research group using mol\u00ade\u00adc\u00adu\u00adlar biol\u00adogy tools. We worked on food crops. I was genet\u00adi\u00adcally engi\u00adneer\u00ading small fruit and pota\u00adtoes for nema\u00adtode resis\u00adtance using the snow\u00addrop lectin\u00a0gene.<\/p>\nThe genet\u00adi\u00adcally engi\u00adneered apple (now under reg\u00adu\u00adla\u00adtory review in the US and Canada) orig\u00adi\u00adnated in our group though I wasn\u2019t involved with the research.<\/p>\n
KR: Did you speak pub\u00adlicly in favor of genetic engi\u00adneer\u00ading when you were at Agriculture Canada? \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\nVrain<\/strong>: Yes, I just took it on as my job. I explained the safety of the tech\u00adnol\u00adogy to the pub\u00adlic and did a good amount of lec\u00adtur\u00ading, edu\u00adcat\u00ading small\u00a0groups.<\/p>\nKR: What led you to change from a sup\u00adporter of genet\u00adi\u00adcally mod\u00adi\u00adfied foods to an opponent?<\/strong><\/p>\nVrain:<\/strong>\u00a0I have some dif\u00adfi\u00adcul\u00adties with how the con\u00adtro\u00adversy is han\u00addled. If you aren\u2019t a sci\u00aden\u00adtist you don\u2019t under\u00adstand the sci\u00adence. If you are a sci\u00aden\u00adtist and dis\u00adcover things that are of con\u00adcern, then you are accused of doing \u201cpseu\u00addo\u00adscience\u201d and often viciously attacked by the indus\u00adtry and aca\u00add\u00ade\u00admics on the pay\u00adroll. This has hap\u00adpened many times, for exam\u00adple to Arpad Pusztai in England and then Ignacio Chapela, who dis\u00adcov\u00adered GMO con\u00adt\u00ada\u00adm\u00adi\u00adna\u00adtion in native corn in Mexico. He was attacked and almost fired from his post at the University of California. A year later his find\u00adings were confirmed.<\/p>\nThere are now quite a num\u00adber of research pub\u00adli\u00adca\u00adtions, in peer reviewed jour\u00adnals, show\u00ading con\u00adcerns from feed\u00ading GM corn and soy to rats. Those stud\u00adies are ignored and shouldn\u2019t be. Federal agen\u00adcies should repeat the stud\u00adies and must test these crops for\u00a0safety.<\/p>\n
Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Organic Connections June 19, 2013 The \u201ccon\u00adver\u00adsion\u201d of for\u00admer anti-GMO activist\u00a0Mark Lynas to GMO pro\u00admoter has gar\u00adnered huge media atten\u00adtion, but Thierry Vrain, Ph.D., a for\u00admer genetic engi\u00adneer who speaks out against the risks of genet\u00adi\u00adcally engi\u00adneered foods, has far more credibility\u2013and a far more impor\u00adtant story to tell the\u00a0public. Thierry Vrain\u2019s career has spanned […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-43554","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-breaking-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43554"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43554\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}