The intellectual demolition of one of its own papers by an international science journal may mean that researchers in Mexico can now rejoin the international scientific community as full participants after months of nervous isolation. Mexican life scientists have had to be wary of exchanging recombinant biological materials with colleagues outside the country since December, when the Mexican congress enacted what was in effect a wholesale ban on importation and exportation of rDNA constructs and organisms. This followed the publication in Nature in November 2001 of a paper, by David Quist and Ignacio Chapela of the University of California, Berkeley (Berkeley, CA), that claimed to show that transgenes from commercial corn varieties were present in local maize cultivars being grown by Mexican farmers. Nature has now said that “the evidence available is not sufficient to justify the publication of the original paper” and both the main political parties in Mexico have reacted positively to subsequent lobbying from research groups. Researchers' representatives hope that the obstructions to Mexican biology and biotechnology could be lifted within weeks.
A directive from the Ministry for the Environment and Natural Resources (SEMARNAT; Mexico City) introduced early in 2001 made the release of recombinant organisms into the environment a serious crime in Mexico, subject to heavy fines or jail sentences. The directive was broad, applying to organisms that harm or could harm the environment, but, according to Mexico-watchers, the rule went largely unnoticed and unenforced until the November 2001 Nature paper was published (414, 541–543). Then, according to Luis Herrera-Estrella, director of the Center for Investigation and Advanced Studies (CINVESTAV; Irapuato, Mexico), the Mexican congress voted through an amendment in December 2001 that made all those in the chain from recombinant DNA laboratory to product, including researchers, liable for breaches of the directive. “The politicians reacted very strongly,” says Herrera-Estrella, “mainly because of the conclusion and exaggerations that the paper made.”
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