"The introduction of GMOs must proceed with caution to ensure that any benefits now are not made at the expense of the safety and well-being of future generations and their environment. Once released .... a GMO cannot be recalled: the action is irreversible. More than in other areas there is uncertainty about the long-term outcome of human actions and of human ability to deal with the consequences. Introduced genes may over time spread to other organisms with consequences that cannot necessarity be foreseen.

And they end with a stark warning when they say, and again I am quoting their words:

"Unfortunately there are many recent examples of failure to anticipate problems arising from the use of new technologies (such as CFCs, asbestos, pesticides and thalidomide). Potential consequences are more uncertain where self-replicating organisms are introduced into the environment.

I am not sure I have much to add to that: except to say that I believe that we have now reached a moral and ethical watershed beyond which we venture into realms that belong to God, and to God alone. Apart from certain medical applications, what actual right do we have to experiment, Frankenstein-like, with the very stuff of life? We live in an age of rights - - it seems to me that it is about time our Creator had some rights too ...

I am sure that the Government's response, in the shape of a consultative process and a national conference, will be a great help. And it is, of course, reassuring to know that in this country we already have one of the most open and thorough regulatory systems in the world for assessing the possible consequences of releasing GMOs into the environment. But that system has not been designed to weigh up the benefits of this dramatic new technology against the risks, nor can it compare the biotechnological approach with more conventional ways of achieving the same ends. At the moment, as is so often the case with technology, we seem to spend most of our time establishing what is technically possible, and then a little time trying to establish whether or not it is likely to be safe, without ever stopping to ask whether it is something we SHOULD be doing in the first place. I believe that this particular technology is so powerful and so far-reaching that we should seek ways of engaging a wide range of people and interests in a thorough ethical debate about how and where it should be applied.

I know that commissions are not altogether fashionable at the moment, and that they are only as influential as the recipients of their recommendations are prepared to make them, but I do wonder whether there isn't a strong case for a standing body, like The Royal commission on Environmental Pollution - which itself produced a crucial report on GMO releases, as long ago as 1989. A Public Biotechnology Commission would provide a forum for discussion by people with knowledge and vision of the whole spectrum of possible effects, both good and bad. Such a body would help to bridge the gap that I believe exists between a tiny group of knowledgeable experts and the rest of us. At the moment I fear we are equally susceptible to the arguments of vociferous and plausible vested interests and to the somewhat apocalyptic scare-mongering of those for whom any scientific advance is anathema.