When I was referring to the issue of bias, so often we hear the lament...and even in recent days the University of Guelph has been charged with being unduly concerned with the positive aspects of biotechnology, and some would argue it's because dollars do flow in certain programs from industry to support their research. So it automatically makes them biased. It always annoyed me that this was even publicly stated. I have a great deal of respect for the integrity of the research community, but as soon as they're funded by a multinational, there's a perception of bias.
My argument is around transparency, making it very clear that, yes, that financial support is there, but also making it very clear what the intents and the outputs of those programs are so that people can examine it and not have this grand conspiracy theory that the researchers and the multinationals are coming together. That's why I talked about transparency. I think the regulation needs to be transparent in the development. By that, I mean involve the input from all parties. Eventually you're going to have to make a decision, but input from all parties and the access to the information that's developed...I think that's critical.
I know that's a bit of a wishy-washy response, but I think constantly ensuring that this information is available will help the general public understand, and again, example after example of where there are positive impacts, and when we start having examples where there's a positive impact on individuals, not just on producers' ability to improve their profit here....