Why suppress Biovision/Biosquare? — 11–14th March, Lyon, France

From the 11th to the 14th of March 2007, the fifth edi­tion of Biovision/Biosquare Forum is going to take place in Lyon. These meet­ings are now con­sid­ered to be the biggest meet­ing in the world on biotech­nolo­gies. Stop Bio­vi­sion!

Accord­ing to the orga­niz­ers :
« Bio­vi­sion : the world forum of life-sci­ences is an inter­na­tion­al plat­form for dia­logue, debate and con­struc­tive pro­pos­als for action, bring­ing togeth­er equal num­bers of rep­re­sen­ta­tives of civ­il soci­ety, sci­en­tists, indus­tri­al­ists and politi­cians on glob­al top­ics about health, food and envi­ron­ment. »
For 2007 the « mil­len­ni­um objec­tives for devel­op­ment » are announced as the major top­ic of the forum. These objec­tives include reduc­ing the extreme pover­ty on the plan­et by half, pro­vid­ing pri­ma­ry edu­ca­tion for all chil­dren and stop­ping the spread of the aids virus.

Behind this seduc­tive show­case lurks a pro­pa­gan­da tool to pro­mote accep­tance of biotech­nolo­gies, and a mar­ket­place where con­tracts are signed between research cen­ters and indus­tries (Biosquare), every­thing being of course spon­sored by big agri­cul­tur­al, chem­i­cal and phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal indus­tries.
Those firms, you know them : for exam­ple, Pfiz­er and Sanofi-Aven­tis (respec­tive­ly n°1 and n°3 in health care ), Bay­er (n°1 in the world in phy­tosan­i­tary prod­ucts) or, near Lyon, Rhone-Poulenc and Bio­merieux.

Where­as the eco­log­i­cal dev­as­ta­tion direct­ly relat­ed to these indus­tries is more and more oppres­sive (cli­mat­ic warm­ing, deplet­ing the reserves of drink­able water, men­ac­ing the diver­si­ty of species, mul­ti­ply­ing dan­ger­ous­ly pol­lut­ed sites…) Where­as GMO seeds trap farm­ers in depen­dence on multi­na­tion­al com­pa­nies Where­as patents on mol­e­cules hin­der access to vac­ci­na­tions and treat­ments for the most vul­ner­a­ble pop­u­la­tions fac­ing most seri­ous health risks Where­as less than 10% of com­mer­cialised chem­i­cal prod­ucts have been test­ed for poten­tial risk (cf Green­peace) and at the same time can­cer has increased 60% in France in the last twen­ty years Where­as those com­pa­nies have already been respon­si­ble for many scan­dals (Zyk­lon B, Roundup, Gau­cho, AZF, Bhopal, Sévéso …) Where­as the sci­en­tif­ic basis of genet­ic ther­a­py has not been estab­lished and research in this field is lit­tle more than tin­ker­ing.

Why would com­pa­nies that are respon­si­ble to a large degree for the cat­a­stroph­ic sit­u­a­tion in coun­tries of the south­ern hemi­sphere, sud­den­ly turn around and pay to allay the suf­fer­ings of the pop­u­la­tions of those same coun­tries ?

It is pri­mar­i­ly for them a way to cap­ture new inter­na­tion­al mass mar­kets for vac­cines, med­i­cines, seeds, chem­i­cals for agri­cul­ture and to appear phil­an­thropic at the same time. Thus they can con­tin­ue the pil­lage and eco­log­i­cal destruc­tion of the south­ern coun­tries while being sup­port­ed by the politi­cians of the rich ones.

It is impor­tant to empha­size that our elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives are active­ly sup­port­ing this meet­ing. The city of Lyon, the depart­ment of the Rhone, and the Region of Rhone-Alps are con­tribut­ing 2 532 000 euros to this event.

If the Bio­vi­sion Forum is tak­ing place in Lyon it is not an acci­dent but the result of eco­nom­ic inter­ests and the polit­i­cal deter­mi­na­tion (those meet­ings have been cre­at­ed by Ray­mond Barre, ex may­or of Lyon and are direct­ed by Phillipe Demarescaux, ex direc­tor of Rhone-Poulenc, and pres­i­dent of The sci­en­tif­ic foun­da­tion of Lyon ) of the Region of Rhone Alps to become the Euro­pean cen­ter for biotech­nolo­gies (Lyon) and nan­otech­nolo­gies (Greno­ble).

Where­as the Rhone-Alps Region declared itself a « non-GMO region » (dec­la­ra­tion n°04.00.193 of 28th and 29th of April 2004) and the major­i­ty of its pop­u­la­tion is against the spread of GMO.
Those polit­i­cal choic­es— so con­trary to the ideals of democ­ra­cy and the com­mon inter­ests of the people—are intol­er­a­ble. The pol­i­cy of always more « progress » for more and more prof­its has to stop now !

It is OUR future that is at stake. We want to decide by our­selves inde­pen­dent from the impe­ri­al­ism of big firms. We are invit­ing every­one to a mobil­i­sa­tion against this Forum of 2007, and to do all that we can to insure that it will be the last.

Col­lec­tif des resis­tances et des alter­na­tives de Lyon.
con­tact :  nonabiovision@no-log.org