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To: Jon Koplik who wrote (79)	1/23/2000 9:20:00 AM
From: Jon Koplik	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4443

More protests against genetically engineered products. January 22, 2000 Protesters March Through Montreal Filed at 7:43 p.m. EST By The Associated Press MONTREAL (AP) -- About 1,000 protesters marched through Montreal on Saturday, warning delegates to a meeting on the trade of genetically engineered plants and animals that toying with nature is risky. The meeting, which begins Monday and runs through Friday, is to bring together representatives from some 130 countries. Officials in Montreal have expressed fears that it could be disrupted by the sort of violent protests that accompanied World Trade Organization talks in Seattle last year. But Saturday's demonstration was peaceful, and no arrests were reported. ``Life before profits!' the protesters chanted after completing their hourlong march in subzero temperatures. They waved placards reading ``We will not be guinea pigs' before returning indoors to listen to speakers discuss the dangers of biotechnology. At a news conference Friday, a protester threw a pie in the face of Joyce Groote, the biotechnology industry's top lobbyist in Canada. The negotiations are considered the final, make-or-break step in a process begun in 1995 to draw up international standards to regulate the trade of genetically modified food, pharmaceuticals and other products. Informal talks began Thursday. The meeting is sponsored by the U.N. Environmental Program and is an extension of failed talks 11 months ago in Cartagena, Colombia, on what is called the Biosafety Protocol. The Cartagena meeting collapsed when the United States, Canada, Australia, Uruguay, Argentina and Chile blocked a draft accepted by 125 other countries. The U.S. and other grain-exporting countries demanded that commodities such as corn and soy beans be exempted from strict controls even though they account for most of the global trade in genetically modified goods. Critics of genetic engineering say gene-splicing has the potential for environmental catastrophe. Proponents say such arguments ignore the promise and benefits to humanity of scientific advancement. One of the speakers who addressed the protesters Saturday warned that modern-day biotechnology is different from the centuries-old art of selective and cross breeding. Doreen Stabinsky, a scientist from California State University at Sacramento, said that taking a gene from a flounder, for instance, and using it to keep strawberries from freezing at low temperatures ``means you're mixing and matching, you're mixing molecules that haven't coexisted within that cell.' Stabinsky and other speakers said that as genetically modified plants crossbreed and evolve, the dangers range from disrupting natural processes to causing extinctions. ``Hubris, arrogance and scientific ignorance are all there,' she said. Copyright 2000 The New York Times Company