Suit filed over access
to biopharm files
Hawaii's Department of Agriculture is illegally refusing public access to its records about biopharming, or growing drugs from genetically altered plants, a national public interest organization alleges in a lawsuit filed yesterday.
The Center for Food Safety is asking a Circuit Court judge to require the department to give public access to state records about field tests in Hawaii of plants "genetically engineered to produce a wide range of industrial chemicals or drugs, including contraceptives, hormones, vaccines and other potent, biologically active substances," the Washington, D.C.-based group announced yesterday.
Because biopharming often uses food crops consumed by humans and is conducted in the open air, it raises public concerns about potential harmful exposure to humans and the environment, said Joseph Mendelson, the group's legal director.
"The shroud of secrecy surrounding biopharming is unacceptable," Mendelson said. "The public has the right to know about these potentially harmful substances being grown in our back yard."
Federal records show that 14 permits for biopharming were granted from 1999 to 2002, but do not specify where the test plots are, what gene is being altered or what kind of substance they are producing, said Isaac Moriwake, an EarthJustice attorney who is representing the group.
"The law requires state agencies like DOA to grant the public wide access to its records," Moriwake said.
The Center for Food Safety is a nonprofit group that includes Hawaii members and is "dedicated to addressing, through legal and grass-roots campaigns, the impacts of our current industrial food production system on human health, animal welfare and the environment."
Its Web site is www.centerforfoodsafety.org.
