As a trade tribunal prepares to rule in favor of a U.S. complaint that Mexico's restrictions on genetically modified corn are an unfair trade practice not based on science, Mexico's national science agency has published it compendium of evidence of the risks of GM corn and the herbicide glyphosate to public health and the environment. Because the document represents the most comprehensive research on the subject, U.S. Right to Know recently had the report translated into English. It should be mandatory reading for anyone who claims Mexico's policies are not based on science.
SCIENTIFIC DOSSIER ON GENETICALLY MODIFIED CORN AND ITS EFFECTS
Effects of GM corn on human health, the environment and biodiversity, including the biocultural richness of native corn in Mexico
Cibiogem, CONAHCYT, Government of Mexico, September 2024
Mexico’s National Council of Humanities, Science and Technology (CONAHCYT) on October 25, 2024 published a scientific dossier summarizing the scientific evidence of risk from genetically modified corn and the herbicide glyphosate. The national science agency was charged with documenting the scientific evidence of the risks to human health and the environment of GM corn and glyphosate. That research led to Mexico's precautionary 2023 policies to eliminate the use of GM corn in tortillas and to phase out the use of glyphosate. When the U.S. government later challenged those measures as unfair trade practices under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), CONAHCYT provided the scientific evidence that supported 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.
Until now, Mexico’s research has been buried in its formal filings in the trade dispute, which are publicly available in English and Spanish but are not easy to access. CONAHCYT’s Science Dossier offers the public a comprehensive analysis and summary of the evidence, demonstrating that both GM corn and glyphosate residues pose risks to human health and to the environment. The compendium, with more than 1,200 references, may reopen the debate over the safety of GM foods – a debate that could ripple well beyond Mexico, as consumers in the U.S. lose faith in the safety of our food supply and as nations across the Global South grapple with seed laws that open the doors to GMOs.
“CONAHCYT did an exhaustive review of the scientific literature,” explained Dr. María Elena Àlvarez-Buylla, who served as the head of Mexico's national science agency until the end of September and led the effort to evaluate the science underpinning Mexico’s corn policy. “We concluded that the evidence was more than sufficient to restrict, out of precaution, the use of GM corn and its associated agro-chemical, glyphosate, in the country's food supply chains,” Àlvarez-Buylla said in an interview with U.S. Right to Know.
Originally published in Spanish by CONAHCYT, U.S. Right to Know has had the document translated into English by Babel, a Mexico City-based translation agency.
Read an analysis of the document by USRTK's Stacy Malkan and me. View USRTK's resource page on the science in the GM corn dispute.