PREAMBLE:

On this auspicious occasion of the 9^th edition of the annual National Conference on Environment and Health, the LivingScience Foundation, Ile-Ife wishes to make the following comments to address some topical Environment-Health issues of urgent national concerns.

I. Impending take-over of Nigeria’s Staple Foods by GMOs

1. The LivingScience Foundation is deeply concerned with the ongoing deluge of deployment of GMO foods in Nigeria.  At the beginning of the year, on January 11, approval was given for the cultivation of GMO TELA Maize in Nigeria¹.  On the heels of this were the announcements that GMO cassava and potatoes are also on their way^,2,3.  Transgenic rice and sorghum are also known to be lurking somewhere in the pipeline.⁴ Since 2019, Nigerians have been officially eating the world’s first genetically modified beans (Bt Cowpeas)⁵. The frightening implication of all these, is that virtually all the basic staples in Nigeria are being bioengineered and released for commercial cultivation.  This is unprecedented anywhere in the world.

2. We have earlier expressed⁶ (in May 2017) our deep concerns on the use of GMOs as food in Nigeria.  These largely have to do with the obvious issues of loss of food sovereignty and the established adverse health effects. The germlines for the GMOs being released are proprietary products, designed and developed by multinational monopolies with history of aggressive and ruthless commercial operations.  It is clear that in course of time, we would need to revert to them, repeatedly, to address issues that would inevitably arise with the deployment of these novel “black-box” products.  It appears insane that we should submit our precious God-given food sovereignty into the hands of such (or any other) entities in this manner.  As for adverse health effects following chronic ingestion of GMOs, these, including cancers, organ damage, allergic reactions, antibiotic resistance and reductions in nutritional content, are very well-established. In her ongoing tussle with the North America Free Trade Zone wherein she is seeking to stop further importation of GM foods from the United States, Mexico has cited over 150 peer-reviewed research published in top journals, documenting the incontrovertible adverse health effects associated GMO foods^7,8. 

3. There are very good reasons to doubt the thoroughness of the approval processes for these products in Nigeria.  For instance, the Germany-based Testbiotech e.V., Institute for Independent Impact Assessment of Biotechnology, published an extensive peer-reviewed Report⁹, documenting the utter incredible shoddiness characterizing the Risk Assessment exercise used to greenlight GM cowpea (beans) in Nigeria.  This damning Report, to all intents and purposes, has been largely ignored by concerned authorities in Nigeria.  Worse, even the basic legal and reasonable requirement that GMO food products be appropriately labelled (Section 23(2) h of the NBMA Act 2015)¹⁰ is flouted with outright impunity. 

4. We therefore hereby call on the relevant Nigerian authorities (specifically the Nigeria Biosafety Management Agency, NBMA, and the National Agency for Foods and Drugs Administration and Control, NAFDAC) to conduct (or commission) appropriate chronic toxicity testings that transparently ascertain the safety of GM food products before their deployment for public consumption in Nigeria. Also, these Agencies are enjoined to comply with the Nigerian laws, that require that such products, if eventually licensed, are appropriately labelled to give the public informed choice in what they feed into their bodies.

II.  On the Announced Incorporation of Malaria Vaccine into Routine Childhood Immunization Schedule

1. About a week ago, on Thursday October 17, the Federal Government of Nigeria in a joint Press Release¹¹ with the UNICEF, GAVI and the WHO, announced the arrival of the R21/Matrix-M malaria vaccine in Nigeria, and its proposed incorporation into routine immunization schedule in the country.

2. We have nothing but commendation for the salutary efforts of scientists who doggedly and diligently laboured to come up with the malaria vaccines. The idea has lasted about five decades, and the particular products now coming into the market took some 20 years to develop. Our concerns with the products, however has to do with the manner of its marketing and deployment which is not consistent with the product description given by its developers. These concerns, published by us¹² some eighteen months ago, have obviously been totally ignored with the present action by the government.

3.  Rather than routine mass deployment, the malaria vaccine ought to be made available only to those with favourable risk-benefit profile, for instance as is done with rabies vaccine. 

4. On the one hand, it is only but 18 months ago that the NAFDAC announced the decision that Nigeria would participate in the clinical trials for the R21/Matrix-M vaccine.  In our comment at that time, we had pointed out the outcome noted in the similar RTS,S malaria vaccine which needed to be cleared before any mass deployment. Those adverse outcomes, well-acknowledged by the World Health Organization itself, included: “a ten times higher rate of meningitis, a higher chance of cerebral malaria, and a doubling of deaths from all causes in girls who had received the vaccine and not the placebo.” It is deeply concerning that these worries could be adjudged cleared in less than two years of clinical trial. (Please refer to the technical details¹³ on exactly this concern published by some European authors in the prestigious British Medical Journal).

5. There is also the other big issue of costs.  Priced at 3.90 USD per dose¹⁴, and requiring four doses for a full dosage, that comes to about N25,000 per child for partial immunity from malaria of a yet indeterminate duration.  Though introduction cost of the vaccine is significantly subsidized, established pricing regime entails a steady rise in the cost, year after year, until all subsidy is eventually removed¹⁵. The point we are making here is that uncritical mass deployment of this product will most certainly adversely affect funding which could have gone to other more proven traditional methods of malaria prevention, such as improved general sanitation and biological control of the malaria vector, which the vaccine claims to complement.

III. Need to Reposition Medical and Health Records for improved Environment-Health Outcomes

1. The country needs to review her attitudes to medical and health records.  These are the ultimate jury to evaluate the effectiveness of policies and interventions. The LivingScience Foundation is seriously bothered with the current state of data generation, management, transformation, and use in Nigeria.  If only the enormous amount of premium data that is continuously being generated in several sectors of national life could be properly structured, appropriately transformed into information, and diligently harnessed, public health could be dramatically transformed in our country.

The LivingScience Foundation therefore advocates that, as required by accrediting bodies, every data-generating unit within the Health Information Management Department and the hospital at large should be staffed by well-trained and well-motivated Health Records Officers.  Health information and medical records should be integrated within the same health facility and efforts should be made to digitize them, as far as funds will permit.

CONCLUSION

Above are some of the issues being discussed at the ongoing 9^th National Conference on Environment and Health holding at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife.   Communique will be forwarded also to the Press within a week.

We urge the Nigerian elites, especially the critical fourth estate, to pay renewed attention to these issues.  Such attention and interests are required to enable government resist undue pressures that are often exerted on her, by unscrupulous foreign interests who manipulate these issues.  In other words, we should help our government help us by paying attention to these critical life-and-death issues, and holding government officials accountable for their actions or inactions.

We conclude this Press Release by congratulating distinguished Prof Babajide Alo on his selection as the sixth recipient of the Emeritus A.F. Oluwole Prize. The prize is awarded yearly for significant sacrificial contributions to Sustainable Development in Nigeria via the Environment-Health Sector.  This award for the year 2024 will be presented in course of the 9^th National Conference on Environment and Health.

Prof Joshua Ojo                                                          Dr Adeniyi Oginni

President LSF                                                             Chair,  9^th NCEH Planning Committee

References

1. https://www.aatf-africa.org/press-release-nigeria-commercializes-gm-maize-varieties/

2. https://nbma.gov.ng/public-display-of-application-dossier-for-confined-field-trial-cft-of-genetically-modified-cassava-to-increase-storage-root-yield-i-e-bigger-or-more-storage-root-per-plant/

3. https://www.isaaa.org/kc/cropbiotechupdate/article/default.asp?ID=20535

4. https://allianceforscience.org/blog/2018/01/nigeria-has-two-gmo-crops-on-track-for-2018/#:~:text=The%20main%20objective%20of%20the,Zeeman.

5. https://theconversation.com/nigeria-has-given-a-new-gm-cowpea-variety-the-go-ahead-why-it-matters-130304#:~:text=Late%20last%20year%20the%20world's,pest%20that%20affects%20this%20crop.

6. https://www.lsfnigeria.org/time_to_wise_up_on_gmo_foods

7. https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/mexico-brings-science-to-a-trade-fight-over-gmo-corn

8. https://www.worldtradelaw.net/document.php?id=usmca/submissions/mexico-ge-corn-usmca-mexico-submission.pdf&mode=download#page=1

9. Deficiencies in the Risk Assessment of Genetically Engineered Bt Cowpea Approved for Cultivation in Nigeria: A Critical Review. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8838765/

10. https://nbma.gov.ng/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/National_Biosafety_Management_Agency__Act_2015-signed.pdf

11. https://www.unicef.org/nigeria/press-releases/nigeria-receives-malaria-vaccines-ahead-roll-out

12. Church Arise!: Pertinent Considerations as We Celebrate and Welcome the Malaria Vaccine, https://churcharise.blogspot.com/2023/05/pertinent-considerations-as-we.html?m=1

13. WHO’s rollout of malaria vaccine in Africa: can safety questions be answered after only 24 months? | The BMJ. https://www.bmj.com/content/368/bmj.l6920

14. https://www.unicef.org/supply/media/21901/file/Malaria-vaccine-Q-A-May-2024-update.pdf,

15. https://www.malariavaccine.org/resources/reports/rtssas01-malaria-vaccine-technical-brief 

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