Date:  27 October 2000

MELCHETT/BLAIR/KREBS/PODGER/ACHESON BROS.

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Poisenality time!

1.  Comrade Melchett quits to spend more time with his crops
2.  Krebs and Podger
3.  The Acheson Bros
4.  Blair doomed over GM, says Scotsman

1. Melchett quits Greenpeace to spend more time with his crops
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/UK/Environment/2000-10/melchett271000.shtml

Having Krebs at the helm is bad enough but in tandem with ex-MAFF man Podger, it really is depressing!  No wonder the FSA has got off to such a disastrous start.

The Food Magazine, produced by The Food Commission

Life at the top?  Who runs the Food Standards Agency?

The man at the top is Sir John Krebs, previously responsible for giving advice on culling badgers as a way of preventing tuberculosis in cattle, and son of the man who described the uptake and release of energy in cells (the Krebs cycle).  He is the chairman and is technically only part time.  His chief officer is Geoffrey Podger, full time civil servant and previously career bureaucrat in MAFF and the Department of Health.

At one of the BSE consultation meetins open to the public, chairman Krebs frequently had to ask Podger to help him answer questions from the audience.  During one of Podger’s lengthy replies, Krebs actually raised his hand and said ‘Excuse me, Mr Chairman ..... oops, I’m the chair, aren’t I?’  Podger grinned broadly.  Now Podger is tightening his grip on the agency.

We hear that staff have been instructed not to communicate with Krebs except through Podger.  ‘We don’t know what to do.  What happens if we meet Krebs in the lift ... can we speak to him?’ asked one new recruit.   So when Krebs makes a silly statement to the media, we can have a good guess who has briefed him.  Or set him up.

Food Magazine.  October/December 2000

One of those singled out for criticism in the just published BSE report over their failure to protect the public in the course of the BSE disaster is former Chief Medical Officer, Sir  Donald Acheson.  In fact, Sir Donald is not the only member of the Acheson family to come into ill-repute in relation to the social consequences of his involvement in science and public policy issues.

In 1986 Acheson’s brother Roy Malcolm Acheson, Prof. of Community Medicine at Cambridge Univ. 1976-88 and a member of the General Medical Council Exec. Cttee, became a member of the notorious British Eugenic Society, now known as the Galton Institute.  Details of Society members, who believe in improvement of the race by encouragement of those with "good" genes and control of those with "bad", at:  http://www.africa2000.com/ENDX/endx.htm

The Scotsman were very good on Blair’s "green at heart" claims noting the only surprising element in Blair’s pitch was that it had taken him 3 years to get there!  As the Scotsman commented "you’d have  to live in a test tube to avoid the effect of green issues: Traffic snarl-ups and poor public transport, the availability of GM-free food, the cost of organic produce, the dramatic effects of global warming and poor air quality all come under the heading of environment policy".

They also note that "one in five Scots are members of environmental or conservation groups".  In fact membership of such groups in the UK outstrips the membership of all the political  parties by a mile which makes the usual attacks of the political class on vociferous minorities and the power of pressure groups deeply ironic.

The Scotsman’s headline on the Bliar story?
PM’s attempt to cultivate Green vote is doomed to wither under GM onslaught

http://www.thescotsman.co.uk/index.cfm?id=TS00171296&d=News&c=parly&s=8&keyword=the&_#CLIMATE%20change%20is%20one%20of%20the%20biggest%20flashpoints%20between%20the%20government%20and%20the%20green%20movement