U.S. Right to Know
Dr. María Elena Álvarez-Buylla is an expert on the topic of genetic engineering who has co-authored dozens of papers about molecular genetics, ecology, evolution and related topics. She is a professor of molecular genetics, epigenetics, and development at Mexico’s National Autonomous University.
Until the end of September, Dr. Álvarez-Buylla was the head of Mexico’s national science agency, CONAHCYT, the National Council of Humanities, Science and Technology. During the six-year term of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Álvarez-Buylla’s agency was charged with documenting the scientific evidence of the risks to human health and the environment of genetically modified (GM) corn and the herbicide glyphosate. That research led to Mexico’s precautionary policies to eliminate the use of GM corn in tortillas and to phase out the use of glyphosate. When the U.S. government last year challenged those measures as unfair trade practices under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), her agency provided the scientific evidence underpinning the Mexican government’s defense in the formal trade dispute, a process that is now awaiting a ruling by the three-member panel of arbitrators.
CONAHCYT recently published a comprehensive analysis and summary of that evidence, asserting that both GM corn and glyphosate residues pose risks to human health and to the environment. Dr. Álvarez-Buylla agreed to discuss her former agency’s science-based defense of what Mexico considers its sovereign right and obligation to protect public health and the environment from GM corn and glyphosate.
read the Q&A at U.S. Right to Know