Comités d'éthique : une évaluation des plantes transgéniques indépendante ?

Evaluation of transgenic plants by ethics committees in Europe and Canada: what degrees of freedom? This paper examines from an ethical point of view the way some ethics committees in Europe and Canada evaluate transgenic plants. After analysing their reports and interviews with members sitting on these committees, we show the very relative independence of their evaluation from the scientists' position and political and industrial interests. We present here what an ethical evaluation of transgenic plants should be. Our study indicates that the more these committees develop an ethical reflection, the more they keep their distance from the social acceptability of genetically modified plants and the more they manage to avoid that scientific rationality replaces ethical argumentation - that is to say, the more they manage to incorporate scientific data in an ethical reflection. Some of these committees are even captive of a techno-scientific strategy which values research susceptible of making economic benefits, but prevents them from making an ethical evaluation. We show that making an independent ethical evaluation demands not to focus on the sole question of risks. All changes in the world associated with the development and marketing of transgenic plants should be examined. Ethical reflection also needs to be linked to an epistemological reflection in order to reinforce it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]