7 In a very interesting article, Ingrid Sarti wrote: "Countering logic, the debate that is currently underway related to the National Bio-safety Bill, approved by the Congress three months ago, and now transformed into an obscure object of dispute while going through the Senate, is not exactly about bio-safety. [...] the crux of the problem is something else. [...] The economic issues hidden in the law since the debate in the Congress have transformed a conflict of interests into a dispute like a real Fla-Flu football match. The dispute has brought together sectors linked to agribusiness and researchers from the field of molecular genetics working in the development of transgenic organisms against environmentalists. Essentially, and in a few words, because the National Bio-safety Plan maintains a feature which is of fundamental importance to the precautionary principle: scrutiny in commercial licensing. [...] The investments and the safeguards related to flexibility throughout the research process; scrutiny in technical reports; and transparency in the political choices that determine in the final instance the opportunity to put a product on sale are fundamental questions for the development of science, questions that were not exhausted in the legislative process. The fact that all those issues had been taken into account is, however, a starting point for a government intending policy of science for citizenship". "Biosseguran?n?? quest?, JC email 2531, 25 May 2004,
