"...the 'sound science' movement is not an indigenous effort from within
the profession to improve the quality of scientific discourse, but
reflects sophisticated public relations campaigns controlled by industry
executives and lawyers whose aim is to manipulate the standards of
scientific proof to serve the corporate interests of their clients."
Doctors Elisa Ong and Stanton A. Glantz writing in the America Journal
of Public Health, November 2001
http://www.ajph.org/cgi/content/full/91/11/1749
The A-Z of the BIOTECH BRIGADE
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
to add
USAID
WFP - World Food Programme, James Morris
natsios andrew
websites - not what they seem
agbioworld - www.agbioworld.org
activistcash
European Science and Environment Forum
Cambridge, UK www.scienceforum.net
fiends
foodsecurity.net
Sustainable Development Netowrk sustainabledev.net
greenpiece
www.libertyindia.org New Delhi, India
Kisan Coordination Committee
Ambethan, India
www.angelfire.com/in/farmersforfreedom/fccdefault.html
purefoods
stoplabelinglies
corncomment
stopeco
cffar
consumerfreedom
organisations
individuals
A
Amman, Klaus
Director of the Botanical Garden, University of Bern, Switzerland.
With John Beringer, Julian Kinderlerer, Alan McHughen and Mark Tepfer,
Amman formed the International Society for Biosafety Research, whose journal,
Environmental Biosafety Research, he edits. He sits on steering committees
for the following groups:
The European Science Foundation group, Assessment of Impacts of Genetically Modified Plants (AIGM)
Gensuisse, a GM promotion group funded by the pharmaceutical industry body Interpharma
Internutrition, a promotion group for GM foods which has in its working group representatives from the food industry (e.g. Nestlé) as well as chemical/GM companies Monsanto, Hoffmann LaRoche, DuPont, and Syngenta.
Amman is co-editor of the Bio-Scope Frankfurt-Bern website, supported by GM industry group Europabio. With C S Prakash and others, Amman signed an "Open Letter to the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development" (Apr 2000). The letter warned the Commission against "needless over-regulation" of GM on the grounds of "the very real threat that an overly-strict adherence to precautionary regulation could pose to both the environment and to the well being of human populations around the world." Amman edits a strongly pro-GM e-mail list and played a leading role together with CS Prakash in circulating and encouraging the attacks on Quist and Chapela's paper on Mexican maize contamination published in Nature.
American Council on Science and Health (ACSH)
Describes itself as a "consumer education consortium concerned with
issues related to food, nutrition, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, lifestyle,
the environment and health." John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton, in Toxic
Sludge Is Good For You: Lies, Damn Lies and the Public Relations Industry,
call ACSH an "industry front group that produces PR ammunition for the
food processing and chemical industries." ACSH has published many articles
promoting GM and denigrating organic food (eg by Dennis Avery). Its president
is Elizabeth Whelan, and its directors include Henry Miller of the Hoover
Institute and Norman Borlaug of Texas A&M University. ACSH corporate
funders have included Monsanto, DuPont, Dow, the National Agricultural
Chemicals Association, Pfizer, and NutraSweet Company. ACSH stopped disclosing
corporate donors in the early 1990s. [http://www.cspinet.org/integrity/corp_funding.html]
The American Soybean Association received $2.1 million of its $26.7
million budget in fiscal year 2000 from Monsanto, Pioneer Hi-Bred International,
BASF, Stein Seed Co. and others, says controller Brian Vaught. In 2001,
the Association spent $280,000 to work with the Council for Biotechnology
Information and the National Corn Growers to achieve "a unified message
about the benefits of transgenic crops."
(see http://www.cropchoice.com/leadstry.asp?recid=587)
Angell Philip
Monsanto's former Director of Corporate Communications. Said, "Monsanto
should not have to vouchsafe the safety of biotech food. Our interest is
in selling as much of it as possible." (New York Times, October 25, 1998)
Angell commented on the company's failed European campaign to the Wall
Street Journal: "Maybe we weren't aggressive enough... When you fight
a forest fire, sometimes you have to light another fire." (Wall Street
Journal, May 11, 1999) Since leaving Monsanto, Angell has gone into partnership
with PR firm The Bivings Group in a business venture based around an online
broadcasting service for US congressional hearings for subscribing lobbyists:
hearingroom.com
Apel, Andrew
Editor of the biotech industry newsletter, AgBiotech Reporter - http://www.bioreporter.com.
Apel is a regular contributor to C S Prakash's AgBioView email list, using
the Sept 11 attacks to put forward the view that critics of GM, like Drs
Mae-Wan Ho and Vandana Shiva, had "blood on their hands". He wrote of the
WTO meeting in Genoa (where the media reported attacks by police on sleeping/peaceful
demonstrators): "From everything I have seen, the police in Genoa never
did anything other than defend themselves... Police are dangerous people,
that is why they are hired for the job they have. Only a fool goes against
them, and in Genoa many fools have received their due." Apel has also been
at the forefront of attempts by GM lobbyists to use the resistance of countries
in southern Africa (2002/3) to acceping GM-contminated food aid as a way
of attacking biotech industry critics. Apel called on the U.S. to bomb
Zambia with GM grain if it continued to reject it. On a discussion list
Apel wrote of the crisis, "I can almost picture the darkies laying down
their lives for the vacuous ideals... their death throes, how picturesque,
among the baobab trees and the lions!" In October 2002, Monsanto’s electronic
newsletter, "The Biotech Advantage," carried the headline "Academics Say
Africans Going Hungry Because of Activist Scare Tactics." The "activists"
in question turned out to be the staff of a Catholic theological centre
and a Zambian agricultural college who had expressed concerns about GM
crops. Their "academic" attackers, by contrast, included Andrew Apel
together with AgBioWorld’s co-founders, CS Prakash and Greg Conko of the
Competitive Enterprise Institute. http://ngin.tripod.com/161002b.htm
Arntzen,Charles J.
Founding Director of the Arizona Biomedical Institute at Arizona State
University and former President and CEO of the Boyce Thompson Institute
for Plant Research, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY. Arntzen warmed up the
Edinburgh OECD conference on GM food in 2000 by extolling the virtues of
a field in which he has specialised - edible vaccines genetically engineered
into food plants such as tomatoes, bananas and potatoes. Arntzen has bred
potatoes that express Norwalk virus and E. coli antigens. Human test subjects
have been fed the potatoes raw, because cooking might damage the antigen,
even though cooking is normally considered necessary to render harmless
the high levels of natural toxins that can occur in potatoes. It also remains
unclear how much vaccine a person would need to eat to ensure protection
and how often, or how to avoid overdosing, or what side effects such as
allergies may arise. Like other plant biotechnologists, Arntzen has also
found unexplained effects within plants he has genetically engineered.
(Newsweek International, January 28, 2002) In 1999 Arntzen attacked US
company Frito Lay for bowing to consumer demands to make their snacks GM-free.
"When your company succumbs to pseudo-science rhetoric," wrote Arntzen,
"you are contributing to a broad campaign that has the ultimate goal of
diminishing the credibility of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and
other government bodies who have consistently verified that the new agricultural
products on the market are safe." Arntzen warned that consumers would boycott
Frito Lay in punishment for denigrating GM "crops that are helping make
American agriculture more competitive on a global scale." (Top Producer
magazine, December 1999) US farm exports have suffered multi-million dollar
losses since the introduction of GM crops.
Avery, Alex
Director of Research and Education at the Center for Global Food Issues
http://www.cgfi.org, the Hudson Institute http://www.hudson.org. His father,
Dennis Avery is the Center's Director. Much of Alex Avery's time has been
spent defending his father's claims, particularly those affecting organic
food. Alex Avery is said to be writing a book on "organic food myths".
He is a co-author of, 'Organic Industry Groups Spread Fear for Profit'
a report launched on September 21 2000. His co-authors included Graydon
Forrer, Monsanto's former head of executive communications. The report
ws launched via NoMoreScares.com - a website which has now been withdrawn
but which had as its contact the former Monsanto lobbyist and self-styled
"Junkman", Steven Milloy. The report is still availble via Milloy's current
site: StopLabelingLies.com [http://www.StopLabelingLies.com/]which claims
to be dedicated to exposing "examples of false and misleading food and
other product labels and their associated marketing campaigns," but
whose real mission appears to be attacking organic foods on behalf of the
biotech industry. Amongst many other anti-organic pieces, author of "The
Organic Food Industry: Smearing The Competition" - a paper published (13
March 2000) on Monsanto's Biotechnology Knowledge Center website, "The
Deadly Chemicals in Organic Food" (New York Post, June 2, 2001), "Organic
farming caused dust bowl" (The Spokesman-Review.com, August 18, 2002) etc.
A keen supporter of CS Prakash's AgBioView e-mail list, Alex Avery proposed
to "Fellow Agbioviewers" the issuing of a Joint Statement to counter a
statement criticising the dubious character of the attacks on Quist and
Chapela, authors of the Mexcian maize paper publish in Nature, which Avery
claimed was "being whored around by the anti-biotech activists". Avery
dismissed Quist and Chapela's peer-reviewed study as "junkscience" and
argued that the attacks were not unethical mudslinging, but "exactly the
type of rigorous debate over the truth that is the hallmark of the scientific
process and discourse". A joint statement duly followed and proved influential
in the campaign to force Nature to retract the paper. The attacks on Quist
and Chapela were subsequently shown to have been initiated and fueled by
the biotech industry - in particular, by Monsanto, notably via its "Andura
Smetacek" e-mail front , and by its PR company, The Bivings Group, which
used the e-mail front "Mary Murphy". Avery followed Murphy in making
specific reference to Chapela's membership of the board of Pesticide Action
Network North America and in claiming that this raised questions
about Chapela's scientific work. The Hudson Institute for whom Avery works
has received funding from gene giants Aventis, Dow, Monsanto, Novartis
and Zeneca.
Avery, Dennis T.
Senior fellow of the Hudson Institute and Director of its Center for
Global Food Issues, Advisor to the American Council on Science and Health,
and author of "Saving the Planet with Pesticides and Plastic" and of a
nationally syndicated weekly column for the financial newswire Bridge News.
Avery is a fervent supporter of biotechnology, pesticides, irradiation,
factory farming and free trade. Avery claims organic farming takes up too
much land and thus destroys wildlife habitat. He is the originator of the
oft-repeated "E. Coli myth" that people who eat organic foods are
at a significantly higher risk of food poisoning. Avery published an article
entitled "The Hidden Dangers in Organic Food" in the Fall, 1998, issue
of American Outlook, a quarterly publication published by the Hudson Institute.
Avery's article began, "According to recent data compiled by the U.S. Centers
for Disease Control (CDC), people who eat organic and natural' foods are
eight times as likely as the rest of the population to be attacked by a
deadly new strain of E. coli bacteria (0157:H7)." However, according
to Robert Tauxe, M.D., chief of the food borne and diarrheal diseases branch
of the CDC, there is no such data on organic food production in existence
at their centers and he says Avery's claims are "absolutely not true."
Even Gregory Conko of the Competitive Enterprise Institute has been moved
to comment critically on Avery's dubious use of statistics, "looking at
a few selectively reported cases from a single year doesn't seem to be
convincing anybody who doesn't already have a predilection to believe you
in the first place." Despite this, stories about "killer organic food"
have appeared in the U.S., Canada, and Europe. Ironically, a UN Food and
Agriculture Organisation (FAO) report concludes organic practices actually
reduce e-coli infection and reduce the levels of contaminants in foods
[http://ngin.tripod.com/fao-org.htm]. Avery's attribution of danger to
organic farming on the basis that it makes use of manure is, in fact, nonsensical.
In the UK conventional farmers use about 80m tonnes of manure a year as
a fertiliser. Just 9,000 tonnes goes on organic land. The Hudson Institute
is funded by many firms whose products are excluded from organic agriculture:
eg, AgrEvo, Dow AgroSciences, Monsanto, Novartis Crop Protection, Zeneca,
Du Pont, DowElanco, ConAgra, and Cargill. Before joining Hudson, Avery
served from 1980-88 as the senior agricultural analyst for the U.S. State
Department where he was involved in assessing the foreign policy implications
of food and farming developments.
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/organic.htm
Bailey, Ronald
Science correspondent for the libertarian Reason Magazine, an adjunct
scholar with the Cato Institute and the Competitive Enterprise Institute
[http://216.156.132.11/staff/rbaileybio.html], the author of "ECOSCAM:
The FalseProphets of Ecological Apocalypse", "The Looming Trade War over
Plant Biotechnology" (a Cato paper), and of articles such as "Organic farming
could kill billions of people" and "Send in the Clones". During the Mexican
maize scandal Bailey published an article, "Environmentalist Bio-fraud?"
which was notable for how closely it echoed the words of the personal attacks
on scientist Ignacio Chapela initiated by Monsanto's PR proxy "Mary Murphy".
For instance, Murphy had first pointed to Chapela serving "on the Board
of Directors of the Pesticide Action Network North America (PANNA)" which
she labelled "an activist group", and Murphy went on to describe Chapela
as, "Not exactly what you'd call an unbiased writer." Bailey's Reason article
described Chapela as "a board member of the activist group Pesticide Action
Network of North America" and described him as, "not exactly the model
of a dispassionate scientist". [Environmentalist Biofraud? A new
report challenges research published in the respected journal, Nature.
http://reason.com/rb/rb021202.shtml]
In another article, "GM trade war" (National Post, Aug 9, 2002), Bailey
recommends ways of forcing the EU to accept GM foods via Codex Alimentarius:
"What can Canada and the United States do to win this trade war and foster
the spread of GM foods? ...All Codex standards must be agreed to by consensus
of all the parties. All Canada and the United States have to do is call
a halt to the precautionary principle, biotech labelling, and traceability
requirements, and they'll be taken out of Codex." He also suggests, "[The
US] must persuade all the chief food exporting countries... to create a
united front against the EU, leaving Europe with no sources for non-biotech
feed grain imports." This, Bailey says, is the only way to prevent
millions in the developing world from being starved. [http://www.cato.org/dailys/08-14-02.html]
Bainbridge, Janet
Chair, Advisory Committee on Novel Foods and Processes (ACNFP) since
September 1997, and of their Sub group on Long Term Monitoring. ACNFP
is responsible for advising the UK government on whether or not to approve
GM foods. A passionate supporter of GM foods which she has descibed approved
GM foods as "as safe, if not safer" than conventional foods (GUARDIAN Friday
July 9, 1999, Public's grasp of GM science 'poor'), Professor Bainbridge
OBE is also co-opted onto ACRE (Advisory Committee on Releases to Environment),
and was formerly on the Food Chain and Crops for Industry Foresight Strategic
Panel (1998-2001) and Chairs the Debate Task Force of the panel. Until
June 2001, she was Director of the School of Science and Technology at
the University of Teesside. She is Chief Executive of the European Process
Industries Competitiveness Centre which aims to support Chemical and Food
Manufacturers though research, techmology transfer etc. She is also responsible
for the Food Technology Transfer Centre, which also works to support
the food manufacturing industry. Although described as "a leading authority
on GM Food Safety" [http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/acre/annrep8/08.htm],
on Granada TV’s World in Action (1998), in the same programme in which
Dr Pusztai revealed his research on GM-fed rats, Prof Bainbridge was quizzed
about a published paper which showed that DNA could escape digestion, get
into the circulation, and even pass to the next generation through the
placenta. She admitted she didn’t know of this seminal piece of GM food
safety research: "There are thousands of papers, I cannot be aware of them
all." Prof Bainbridge is also on record as saying that it is no more appropriate
to involve the public in discussing the safety of GM foods than a child
in the question of when to cross a road, since “most people do not even
know what a gene is. Sometimes my young son wants to cross the road when
it’s dangerous - sometimes you have to tell people what’s best for them.”
Bate, Roger
Founder in 1993 of the the Environment Unit of the right wing think
tank, the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), and current co-director
with Julian Morris of the IEA's Environment and Technology Programme. Also
co-director with Morris of the International Policy Network whose Washington
address is that of the Competitive Enterprise Institute where Bate is an
adjunct fellow. Bate is also the former Executive Director of the European
Science and Environment Forum (ESEF) which he co-founded in 1994. Co-author,
with Julian Morris, of Fearing Food: Risk, Health and Environment. The
IEA website comments: "In the latest ESEF book, Fearing Food, new agricultural
and food technologies, including genetic engineering, are shown to be generally
beneficial both to health and to the environment." Contributors to the
book include Dennis Avery. Bate and Morris drew on Avery's bogus E-coli
claims in a publicity stunt to launch the book which involved telling people
that "according to the United States Centers for Disease Control, people
who eat the products of...[organic agriculture] are eight times more likely
to contract the strain of E-coli that killed 21 people in Lanarkshire in
1997" ['Unsavoury facts about organic food' August 16, 1999] In a related
press release ('Londoners demand regulation of potentially deadly organic
food'), Bate and Morris wrote, "organic food may well present a danger
to children, the elderly and the sick... such people should be discouraged
from eating so-called 'organic' or 'natural' foods." On the BBC website,
Bate was quoted, as Director of the ESEF, as saying, "...some researchers
say that in many ways it's worse for you, worse for the environment and
if embraced globally would condemn millions of people to starvation."
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/knowledge/havewords/bbc2/bbc2archive/bbc2prog4/bbc2arg2.shtml]
Bate also directed and presented the BBC2 Counterblast programme "Organic
Food: The Modern Myth" (BBC2, 31 Jan 2000) in his role as Director of the
European Science and Environment Forum. The ESEF described itself
in its mission statement on on its original website as "a non-partisan
group of scientists" and claimed, "To maintain its independence and impartiality,
the ESEF does not accept outside funding from whatever source, the only
income it receives is from the sale of its publications"
[http://web.archive.org/web/19970212024340/www.esef.org/mission.htm].
However, documents released by tobacco giant Philip Morris show that ESEF
was established with money from the tobacco industry as part of a world
wide campaign to undermine industry-critical research. As Big Tobacco's
European front organization, ESEF's task was to smuggle tobacco advocacy
into a larger bundle of "sound science" issues, including "restrictions
on the use of biotechnology." Shortly after the Philip Morris revelations
Bate suddenly resigned as Director of ESEF and its website was taken down.
It has subsequently been relaunched: www.scienceforum.net. Bate contributed
a number of articles to the magazine Living Marxism.
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/rightwing.htm
Baulcombe, David
Head of the Sainsbury Laboratory of the John Innes Centre (JIC), Norwich,
UK, and of its Plant Molecular Virology Department. The JIC, often described
as Europe’s leading plant biotechnology institute, represents itself as
an independent, charitable and mainly publicly funded institution despite
receiving tens of millions in funding from GM giants like Syngenta and
DuPont. In 1999 in Norfolk, Professor Baulcombe told a public meeting that
US government research "to be released shortly" had shown that GM crops
brought enormous environmental benefits. Investigation revealed, however,
that this official US report did not exist. He also claimed with regard
to Dr John Losey’s monarch butterfly study (which showed that monarch butterfly
larvae were killed by eating GM pollen), "it was actually that non-genetically
modified maize pollen had damaged the butterfly". He followed this up with
a claim that "There were no real differences between the damage caused
to the Monarch butterflies by the genetically modified maize pollen". Losey
commented that Baulcombe’s claim was "completely without merit. Caterpillars
fed on milkweed leaves with untransformed [non-GM] corn pollen suffered
NO mortality while 44% of those that fed on leaves dusted with Bt-corn
pollen died within 4 days. I assume the person who actually made this quote
did not read the paper."
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/false.htm
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/pants3.htm
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/biospin.htm
Bennett Andrew - DfiD
1. Revolving door from DFID to agribiz
City diary by Richard Adams, Guardian City Pages
The Guardian (London) August 23, 2002
We should applaud when someone moves to pastures new, so let's hear
it for Andrew Bennett, off to a new job next month as director of the Syngenta
Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture.
This cuddly sounding organisation is in fact funded by biotech company
Syngenta, the Swiss company heavily involved in genetically modified food,
and
its projects involve preaching the benefits of Syngenta's products
to developing nations.
What's interesting about Bennett is that until taking Syngenta's bio-shilling,
he was director of rural livelihoods and environment for Clare Short's
Department for International Development, and an influential ministerial
adviser.
At DFID, Bennett was a leading defender of the department's highly controversial
support for the Vision 2020 project in India - which critics say will
force huge upheaval (and GM crops) on the Andhra Pradesh region.
Bennett was harshly critical of a unflattering report on the project by two research centres, which led to DFID coming down like a ton of bricks on them.
Now, however, Bennett has left through the revolving door that runs
from DFID to the agribusiness sector.
---
Andrew Bennett, who was one of the leading critics of Prajateerpu within
DFID, has joined the agri-chemical giant Syngenta - the world's second
largest
promoter of mechanised, high-input, anti-poor agriculture.
(see www.syngentafoundation.com/andrew_bennett.htm)
Until recently, he was, Director, Rural Livelihoods and Environment,
for the British Department for International Development in London
and principal
advisor to government ministers on policy and programs for the improvement
of rural livelihoods, better natural resources management, environmental
protection, sustainable development and research in international
development.
The revolving door between DFID and Syngenta, along with the British
environment Minister Eliot Morley's recent admission that UK government
policy was being heavily influenced by trans-national GM corporations
such as Syngenta, raises questions as to the extent to which DFID
policy on GM,
and their critique of Prajateerpu, is being dictated by commerical
interests, rather than the priorities of the poor.
Syngenta provided a witness, Dr Partha Dasgupta, and observers at last
year's Prajateerpu hearings. The marginal farmers were particularly critical
of Dr
Dasgupta's claims for GM.
***
'In an airless conference room, a woman called Anjamma was asked, through
an interpreter: "If this project goes ahead, what does she think she will
do?"
"There will be nothing for us to do," Anjamma replied, "other than
to drink pesticide and die."
In the West, leaving the land might sound like liberation, but to Anjamma it spells only destitution.
...Anjamma isn't speaking out of ignorance. She was one of 12 farmers
who were chosen to be part of a citizens' jury set up by a couple of
non-governmental organisations to scrutinise the development plans.
That meant that she has sat through days of evidence from GM-seed company
executives, from politicians, from academics, from aid donors. That
was why her certainty was all the more impressive.'
excerpt from 'Citizens jury holds UK Government to account', Natasha
Walter, The Independent, 21 March 2002
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/210302c.htm
More information on Anjamma and the citizens' jury can be found on
http://www.iied.org or http://www.ids.ac.uk
Powerhouse or poorhouse? New Scientist article
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/190302c.htm
For an article on another citizens' jury involving Indian farmers in
the state of Karnataka:
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/indjury.htm
Berman, Rick
Owner of Berman & Company Inc., a public relations firm based in
Washington DC. which aggressively targets groups seeking to promote controls
relating to alcohol, tobacco, food safety, animal rights or the environment.
According to Berman, "Our offensive strategy is to shoot the messenger...Given
the activists' plans to alarm beyond all reason, we've got to attack their
credibility as spokepersons."
[http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/2001Q1/berman1.html] Berman &
Co. are behind the Center for Consumer Freedom [www.consumerfreedom.com]
(formerly known as the Guest Choice Network and NannyCulture.com) which
was started with $600,000 from tobacco giant, Phillip Morris. The Consumer
Freedom campaign on "Food Technology" involves smearing organic food as
dangerous and promoting what it calls "genetically improved food". Despite
being pro-consumer choice, the Consumer Freedom campaign vehemently opposes
GM food labeling. Berman also paints biotech opponents as terrorists, asserting
that "anti-biotech extremists" are part of a "growing wave of domestic
terrorism" and that the people we need to worry about are not just al-Qa'ida
but "the middle-class kids down the street." [Terrorists On The March --
In America, USA Today] Berman's list of "anti-biotech extremists" has included
not just environmental groups such as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth,
which it accuses of conducting a "public relations jihad" on the issue,
but even organisations like Christian Aid, an agency of the churches in
the UK and Ireland, which rejects the claim that GM foods will help end
world hunger, prompting Berman & Co. to label it a "far-left leaning"
group that "flat-out lies about GE foods". These "future-fearing radicals
hide behind a religious facade to more easily malign farmers, scientists,
food companies, and even PR people who deal with GE foods." Berman &
Co's internet campaign also includes ActivistCash.com [www.activistcash.com]
which claims to "root out the funding sources" of "the most notorious and
extreme groups that conspire to restrict the public's food and beverage
choices". In fact, ActivistCash.com draws on information already largely
public mixed with distortions and misinformation [http://www.prwatch.org/improp/ddam.html].
Berman himself has taken exception to attempts to root out his own financial
relationship with the various lobby organisations run by Berman & Co.
He even threatened a lawsuit for defamation after attention was drawn to
his "funneling millions of corporate dollars - donated to non-profit organizations
he runs - right into his own bank accounts. Berman pays himself the
cash both directly and personally in the form of salary and benefits for
his role as 'Executive Director,' as well as through payments he makes
from the non-profits to his own corporation, Berman & Company, Inc.,
for 'consulting.' "
http://www.vegsource.com/articles/berman_release.htm
http://www.parentalfreedom.com/response2berman.htm
Berman was also implicated in a cash-for-favors scandal involving Newt
Gingrich.
http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/2001Q1/berman2.html
Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC)
A UK public funding body for research and training in the "non-medical
life sciences", the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research council
(BBSRC), which was established in 1994 to replace the Science and Engineering
Research Council (SERC), has an annual budget of £190m (in
2000). Whereas SERC’s mandate was to advance science of all kinds, the
BBSRC’s purpose is "to sustain a broad base of interdisciplinary research
and training to help industry, commerce and Government create wealth".
This role developed out of a 1993 government white paper on science, Realizing
our Potential, which was intended to "produce a better match between publicly
funded strategic research and the needs of industry". As part of this research
councils, which distribute most of the public money, would be obliged to
develop "more extensive and deeper links" with industry, and "to recruit
more of their senior staff from industry". Thus, despite being a public
funding body the BBSRC's chairman is Peter Doyle, former executive director
of GM company Zeneca (now part of Syngenta). Doyle originally took up his
BBSRC post even while still employed by Zeneca. Many representatives of
large corporations sit on the BBSRC's boards (Syngenta sits
on 3, AstraZeneca on 2, GlaxoSmithKline 3, Pfizer 4, Unilever
2, not to mention Genetix plc, Lilly and Merck Sharp & Dohme. No wonder
gene biotechnology has been swallowing up the lion’s share of the research
funds. In January 1999, the BBSRC set aside £15m for "a new initiative
to help British researchers win the race to identify the function of key
genes". In July the same year, £19m was to be spent on new research
facilities to "underpin the economic and environmental sustainability of
agriculture in the UK" through "work on genetically modified crops". In
October, £11m was allocated to projects that would enable the UK
"to remain internationally competitive in the development of gene-based
technologies". Every year, the Council gives everal million pounds in grants
to John Innes Centre in Norwich, the genetic engineering institute which
houses the Sainsbury Laboratory and has a research alliance with Dupont
and until recently Syngenta. The JIC is one of eight strategic life sciences
research institutes in the UK to which the BBSRC provides core funding.
Other institutes funded include the Roslin Institute (home of Dolly the
sheep), the Institute of Food Research (IFR), the Institute of Arable Crops
Research, the Institute of Grassland & Environmental Research, and
Horticulture Research International headeed by Prof Mike Wilson.
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/articleBurke.htm
BBSRC has instituted a gagging order (the BBSRC code) that prevents
all publicly funded researchers from speaking out on concerns about GM
foods by defining this as becoming "involved in political controversy on
biotechnology and biological sciences". Disobeying leaves researchers open
to being sued or dismissed. The reality is, of course, that scientists
can (and do) hype biotech to their hearts' content. The clause is aimed
strictly at the sceptics.
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/thoughtpolice.htm
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/scigag.htm
It is from BBSRC institutes, like the JIC and the IFR, that the government
draws many key advisers.
Governments have sold science and scientists to the corporations.
research funds.
See also Burke, Derek
Biotechnology Coalition of the Philippines , president Benigno D. Peczon
A
on-government organization involved in the advocacy of
biotechnology usage in the Philippines called on government
to fast track the commercialization of genetically-modified
(GM) seeds in the country to lessen dependence on food
imports. Biotechnology Coalition of the Philippines
president Benigno D. Peczon said the Philippines can reduce
its importation of staple commodities like rice and corn by
using GM seeds.
Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO)
A trade group of more than 800 biotech companies based in Washington.
Mission: "The Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) represents biotechnology
companies, academic institutions, state biotechnology centers and related
organizations throughout the United States and in many other countries."
it aims to provide "Biotechnology Information, Advocacy and Business Support".
Headed by Carl Feldbaum. Former USDA regulator L. Val Giddings is BIO’s
vice president for food and agriculture. Hendrik Verfaillie, President
& CEO of Monsanto Company sits on its board. Members include AstraZeneca,
Aventis, Bayer, DuPont, Monsanto and Syngenta.
See also: Giddings, L. Val
Borlaug, Dr. Norman
teaches at Texas A&M where he is Distinguished Professor in the
Soil and Crop Sciences Department. Through his work on breeding a high-yielding
dwarf wheat, Borlaug became a key player in the Green Revolution, for which
he was awarded a Nobel prize in 1970. Borlaug is also a keen supporter
of the "gene revolution" and of CS Prakash and his AgBioWorld Foundation.
He sees the publication of research which raises concerns about this technology,
like that of Dr John Losey on the the effects of Bt corn pollen on monarch
butterfly larvae, as part of the politicization of science, "There's an
element of Lysenkoism all tangled up with this pseudoscience and environmentalism.
I like to remind my friends what pseudoscience and misinformation can do
to destroy a nation." [http://www.highyieldconservation.org/articles/billions_served.cfm]
Like a number of key Prakash supporters, Borlaug serves on the board of
directors of the American Council on Science and Health which crusades
against "health scares" and derives its funding from extensive corporate
backing (e.g. Monsanto, Dow, Cyanamid).
Bowden, Rebecca
Senior manager, Royal Society science policy division
An article in The Guardian of Nov 1, 1999, commenting on apparent efforts
by members of the Royal Society to discredit and prevent publication of
Dr Pusztai’s research, said: "According to a source the Royal Society science
policy division is being run as what appears to be a rebuttal unit. The
senior manager of the division is Rebecca Bowden, who coordinated the highly
critical peer review of Dr Pusztai's work. She joined the society in 1998,
from the government biotechnology unit at the department of the environment,
which controls the release of genetically modified organisms.
"The rebuttal unit is said by the source to operate a database of like-minded
Royal Society fellows who are updated by e-mail on a daily basis about
GM issues. The aim of the unit, according to the source, is to mould scientific
and public opinion with a pro-biotech line. Dr Bowden confirmed that her
main role is to coordinate biotech policy for the society, reporting to
the [then] president, Sir Aaron Klug. However, she and Sir Aaron denied
it was a spin doctoring operation."
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/rs.htm
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/articleBurke.htm
Burke, Derek
Prof Burke worked for a biotech company in the 1980s (Allelix Inc of
Toronto) and until 1998 was a director of Genome Research Ltd. He participated
in the UK government's "Technology Foresight" exercise to decide how science
could best contribute to UK economic competitiveness. Then he was appointed
to incorporate the Foresight proposal - to build businesses from genetics
- into the corporate plan of the UK's public funding body, the Biotechnology
and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC). As a result, BBSRC developed
a strategy for integrating scientific opportunity with the needs of industry.
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/articleBurke.htm
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/nuffield.htm
Prof Burke was a member of the Royal Society working group on GM foods
whose report, 'Genetically Modified Plants for Food Use', is said to have
reassured ministers on this issue. He was a member of the Nuffield Council
on Bioethics group that produced the pro-GE report 'Genetically modified
crops: the social and ethical issues'. He was chair of the UK regulatory
committee on GM foods (Advisory Committee on Novel Foods and Processes
- ACNFP) for almost a decade (1988-97), during which time the first GM
foods were approved for the UK. During much of his time at ACNFP, Prof
Burke was also Vice Chancellor of the University of East Anglia and a member
of the governing council of the John Innes Centre. Both institutions have
benefited from corporate investment in GM research. In 1999 Burke published
a 10-point rebuttal of the Prince of Wales's criticism of GM food.
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/articleBurke.htm
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/nuffield.htm
Byrne Jay
Monsanto's former Director of Corporate Communications and former Internet
Outreach Programs Director. He is reported to have spent "a quarter of
his time monitoring the Web for rogue and activist sites", some of which
he attempted to shut down. Byrne showed a particular interest in C S Prakash's
AgBioWorld campaign and e-mail list AgBioView, offering "advice and information"
and ensuring Monsanto "gets proper play". Since leaving Monsanto, Jay Byrne
has become president of internet PR company v-Fluence Interactive Public
Relations, whose vice-president, Richard Levine, is a former Monsanto web
guru at PR firm Bivings. He is believed to have been the chief architect
of Monsanto's covert internet PR campaign which involved the use of front
e-mails such as those of Andura Smetacek and Mary Murphy and a fake agricultural
institute, the Center For Food and Agricultural Research.
C
Cantley, Mark
Headed the Biotechnology Unit in the OECD Directorate for Science,
Technology and Industry. Says GMOs are actually "inherently safer and more
precise" and so require no special regulation at all: "I accepted fully
the OECD report, published in 1986...which inter alia recognised, 'that
there is no scientific basis for specific legislation to regulate the use
of recombinant DNA organisms'.... Nothing that has occurred during the
subsequent 12 years has invalidated those judgments".
http://www.biotechknowledge.com/99/jan/952nkccontinue14.html
Cato Institute
A "free-enterprise" think-tank run by members of the Republican Right
in Washington DC ("22 years of promoting public policy based on individual
liberty, limited government, free markets, and peace"). Main funders are:
American Farm Bureau Federation, Amoco, ARCO, Chase Manhattan Bank,
Coca-Cola, CSX Corp., Exxon, Ford Motor Co., Koch Industries, Monsanto,
National Ammonia Co., Philip Morris, Proctor and Gamble, and Toyota Motor
Sales USA. "Junkman" Steve Milloy is currently listed as an "adjunct fellow"
at the Cato Institute as is Ronald Bailey.
Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI)
Mission: "Advancing the principles of free enterprise and limited government".
According to PR Watch, CEI is "a well-funded front for corporations" that
attacks environmental, health and safety regulations, even defending tobacco
on the grounds that "some things are more important than health"! Staff
includes Gregory Conko. Directors include members of the Hoover Institution
and Consumer Alert. CEI plays a key role in Prakash’s AgBioWorld/AgBioView
email campaign. Prakash’s petition supporting the use of GM agriculture
in the third world is presented as a third world scientists’ rallying point,
but CEI described the petition in its annual report as part of its wider
campaign against "death by regulation". With a turnover of $3+ million
a year and another million in assets, CEI's list of known sponsors includes
tobacco giant Philip Morris, and Dow Chemicals which is targeting
the Asian market with its GE corn.
Conko, Gregory
Director of Food Safety Policy, Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI)
With C S Prakash, co-founder of the AgBioWorld Foundation
Joint author, with Henry I. Miller, of "Cloudy horizons in a brave
new world" on the European Science and Economic Forum website which suggests
that concerns about the safety of GM food are merely a cover for "trade
protectionism" and "anti-science fearmongering".
Connor, Steve
Science editor, The Independent
In the run up to the Lancet's publication of the Pusztai and Ewen paper
indicating ill effects of GM foods on rats, Connor ran a spoiler piece
based on an attack by Prof John Pickett, the only reviewer of the paper
arguing against publication. Connor's article appears to have been part
of a concerted campaign to discredit the Pusztai paper prior to publication.
[http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/rs.htm].
Connor has been a long time supporter of the SIRC, even serving on
its highly partisan Forum that laid down guidelines for journalists and
scientists on how they should report science stories in the media. Almost
as soon as the SIRC's initial draft of the Code and Guidelines was published,
it was effectively endorsed in an article by Connor.
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/scisale.htm
CropGen
Mission: "CropGen's mission is to make the case for GM crops by helping
to achieve a greater measure of realism and better balance in the UK public
debate about crop biotechnology. While ultimately funded by industry, CropGen's
panel members are free to express such views as they consider appropriate.
The funding companies cannot veto the panel's position on any issue." Panel
members of CropGen are Vivian Moses, Jim Dunwell, Nigel Halford, Peter
Lutman, Helen Millar, Guy Poppy, Howard Slater and Will Waites. Funders
include Monsanto, Syngenta and Aventis.
Dale, Phil
John Innes Centre
Dr Dale, a former Government advisor on GM crop releases and still
a member of the key regulatory committee on GM foods (ACNFP), is recorded
as having told environment minister Michael Meacher that there was nothing
surprising about Dr Arpad Pusztai’s findings of adverse effects on rats
from eating GM potatoes, because the gene inserted coded for a lectin and
lectins are well known toxins. This is misleading because not all lectins
are dangerous to mammals - we consume them every time we bite into a tomato
- and the lectin used in Dr Pusztai’s research (the GNA lectin) was chosen
precisely because it is toxic only to insects and not to rats or humans.
Also, rats fed with food spiked with the natural (non-GM) form of the lectin
did not suffer ill effects. Hence the most likely culprit was not the lectin
but the GM process.
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/watchingdrpusztai.htm
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/biospin.htm
DeGregori, Thomas R.
University of Houiston economist, board member of the American Council
on Science and Health and a keen supporter of CS Prakash's AgBioWorld campaign
and regular contributor to its AgBioView e-mail list. Author of:
* "Can Organic Agriculture Feed the World?" - An article published
(16 July 1999) on drkoop.com which begins "Romantic notions about the environment
and technology are harmful, for their implementation can lower quality
of life and worsen the problems implementation was meant to solve."
* "Genetically Modified Nonsense" - An article published on the Institute
of Economic Affairs’ website.
oh Andura quote
Dewar, Alan
Dr Alan Dewar and Dr Mike May, of the Institute of Arable Crops Research
(IACR), are two of the "independent scientists" responsible for overseeing
the UK farmscale trials but they also undertake research for Aventis and
Monsanto - the very companies whose crops are being assessed in the farmscale
trials.
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/farmcon.htm
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/orson.htm
Doyle, Peter
Chair of the UK’s main public funding body, the Biotechnology and Biological
Sciences Research Council; formerly executive director of GM company Zeneca
(now AstraZeneca). Zeneca, now part of Syngenta, had a planned investment
of £50 million in the John Innes Centre in Norwich. Doyle was paid
$740,000 in 1998 ($593,000 in 1997). He is a non-executive director of
the Oxford Molecular Group (with Tony Marchington).
Zeneca featured twice on Friends of the Earth's '50 Filthiest Factories'
list for 1996, which is based on Environment Agency data. Its plant in
Thornton Clevelys spewed out 39 tonnes of cancerous chemicals into its
surrounding area, according to Environment Agency figures.Dr Peter Doyle
is the former Executive Director of the Zeneca Group plc. He was paid $740,000
in 1998 ($593,000 in 1997). He is also a Non-Executive Director of
the Oxford Molecular Group (with Tony Marchington). Zeneca, a GM food
business, featured twice on Friends of the Earth's '50 Filthiest Factories'
list for 1996. Its
plant in Thornton Clevelys spewed out 39 tonnes of cancerous chemicals
into its surrounding area, according to Environment Agency figures. Their
plant in
Huddersfield was even worse, producing 276 tonnes of carcinogenic pollution.
In 1998 the Huddersfield plant released 26,883 tonnes of toxic waste to
landfills and
incinerators. Peter Doyle is a member of the Royal Commission on Environmental
Pollution.
The Zeneca Science Teaching Trust is a £20 million programme for
'training teachers and improving classroom resources'. In 1996 Zeneca introduced
the first GM
food into supermarkets, with its tomato paste made from GM 'Flavr Savr'
tomatoes. In 1999 Zeneca merged with Swedish pharmaceutical company Astra,
to form
AstraZeneca, in a £53 billion deal. It is the biggest agrochemical
company in the UK. They have patents on seeds which use a 'Verminator'
gene (using Brown Rat
DNA) which switches off plant growth unless sprayed with chemicals
supplied by AstraZeneca. They are also pushing hard to be allowed to introduce
GM bananas
and rice. The Chief Executive of AstraZeneca is Sir David Barnes. Peter
Doyle left Zeneca at the time of the merger with a $602,000 pay off to
add to his $158,000
salary and $223,000 bonus for 1999 (plus $434,000 pension per year).
On leaving AstraZeneca Peter Doyle joined the board of Oxagen Ltd, a
genomics company (research into human genetics, including genetic analysis,
gene
discovery and targeting individuals with 'the appropriate genetic makeup'
for their drugs). Their aim is to develop genetic techniques they can sell
on to major
pharmaceutical companies. Their work on Cardiovascular programmes is
being done in partnership with AstraZeneca. Christine Soden is the Chief
Financial Officer
of Oxagen.
Dr Peter Doyle is Chairman of the Biotechnology and Biological Research
Council (BBSRC), part of Lord Sainsbury's Government department. Zeneca
have invested
£50 million in the John Innes Centre in Norwich, which is funded
by the BBSRC and Lord Sainsbury through his Gatsby Charitable Foundation.
He also sits on the
Government's Competitiveness Working Party on Encouraging Innovation
and the North West Regional Competitiveness Working Party (alongside Sir
David Barnes).
Until 1993 he worked at ICI, as Group Research and Technology Director,
then Deputy Chairman and Technical Director of ICI Pharmaceuticals (alongside
David
White, then General Manger of ICI Pharmaceuticals, who is also on the
board of Oxagen) and finally as Executive Director of ICI.
http://www.red-star-research.org.uk/subframe3.html
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/articleBurke.htm
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/scigag.htm
See also Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC)
D'Souza, Des
Head of PR for Aventis
Aventis is the company in charge of the UK’s GM farmscale trials. There
have been striking examples, involving the Cabinet Office, of how intimately
the government and Aventis work together for PR purposes. In July 1999
John Ingham, a reporter with the Daily Express, posed some tricky questions
about proposed crop trials to Aventis’ Des D’Souza, he was staggered to
have his call quickly returned by the Cabinet Office. The tricky
questions were happily fielded for Aventis by the spin unit at No. 10!
The Express ran a story on what happened and questioned the propriety of
a government which is supposed to be regulating the biotech industry in
the interests of the public, in reality promoting corporate interests at
taxpayers' expense.
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/agrevodiary.htm
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/pants2.htm
Dunwell, Jim
Advisor to CropGen and researcher at Reading University who has produced
GM plants. Dunwell was asked to comment on a story (Sunday Telegraph 1
Aug 1999) about a London surgeon’s daughter who developed herpes viral
sores on her face when she drank GM soya milk. The sores cleared when she
stopped. Dunwell denied suggestions that the reaction may have been caused
by the plant virus promoters used in GM technology. He said, "It sounds
highly unlikely that this child has had her herpes provoked by soya milk.
It is more likely to be an allergic reaction." However, the child had tested
negative for allergy to soy.
Durkin, Martin
Television producer
In 1997 Durkin made a series for Channel 4 called Against Nature, which
compared environmentalists to Nazis, conspiring against the world's poor.
Some interviewees complained that they were lied to about the contents
of the programmes and given no chance to respond to the accusations the
series made. The Independent Television Commission gave a damning verdict:
the programme makers "distorted by selective editing" the views of interviewees
including representatives of Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, and "misled"
them about the "content and purpose of the programmes when they agreed
to take part".
The assistant producer and several of its interviewees had worked for
the extreme right-wing magazine Living Marxism (LM), which was finally
sued out of existence by ITN for denying Serbian war crimes. All the arguments
Against Nature made had been rehearsed in LM.
Channel 4 subsequently commissioned Durkin to make a rabidly pro-GM
programme, part of the Equinox series, which followed the same methods
of deception. Two contributors to the programme, Drs Arpad Pusztai and
Mae-Wan Ho, complained that they were misled about the content and were
not given a chance to reply to attacks on their positions.
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/equinox.htm
See also Fox, Fiona; and Science Media Centre
E
Evans, Sir Chris
Chair, Merlin Scientific Services plc
Sir Chris Evans has been called the "Biotech King" and has connections
with a large number of biotech companies. He sits on several government
task forces and was appointed to Lord Sainsbury's research team on "biotechnology
clusters". He gave £25,000 to the Labour Party in June 1999 and received
his knighthood in 2001.
F
Federation of Farmers Association - Changal Reddy represents them
Changal Reddy was the first one to object to
Doreen of Greenpeace (from USA) to speak saying that if she is a foreigner
they wouldn't listen to her. To this I had objected, saying that if
this has
to be the criteria than we would like the foreign company Monsanto
to be out
of India. There was a commotion on this and finally the chairman gave
his
ruling asking Changal Reddy to sit down
> http://www.isaaa.org/kc/News/CBTnews/CBTN_recent.html
> FARMERS DEMAND FREEDOM TO FARM
>
> Farmers from Africa and Asia who are now attending
the World Summit on
> Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg,
> South Africa, have urged leaders at the WSSD to
enable them access to
the
> world market. They want the WSSD to "respect their
> freedom to see for themselves the economic and
technological viability
of
> all new technologies, including agricultural
> biotechnology".
>
> They issued a statement asking for five basic demands:
>
> Freedom to
grow any crop of their choice;
> Freedom to
trade within and outside the country;
> Freedom to
access the best available technology;
> Freedom to
improve agricultural productivity; and
> Freedom to
sell their goods at a price that is not distorted by
> agricultural subsidies, tariffs or quotas.
Feldbaum, Carl
President of the Biotechnology Industry Organisation (BIO)
Quoted in a Washington Post article (15 August 1999) which discussed
labelling of GM foods as saying: "a label would be seen as a stigma, like
a skull and crossbones."
See also: Biotechnology Industry Organisation (BIO)
Food Standards Agency (FSA)
Describes itself as "an independent food safety watchdog set up by
an Act of Parliament in 2000 to protect the public's health and consumer
interests in relation to food." Its director is GM proponent Sir John Krebs,
who chaired the OECD Edinburgh conference on GM food. Since the FSA’s inception
under Krebs, it has not only failed to address consumer concerns over GM
food, but has pursued a stubbornly pro-GM agenda, pausing only to launch
unsubstantiated attacks on organic food which, ironically, enjoys
massive consumer confidence.
FSA commissioned a study (published 2002) at the University of Newcastle
to see if GM DNA survived human digestion or transfers to gut bacteria
possibilities that have been dismissed by the biotech industry in
spite of existing evidence to the contrary in rodents. The study found
that GM DNA survived in the small intestine but did not survive passage
through the colon; however, alarmingly, bacteria in the gut had taken up
GM DNA. Research leader Prof Harry Gilbert played down dangers, saying,
"There is some evidence of gene transfer, but it is at an extremely low
rate and therefore it probably does not represent a significant risk to
human health". The FSA span the research into meaning that GM foods are
safe, a conclusion disputed by other genetic scientists, including Dr Michael
Antoniou of Guy’s Hospital, London, who said the results indicated the
need for extensive GM foods testing.
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/pants1.htm
See also: Krebs, Sir John; Paterson, Dr George
former
Clinton Administration USDA director of consumer affairs Graydon Forrer.
Hiya Jonathan
I've been amusing myself digging in the backwaters of tht ole "web of
deceit" .. and came across something that may be interesting to you..
Are you familiar with food security.net? its a vituperative pro GMO/anti
organic website that currently leads with such balanced story headlines
as "The
villainous Vandana Shiva" and "African famine, made in Europe" - reads
like an
Avery rant.. and surprise surprise
according to a whois search the website owner is:
Forrer, Graydon (GFU95)
grady@FOODSECURITY.NET
Foodsecurity.net, Inc
750 17th street NW suite 1100
Washington , DC 20006
202 778 2340
and according to that venerqble source NGIN:
"Another of the report's authors, Graydon Forrer, as well as being a
former
USDA director of consumer affairs is also the current managing director
of Life
Sciences Strategies, LLC which specialises in "communications programmes"
for
the bio-science and pharmaceutical industries."
he also appears to have co-written various papers with alex avery ..
not to
mention appeared worldwide in a photo with Bill Clinton and Monica
Lewinsky!
(see http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
srv/politics/special/clinton/stories/oelbow030898.htm)
but most interesting is his bio on his alumni pages
(http://magazine.wustl.edu/Fall00/classmates.html) :
Graydon J. Forrer, LW 85, married Julie Lloyd on April 8, 2000, in Washington,
D.C. Graydon is managing director of Life Sciences Strategies, LLC,
in
Washington, D.C. Previously he was counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives
Small Business Subcommittee on Regulation, Business Opportunities,
and
Technology; director of consumer affairs at the U.S. Department of
Agriculture;
legislative director for Sen. Frank Laughtenberg (N.J.); and director
of
executive communications at the Monsanto Corporation.
In fact he seems to have been at monsanto as recently as Aug 31 1999
when he
was the press contact when monsanto gave money to the redcross in turkey
for
disaster relief. As far as i can tell food security.net was registered
10th Nov
1999 (barely 2 months later) and i wonder if Grady (as he cals himself)was
still at Monsanto then?
For what its worth Life Sciences Strategies are listed on Bivings website
as a
client but curiously don't seem to have their own online presence
Forrer is/was VP marketing for a company called Inforonics but doesn't
appear
to still be on their staff.
Fox, Fiona
Director, Science Media Centre (SMC)
Fiona Fox gained notoriety as co-author of articles in the now defunct
magazine Living Marxism (LM) dismissing worldwide disgust at the slaughter
of 800,000 Tutsis in Rwanda as an "emotional overreaction". The magazine
LM was sued out of existence as a result of its denial of Serbian war crimes
but former LM associates still pursue the ideology of this extreme pro-corporate
Marxist clique through other media avenues. (The avowedly anti-imperialist
LM advocated, among other interesting ideas, that African countries should
be sold to multinational corporations in order to bring "good government"
to the continent.)
Former LM editor, now Times columnist, Mick Hume wrote an article in
the Times supporting SMC’s attack on the BBC’s GM-sceptical drama Fields
of Gold. This was after Fiona Fox put out a press release offering the
media a chance to "have a pop" at the BBC and the Guardian at the same
time as denying the drama any scientific credibility, as Guardian editor,
Alan Rusbridger, co-authored the drama.
Also out of the LM stable are:
* LM-supporting TV director Martin Durkin, condemned by the Independent
Television Commission for having "misled" contributors to his anti-environmentalist
'Against Nature' TV series and for having distorted their views via selective
editing.
* GM supporting website 'spiked online' www.spiked.org
* The Institute of Ideas -www.instituteofideas.com - directed by Claire
Fox, Fiona’s sister.
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/020602c.htm
See also Science Media Centre (SMC); and Durkin, Martin
http://ngin.tripod.com/060802c.htm - training courses
for more on Ms Fox: http://ngin.tripod.com/210602c.htm
for more on the Science Media Centre:
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/020602c.htm
Fukuda-Parr, Sakiko
Formerly an agricultural economist at the World Bank
Director, UN World Development Office
Author, UNDP Human Development Report 2001, ""Making New Technologies
[GM] Work For Human Development"
Fukuda-Parr’s report claimed that GM and other hi-tech agricultural
methods would help overcome world poverty and malnutrition. The report
marked a sudden change of direction in UNDP Human Development Reports,
which have traditionally emphasised the importance of human rights and
sustainable development. However, the lead author of the previous World
Development Report before Fukuda-Parr’s, Ravi Kanbur, resigned after being
asked to tone down his criticism of globalisation World Bank-style. Why
the U-turn at the UN? Some analysts blame the new head of the UNDP, Mark
Malloch Brown, previously the World Bank's Vice President for External
Affairs and its Vice President for United Nations Affairs. When Brown moved
from the World Bank to the UN, the World Bank president James Wolfensohn
said, "I believe that Mark will do a wonderful job as head of the UNDP,
and I wish him every success. I am certain that his appointment will further
strengthen the partnership between the Bank and the UN system." (April
1999)
Fumento, Michael
Member of the Hudson Institute
Author of "City slickers off target in pesticide report" - an article
published (15 Dec 1998) in the Idaho Statesman which criticises "the environmentalists'
never-ending campaign against pesticides" and suggests that if pesticides
were banned that "we'll all be forced to eat expensive, ugly, shriveled-looking
organic produce".
G
Gale, Prof Mike
Fellow of the Royal Society
Biotechnologist and former Director of the John Innes Centre (JIC),
the UK's leading plant biotech centre.
The JIC receives considerable funding via Lord Sainsbury's Gatsby trust
for biotech projects involving developing countries. Gale is on record
as saying that a GE moratorium would be a massive blow to the JIC and that
it would choke off grants it is currently getting from industry: "It would
be very, very serious for us."
Gale is one of the Royal Society "experts" available to help journalists
get their stories right on GM according to SIRC guidelines. In a Daily
Mail article of 31 Jul 2001, "The GM tomato that could feed the world",
Gale claims a GM salt-tolerant tomato "breakthrough" will "reduce public
opposition to GM crops". He says nothing, however, about the non-GM means
available of developing salt tolerance. Yet Gale could hardly fail to have
known about the success of this non-GM research with a major food crop
because it has been going on at the JIC - or, more accurately, would be
going on if the funding hadn't dried up! If anyone thinks the non-GM breakthrough
may have been accidentally overlooked, see what JIC science communicators
did in the case of 'super broccoli'! http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/biospin.htm
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/nuffield.htm
See also: John Innes Centre (JIC); SIRC
Gatehouse, John
Durham Biology Department, research interest in engineering insect
resistance in plants.
Gatehouse engineered the transgenes into Arpad Pusztai's potatoes and
co-owned the patent on this GM potato. Any hopes of fame or fortune went
up in smoke when Pusztai blew the whistle on their nutritional impact (the
patent was subsequently sold to Novartis). This is the same John Gatehouse
who has played a role in much subsequent criticism of Pusztai, e.g. on
Martin Durkin’s infamous Equinox programme on GM foods.
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/watchingdrpusztai.htm
http://www.btinternet.com/~clairejr/Pusztai/puszta_6.html
Gee Henry , is described as "a senior editor with Nature"
http://ngin.tripod.com/140802c.htm
Giddings L Val
Giddings forms part of the human traffic that has been through the
revolving door between the biotech industry and its regulators. Giddings
was formerly biotechnology regulator and (biosafety) negotiator at the
United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), and is now vice president
for food and agriculture of the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO).
Claimed (without any supporting evidence) at the OECD conference on GM
in Edinburgh that GM foods, far from causing allergies (as critics of GM
including US FDA scientists fear), are in fact the way to do away with
allergies. Said in 1999: ""Consumers are turning away from these foods
in enormously smaller numbers than the activists would have you believe."
When GE Food Alert warned that GM crops grown to produce pharmaceutical
drugs and industrial chemicals may contaminate food crops a danger
highlighted by a 2002 National Academy of Sciences report - Giddings said:
"They're trying their best to shout fire in a crowded theater when there
is no smoke and no flame and very little combustible material."
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/pblinks.htm
Gill, Ben
ask Mark G
Graham-Harrison Robert
Robert Graham-Harrison, to
undermine and suppress the prajateerpu report. Graham-Harrison's actions
are sparking off a debate "about independent research and academic freedom
in the face of attempts from a few individuals within a major donor
agency to silence critical reflections". The DFID-based campaign also seems
intended
to make sure the voice of poor and marginalised communities is not
heard on these issues.
***
Prajateerpu at the Earth Summit
from prajateerpu@hotmail.com
The World Conservation Union, the world's oldest and largest global
conservation body (formerly IUCN), is highlighting the Prajateerpu controversy
in
one of its contributions to the Earth Summit in Johannesburg, South
Africa.
Policy Matters, the magazine of their Commission on Environmental Economic
and Social Policy (volume 10 - www.iucn.org/themes/ceesp/), has
published an article by M. Pimbert, T. Wakeford and P.V. Satheesh entitled:
"Citizen visions of sustainable development-Lessons from deliberative
democracy in South India". The magazine is to be launched this
week at the Johannesburg meeting.
The Editors, Grazia Borrini-Feyerabend and Taghi Farvar, have written an editorial that is reproduced below.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
THIS REPORT IS UPSETTING POWER!
As we were going to press we heard news of a heated controversy developing
around the Prajateerpu report. The Institute of Development Studies,
University of Sussex at Brighton decided to withdraw the report from
its website and bookshop and the Directors of IDS and IIED-the institutions
that
employ Tom Wakeford and Michel Pimbert-were under great pressure to
"disown" their work. All this is the result of political pressure
from the UK's
Department for International Development (DFID)-the development assistance
agency that provides substantial support to the government of Andhra
Pradesh, and over 70% of the funding for IDS and IIED. In recent
months, the head of DFID India, Robert Graham-Harrison, accused Michel
and Tom
of "gross misrepresentation of our programme in the document" which
he called "unfounded criticism" that was "deeply unhelpful" and wrote to
the IIED
executive director asking to remove the Prajateerpu report from their
Internet site. The report remains on the IIED site (and for this we commend
IIED),
but it was since removed from the IDS site, and the directors of both
institutions are making efforts to distance themselves from the publication.
Michel
and Tom replied on 12 July with a nine-page defence of their report
as something that gave "a bigger voice to poor and marginalised communities."
They
told Mr Graham-Harrison that he had sparked off debate "about independent
research and academic freedom in the face of attempts from a few individuals
within a major donor agency to silence critical reflections."
As independent observers with long-standing respect for the two UK institutions
involved in
the Prajateerpu controversy, we have been watching with disbelief their
bending under pressures from a government agency. The two institutions
should
be very glad, in fact, that some information about these pressures
has reached the public, and especially the Indian partners-providing the
saving grace for
them by not letting them fall prey to official censorship behind the
scene.
The low point was reached, in our opinion, when the institutions began
talking about "addressing concerns related to different approaches to
action-research, the adequacy and inclusiveness of research evaluations..."-and
put on their websites a rather uncouth disclaimer for the publication.
The
disclaimer casts doubts over the validity of the report methodology,
which is tantamount to subtracting political weight from the verdict of
the poor.
Besides being amused at this rather futile and counterproductive attempt,
we have a major problem with the fact that the "burden of proof" keeps
being put
on the shoulders of the ones who are working for participatory, empowering
processes. Indeed, "the burden of proof" should be more justly born
by
those research or development agencies that back social engineering
with huge financial resources or by conventional academia and their "mainstream"
methods, which threaten dispossessed people with their eternal rehash
of data games, combining utmost precision with abysmal relevance and meaning.
In
fact, we would maintain that today's most respectable research institutions
have much better things to do than splitting hair on methodologies.
These
institutions should rather address some of the most relevant and ominous
questions of today, questions that go to the heart of what "public opinion"
and
even democracy ultimately are in a system of skewed power relationships
that includes control over most means of information.
How can we make sure that the powerful do not always come up on top
by using their phenomenal capacity to "create" public opinion through all
sorts of
direct and subliminal means? How can we make sure that
public opinion is informed and intelligent-coming from a full comprehension
of choices,
alternatives and consequences? What have we learned from the
historical experience of populist movements all over the globe? What
are we learning
from the current struggle for the domination of the media by political
forces? If indeed the less privileged in society have the least capacity
to receive
information and make their voices heard, how can a movement of solidarity
help them? And, last but not least, what are we to think of
government
agencies that attempt to silence criticism from the very poor they
are supposed to serve? We hope that some of these questions will
begin to be addressed
by the electronic forum that IIED and IDS have now started on the stimulus
of the controversy (www.iied.org/agri/e_forum). We also hope that
development assistance agencies will soon learn that the public nature
of the funds they control binds them to not only respect any criticism
leveled to
them, but to encourage the expression of the views of the dispossessed,
which is exactly what the Prajateerpu process has done.
It is the nature of people with intelligence and integrity to be upsetting
power, in all days and ages and circumstances. Michel and Tom and
their Indian
colleagues may well not be new to this and we applaud them all the
more. To them, and to all who participated in the Prajateerpu process,
we offer our
strong support, solidarity and deepest respect.
-The Editors (Grazia Borrini-Feyerabend and Taghi Farvar)
H
Halford, Nigel
Institute of Arable Crop Research (IACR)
According to Dr Halford, it should not be difficult to win the GM debate
because "GM crops will be cheaper, tastier, look better, require less intensive
farming methods (i.e. less pesticide use), be more nutritious and have
longer shelf lives..." ("Dr Frankenstein, I presume?", BBSRC Business,
Jan 1999). Dr Halford cites no evidence for these claims and does not address
evidence to the contrary, e.g. that GM crops have required more pesticides.
His claim about longer shelf lives for GM foods has surfaced again recently,
this time from C S Prakash. Prakash was challenged on 6 Jul 2002 to produce
the evidence, but as of 15 Aug 2002 none was forthcoming.
In 1999, according to Farmers Weekly, Halford told an audience of farmers
at the Royal Agricultural Show that "US pesticide sales fell in 1998 by
$200m and are predicted to fall by a further $600m over the next two years.
That’s an excellent indicator of the success of these crops in reducing
the dependence of agriculture on chemical inputs." What Halford failed
to point out was that with the advent of herbicide tolerant GM crops in
the US, a price war broke out among chemical suppliers. Each tried to wean
farmers away from the brand name products designed to go with GM crops
and back to their own products. Hence lower prices not lower usage.
Evidence arose in 1998 that the most widely grown GM crop, Roundup Ready
soy, was being treated with more chemicals than the non-GM versions (Benbrook,
1999).
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/false.htm
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/watchingdrpusztai.htm
Haskins, Lord Christopher
Former Chair of Northern Foods and Express Dairies. Haskins is one
of Tony Blair's closest advisors (and a Labour Party funder - gave £10,000
in 2001) He is Blair's 'UK Rural Recovery co-ordinator' post foot-and-mouth.
Passionately pro-GM, Haskins often makes vehement attacks on GM critics
like the Prince of Wales and on organic farming. He said, "Let the heir
to the throne enjoy his excellent if somewhat risky organic food..." but
"Let my cattle enjoy their genetically modified soya" and "let the poor,
starving people of the world have access to safe, affordable food - which
GM food will probably offer them." Haskins has spoken out against retailers
and manufacturers who have "banned the use of GM ingredients in their products"
- despite the fact that Northern Foods also removed GM ingredients from
its products in response to consumer demand. On the future of food and
farming, Haskins defines himself as an optimist, opposing "the prophets
of doom". However, he’s not averse to doom-mongering when it comes to organic
agriculture. He said, "A wholly organic world agricultural system would
quickly lead to mass starvation" and "economic and political collapse in
much of the developing world..." The answer lies rather "in genetic modification
raising food outputs to spectacular heights". Haskins presents no evidence
in support of these claims and ignores evidence of, for example, yield
drag rather than yield gain from GM crops.
http://ngin.tripod.com/haskins.htm
Heap, Prof Brian
Vice president and foreign secretary of the Royal Society
Formerly director of the Institute of Animal Physiology and Genetics
Research (Babraham, Cambridge and Roslin, Edinburgh)
Heap helped produce the Royal Society report 'Genetically Modified
Plants for Food Use' which was used to reassure the Blair government that
there were no significant problems with GM crops. He was also on the RS
group that organised a partial 'peer review' of Pusztai's unpublished work
an act The Lancet described as "a gesture of breathtaking impertinence
to the Rowett Institute scientists who should be judged only on the full
and final publication of their work." He contributed to the Nuffield report
on GM crops which contains an appendix which is highly critical of Pusztai.
Pusztai has characterised this appendix as "misleading and full of inaccuracies...
unscientific and most unfair."
Heap has been involved with bioethics at the European Commission and
the Nuffield Council on Bioethics in London, and with science advice and
policy for governmental and non-governmental organisations in the UK, the
European Science Foundation in Strasbourg and the European Commission in
Brussels.
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/pants4.htm
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/articleBurke.htm
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/nuffield.htm
Hillman, Prof John
Director of the Scottish Crop Research Institute (SCRI)
Professor Hillman is on the Board of Directors of the BioIndustry Association,
whose tagline is "Encouraging and Promoting the Biotechnology Sector of
the UK Economy".
Hillman used the SCRI's annual report (Feb 2000) and the media to promote
bogus smears against organic farming. Hillman says, "Organic farming raises
risks of faecal contamination not only of food but also of waterways, food
poisoning, high levels of natural toxins and allergens, contamination by
copper and sulphur-containing fungicides, production of diseased food,
low productivity, and creation of reservoirs of pests and diseases."
These claims follow the typical pattern of such attacks. "Faecal contamination"
relates to the use of manure by organic farmers, but what is ignored is
that conventional farmers also use manure, in addition to agrochemicals
and sewage sludge containing contaminants like heavy metals and PCBs. As
John Vidal notes, "conventional UK farmers use about 80m tonnes of it a
year as a fertiliser. Just 9,000 tonnes goes on organic land and crops.
So why the attacks on organic foods and not conventional ones?"
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/rightwing.htm
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/hillmanimp.htm
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/organic.htm
Hoover Institution
This ultra-conservative think tank founded in 1919 on the campus of
Stanford University, California is part-funded by corporations. Has published:
Global Food Fight by Henry I. Miller
Field of Genes - Genetically Modified Foods by Henry I. Miller, Walter
Anderson and Peggy Lemaux
Hoover's "board of overseers" includes chairman of grain multinational
Archer Daniels Midland Dwayne Andreas, Texas oilman Robert Bass, David
Packard of military and electronics giant Hewlett-Packard, US defense secretary
Donald Rumsfeld, Mellon oil heir and ultraconservative philanthropist Richard
M. Scaife, and free-market guru and former U.S. Treasury Secretary William
E. Simon.
Hudson Institute
Founded in 1961, the Hudson Institute is a right wing think tank "dedicated
to thinking about the future from a contrarian point of view," according
to its literature. Under contract with government agencies ranging from
the US Dept of Defense and Justice to Wisconsin State to the City of Indianapolis,
the Hudson Institute has published books and reports on everything from
military strategy and national security, to agriculture and the environment,
to trade, labor, and economic development, to health care, welfare, and
education, but the primary focus is on "free" trade and enterprise and
a strong military. (Founder Herman Kahn was a physicist and military strategist
who suggested that nuclear war could be won). Hudson has published numerous
articles by Dennis Avery, author of Saving the Planet with Pesticides and
Plastic, and Michael Fumento. It is funded by, amongst others: AgrEvo,
Dow AgroSciences, Monsanto, Novartis Crop Protection, Zeneca, Du Pont,
DowElanco, ConAgra, Cargill, Procter & Gamble. Dennis Avery is the
director of the Hudson Institute's Center for Global Food Issues.
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/organic.htm
See also: Avery, Dennis; and Avery, Alex
Hume Mick, LM, Spiked , Times
Tony Gilland
science and society director, Institute of Ideas
I
Institute of Arable Crops Research (IACR)
IACR are part of a consortium of 3 research groups carrying out UK
government work on farm-scale trials. IACR is supposed to be independent,
yet the scientists who work under its umbrella also work for the biotech
companies. IACR’s Dr Mike May and Dr Alan Dewar are two of the "independent
scientists" responsible for overseeing the farmscale trials but they also
undertake research for Aventis and Monsanto - the very companies whose
crops are being assessed in the farmscale trials.
IACR’s Dr Peter Lutman is a co-author of a report to the government
on progress on the trials. Dr Lutman also works for CropGen, a pro-GM spin
campaign set up and financed by the biotech industry. Two other scientists
from IACR are also part of CropGen.
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/farmcon.htm
Institute of Economic Affairs
This far-right think tank was founded in the 1950s by Anthony Fisher
with a fortune made from intensively farmed broiler chickens (Buxted Chickens).
IEA promotes the view that deregulated intensive farming and unfettered
free trade are of environmental benefit. Its publications include a book
on rainforests by GM supporter and Counterblast contributor Prof Philip
Stott, which claims to debunk "the eco-imperialist vision" which threatens
the world; and a paper attacking the Biosafety Protocol by Henry Miller,
the deregulator who once presided over the FDA's Office of Biotechnology.
C S Prakash is another contributor to an IEA publication, and IEA provided
him with a London platform. The IEA has links to the Hudson Institute in
the US. In 1999 it published a book entitled Fearing Food: Risk, Health
and the Environment with a contribution from Dennis Avery of the Hudson
Institute on "The fallacy of the organic utopia". IEA issued a press release
announcing the book, claiming "Londoners demand regulation of potentially
deadly organic food". The press release was based on a survey by IEA which
used the phrase "carbon-based biological technologies" instead of "organic":
"Farmers… are adopting carbon-based biological technologies to make novel
foods to be sold at premium prices in niche markets. Some proponents of
these technologies are demanding government subsidies to expand the areas
cultivated under these techniques claiming environmental benefits and better
tasting foods."
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/rightwing.htm
International Food Information Council
Mission: "...a nonprofit organization that communicates sound science-based
information on food safety and nutrition topics to health professionals,
journalists, government officials and consumers." Includes an article titled
"What The Experts Say About Food Biotechnology" on its website (February
2000) stating "Foods from biotechnology are safe", "Biotechnology offers
benefits" and "Biotechnology has additional supporters". This article includes
quotes from Dennis Avery and Henry I. Miller.
IFIC staff include Sylvia Rowe, president and CEO; and David B. Schmidt,
Senior Vice President.
International
Food Information Council touting continuing US consumer support for
GE foods:
"American consumer support for food biotechnology is holding steady,
while specific benefits are resonating even more in the latest survey
conducted for the International Food Information Council"
We noted that IFIC's annually conducted PR media fest on this issue
is
based on surveys including such unbiased questions as whether consumers
would be more or less likely to buy foods "modified by biotechnology
to
taste better or fresher" or "enhanced through biotechnology to be
protected from insect damage and require fewer pesticide applications".
We also noted that in a footnote to their press release this U.S.
"communications organization" noted that, "IFIC is supported primarily
by the broad-based food, beverage and agricultural industries."
Precisely who these supporters are was not specified and a visit to
the
IFIC website also failed to reveal its funders. But an NGINeer has
now
forwarded us a PDF of a power point presentation in which the head
of
the IFIC spells out, for the likes of the Food and Consumer Products
Manufacturers of Canada, just who its funders are.
The full list is reproduced below and hey, wouldn't you know it, in
addition to the usual food/beverage suspects (Nestle, Unilever et al),
the list includes MONSANTO, not to mention Aventis, BASF, Cargill,
Dow,
DuPont, and Syngenta.
Our industrious NGINeer comments, 'looks like we have "big biotech"
doing a "big tobacco" -- hiding their own soapbox at the back of
everyone else's.'
2002 IFIC Supporters
• A. E. Staley Manufacturing Company
• Ajinomoto U. S. A., Inc.
• Archer Daniels Midland Company
• Aventis CropScience
• BASF
• Burger King Corporation
• Cargill, Incorporated
• The Coca- Cola Company
• Danisco- Cultor
• The Dannon Company, Inc.
• Dow AgroSciences, LLC
• DuPont Agricultural Products
• Jack In The Box, Inc.
• Frito- Lay, Inc.
• General Mills, Inc.
• Gerber Products Company
• Hershey Foods Corporation
• H. J. Heinz Company
• Keebler Company
• Kellogg USA, Inc.
• Kraft Foods
• M& M/ Mars
• McDonald’s Corporation
• McNeil Nutritionals
• Mead Johnson Nutritionals
• Merisant
• Monsanto Company
• The Pepsi- Cola Company
• Nestle USA, Inc.
• Nutrinova, Inc.
• Ocean Spray Cranberries, Inc.
• Taco Bell Corporation
• The Procter & Gamble Company
• Ross Products Division/ Abbott Laboratories
• Sara Lee Corporation
• Syngenta
• Unilever Bestfoods
The IFIC presentation this list comes from can be found at:
http://www.fcpmc.com/english/events/presentations/
For a PDF/3.7 MB download select:
CFIC-FCPMC Obesity Seminar, June 25, 2002
Sylvia Rowe
IFIC
The American Obesity Experience: IFIC Strategies
The press release below which tells us that, 'Support for food
biotechnology holds in the U.S.' reports the results from the latest
annual survey of the International Food Information Council. But you'll
have to read down to a footnote to discover that, "IFIC is supported
primarily by the broad-based food, beverage and agricultural
industries." Precisely who those supporters are is not specified.
The press release also fails to tell you that the surveys were devised
for the IFIC by Dr Thomas Hoban, Professor of Sociology and Food Science
at North Carolina State University and a rabid supporter of genetic
engineering. Hoban is listed by CS Prakash as an AgBioWorld expert.
[http://www.agbioworld.org/biotech_info/experts/experts.html]
Hoban's publications include such gems as, "Biotechnology is Here to
Stay: American retailers need not worry about consumer acceptance of
foods produced with modern biotechnology", and an outreach videotape,
"Biotechnology: It's Role in Your Future". [http://www4.ncsu.edu:8030/~hobantj/]
The IFIC press release also fails to mention just how loaded Hoban's
survey questions are. Questions like:
"All things being equal, how likely would you be to buy a variety of
produce, like tomatoes or potatoes, if it had been modified by
biotechnology to taste better or fresher?"
"Biotechnology has also been used to enhance plants that yield foods
like cooking oils. If cooking oil with reduced saturated fat made from
these new plants was available, what effect would the use of
biotechnology have on your decision to buy this cooking oil."
[U.S. Consumer Attitudes Toward Food Biotechnology Survey:
http://ific.org/relatives/17860.pdf]
According to Karen Charman in a PR Watch article on Hoban and his
slanted IFIC surveys:
'James Beniger, a communications professor at the University of Southern
California and past president of the American Association for Public
Opinion Research, reviewed the IFIC survey and said it is so biased
with
leading questions favoring positive responses that any results are
meaningless. UCLA communications professor Michael Suman agreed, adding
that the questions "only talk about the food tasting better, being
fresher, protecting food from insect damage, reducing saturated fat
and
providing benefits. It's like saying 'Here's biotechnology, it does
these great things for you, do you like it?'" The results might be
different, Suman offers, if it contained questions biased in the other
direction such as: "Some people contend that some foods produced from
biotechnology cause higher rates of cancer. If that is so, what effect
would that have on your buying decision?" '
[The Professor Who Can Read Your Mind by Karen Charman in PR Watch
Vol.
6, No. 4 / Fourth Quarter 1999
http://www.prwatch.org/99-Q4/hoban.html#start]
---
http://ific.org/proactive/newsroom/release.vtml?id=19981&PROACTIVE_ID=cecfcfc6cbc7cdcacac5cecfcfcfc5cecfc6c9cfcdcbc8cdcec5cf
SUPPORT FOR FOOD BIOTECHNOLOGY HOLDS IN THE U.S.
September 23, 2002
IFIC
American consumer support for food biotechnology is holding steady,
while
specific benefits are resonating even more in the latest survey conducted
for the International Food Information Council by Cogent Research in
August
2002.
Nearly three quarters (71% vs. 65% in 2001) of the US population said
they
would be likely to buy produce that had been enhanced through biotechnology
to be protected from insect damage and require fewer pesticide applications.
In addition, more than half of American consumers (54%) would be likely
to
purchase the same produce if it had been enhanced to taste better or
fresher, a number that has remained stable since October 1999.
Most (61%) of consumers still expect to benefit from biotechnology
over the
next five years. Of those expecting benefits, 41% look to improved
quality,
taste, and variety, 39% cite the area of health and nutrition, and
20%
expect biotech to reduce levels of chemicals and pesticides in food
production.
Overall awareness of biotechnology remains high, with 72% of Americans
stating they have read or heard information about the issue, and nearly
half
of consumers (48%) have heard about a new area of biotechnology called
plant-made pharmaceuticals.
A majority (59%) of Americans support the FDA's labeling policy-which
requires disclosure on a food label only if biotechnology introduces
an
allergen or substantially changes the food's nutritional content. Also,
when
asked what information they would like to see added to food labels,
78% of
consumers said "nothing" and just 1% cited information related to biotech
ingredients.
The survey was conducted in August 2002 by Cogent Research of Cambridge,
Massachusetts. Telephone surveys of 1001 US adults age 18 and over
were
completed, and the attached results are representative of the US population.
###
International Food Information Council (IFIC) is a nonprofit
organization that communicates sound science-based information on food
safety and nutrition topics to health professionals, journalists,
government officials and consumers. IFIC programs are supported by
the
broad-based food, beverage and agriculture industries. IFIC materials
can be found online at http://ific.org.
International Foundation for the Conservation of Natural Resources
"Funny-money" attorney behind new biotech advocacy campaign
In mid-December a new pro-biotech website suddenly popped out of the
virtual ether: http://biotech.ifcnr.com/
The organisation ostensibly behind the site, IFCNR - the International
Foundation for the Conservation of Natural Resources - appear to have
had no active role in biotech advocacy previously. The rationale behind
their
new area of work is clear:
"The failure of the Life Science sector to establish its own advocacy
strategies - based on science and the truth - leaves institutions such
as Trader Joe's virtually disarmed when confronted by critics such
as Greenpeace."
This raises the "specter of having radical and self-serving NGOs dictate
the nation's and the world's food policies based on deceptive tactics.
That is an unforgivable disservice to the public, to science, and to
the
environment. It should not, and must not be allowed."
and
"The "victory" by Greenpeace signals the absolute necessity of
agricultural biotechnology concerns to create compelling advocacy
campaigns of their own..."
[Trader Joe's Defenseless Against Greenpeace
http://biotech.ifcnr.com/article.cfm?NewsID=236]
It also made plain one of the lines of attack of such "compelling
advocacy campaigns":
"the egregiously self-serving economic incentives inherent in
Greenpeace's position... Greenpeace and other participants in the Trader
Joe's campaign are heavily invested in the organic food industry.
Greenpeace's United Kingdom office head is one of the largest organic
farmers in Europe."
This is the same smear that ended up in the High Court in London after
a
UK newspaper published a letter which the court was told came from
Prof
Anthony Trewavas but which there is evidence was part of a similar
industry campaign to smear biotech critics as tainted by association
with violence, on the one hand, and as motivated by financial
self-interest, on the other .
IFCNR has articulated the familiar lines of attack once more in a new
year
message, "So why are environmental and animal rights advocacy groups
rampaging about the globe destroying field tests of these new crops,
vandalizing the research facilities... They employ the tactics of
strong-arm extortionists and thugs against retailers such as Trader
Joe's grocery outlets for stocking products containing even trace
amounts of biotech-enhanced hybrid foods, developed and safety tested
for the past decade."
This is part of a "Statement" by the President of the International
Foundation for the Conservation of Natural Resources, Stephen S. Boynton.
Whose money may be backing IFCNR and Boynton's new found interest in
biotech advocacy is not known but Boynton certainly could be something
of an expert on "self-serving economic incentives".
His biotech advocacy role follows on from such lurid pasts capers as
a
clandestine anti-Clinton campaign that helped bolster the legal efforts
of Paula Jones in her sexual harassment lawsuit where "critical
assistance was provided by Stephen S. Boynton, a conservative Virginia
attorney"
http://www.salon.com/news/1998/06/cov_08news.html
Boynton drew on long-standing ties to rightwing billionaire Richard
Mellon
Scaife and was a key player in Scaife's anti-Clinton Arkansas Project
in
which $1.8 million, was "paid out in "legal expenses" with no further
explanation of what sort of legal services were provided... records
indicate that the money went to conservative lawyer Stephen Boynton
and... David Henderson, who in turn funneled some of the money to
various anti-Clinton operatives". A certain "lack of documentation"
to
support the money flowing to Boynton and Henderson has been alledged.
[http://www.salon.com/]
International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications
(ISAAA)
An organisation funded by Northern developers of GMOs, with the aim
of helping developing countries of the South take up GM technology. Funders
include Aventis, Monsanto, Novartis, Pioneer Hi-Bred and USAID. Its multi-million
dollar budget is matched by high-profile board members, past and present,
such as: Monsanto's Robert Fraley, Wally Beversdorf of Novartis, and Gabrielle
Persley, Executive Director of AusBiotech Alliance and advisor to the World
Bank. In a report on ISAAA's activities in Asia, GRAIN concluded that its
role was one of "promoting corporate profit in the name of the poor".
ISAAA’s chairman is Clive James. Its annual reports on the global uptake
of GMOs, commissioned by the biotech industry, are notorious for hyping
the extent of the uptake and the supposed benefits. Many of its claims
on the basis of producer estimates have been shown to be contrary to the
findings of properly controlled scientific studies.
For more on ISAAA, see the GRAIN briefing: 'ISAAA in Asia - Promoting
Corporate Profit in the Name of the Poor' at
http://www.grain.org/publications/reports/isaaa.htm]
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/false.htm
See also: Wilson, Prof T. Michael
J
John Innes Centre (JIC)
The UK's leading plant biotech centre
Despite receiving funding from almost every major biotech company,
JIC scientists claim to be independent of industry because commercial sponsorship
represents only about 10% or less of their overall annual funding. In reality,
however, corporate influence extends well beyond the issue of direct funding
and could be said to relate to the whole current culture within which the
JIC operates. The JIC's main public funding body, the Biotechnology and
Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), has committed those it sponsors
to integrating scientific opportunity with the needs of industry. This
is known as "market pull" and means that the research direction of UK scientists
in the biosciences has been made increasingly dependent on corporate investment
and commercial relevance.
The JIC's other main funding sources are the EU and the Gatsby Trust
of Lord Sainsbury, a long-standing GM enthusiast. It is perhaps not surprising,
then, that Prof Mike Gale, the former Acting Director of the JIC, has stated
that any slow down or halt in the development of GM crops "would be very,
very serious for us."
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/biospin.htm
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/pants4.htm
Jones, Prof Jonathan
Senior Scientist in the Sainsbury Laboratory of the John Innes Centre
Jones has published several pieces on GMOs in the national press and
was reportedly an advisor to Number 10 during the Pusztai crisis in February
1999. Sample quote: "The future benefits (for consumers and the environment)
will be enormous and the best is yet to come. In the meantime, let's have
more information and less rhetoric."
He has attacked GM critics as self-serving and for "quite literally
leading everyone up the garden path." At his public talks, Jones claims
that GM crops have made aerial spraying of pesticides unnecessary in the
US, resulting in "crop dusters" going "out of business because plants are
so [pest] resistant, there’s no business for applying insecticides indiscriminately
from aeroplanes". However, according to leading US agronomist Dr Charles
Benbrook, insecticide use in the US has been on the increase. While "crop
dusters" are indeed going out of business, says Benbrook, this is because
"fewer and fewer pesticides may be applied aerial, because of drift. Virtually
all the new chemistry is incompatible with aerial application." Dr Benbrook’s
conclusion on Jones’ much repeated claim that crop dusters are going out
of business because of GM crops: "This fellow does not know what he is
talking about."
So where did Jones get his data? He told NGIN he read it in a newspaper!
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/pants3.htm
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/biospin.htm
K
Karembu, Dr Margaret
Dr Margaret Karembu is a lecturer in the Faculty of Environmental Studies
at Kenyatta University. She is projects support researcher at the (principally
biotech industry funded) International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech
Applications (ISAAA) AfriCenter based in Nairobi where she previously worked
with the Monsanto-trained biotechnician Florence Wambugu. Florence Wambugu
also serves on DuPont’s Biotechnology Advisory Panel. ISAAA currently has
Novartis, and previously had Monsanto, on its board.
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/pants4.htm
Kisan Coordination Committee
Ambethan, India
www.angelfire.com/in/farmersforfreedom/fccdefault.html
comprises of some of the erstwhile farmer
unions, which have now lost control over their constituencies. It basically
consists of Sharad Joshi of the Maharashtra Shetkari Sanghtana and
Bhupinder
Singh Mann of Bharti Kisan Union (Mann) of Punjab, and some other breakaway
groups. Sharad Joshi is now almost alone in his Shetkari Sanghtana,
with the
dominant group breaking away and opposing WTO and GM foods. So is the
case
of Mann, whose group has shrunk in size and represents the big farmers
of
Punjab. Even there, they are no longer in reckoning.
It is primarily to avoid any political embarrassment that they have
formed
the new body called : Kisan Coordination Committee. This was the group
which
had held a press conference in New Delhi (hosted by Liberty Institute)
a day
before Bt cotton was approved for cultivation on March 26. Earlier,
a year
ago, Devinder Sharmad found them (along with Changal Reddy of Federation
of Farmers
Associations) at the public dialogue that GEAC had called last year
in which
I had participated and wherein, if you recall, we had succeeded in
getting
the commercial approval delayed by one year.
All these people had come for that meeting and were sitting with Monsanto
MD
in that meeting.
Klug, Sir Aaron
President, Royal Society
Klug is the boss of Rebecca Bowden, who runs the Royal Society’s"rebuttal
unit" promoting GM crops. Klug made a high-profile attack on Pusztai’s
research after it was published in the Lancet, saying it was fatally flawed
in design because the protein content of the diets which control groups
of rats were fed on was not the same as that of the other diets. Pusztai
commented: "In fact, the paper clearly states that ALL diets had the same
protein content and were iso-energetic. I cannot assume that Sir Aaron
is not sufficiently intelligent to read a simple statement as that, so
the only conclusion I can come to is that he deliberately briefed the reporters
with something that was untrue."
Dr Richard Horton, editor of the Lancet, commented: "Aaron Klug defends
the Royal Society’s wish to damn Ewen and Pusztai’s work in the absence
of both investigators [as BBSRC researchers, they were gagged]. What he
cannot defend is the reckless decision of the Royal Society to abandon
the principle of due process in passing judgement on their work.
To review and then publish criticism of these researchers‚ findings without
publishing either their original data or their response was, at best, unfair
and ill-judged."
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/rs.htm
http://www.btinternet.com/~clairejr/Pusztai/puszta_6.html
See also: Bowden, Rebecca
Klurfeld, David
Scientific Advisor to the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH)
Professor and Chair of the Department of Nutrition and Food Science
at Wayne State University
Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the American College of Nutrition
Editor of Nutrition News Focus - A publication which has included a
series of ten pro-GM articles (Dec 1999 - Feb 2000).
Author of "Organic Food: Food for Thought?" - An article published
(17 Feb 2000) on the ACSH website which attempts to build on the ABC News
20/20 program produced by John Stossel. This biased program tried to perpetuate
the myth of E. coli contamination in organic food.
Krebs, Sir John
Director, Food Standards Agency
Zoologist Krebs was a member of the SIRC forum that issued the Guidelines
on Science and Health Communication, which tell journalists how to report
GM issues. He was unsympathetic to concerns about GM foods before he was
appointed as head of the FSA, dismissing them as "shrill, often ill-informed
and dogma-driven". On the day of his appointment, Krebs already felt able
to assure the BBC’s Newsnight that present GM products "are as safe as
their non-GM counter-products".
FSA under Krebs has:
* Spun results of the only human feeding trial of GM foods (see Food
Standards Agency) into the conclusion that GM foods are safe, whereas the
results of the study and independent scientists point to the worrying fact
that GM DNA does survive in the small intestine and transfers to bacteria
in the gut
* Announced an expensive safety inquiry into organic food, which has
a high level of consumer confidence
* Attacked organic food as "an image-led fad". Dr Patrick Wall, the
chief executive of the Food Safety Authority of Ireland, described Krebs'
views on organic food as "extreme"
* Opposed EU attempts to extend GM food labelling to derivatives such
as oils
* Played a role in producing weak international guidelines on GM food
allergenicity testing.
Krebs is not alone at the FSA in terms of links to the biotech lobby.
The director of the Scottish arm of the FSA is Dr George Paterson, who
has been linked to major GM food safety scandals in Canada. Krebs chaired
OECD's GM conference in Edinburgh - described by Dr Arpad Pusztai, the
only critical food scientist invited, as not so much a conference as "a
propaganda forum for airing the views and promoting the interests of the
biotech industry."
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/pants1.htm
See also: Food Standards Agency (FSA); Paterson, Dr George
L
Lachmann, Peter
Former vice president and biological secretary, The Royal Society
President of the Academy of Medical Sciences
An article in The Guardian (1 Nov 99) identifies Lachmann as the man
who called Dr Richard Horton, editor of The Lancet, and threatened "that
his job would be at risk if he published controversial research questioning
the safety of genetically modified foods." The article goes on: "Dr Horton
said he was called at his office in central London on the morning of Wednesday
October 13, two days before the Lancet published a research paper by Arpad
Pusztai, the scientist at the centre of the GM controversy.
"Dr Horton, editor of the Lancet since 1995, said the phone call began
in a ‘very aggressive manner’. He said he was called ‘immoral’ and accused
of publishing Dr Pusztai's paper which he ‘knew to be untrue’. Towards
the end of the call Dr Horton said the caller told him that if he published
the Pusztai paper it would ‘have implications for his personal position’
as editor." Horton went ahead and published the paper and still edits
The Lancet.
While vice-president of the Royal Society, Lachmann chaired a special
working group on GM plants for food use and wrote a report which the Society
says is used as a "source document" by the government. His CV includes
a recent consultancy to Geron Biomed, which markets the animal cloning
technology behind Dolly the sheep, and a non-executive directorship for
the biotech company Adprotech. Lachmann is also on the scientific advisory
board of SmithKline Beecham, which invests heavily in biotechnology. When
interviewed by the Guardian, he denied any conflict of interest.
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/rs.htm
Leaver, Prof Chris
Dept of Plant Sciences, University of Oxford
Fellow of the Royal Society
On the board of the Science Media Centre
Leaver is a member of the governing council of the John Innes Centre
(and a Trustee of the John Innes Foundation) - Lord Sainsbury's favourite
science institute and the recipient of a considerable amount of his largesse.
In 2000, Lord Sainsbury appointed Leaver to the council of the BBSRC, the
main UK public funding body for the bio-sciences, whose chairman is the
former executive director of Zeneca. BBSRC is the JIC's principal funder.
Leaver told New Scientist that organic farms can never expand significantly,
as they benefit from the pesticides sprayed onto neighbouring fields. "Organic
agriculture thrives because it has a cordon sanitaire of conventional crops
around it," he said. If conventional crops fall in number, the yields of
organic crops will drop, making them less economic." Leaver presented no
evidence for this belief.
Leaver has attacked Prince Charles for his "selective religious beliefs
to suit his own lifestyle" a reference to the Prince’s championing
of organic farming and scepticism of GM. Leaver teamed up with Trewavas
and Derek Burke (formerly of ACNFP and chair of governing council of the
John Innes Centre), to attack the critique of substantial equivalence by
Erik Millstone published in Nature. Leaver also rushed out a press release
and initiated a raft of attacks, circulated by e-mail, on a published paper
by Ho which raised concerns over the CaMV 35S promoter, mainly based on
a report published by Kohli of the JIC.
See also: Science Media Centre; John Innes Centre; Biotechnology and
Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC)
Lichtenstein, Conrad Paul
Professor of Molecular Biology at Queen Mary College, University of
London
Lichtenstein was vice chairman of the pro-GM 2001 Seeds of Opportunity
Conference in London, which had among its speakers C S Prakash. Lichtenstein
is a keen supporter of GM crops and contributes regularly to the Prakash
list.
Life Sciences Network
http://ngin.tripod.com/230702a.htm - also weevers
Living Marxism (LM)
Journalist George Monbiot says of this bizarre pro-corporate Marxist
clique: "the closer one looks at LM, the weaker its link to the oppressed
appears, and the stronger its links to the oppressor. It has, in other
words, less in common with the left than with the fanatical right." LM
produced a magazine, Living Marxism (later, Last Magazine), which was sued
out of existence by ITN for its denial of Serbian war crimes. The avowedly
anti-imperialist LM ran articles by Roger Bate of the Institute for Economic
Affairs, which advocates that African countries should be sold to multinational
corporations in order to bring "good government" to the continent. LM’s
agenda is still pursued through other media outlets by former staff and
columnists.
TV producer Martin Durkin (who denies links with LM but calls himself
a Marxist, employs LM former staff on his programmes and features interviews
with LM former contributors) made the Channel 4 TV series Against Nature.
Against Nature followed the agenda laid down by LM: that greens are not
radicals, but doom-mongering imperialists; that global warming is nothing
to worry about; that "sustainable development" is a conspiracy against
people; while germline gene therapy and human cloning will liberate humanity
from nature. In the series, LM contributers rubbed shoulders with Larry
Craig, a far right Republican senator; Julian Simon, Ronald Reagan’s favourite
economist, and Michael Gough, who, like Simon, belongs to far-right think-tank
the Cato Institute. All maintained an identical position, identifying environmentalists
as covert Nazi sympathisers. The series was censured by the ITC for distorting
the views of contributors. However, Channel 4 commissioned another programme
from Durkin, on GM, as part of its Equinox series. It was rabidly pro-GM
and again, contributors complained that their views were misrepresented.
Another LM veteran is Science Media Centre director Fiona Fox, who
made her name writing articles for LM dismissing public outrage at Rwandan
genocide as "emotional over-reaction".
See also: Durkin, Martin; Fox, Fiona; Science Media Centre (SMC), Spiked,
Institute of Ideas
Lutman, Dr Peter
Lutman works at the Institute of Arable Crops Research (IACR), part
of a consortium of research groups carrying out government work on farm-scale
trials. The consortium has contracts worth £3.3 million with
the government for this work. Lutman is a co-author of a report to the
government on progress on the trials.
Lutman also works for CropGen, an initiative launched by the biotechnology
industry to make the case for GM crops. Two other scientists from IACR,
Dr Nigel Halford and Dr Guy Poppy, are also part of CropGen. CropGen have
confirmed to Friends of the Earth that scientists on the CropGen panel
are paid "honoraria" for their work as panel members.
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/sack.htm
M
Malloch Brown, Mark
The new head of the UN World Development Program (UNDP), Mark Malloch
Brown, was previously the World Bank's vice president for external affairs
and its vice president for United Nations Affairs. When Brown moved from
the World Bank to the UN, the World Bank president James Wolfensohn said,
"I believe that Mark will do a wonderful job as head of the UNDP, and I
wish him every success. I am certain that his appointment will further
strengthen the partnership between the Bank and the UN system." (April
1999)
Malloch Brown has said of GM: "it would be wrong for rich Northern
consumers... to block development of these technologies that hold so much
promise to help feed the poor". His first act was to commission UNDP’s
annual 'Human Development Report'. Previous reports have contained clear
analysis of the true causes of inequality, but this was the first to promote
the notion that GM crops are the solution for third world poverty and that
western environmentalists are standing in the way of their progress. Oxfam,
Greenpeace International, Actionaid, the Intermediate Technology Development
Group and more than 290 grassroots and farmers’ groups around the world
objected strongly to the report's conclusions. The UNDP then issued an
Open Letter defending the report, in which they named only Greenpeace as
a critic. Conveniently, the report came out days before the OECD meeting
on GM food and crops in Bangkok, chaired by Lord Selbourne (chair of the
British Chemicals Stakeholder Forum), and delegates predictably endorsed
it.
May, Sir Robert (Lord May of Oxford)
President of the Royal Society (from 2000)
Former chief scientific advisor to Tony Blair’s government (from 1995)
Received knighthood in 1996
After Pusztai went public with his doubts about the safety of GM foods,
followed by the publication in 1999 of the British Medical Association
report calling for an indefinite moratorium on GM crops, no less than four
reports on biotechnology were rushed out in the space of two days. All
trumpeted the safety of GM foods and crops, and all condemned Pusztai’s
research, which suggested the opposite. The first report was by the government's
chief scientific advisor, Sir Robert May, and the chief medical advisor,
Prof Liam Donaldson (the May/Donaldson report). This conveniently timed
package enabled cabinet enforcer Dr Jack Cunningham to announce that Pusztai's
work had been "comprehensively discredited." Sir Robert May added that
Dr Pusztai was guilty of "violating every canon of scientific rectitude"
by speaking publicly about his results before the paper had been peer reviewed
and published. He has expressed no such outrage at the numerous examples
of pro-GM scientists who make claims for the benefits of GM food based
on faith and opinion rather than peer-reviewed data.
http://www.btinternet.com/~clairejr/Pusztai/puszta_2.html
http://www.btinternet.com/~clairejr/Pusztai/puszta_4.html
May, Dr Mike
May and Dr Alan Dewar of the Institute of Arable Crops Research (IACR)
are two of the "independent scientists" responsible for overseeing the
farmscale trials but they also undertake research for Aventis and Monsanto
- the very companies whose crops are being assessed in the farmscale trials.
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/farmcon.htm
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/morley.htm
McKie, Robin
Science editor, The Observer
Wrote an article (Observer, 9 Sept 2001) on contraceptive corn genetically
engineered to attack sperm along the lines of "Waving fields of maize may
one day save the world from overpopulation". The only concession McKie
made to the question of what happens if the gene escapes to other organisms
or gets into the food supply was to say "The company [Epicyte]… says it
will not grow the maize near other crops". So that’s all right then!
Broccoli [JONATHAN, COULD NOT FIND MCKIE IN ANY BROCCOLI BULLETINS]
Metz, Dr Matthew
Former graduate student of the Plant and Microbial Biology department
at UC Berkeley
Currently post-doctoral fellow at Washington University
AgBioWorld supporter Metz co-authored a letter published in Nature
(March 2001) which attacked UC Berkeley researchers Chapela and Quist’s
paper (also published in Nature). Chapela and Quist’s paper had shown GM
contamination of indigenous Mexican maize, a conclusion verified by the
Mexican government. Metz called Chapela’s paper a "testament to technical
incompetence" and pointed out that Chapela was on the board of the Pesticide
Action Network (PANNA), suggesting that "an ideological conflict encouraged
this lapse in scientific integrity". He told the Washington Post (25 Mar
2002): ""...the primary concern for many of us is that science is being
abused, that the scientific process is being taken advantage of for ideological
reasons."
Chapela said that the scientific criticism of his work was part of
a vendetta by supporters of a 1998 $25m deal between Novartis (now part
of Syngenta) and UC Berkeley a deal which Chapela had opposed at
a government hearing. Metz argued in his Nature letter that the Novartis
deal had been a boon for Berkeley. Yet, in the view of many, the deal is
an extreme example of the alignment of a place of higher education with
corporate interests.
In March 2000 Metz collaborated on the production for AgBioWorld of
a document called 'Critical issues in agricultural biotechnology'. Metz
worked with:
* Barun Mitra of the Liberty Institute, "a free market think tank in
India", which supports the unregulated introduction of GM crops.
* Andrew Apel, editor of the industry newsletter, AgBiotech Reporter
one of the most extreme of Prakash's supporters. Apel used the Sept
11 attacks to claim that critics of GE, like Drs Mae-Wan Ho and Vandana
Shiva, had "blood on their hands".
* Gregory Conko of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and co-founder
of the AgBioWorld Foundation. Yet Metz claimed in a letter to the Guardian
(12 Jun 2002) denying his right-wing stance that he and Conko "have never
exchanged so much as a single message with each other".
The document Metz worked on for AgBioWorld is on its website but it
now omits Metz's role in compiling it:
http://www.agbioworld.org/biotech_info/articles/critical.html
Millar, Helen
Millar is a former member of the UK Advisory Committee on Novel Foods
and Processes (ACNFP), the main regulators of GM foods in the UK. She is
also a paid advisor to CropGen, the biotech industry-sponsored initiative
to promote GM foods.
Miller, Henry I
Senior research fellow at the Hoover Institution Henry
I. Miller, a physician, is a fellow at the Hoover
Institution. He was an official at the FDA from 1979-1994
and is the author of Policy Controversy in Biotechnology:
An Insider's View
Miller is a director of industry front-group The American Council on
Science and Health and a member of the UN’s Codex Alimentarius committee
on GM foods. With Michael Fumento, Steven Milloy and ACSH’s Elizabeth Whelan,
Miller is one of the "No More Scares" industry front-group and co-editor
of its publication The Fear Profiteers. He is joint author, with Gregory
Conko of "Cloudy horizons in a brave new world" - an article on the European
Science and Economic Forum website which suggests that concerns about the
safety of GM food are only because of "trade protectionism" and "anti-science
fearmongering". Miller and Conko argue against the adoption of the precautionary
principle, which would insist on safety testing of GM foods before they
are released, on the grounds that "This erects an almost insurmountable
barrier against new products because nothing can be proved totally safe
- at least, not to the standard demanded by anti-technology extremists."
For these men, bringing a product to market quickly is more important than
ensuring the safety of that product.
Milloy, Steven
Founder and president of Citizens for the Integrity of Science and
executive director of The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition (TASSC),
which is run by a division of Grey Advertising called APCO. TASCC is funded
by Dow Chemical, Exxon, theNational Pest Control Association, Amoco, Lorillard,
Occidental Petroleum, Phillip Morris (Grey's largest client), W.R. Grace
and other corporations interested in discrediting epidemiological and toxicological
studies contrary to their interests. Milloy is also an adjunct scholar
at the Cato Institute and a columnist for FoxNews.com. He is best known
as the publisher of the Junk Science website. The self-styled "Junkman"
worked in the 1990s for PR companies when he lobbied for Monsanto amongst
others. Evidence exists that Milloy's "junk science" internet mission was
founded with Philip Morris tobacco money as part of their campaign to undermine
industry-critical research. The Philip Morris campaign was waged via front
organisations such as The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition, of which
Milloy was director, and which is listed as the originator of the Junk
Science website. When Dr. David Rall, founder of the National Institute
of Environmental Health Sciences, was fatally injured in a car accident,
Milloy posted this "obituary of the day" on his website: "Scratch one junk
scientist.... He was a bad guy when he was alive [and] death did not
improve his track record." When pressed by the Environmental Working Group
to apologize to Rall's family, Milloy refused.
http://www.electric-words.com/junk/milloy/milloy.html
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/scisale.htm
Mitra Barrun
http://ngin.tripod.com/290802c.htm
Mitra also has strong AgBioWorld connections. He collaborated on a
rabidly pro-GE AgBioWorld document called 'critical issues in agricultural
biotechnology' with AgBioWorld co-founder, Gregory Conko of the Competitive
Enterprise Institute (described by PR Watch as a "well-funded front for
corporations").
[http://www.agbioworld.org/biotech_info/articles/critical.html]
Mitra's Liberty Institute has lobbied hard for approval of Monsanto's
GE cotton in India, claiming there should be "free access" to new technologies
without any Government regulation or "interference", "Any government
is ill-placed to judge the merits and the potential of any frontier technology.
The
vetoing power of the government is susceptible to being misused by
vested interests who concoct pseudo-scientific arguments and often use
unethical
means for influencing government's decisions."
The Liberty Institute even hosted a press conference at which representatives
of large corporate farmers threatened to grow Monsanto's GE cotton
regardless of Government approval. The Liberty Institute has
also been a strong supporter of Big Tobacco, publishing, for example, an
attack on the
World Health Organisation by Roger Scruton - the philosopher exposed
as in the pay of the tobacco industry. The Liberty Institute is also part
of
rightwing coalitions like the International Consumers for Civil Society
(ICCS) and the International Policy Network
(IPN), as is Prakash's AgbioWorld.
Mullineaux Phil
Application from Monsanto Europe S.A. to market maize genetically modified
for herbicide tolerance and insect resistance (ref C/GB/02/M3/3)
Prof P Mullineaux declared an interest as he was recently in receipt
of a
research grant from Monsanto but was not involved with this application
from Mins of ACRE mtg 23.5.02
McHugan Alan
http://ngin.tripod.com/280702b.htm
Alan McHughen, Professor and Senior Research Scientist at the Crop
Development Centre at the
University of Saskatchewan, Canada 9now Riverside ca?). McHughen is
the author of 'Pandora's Picnic Basket', a popular guide to GM that argues
that many of the concerns
about genetic engineering are based in reality on "myths" and "misinformation".
McHughen has even claimed, "Opponents to GM put forward untenable
pseudo-scientific assertions, then run away, unwilling or unable to
defend their positions." McHughen's robust support for genetic engineering
is
somewhat unsurprising given that McHughen himself is a biotechnologist,
seeking to engineer industrial traits into flax.
In that context the following passage in the Science and Policy Perspectives article is particularly striking:
'Another scientist who strongly sides with Chapela is Alan McHughen,
a researcher at the Crop Development Center at the University of Saskatchewan
in
Canada. McHughen is one of those who believe the outburst toward Chapela
was far out of proportion to the alleged offense and senses that the attacks
on
Quist and Chapela were coordinated and conspiratorial. "I think there
are a group of people who for whatever reason don't want to hear anything
at all
about reasons to question the technology," says McHughen. "I read Chapela's
paper over and over again and I just couldn't find anything that was
inflammatory about it." '
Moore, Patrick
The biotech industry’s supporters hyped Moore’s supposed "recent" break
from Greenpeace, an organisation which he "co-founded", on the grounds
of its "abandoning science and following agendas that have little to do
with saving the Earth". The industry trumpeted his signing of Prakash’s
Declaration in Support of Agricultural Biotechnology which assailed the
"campaign of fear now being waged against genetic modification (which)
is based largely on fantasy and a complete lack of respect for science
and logic..." Moore was flown in by the biotech industry to appear as one
of its witnesses at the Royal Commission on Genetic Modification in New
Zealand.
In fact, when Moore’s career is examined, his pro-GM stance seems less
of a road-to-Damascus conversion than, well, more of the same. Moore was
just one of many founding members of Greenpeace, not one of two co-founders.
He left not recently, but in 1984-5, and according to Greenpeace's Tamara
Stark, his exit was "not necessarily by his own choice". He set up a fish
farm, which failed, and in 1991 set up his own environmental consultancy,
Greenspirit, which, however, caused controversy of its own (http://www.fanweb.org/patrick-moore).
Around the same time, he became a full-time paid director and consultant
for the British Columbia Forest Alliance. The Alliance, though presented
as a "citizens group", was the brainchild of PR firm Burson-Marstellar.
It has a budget of around $2m derived mostly from the forest industry and
its 170 or so corporate members, and campaigns for clear-cutting. Moore
claimed that the World Wildlife Fund in some cases supported clear-cutting,
provoking a furious response from Jean-Paul Jeanrenaud, head of the forest
programme of World Wide Fund for Nature International, who accused Moore
of "grossly misrepresenting" WWF's position on clearcutting, something
WWF "deplored".
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/moore.htm
Morris, Julian
With Roger Bate, Morris is co-director of the environment and technology
programme of the far-right think tank, the Institute of Economic Affairs.
He has been a key contributor to BBC programmes raising questions about
organic food. One of the programmes ('Counterblast', BBC 2, 31 Jan 2000)
was presented by Roger Bate in his then role as director of the European
Science and Environment Forum (ESEF). As far as viewers knew, Morris had
no connection with ESEF, but an ESEF domain inquiry prior to the website's
removal revealed otherwise:
Registrant: European Science and Environment Forum (ESEF-DOM) UK
Domain Name: ESEF.ORG
Administrative Contact: Morris, Julian (JM4309) 101603.3004@COMPUSERVE.COM
European Science and Environment Forum, Kersfield Road, London SW15
3HE
ESEF seems to have been synonymous with Bate and Morris. Bate and Morris
have also co-edited a book, Fearing Food: Risk, Health and the Environment,
amongst whose contributors is Dennis Avery of the Hudson Institute. Avery
has been at the heart of the anti-organic smear campaign. Bate and Morris
appear unembarrassed by the bogus nature of Avery’s claims - claims from
which the US's Centers for Disease Control have disassociated themselves,
despite Avery’s statement that it is their data on which his health warnings
about organic food are based. Bate and Morris repeated Avery’s claims in
the BBC programmes they contributed to and used them in a publicity stunt
to launch their book.
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/rightwing.htm
Moses, Prof Vivian
Visiting Professor of Biotechnology at King's College, London
Chairman, CropGen
Author of:
From Cells to Sales: Competition, selection and evolution in the marketing
of products and services, in Bio/Technology
Exploiting biotechnology. London and New York: Harwood Academic Press
Biotechnology: the science and the business. London, New York and Chur:
Harwood Academic Press.
Despite the fact that Moses has been introduced as being from a "consumer
initiative", he is paid by CropGen to speak for the biotech industry. To
view the transcript of Prof Moses debating Mark Griffiths, editor of nlpwessex’s
GM information website, on BBC Radio 4s 'Food Programme', see
http://www.mindfully.org/GE/GE4/Griffiths-Moses-BBC9jun02.htm - you
decide who's talking the most sense!
Murray, Prof Noreen
Department of Microbiology, University of Birmingham
Fellow of the Royal Society
Member of the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council
Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Biology, Stanford University, California,
1960-64
Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Botany, Cambridge University, 1964-67
Murray was chair of the Royal Society group that set the remit for
the peer review rubbishing Professor Pusztai's work even though they
did not have his full data but only a report meant for internal use among
Pusztai’s colleagues. She had earlier sat with Derek Burke on the Royal
Society's working group on 'Genetically Modified Plants for Food Use'.
In other words, her attitudes and reliability on the GE issue would already
have been known to the Society.
With her husband, Professor Sir Kenneth Murray (co-founder of the first
European based biotech company, Biogen) and Professor Jean Beggs, Prof
Noreen Murray invented the first genetically engineered vaccine (for Hepatitis
B, engineered into yeast) that was approved for human use. With financial
support from the pharmaceutical industry-funded Wellcome Trust, Noreen
and Kenneth Murray founded the Darwin Trust in Edinburgh, which conducts
biotech research.
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/articleBurke.htm
N
National Center for Public Policy Research
States on its website: "The environment is too important to leave in
the hands of political activists. Yet, this is precisely where the United
States has left most environmental decision-making in recent years. Political
activists - not authentic environmental scholars, scientists and economists
- have come to dominate both the headlines and Washington's legislative
agenda. Activists with little or no practical experience or scientific
training are frequently cited in the national news media as "experts" --
or worse, as "scientists." The result: The federal government often spends
billions in taxpayer dollars regulating peoples' lives to solve questionable
environmental risks while ignoring real ones."
The truth is that the NCPPR's own "Environmental Policy Task Force"
consists of a list of 141 "real environmental scientists, economists and
experts" including Dennis Avery, Michael Fumento and Frances B. Smith.
These members of the pro-GM lobby also have "little or no practical experience
or scientific training".
National Center Food and Agriculture Policy
Comparative Environmental Impacts of biotech derived and
Traditional Soybean, Corn and Cotton Crops?
part funded by
Monsanto
and the Biotechnology Industry Organization
another research report
commissioned by the American Soybean Association.
National Consumer Coalition
Published (15 Oct 1999) the article "World Food Day and Feeding the
World: The Threat Isn't Too Little Food; It's Too Much Government". A sample
quote: "Exciting breakthroughs in the field of biotechnology are breeding
crops more resistant to damage caused by insects, herbicides, floods, droughts,
disease, and the ravages of supermarket shelves. These new advances in
biotechnology may mean greater crop yields and lower prices on everything
from market-ready fruits and vegetables to livestock feed to thin-crust
pizzas.
"Unfortunately, a new bio-Luddism has taken hold in Europe and is growing
in the United States. Cheered on by ominous tabloid headlines about "Frankenfoods,"
Great Britain has banned some foods made from genetically modified crops
and mandated misleading and extreme labeling for others." (http://www.consumeralert.org/press/101599foodday.htm)
This article cites as NCC Food Group members:
Sam Kazman, Competitive Enterprise Institute
Alex Avery, Hudson Institute
Dennis Avery, Hudson Institute
Ruth Kava, American Council on Science and Health
James Plummer, Consumer Alert.
National Corn Growers Association Syngenta, Monsanto and others
contributed about 11 percent of the National Corn Growers Association’s
$7 million budget in fiscal year 2001, says spokesman Stewart Reeve.
see http://www.cropchoice.com/leadstry.asp?recid=587
National Office of Animal Health (NOAH)
NOAH represents the UK’s animal pharmaceutical industry. Its aim is
"to provide safe, effective, quality medicines for the treatment and welfare
of animals". Members of NOAH include Monsanto Europe and Novartis Animal
Health Ltd. NOAH lodged a complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority
against a Soil Association leaflet "Five Reasons to go Organic".
Nuffield Council on Bioethics
In 1999, after Pusztai went public with his doubts about the safety
of GM foods, followed by the publication of the British Medical Association
report calling for an indefinite moratorium on GM crops, no less than four
reports on biotechnology were rushed out in the space of two days. All
trumpeted the safety of GM foods and crops, and all condemned Pusztai’s
research. The Nuffield Council report was one of them, published in May
1999. The report declared that all GM food currently on the market was
"safe". Though the Nuffield Council was presented as "a group of independent
scientists", this does not bear examination. On the panel were
* Prof Mike Gale FRS: biotechnologist and former director of the John
Innes Centre (JIC), which at that time was negotiating a deal with biotech
giants Zeneca and DuPont guaranteeing it £60-70m in investment. Gale
has said of a moratorium, "It would be very, very serious for us."
* Prof Derek Burke: former vice chancellor of the University of East
Anglia (UEA), and former chair of the governing council of the JIC (see
above), both of which have benefited from biotech industry funding. Burke
was chairman for nearly a decade (1988-97) of the Advisory Committee for
Novel Foods and Processes (ACNFP), the regulatory body which approved the
first GM foods to come into the UK.
* Brian Heap FRS: member of the Royal Society. Like Burke and Gale,
Heap helped produce the Royal Society report 'Genetically Modified Plants
for Food Use' which was used at an earlier stage to reassure government
ministers that there were no significant problems with GM.
The Nuffield panel consulted, among others, Monsanto and Zeneca. The
Scottish Herald (30 May 99) wrote that an early draft of the Nuffield report
had warned of possible environmental disaster from GM crops and suggested
leaving large GM-free tracts of the country as an "insurance policy". This
suggestion did not survive consultation with the industry representatives
and was edited out before publication.
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/nuffield.htm
http://www.btinternet.com/~clairejr/Pusztai/puszta_3.html
O
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)
A major OECD conference entitled 'New Biotechnology Food and Crops:
Science, Safety and Society' was held in Bangkok in July 2001. According
to a UK Foreign Office press release this conference was "to take forward
the international debate on new biotechnology".
Like the previous OECD conference held in Edinburgh on GM foods in
2000, where Dr Arpad Pusztai was the only GM sceptical scientist invited,
the voices of long term social, health and environmental concern were not
given an opportunity to be heard over those representing the short term
interests of governments, industry and academia. The Edinburgh OECD was
chaired by GM proponent and head of the Food Standards Agency Sir John
Krebs; and the Bangkok OECD was chaired by GM proponent and chairman of
the UK Chemicals Stakeholders Forum, Lord Selbourne. Pusztai’s verdict
on the Edinburgh event was that it was not so much a conference as: "a
propaganda forum for airing the views and promoting the interests of the
biotech industry." An outcome of the Bangkok conference was it fully endorsed
the controversial 2001 UNDP report, which recommended GM crops as a solution
to poverty, and to which 290 grassroots and farmers’ groups strongly objected.
Orson, Jim
Director, Morley Research Centre, Norfolk
Orson is one of the "independent" experts on the government’s steering
committee to oversee the farmscale trials. Yet Morley under Orson has been
heavily involved in running GM crop trials for some years and this activity
clearly constitutes a significant income for a centre which newspaper reports
suggest is under financial pressure.
Among the companies Morley is running GM research for is AgrEvo - whose
crops the farmscale trials are evaluating. Orson’s public statements also
put the question of whether his strong commitment to GM has not put at
risk his ability to adequately assess its risks and benefits. He told Reuters:
"The gain to farmers [from GM crops] is clear in terms of higher yields.
We believe there are also ways of manipulating herbicide resistant crops
for the advantage of the environment."
What does Dr Orson base this on? The information on yields to date
from GM rape and GM beet in UK trials indicate lower, not higher yields,
and research on soya, the largest GM crop worldwide, shows similarly reduced
yields. [http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/morley.htm]
The rest of Orson's statement is equally unsound - it is a statment
of belief which indicates that whatever the results of the farmscale trials,
Orson will argue not for rejection of the technology but continued research
(an ideal position for the head of a research station involved in trialling
GM crops to adopt).
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/morley.htm
P
Paterson, Dr George
Director of the Scottish arm of the Food Standards Agency
Former director general of Health Canada's Food Directorate
Paterson has been linked to major food safety scandals in Canada involving:
* fast track approval for a Monsanto GM potato after Monsanto refused
to provide Health Canada regulators with key scientific data on the product’s
health and environmental safety
* the overriding of government scientists' health warnings on a Monsanto’s
GM Bovine Growth Hormone (BGH or rBST), still banned in Europe. At Canadian
Senate hearings, Health Canada scientists testified repeatedly of the enormous
pressure on them from Paterson and his management to approve BGH, and other
drugs of questionable safety.
Commenting on concerns over the appointment of Paterson, the Food Standards
Agency said the panel that gave him the job were "greatly impressed" by
his "commitment to openness". FSA chief executive Geoffrey Podger said
Paterson was "committed to consumer involvement in food safety and standards"
which "has been fully demonstrated by his subsequent performance in Scotland".
Paterson's first job in Scotland was to issue a notice telling the
people of Scotland about new laws allowing irradiated food into their shops,
and giving guidance to food companies on how to market irradiated products.
His second job was to issue a press release telling Scottish consumers
that GM rapeseed had illegally entered the food chain, but there was nothing
to worry about. Then his Agency claimed that farmed salmon containing dioxin
is safe if eaten in small amounts.
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/fsa.htm
Pickett, Prof John
In the run up to the Lancet's publication of the Pusztai and Ewen paper
indicating ill effects of GM foods on rats, The Independent’s science editor
Steve Connor ran a spoiler piece based on an attack by Pickett, the only
reviewer of the paper arguing against publication. The article appears
to have been part of a campaign to discredit the Pusztai paper prior to
publication. Pickett made false statements about the paper which led Pusztai
to the conclusion that he could not have read it. Pickett claimed:
* Pusztai "changed horses midstream" and changed the rats’ diet from
raw potatoes to boiled which is clearly not true from the paper;
* The intestinal lesions caused in the GM-fed rats may have been explained
by higher levels of glycoalkaloids in the potatoes, rather than the GM
aspect which is clearly not true because the GM potatoes contained
less glycoalkaloids than the non-GM! Moreover, there is no data linking
glycoalkaloids with this type of gut abnormality.
* That the experiment was not valid because Pusztai didn’t allow for
the fact that the inserted gene could express differently in a potato from
how it would express in the snowdrop from which it was derived. This is
an extraordinary claim because Pusztai’s team was the only one EVER (as
far as we know) to isolate the gene product from the actual food crop being
tested the potato.
http://www.btinternet.com/~clairejr/Pusztai/puszta_6.html
Pollock, Prof Chris
Pollock chairs the committee overseeing the UK farmscale trials. When
Tesco indicated to growers that they would not buy produce grown on sites
used for GM trials, Professor Pollock retorted in The Independent that
there was "no evidence that DNA from GM crops persisted in the soil." His
comment was printed under the sub-heading "The Truth".
But what Pollock told The Independent was far from the truth. In research
published, for example, in the journal FEMS Microbiology Ecology (1999,
Vol.28, No.3), Gebhard and Smalla report the persistence of transgenic
(GM) DNA in soil and in bacteria under field conditions, even after 2 years.
Pollock is director of research at the Institute of Grassland and Environmental
Research (IGER). The institute has contractual and financial relationships
with AstraZeneca and Aventis.
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/farmcon.htm
Poppy, Guy
Institute of Arable Crop Research
Senior Lecturer in Ecology, Southampton University
Poppy works for the Institute of Arable Crops Research (IACR), carrying
out government work on farm-scale trials. He is also a paid advisor to
CropGen, the biotech industry group set up to promote GM crops. In an article
on Monsanto’s website, "Green campaigners could condemn Britain to a chemical
future, warns Cropgen", Poppy says, "GM crops hold one of the best hopes
we have for not only preserving but enhancing diversity in the countryside."
The only evidence for this cited is that 30% less herbicide was used on
GM beet in one year of the (incomplete) farm scale trials, but as no other
data (such as yield and weediness) is mentioned, this statement is meaningless.
Potrykus, Ingo
Developer of GM vitamin A-enhanced "Golden Rice", biotech’s favourite
poster child, which is supposed to save people in the developing world
from vitamin A deficiency-induced blindness. Monsanto gave Potrykus some
of the patents on this rice after it saw a PR opportunity in his donating
it to thrid world governments. Potrykus accused Greenpeace, for its opposition
to this GM scheme on environmental and health grounds, of "crimes against
humanity."
There are 4 main objections to this GM "solution" to the vitamin A
problem:
* "Golden Rice" is still in the greenhouse and will not be ready for
release for years
* it ignores known low-risk solutions such as encouraging farmers to
go back to growing indigenous vitamin A-rich plants among main crops, a
practice wiped out by "Green Revolution" herbicide-intensive farming methods
* as professor of nutrition Marion Nestle wrote (Letter to Journal
of the American Dietetic Association, March 2001), no one knows the long-term
effects of supplementation with beta-carotene (the rice contains this precursor
to vitamin A, not vitamin A itself), which may protect against cancer in
certain circumstances but cause it in others
* the amount of vitamin A in the GM rice is low, falling far short
of providing anything like the normal recommended daily allowance. Some
estimates equate to a child having to eat 27 to 54 bowls of rice a day
to get the recommended daily allowance of vitamin A.
Prakash, C S
Professor of Plant Molecular Genetics and director of the Center for
Plant Biotechnology Research at Tuskegee University
Founder of AgBioWorld
Member of US Dept of Agriculture’s Agricultural Biotechnology Advisory
Committee
Prakash is sponsored by the US State Dept to promote biotechnology
around the world. He told a Tanzanian audience that GM "doubles production"
(The Express, Tanzania, Aug 21, 2002)! In fact, far from doubling production,
yield losses rather than gains are more commonly associated with GM crops.
University of Minnesota economist Vernon W. Ruttan says: "Thus far, biotechnology
has not raised the yield potential of crops".
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/151201b.htm
DID YOU KNOW that GM crops double production; that "most genetically-modified
crops have longer shelf life"; that anti-GM activists killed 10,000
people in Orissa; that Greenpeace's anti-GM campaign is being paid
for by the agrochems; that Prof Prakash is one of the world's great heroes;
and Prof
Prakash has absolutely no connection with Monsanto's PR operations?
NGIN has been tracking all the latest Prakash lies transmitted in the global media.
Getting down in the dirt with Prakash & Co.
http://ngin.tripod.com/290802a.htm
So who's putting the bull in the bull#%$@ awards?
http://ngin.tripod.com/290802c.htm
Prakash lies proliferate
http://ngin.tripod.com/270802e.htm
Prof Prakash - sent to lie abroad?
http://ngin.tripod.com/200802f.htm
Dear Professor Prakash...
http://ngin.tripod.com/130802a.htm
Prakash mouthing Andura's script?
http://ngin.tripod.com/270602c.htm
GM food and Orissa - the real story
http://www.gene.ch/gentech/2002/Sep/msg00050.html
Corporate Phantoms
http://ngin.tripod.com/deceit7.html
Seeds of dissent
http://ngin.tripod.com/deceit3.html
An article in Big Issue said: "Monsanto has a series of shop windows
with which to influence the GM debate. One of these is AgBioWorld. The
chief mannequin seems to be Prakash..." ('Seeds of Dissent' http://ngin.tripod.com/deceit3.html)
When claims made on Prakash's AgBioView list by "Andura Smetacek" ended
up in a Scottish newspaper, it resulted in a libel case. One of the claims
at the centre of the case, which Greenpeace won, was that Greenpeace was
getting financial backing from companies. The High Court decided that this
claim was without foundation.
Now that "Andura" is no longer available to front such attacks, Prakash
is having to do the dirty work: "Prakash… said Greenpeace gets its budget
from private rich individuals and maybe some companies that think their
business operations will be greatly affected by widespread use of genetically
modified crops in the world…"
Articles in the Guardian and elsewhere argue that CS Prakash's pro-GM
campaign has direct links to corporate fronts, including undisclosed links
to Monsanto's PR operations. For more on this, see:
Corporate Phantoms - http://ngin.tripod.com/deceit7.html
Seeds of Dissent - http://ngin.tripod.com/deceit3.html http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/pants4.htm
"It's a hoax. Now these are suddenly brown skins and black skins like
us, so they're suddenly supposed to be speaking for the Third World."
- Vandana Shiva
Far from being, as claimed, the campaign of a mainstream science group
disinterestedly wishing to bring information about agbiotech to the
developing world, CS Prakash's 'AgBioWorld' campaign has since its
inception been the product of close collaboration with ideological
extremists who promote corporate interests in relation to genetic
engineering in exactly the same way that they defend the interests
of
the tobacco industry or oppose concern over climate change.
An edited version of the following article appears in the current
edition of the magazine of the Genetics Forum, 'SPLICE', Vol 7, Issue
6
---
Part of the Network: Creating free societies around the world
When Sri Lanka recently postponed indefinitely its proposed ban on all
GE food imports, one Australian minister was candid in his appreciation.
Food that was good enough to go down Aussie throats was good enough
for
Sri Lankans, he suggested, and, besides, the ban might have disrupted
some $50+ million a year of Australia's agribiz exports to Lanka.[1]
The global trade implications for US agribiz were still more worrisome,
and American diplomatic pressure on Sri Lanka was joined by a motley
supporting cast that included the WTO and part of the "Network".[2]
According to the International Policy Network (IPN), the Network is
all about “helping to create free societies around the world”. It is
no
surprise, therefore, to discover that it’s constituted by an often
unsavoury collection of rightwing libertarian “think tanks” and industry
front organisations keen to support every ugly corporate excess.[3]
One of the IPN’s prime movers is Julian Morris of the Institute of
Economic Affairs (IEA) which has advocated, amongst other interesting
ideas, that African countries should be sold off to multinational
corporations in the interests of "good government"[4]. Another Network
member, India’s Liberty Institute has opposed restrictions on the tobacco
industry which it promotes as a driver for economic growth.
Big Tobacco’s popularity amongst the Network is hardly surprising given
its financial input into some of the groups. Australia’s Institute
of
Public Affairs (IPA) has actually had Philip Morris on its board, while
another organisation in which Julian Morris has had a hand, the European
Science and Environment Foundation, has claimed to be "a non-aligned
group of scientists" which does "not accept outside funding", despite
well-documented evidence that it was set up primarily with Big Tobacco
money as a front organisation to help the likes of Philip Morris
undermine industry critical research, and attack restrictions on
smoking, biotechnology etc.[5]
In the attack on Sri Lanka for its “reckless” and “immoral” attempt
to
regulate GE food imports, the part of the Network leading the charge
was
the AgBioWorld Foundation headed by CS Prakash[6]. According to Prakash,
he and AgBioWorld are taking on “extremist groups” who oppose genetic
engineering because of their “broader agenda”[7]. Prakash has shown
a
talent for pursuing this crusade through the mass media and by
addressing audiences around the world, courtesy of the US State Dept.
Many of these activities are also assisted by parts of the Network and
like-minded extremist groups. He has spoken in Britain from an IEA
platform, in Australia from an IPA platform, and has even addressed
a
special conference involving leading members of industry-backed
rightwing lobbies masquerading as an international consumers' coalition![8]
One of the founding members of "International Consumers for Civil
Society"[9] is Dennis Avery of the Hudson Institute (sponsors include
Novartis, Cargill, DuPont, and Monsanto). Via such bogus claims as
increased E-coli food poisoning risks, Avery has done more than anyone
to smear organic agriculture[10] which, in its most developed form,
is
seen by many as an environmentally sustainable alternative to the use
of
GMOs. Prakash has been more than happy to circulate and repeat Avery's
smears[11] despite a total lack of credible scientific evidence to
support them.
Prakash also runs the AgBioView e-mailing list[12]. The tone of its
daily
bulletins often ranges from the scientistic to the techno-euphoric
and
leading members of the Network, and like-minded corporate lobbyists,
are
among its key contributors. AgBioView's more extreme material accuses
GM
critics variously of fascism, communism, imperialism, nihilism, murder,
corruption, terrorism, and even genocide; not to mention being worse
than Hitler and on a par with the mass murderers who destroyed the
World
Trade Centre! When challenged over such attacks, Prakash invariably
claims to be merely the list's moderator, as if that somehow absolved
him of responsibility for the material he himself selects.
Prakash has drawn support from a large number of scientists for a
petition calling for the judicious use of genetic engineering in the
developing world[13], but there is little that is judicious about his
naive techno-utopianism, nor his admiration for big business. Prakash
eulogises the multinationals, expressing a preference for their control
of food production and distribution in the developing world because
of
their “enormous skills, resources and investment”.[14]
Though Prakash makes a big thing out of not actually taking corporate
money, his total lack of distance from those who do is well illustrated
by his longstanding collaboration with Julian Morris of ESEF fame.
Prakash even lists Morris as one of the AgBioWorld experts available
to
guide the media on issues relating to biotechnology.[15]
Listed as a fellow AgBioWorld media contact on Prakash's press release
attacking Sri Lanka was yet another AgBioWorld expert, Greg Conko of
the
Competitive Enterpise Institute. The CEI, like AgBioWorld, is part
of
the Network[16], and, according to its annual report, this
corporate-funded lobby played "a key role in the creation" of Prakash's
petition for scientists in support of genetic engineering[17].
The Prakash petition was AgBioWorld's launch pad and has always been
presented as a Third World scientist's rallying point for fellow
academics. According to the CEI, however, the Prakash petition formed
part of its wider campaign against "death by regulation"[17] - the
same
CEI campaign that has been directed against government efforts to
discourage smoking because, according to the CEI, "there are things
more
valuable than health"![18]
The Centre for Media and Democracy describes the CEI as a "well-funded
front for corporations"[19]. Currently with a turnover of $3+ million
a
year and with another million in assets[20], the CEI has been built
up
with the help of the kind of corporate giants whom many would see as
having a powerful vested interest in defending their ability to profit
out of human misery and environmental destruction, not least in the
developing world.
Among CEI's long list of known sponsors (including, inevitably, Philip
Morris) is Dow Chemicals[21]. Any independent-minded journalist hearing
Conko argue the AgBioWorld case against Sri Lanka might have been
interested to know that the company that once made napalm a household
word is soon to target the Asian market with its new GE corn.[22]
That's always providing, of course, that democratic governments like
that of Sri Lanka, and the South's farmers and consumers, can continue
to be prevented from getting in the way of the creation of "free
societies around the world."
---
[1]Australia Welcomes Sri Lanka Suspending GM Food Ban, Reuters, Sydney,
Sept 6 2001
[2]http://www.policynetwork.net/network.htm
[3]http://www.policynetwork.net/network.htm
[4]For a copy of Nick Hildyard's article detailing this IEA proposal,
an
edited version of which originally appeared in the Guardian, contact
The
Corner House, cornerhouse@gn.apc.org
[5]Tobacco industry efforts subverting International Agency for Research
on Cancer's second-hand smoke study, Elisa K Ong, Stanton A Glantz,
Lancet 2000, Volume 355, Issue 9211, Page 1253
http://www.electric-words.com/junk/glantz/glantz.html
-How Big Tobacco Helped Create "the Junkman", PR Watch, Vol 7, No.3,
Third Quarter 2000, http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/2000Q3/junkman.html
-The Philip Morris Documents website, http://www.pmdocs.com/
[6]SCIENCE GROUP PROTESTS SRI LANKAN BIOTECH BAN, AgBioWorld Foundation
Calls For Support of Beneficial Technology, AgBioWorld press release,
August 17, 2001, http://www.agbioworld.org/listarchive/view.php?id=1232
[7]Expert lashes poor's new enemy, Herald Sun, July 9 2000
http://news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,912898^421,00.html
[8]"The ICCS conference also presented an opportunity to garner
information for proponents of the free market. Speakers like C.S.
Prakash, Professor and Director of the Center for Plant Biotechnology
Research at the Tuskegee Institute, helped provide myself and other
policy wonks in the crowd with scientific support for our arguments".
http://www.atlasusa.org/highlights/archives/1999/H1999-02-NGO.html
[9]http://www.icfcs.org/members.htm
[10]Warning: organic and natural foods may be hazardous to your health,
Dennis T. Avery, Bridge News Service, October 1, 2000
http://www.guestchoice.com/article_detail.cfm?ARTICLE_ID=70
-Saving the Planet With Pestilent Statistics by Karen Charman
http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/1999Q4/avery.html
[11]CS Prakash: "Organic farming is not productive, organic farming
is
not very healthy..."; "... if you are so paranoid about food safety
then
you should really be banning organic food by using the precautionary
principles because there is far more greater risk of E-coli
contamination in your food using organic food than the GM food."
Transcript, The Rise and Fall of GM, Channel 4's Equinox TV programme,
March 20 2000
http://www.agbioworld.org/biotech_info/articles/interviews/channel4.html
[12]http://www.agbioworld.org/listarchive/list.php
[13]http://www.agbioworld.org/declaration/petition/petition.phtml
[14]Expert lashes poor's new enemy, Herald Sun, July 9 2000
http://news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,912898^421,00.html
[15]http://www.agbioworld.org/biotech_info/experts/experts.html
[16]http://www.policynetwork.net/network.htm
[17]"CEI also took an active part in the fight against what we call
“death by regulation”... Foremost has been the battle over
biotechnology.. Among other things, we played a key role in the creation
of a “Declaration of Scientists in Support of Agricultural
Biotechnology,” which has been signed by more than 2,900 scientists
at
last count, among them three Nobel Prize winners." CEI Annual Report
2000
http://www.cei.org/PDFs/2K_annual_report.pdf
[18]http://www.prwatch.org/improp/cei.html
[19]http://www.prwatch.org/improp/cei.html
[20]CEI Annual Report 2000
http://www.cei.org/PDFs/2K_annual_report.pdf
[21]http://www.prwatch.org/improp/cei.html
[22]US DOW AGRO SEEKS TO MARKET GM CORN TO ASIA, Dow Jones Newswires,
Prime Sarmiento, September 5 2001
R
Rao, M V
Former vice chancellor, Acharya N G Ranga University, Hyderabad, India
Former consultant to the World Bank
Former special director general, Indian Council of Agricultural Research
(ICAR)
On the board of trustees, International Rice Research Institute, Manila,
Philippines
External panel expert, International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center,
Mexico
Chairman, Biotechnology Programme Committee, Biotechnology Unit, Institute
of Public Enterprise, Hyderabad
Rao has toured the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, talking about the
marvels of GM crops. Acting as a witness to a citizens' jury in Medak District
in 2001, he announced, "We have published a biotechnology policy which
states that by the year 2007 there should be no more hunger in the state."
Rao had to respond to concerns from poor farmers that herbicide tolerant
GM crops would eliminate the manual weeding that employs hundreds of thousands
of people each year, and would require mechanised sowing and harvesting,
throwing yet more people out of work. Rao said, "It is true that mechanization
displaces labour, in particular women, but the changes also lead to the
creation of new employment," without specifying what sorts of jobs these
would be. Unemployment in the cities is already high.
http://www.education.guardian.co.uk/higher/columnist/story/0,9826,528429,00.html
REDDY, CHENGAL
Yesterday we had a report from Biowatch on Joburg on how the biotech
industry has not limited itself to forming part of government delegations,
and
participating and organising events in the business and science forums,
but has used Africabio to influence the civil society debate and limit
its impact, and
has even organised a march of pro-GE farmers. Here's more astroturfing.
On 21 August 2002, Mr Chengal Reddy issued a statement in which he said
"I feel sorry for the ignorance and innocence displayed" by the organisers
of
Prajateerpu.
In the same statement he asserted that "the biggest problem confronting
most rural people, including farmers, is the hue and cry of many NGOs who
totally oppose [Vision 2020] development schemes. They have set themselves
up in opposition to modernisation, mechanisation and the latest
technologies, such as providing new irrigation facilities".
Most of the opinions given in Mr Reddy's statement are bizarre -
and often offensive to the various Indian and foreign groups who have devoted
their
lives to citizen empowerment - but we should defend his right to express
such views. The problem comes when Reddy describes himself as head
of the
"Andhra Pradesh Federation of Farmers' Associations, a non-profit,
independent organisation, representing some two million members from 500
farmers
organisations in the State of Andhra Pradesh".
What Mr Reddy does NOT state is that he is a semi-official mouthpiece
for Monsanto, the world's largest promoter of un-sustainable and
anti-poor
agriculture. He has worked closely with them since the mid-1990s, and
features prominently in Monsanto glossy brochure "A Celebration of Fifty
Years
in India" (Monsanto 2000). The current www.monsantoindia.com website
features at least ten separate items in which Reddy backs Monsanto's policies
in
India (Monsanto India, 2002). He also works closely with C.S.
Prakash, President on the corporate-funded pro-GM website www.AgBioWorld.org.
He
recently appeared alongside Prakash at a pro-GM Delhi conference organised
by the Liberty Institute at their Julian Simon Centre (The "Liberty Institute"
is an extreme right-wing anti-regulation pressure group linked to the
UK's ultra-Thatcherite "Centre for Policy Studies" -
http://www.cps.org.uk/start.htm).
In interviews Reddy has admitted that he knows little about farming
and has never farmed in his life. Indeed, his family are major property
tycoons and a
prominent right-wing political force in Andhra - his father having
coined the phrase "There is only one thing Dalits [untouchable caste members]
are good
for, and that's being kicked".
Although the organisers of Prajateerpu were careful to introduce Reddy,
both at the hearings, and in subsequent reports as "a leader of a lobby
group for
large farmers", this Email is to re-assure non-Andhra readers who may
have been confused by Reddy's extravagant claims. (His tactics are not
unique to
the pro-GM lobby. Professor Nanjundaswamy, then President of the KRRS
farmers group, similarly claimed to represent farmers in Karnataka when
he
initiated the series of publicity stunts known as "cremate Monsanto"
- which fooled many non-Indian observers).
For general information on the use of quasi-people from the Third World
for what is becoming known as "viral marketing", readers are recommended
a
the following article from Manchester UK's Guardian newspaper "THE
FAKE PERSUADERS: Corporations are inventing people to rubbish their
opponents on the internet"
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,715153,00.html)
from earlier this year. Sadly Mr Reddy is all to real, but many of
his apparent credentials need to exposed as fake.
Rather than being applied to those many Andhra academics and NGOs who
organised Prajateerpu, "ignorance" and "innocence" might be better
labels
for anyone in the development world who sees Mr Reddy's views as
representing anyone except the greedy millionaire-landlord class of Andhra
Pradesh.
Ridley, Matt
Former science editor and correspondent for the Economist
A Research Fellow at the Institute of Economic Affairs, with 2 volumes
of his anti-environmentalist pieces amongst the Institute's publications.
Ridley published an article (16 Aug 1999) in the Telegraph, "Unsavoury
facts about organic food", hyping Roger Bate and Julian Morris’s book,
Fearing Food. Ridley took the opportunity to repeat Dennis Avery’s E. coli
myth: "according to the United States Centers for Disease Control, people
who eat the products of...[organic agriculture] are eight times more likely
to contract the strain of E-coli that killed 21 people in Lanarkshire in
1997". This in spite of the fact that Centers for Disease Control issued
a press release stating, "The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
has not conducted any study that compares or quantitates the specific risk
for infection with E. coli 0157:H7 and eating either conventionally grown
or organic/natural foods."
In his book Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters (2000),
Ridley writes, "The opposition to genetically modified crops, motivated
more by hatred of new technology than love of the environment, largely
chooses to ignore the fact that tens of thousands of safety trials have
been done with no nasty surprises." He offers no reference to a peer-reviewed
scientific paper discerning hatred as the basis for opposition to GMOs.
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/rightwing.htm
Robertson, Vic
The most prolific pro-GE/anti-organic journalist in Britain. Sample
quote: "Monsanto and other leading GM exponents have caught their second
wind to launch a more considered attack on public sense and sensibility
in accepting the products of this new - well 20-30-year-old - technology.
"Behind them they have gathered millions of dollars of worth of scientific
investigation to show that there is not a scintilla of evidence of ill
health - physical or mental - that can be attributed to GM foods; that
far from damaging the environment, it can actually enhance diversity; and
that it has a positive role in helping overcome world hunger."
Odd that we missed all that evidence providing "not a scintilla of
evidence of ill health". For a comprehensive review of the paucity of any
research into the health effects of GM foods see:
http://www.actionbioscience.org/biotech/pusztai.html
Robinson, Dr Clare H.
Robinson is responsible for science communication and education at
the John Innes Centre, Norfolk. She is co-author of the "Sweet As You Are
Information Pack" produced in 1999 by the John Innes Centre with the Teacher
Scientist Network based at the Centre. This pack complemented a play on
GM, Sweet As You Are, commissioned by the John Innes Centre, which toured
UK secondary schools. The purported aim of the project was to provide young
people with "unbiased" information on GM.
Dr Jeremy Bartlett, a scientist with a doctorate in plant genetics
from John Innes, attended a production of the play and the accompanying
debate. He described the event as a carefully crafted exercise in manipulation:
"The GM campaigner looks ridiculous, behaves deviously, has no proper arguments
against GM and loses the girl. His fiancée listens to the rational
scientist and furthers her career by promoting GM foods. We’re told that
science is pure and unbiased and that only scientists are qualified to
comment on GM."
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/articlebartlett.htm
Rousch, Rick
An Australian entomologist based in Adelaide who regularly writes into
Prakash’s AgBioView listserv to promote GM foods and attack organic farming.
Rowe, Sylvia
President and CEO of the International Food Information Council, which
opposes labelling of GM foods.
Royal Society (RS)
Many of the Royal Society’s leading Fellows depend on corporate funding
for their own research activities and successes, and the Society has itself
become increasingly dependent on corporate largesse. Although primarily
funded from the public purse, in recent years the Royal Society has received
millions, via its fundraising campaign, from major corporations, including
those (eg Rhône Poulenc and Glaxo-Welcome) with major biotechnology
interests (The Royal Society Annual Review 1998-99, p.26).
For centuries, the RS boasted that it had never become institutionally
involved in national debates and public controversies, but the current
president proclaims: "We have contributed early and proactively to public
debate about genetically modified plants..." (President's Address, The
Royal Society Annual Review 1998-99).
The RS led the attack on Pusztai after he went public with doubts about
the safety of GM crops, organising a partial 'peer review' of Pusztai's
unpublished paper (The Royal Society does not officially conduct peer reviews!).
This in spite of the fact that they did not have the paper itself but only
a far-from-complete internal report intended for use by the research team.
This was the act that Richard Horton, editor of The Lancet, described as
"a gesture of breathtaking impertinence to the Rowett Institute scientists
who should be judged only on the full and final publication of their work."
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/rsfunding.htm
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/rs.htm
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/articleBurke.htm
http://www.btinternet.com/~clairejr/Pusztai/puszta_2.html
http://www.btinternet.com/~clairejr/Pusztai/puszta_4.html
Rylott Mrs Judith (Judith Jordan) http://ngin.tripod.com/020802b.htm
Rylott Dr Paul http://ngin.tripod.com/020802b.htm
S
Sainsbury, Lord David
Science minister to Tony Blair’s government; Labour peer; former chief
executive of Sainsbury’s supermarkets. The choice of an unelected biotech
investor and food industrialist, Lord Sainsbury, as Science Minister within
the Department of Trade and Industry is more than just emblematic of the
UK's emerging corporate science culture. Lord Sainsbury is widely known
to have significant investments in biotech. He owns 2 genetics-related
companies, Diatech and Innotech Investments. He has also put millions of
pounds into the study of Genetically Modified Organisms through his Gatsby
Charitable Foundation, set up in 1987 and which gives £2 million
a year to the Sainsbury Laboratory of the John Innes Centre, which does
research into GM crops, and which Lord Sainsbury helped found in 1987.
Since he became UK Science Minister such contributions and investments
have been administered through a blind trust. Officially Lord Sainsbury
is supposed to leave the room when GMOs are discussed at government meetings
but critically related areas like the strategic direction and funding of
the bio-sciences and biotech related institutes fall directly within Sainsbury's
responsibilities. The Times of London (Apr 17, 2002) reported, "Suspicious
minds looked at the 300 per cent increase in the government grant to the
Sainsbury Laboratory and pondered whether this might be linked to the fact
that Lord Sainsbury of Turville is the Science Minister." . When Lord Sainsbury
travelled to America in 1999, to research a report into Biotechnology,
he was accompanied by members of the BioIndustry Association, a lobbying
group for companies involved in GM food (the DTI helped pay their costs).
His company, Diatech is a member of the BioIndustry Association and 8 days
before he became Science Minister he loaned Diatech money to buy a £2
million office in Westminster. Diatech have registered a patent for a genetic
sequence taken from the tobacco mosaic virus, considered essential for
enhancing the development of protein in a GMO, which was developed at the
John Innes Centre and is used in most GM foods worldwide. In a recent Financial
Times article, Lord Sainsbury cites the following statistics: British universities
spun off 199 companies in 2000, up from an annual average of 67 in the
previous five years and a mere "handful" before that. The UK’s ratio of
companies to research spending is now more than six times higher than the
US. "It’s a dazzling record," Lord Sainsbury is quoted as saying and he
laments the nation’s failure to celebrate such a "stunning change in the
entrepreneurial attitudes of our universities". The key to delivering Lord
Sainsbury’s redefinition of "good science" as potentially commercially
productive science is the higher education funding councils such as the
BBSRC. The BBSRC has won an extra £50 million in funding since Sainsbury
became Science Minister. Lord Sainsbury has given a total of £9 million
to the UK's ruling Labour Party in 5 years (1996-2001). Lord Sainsbury
is also a keen supporter of the Science Media Centre. Through his Gatsby
Trust, Lord Sainsbury funded "Biotechnology in Our Food Chain", the John
Innes Centre's UK schools' project on GM. The project claims to take note
of the "various viewpoints" but is marked by such consistent bias and even
misinformation that it has been renamed "Biospinology in Our Food Chain."
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/biospin.htm
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/articleBurke.htm
http://www.red-star-research.org.uk/subframe3.html
Scottish Crop Research Institute (SCRI)
SCRI is largely funded by public bodies, including the Biotechnology
and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC). However, the chair of
the BBSRC is Dr Peter Doyle, who used to work for Zeneca. Prof John Hillman,
director of SCRI, used the SCRI's annual report (Feb 2000) and the media
to promote bogus smears against organic farming. Hillman is on the Board
of Directors of the BioIndustry Association, whose tagline is "Encouraging
and Promoting the Biotechnology Sector of the UK Economy". Prof Mike Wilson
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/organic.htm
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/hillmanimp.htm
Scottish Enterprise
Scottish Enterprise distributes the pro-biotech magazine Your World
to schools. The magazine is a US publication funded by the Biotechnology
Institute, whose members include Monsanto and Novartis. The Ecologist comments:
"Targeted for a launch in Scottish schools by Scottish Enterprise, it is
a piece of blatant pro-biotechnology propaganda, with the biotech companies
behind the magazine turning the provision of education into a marketing
opportunity." The magazine claims GM is "creating better plants" and criticises
organic farming. It also suggested pupils experiment with growing Monsanto
GM soybeans! The magazine’s scientific advisor is CS Prakash, who runs
the pro-GM AgBioView email list. Faced with accusations of bias from concerned
members of the public, Scottish Enterprise's biotechnology director, Peter
Lennox, said: "It didn't even cross our minds. I thought it was just knowledge."
SCIMAC (Supply Chain Initiative on Modified Agricultural Crops)
The industry body representing the companies growing GM crops in UK
trial sites. It is also the body which the government has entrusted to
"police" the trials. SCIMAC has laid down a voluntary code of practice
for growing GM trial crops, including separation distances from organic
and non-GM conventional crops, which, however, has been repeatedly breached.
SCIMAC came under fire for trying to run a GM maize trial near to the renowned
organic Henry Doubleday Research Association near Coventry; it backed down
under intense public pressure. Dr Roger Turner, director of SCIMAC, said
about GM that he had "No reservations at all. It's great… public getting
fantasies, not facts."
Selbourne, Lord
This leading Fellow of the Royal Society was one of 19 Fellows who
sent a letter to the Daily Telegraph attacking the media's handling of
the Pusztai affair. The letter argued that the Royal Society was well placed
to help the media, the public and politicians better distinguish "good
science" from "bad science". Signatories included Peter Lachmann whom the
Guardian subsequently identified as the Fellow who threatened the editor
of the Lancet over its planned publication of Pusztai's research. Lord
Selbourne is on the board of the UK's leading plant biotech institute,
the John Innes Centre. The JIC has attracted repeated criticism for the
inaccuracy of its pro-GM propagandising in the media, at public meetings
and to government ministers.
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/biospin.htm
Selbourne is chairman of the UK Chemicals Stakeholder Forum; and he
is former president of the British Crop Protection Council, a forum for
those in "the business of crop protection". He chaired the 2001 OECD conference
on GM food and crops in Bangkok. The conference endorsed the UN’s 2001
World Development Report, which was the first of these annual reports to
promote GM as a solution for poverty.
http://www.sustdev.org/agriculture/news/00/04/0073.shtml
See also: Malloch Brown, Mark; Organisation for Economic Co-operation
and Development (OECD)
Slater, Howard
Formerly of the School of Pure & Applied Biology, University of
Wales
Paid advisor to CropGen
Director, Asellus & Company Ltd
In charge of technology transfer at Western Biotech, "a technology
transfer partnership based in the South West of England… We identify, value,
protect, develop and commercially exploit Intellectual Property arising
from Biotechnology and Medical Research groups in the Devon and Cornwall
region."
His university department received funding from Zeneca (now AstraZeneca)
in 1997.
Science Media Centre (SMC)
SMC grew directly out of the work of the SIRC. Though SMC describes
itself as independent, it has GM proponents Prof Chris Leaver, Prof Sir
John Krebs, Baroness Susan Greenfield and Lord Robert Winston on its board.
It receives a quarter of its funding from the biotech industry. Funders
include Dupont, Merlin Biosciences, Pfizer, PowderJet and Smith-Nephew.
SMC’s director is Fiona Fox, who gained notoriety as co-author of articles
in the now defunct magazine Living Marxism (LM) dismissing worldwide disgust
at the slaughter of 800,000 Tutsis in Rwanda as an "emotional overreaction".
Also out of the LM stable are:
* LM-supporting TV director Martin Durkin, condemned by the Independent
Television Commission for having "misled" contributors to his anti-environmentalist
'Against Nature' TV series and for having distorted their views via selective
editing.
* GM supporting website 'spiked online' www.spiked.org
* The Institute of Ideas -www.instituteofideas.com - directed by Claire
Fox, Fiona’s sister.
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/020602c.htm
Scientists quoted on SMC’s website include:
- Professor Ian Crute, Director of Institute of Arable Crops Research
(IACR has a string of partnerships with biotech companies and allowed Monsanto
to misleadingly spin an IACR GM research project two years ahead of peer-reviewed
publication.)
- Dr Guy Poppy, Senior Lecturer in Ecology, Southampton University
(and paid biotech lobbyist for Cropgen, but journalists aren't told that
by the SMC)
- Dr Mark Tester, Senior Lecturer at Cambridge University (took part
in SMC's orchestrated attack on the GM-sceptical BBC drama Fields of Gold)
- Professor Vivian Moses, Visiting Professor of Biotechnology at King's
College, London, and chair of Cropgen
- Dr Ray Matthias, Spokesman for the John Innes Centre (JIC takes money
from Monsanto, Syngenta, Dupont, Aventis etc. and even has a Syngenta laboratory.
Matthias heads the JIC's 'Science Communication and Education' unit)
- Professor Michael Wilson, CEO of Horticulture Research International
(formerly of the John Innes Centre)
See also Fox, Fiona; and SIRC
Smith, Frances B
Executive Director, Consumer Alert
Consumer Alert was founded in 1977 and describes itself as a "national,
non-profit, non-partisan, membership organization for people concerned
about the excessive growth of government regulation at the national and
state levels." The Consumer Alert website includes articles by Henry I.
Miller, Michael Fumento and Frances B. Smith. It published a "declaration
of support" for agricultural biotechnology signed by over 600 scientists
including signatories from Monsanto (67 individuals), Pioneer Hi-Bred (22
individuals), Dow (21 individuals) and American Council on Science and
Health (2 individuals). It has Elizabeth Whelan, director of the American
Council on Science and Health, on its advisory board.
Frances Smith appeared on Fox News Channel on July 12, 2001 to comment
on organic vs. conventional foods. Smith said, "There is no scientific
evidence that organic food is purer, safer or healthier for consumers.
Yet some organic producers make these claims to sell their products." Consumer
Alert has consistently lobbied against labelling of GM foods.
Social Issues Research Centre (SIRC)
Housed in the Royal Institution (RI) and supported by UK science minister,
Lord Sainsbury, and Baroness Susan Greenfield, president of the RI, SIRC’s
founding mission was to help "sceptical and impatient journalists" get
their stories right on controversial issues such as "animal research, cloning
and genetically modified food."
The new centre, however, was an attempt to control science reporting
which had its origins in August 1998, when Dr Arpad Pusztai made public
his concerns about apparent ill effects of GM food. SIRC, with Baroness
Susan Greenfield of the Royal Institution (RI), put together a forum, which
included Food Standards Agency chief Sir John Krebs, that laid down guidelines
for journalists and scientists on how they should report science stories
in the media. In September 2000, Guidelines on Science and Health Communication
for the media were published by the "SIRC/RI Forum". The media Guidelines
focus on how to avoid overstating risk and alarming the public. They have
nothing to say about the danger of understating risk, i.e. the kind of
false reassurances that go to the very heart of the BSE disaster. The Guidelines
similarly have little to say about the dangers stemming from conflicts
of interest, arising through industry funding of research etc. SIRC introduced
a secret register of approved "experts" with whom journalists are advised
to check their stories prior to publication!
SIRC is funded in part by the food industry (e.g. Bestfoods, the giant
US food group) and by the SIRC's sister organisation, MCM Research Ltd,
which has identical personnel and which promises: "Positive Research ...
Do your PR initiatives sometimes look too much like PR initiatives? MCM
conducts social/psychological research on the positive aspects of your
business... The results do not read like PR literature, or like market
research data... Our reports are credible, interesting and entertaining
in their own right. This is why they capture the imagination of the media
and your customers."
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/scisale.htm
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/thoughtpolice.htm
Spiked online
This GM-supporting website edited by Times columnist Mick Hume - www.spiked.org
is a product of the Living Marxism right-wing clique. Spiked online
carries reassuring articles about pesticide residues in food (nothing to
worry about), MMR vaccine (ditto); and articles attacking organic foods
by Dennis and Alex Avery of the Hudson Institute.
See also: Durkin, Martin; Fox, Fiona; Science Media Centre, Institute
of Ideas
http://ngin.tripod.com/180902a.htm
The NERC's sponsorship of these debates also helps Spiked to increase
its credibility, to put forward the views
of its own spokespeople and to increase the number of people coming
to the Spiked site for information - information which outside of the 'debate'
is all in
one extreme direction.
The Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), a UK government [ie
taxpayer] funded agency, is not just lending its name and credibility to
a series
of 'Spiked' debates on the environment, it's putting public funding
into sponsoring them.
The debates - the latest is on 'The Future of GM' in the context of the farm scale trials - are taking place on the Spiked website.
This is run by the same (strategically) rightwing pro-corporate 'Living
Marxism' clique that ran LM magazine until it was sued out of existence
by ITN,
over its attack on their journalists as part of LM's denial of Serbian
war crimes. LM also ran a series of articles denying the Rwandan genocide
- articles
co-authored by Fiona Fox, the current director of the pro-GM Science
Media Centre.
When we drew the history of this group to the NERC's attention, they
responded, "NERC is satisfied that there is no evidence suggesting that,
on
environmental matters, spiked have any particular agenda."
In fact, Spiked are fanatically pro-GM and oppose environmental concerns
in almost any form. Guardian columnist, George Monbiot is among several
journalists who have exposed their agenda and the dubious tactics of
their supporters.
Relevant articles in the media section of Monbiots' website - www.monbiot.com - include
The Revolution Has Been Televised
Channel 4's Against Nature series turns out to have been made by an
obscure and cranky sect.
Modified Truth
Channel 4 has hired a charlatan to make its science programmes. This
man takes liberties with facts.
Far Left or Far Right?
Living Marxism's interesting allegiances.
Crimes Against Nature
A new Channel 4 series would be laughable, had it not been given three
hours of prime time TV.
You can judge the Spiked agenda by the debate initiators' presentations
below. We have rearranged the order to bring the one mildly sceptical piece
to the
top so you don't have trouble finding it. Other pieces are authored
by the likes of CS Prakash and Greg Conko, and a member of the Spiked
editorial
clique who argues, 'The farm-scale trials are an unnecessary obstacle
to the introduction of this beneficial technology.'
When we pointed out the extreme imbalance in the views presented, Marion
O'Sullivan of the NERC told us, "We have edged towards balanced and
pro-GM views to start off this debate because those views are less
well aired than the anti-GM views." When we queried this, Ms O'Sullivan
failed to
clarify how the NERC justified that assertion.
What is at issue is not just a biased debate. The NERC's sponsorship
of these debates also helps Spiked to increase its credibility, to put
forward the views
of its own spokespeople and to increase the number of people coming
to the Spiked site for information - information which outside of the 'debate'
is all in
one extreme direction.
The strategy is clear even on the main GM debate page which has a link
to a pro-GM article unconnected with the debate that dismisses the concerns
over
the Mexican maize scandal as "yet another round of scare stories" from
"media campaigners".
When we pointed out the evidence for the Spiked agenda and the way in
which the NERC was assisting what was in effect a rabidly pro-GM
environmentalist-hate group that played fast and loose with the truth,
Marion O'Sullivan of the NERC told us, "I'm afraid that we shall have to
agree to
differ about their suitability as a forum for debate."
Read and judge their suitability for yourself. If you have any concerns,
you may like to contact NERC via "Marion O'Sullivan" <mjo@nerc.ac.uk>
---
Sponsored by the Natural Environment Research Council
Why do we need the UK farm-scale trials?
http://www.spiked-online.com/sections/science/debates/GM/default.htm
Join the Spiked Online debate:
http://www.spiked-online.com/sections/science/debates/GM/default.htm
Discussion - all postings
http://www.spiked-online.com/Sections/Science/Debates/GM/Responses.htm
Spiked has launched a series of debates to provoke critical thinking
on key scientific issues... NERC is sponsoring this series of debates on
environmental
issues with the aim of stimulating dialogue in the wider social and
ethical context of issues in which science plays a part.
Stossell, John
Elizabeth Whelan's Panic in the Pantry and Toxic Terror contain many
of
the ideas that Stossel turns into his "Give Me A Break" commentaries
run on 20/20 and ABC radio. [http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=special&s=dowie20011220
Stossel's Heroes
by MARK DOWIE ]
Several articles on Stossel from The Nation, January 7, 2002
...
A Teflon Correspondent
John Stossel has high Q-ratings, so he doesn't have to worry about
the
rules http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020107&s=dowie
[excerpts]
John Stossel, television's million-dollar bonus baby, has given new
meaning to the old journalistic maxim "Follow the money." ..."I ran
into
him one day, kidded him about his metamorphosis and asked what had
happened. 'I got a little older,' John answered. 'Liked the idea of
making real money. So started looking at things a little differently.'"
...for its viewers ABC still packages Stossel as a reporter--a dogged,
take-no-prisoners investigator. But they allow him to play by a vastly
different set of rules than mainline reporters ...Were they strictly
enforced, John Stossel might also be long gone, as he appears to have
violated them repeatedly. For example, the standards caution that
"especially when there is controversy or accusation, give the person
speaking his or her best shot in the context of the report." But when
Stossel did a show trashing organic food, he not only badgered Katherine
DiMatteo, executive director of the Organic Trade Association, but
also
took some of her remarks out of context and left on the cutting-room
floor comments that would have balanced those of the program's main
organicfood opponent (see
"Food Fight," this issue).
...
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020107&s=dowie2
Food Fight
by Mark Dowie
One of the most heavily quoted sources in John Stossel's "The Food You
Eat"--in which Stossel claimed that "buying organic could kill you"--was
an outspoken critic of organic farming named Dennis Avery. Stossel
introduced Avery as "a former researcher for the Agriculture
Department," but it was Avery's more recent position with the Center
for
Global Food Issues, a project of the conservative Hudson Institute,
that
informed his ardent support of chemical agriculture. The Hudson
Institute and Avery's project are both supported by generous
contributions from Monsanto, DuPont, Novartis, ConAgra, DowElanco,
The
Olin Foundation and the Ag-Chem Equipment Company, all of whom profit
from the sale of products prohibited in organic production.
Avery maintained that organically grown food is no more nutritious than
conventional food (an unproven claim), that organic food had been found
contaminated with E. coli (a true but misleading allegation, as most
E.
coli is harmless) and that pesticide residues had not been found on
organic or conventional produce, a finding, Stossel said, of studies
that had been contracted by ABC News to an independent laboratory.
After "The Food You Eat" aired, the network was inundated with angry
mail. Katherine DiMatteo, executive director of the Organic Trade
Association, who was interviewed for the show, called the story
"distorted and inaccurate." Ken Cook of the Environmental Working Group
in Washington offered hard evidence that the studies Stossel said had
been done on pesticide residues had never been performed. And Fairness
& Accuracy in Reporting, a New York media watchdog group, questioned
Dennis Avery's claims and credentials.
ABC vice president Kerry Marash, whose job includes watching for
infractions of editorial practice, invited critics in to present their
case. Marash declined to be interviewed, on the instructions of the
network's media relations director, but people who know her say she
was
deeply disturbed by Stossel's handling of the organic food and farming
story, as well as other Stossel programs and that she wanted to talk
about it.
Subsequently, ABC announced that Stossel would offer a public apology,
live, on 20/20, involving aspects of the program. Stossel did
apologize--to his audience, but not to an industry he had badly damaged.
"I said our tests found no pesticide residues on either conventional
or
organic produce," he said. "That was just wrong.... I apologize for
the
error [and] am deeply sorry I misled you.... All we have in this
business is our credibility--your trust that we get it right--I will
make every effort to see that it never happens again." In a personal
letter to Katherine DiMatteo, Marash did apologize "to organic farmers."
David Fitzpatrick, the producer of the show, was eventually let go by
ABC in one of those severances shrouded in mutual secrecy. Fitzpatrick
did tell me that he received "a cash settlement," but not before signing
"a detailed nondisclosure agreement about the incident." Was Fitzpatrick
sacrificed? Many who knew him at ABC and remember the incident think
so.
Stossel, they believe, was carefully positioned by network executives
as
an unwitting victim of sloppy reporting by a subordinate. It was easier
and less expensive for ABC to buy off and silence a low-six-figure
producer than to cancel the contract of a million-dollar superstar.
Stott, Prof Philip
Prof Stottr, "The idea that it [organic] can replace other forms of
agriculture is a dangerous lie..."Professor emeritus of Biogeography at
the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London
In his role as chairman of the pro-GM 2001 Seeds of Opportunity conference
in London, Prof Philip Stott said, "The independent university researcher
has to be like Caesar's wife, always above suspicion". While parading his
support for Tony Blair and New Labour, Stott has long worked hand in glove
with the far-right Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) and the related
Big Tobacco-founded European Science and Environment Forum (ESEF), appearing
as a key 'witness' in the Counterblast TV attack on organic farming presented
by Roger Bate as director of ESEF. According to Stott, "The idea that [organic]
can replace other forms of agriculture is a dangerous lie..." Stott runs
a pro-biotech website which also attacks concern over tropical deforestation
and climate change. His antipathy to the latter concern is revealing. In
relation to climate change, Stott calls for people not to be taken in by
apparent scientific consensus and to resist scientific fashion. In relation
to GM crops, however, he calls for exactly the opposite. While claiming
to deconstruct "eco-hype", Stott issues bio-hype. Genetic engineering,
according to Stott, is the "finest of all human adaptations" and is, "an
advance vital for human development" and indeed, "essential for human survival".
For Stott, "Boiling a kettle is a dangerous task; yet it produces that
refreshing cup of tea. Biotechnology is no different."
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/319.htm
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/rightwing.htm
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/pants4.htm
T
Taverne, Lord Dick QC
Journalist, politician, and biotech supporter who is keenly concerned
to prevent "media distortion". Taverne has claimed that the media's "sloppiness"
on GM issues is "undermining the health of our democracy". As part of his
"media distortion" crusade, Lord Taverne served on the SIRC Forum which
laid down a Code of Practice and Guidelines on the Communication of Science
and Health issues in the Media, which tells journalists how to report GM
and other contentious issues.
[http://ngin.tripod.com/scisale.htm]. He was also amongst those involved
in the setting up of the biotech-industry supported Science Media Centre
directed by the Rwandan genocide-denier, Fiona Fox.
http://ngin.tripod.com/210602c.htm
In July 2002 Lord Taverne was reprimanded in the House of Lords after
he called for Prince Charles to be made to relinquish the throne if he
made any more statements critical of GM
Crops.
Trewavas, Anthony
Professor of Plant Biochemistry at the University of Edinburgh
Fellow of the Royal Society
Trewavas is a much-quoted expert of choice whenever a critical perspective
on organic food and farming is required. However, in Oct 2001 "Professor
Trewavas, Professor of Plant Biochemistry at the University of Edinburgh"
was named in the High Court in London as the source of a letter making
libellous allegations against Lord Melchett and Greenpeace in relation
to organic farming and GM foods.
A published apology in the Scottish newspaper, the Herald, on 6 Oct
confirmed that "On 3 November 2000 the Herald published a letter it had
received from Anthony Trewavas." The libel case provoked critical comment
on the fact that Prof Trewavas was not only a Fellow of the Royal Society
but is listed in the Society's media directory as an expert available to
help journalists get their science stories right.
Trewavas denied responsibility for the libel letter published under
his name. However, he admitted to encouraging others to circulate the letter
as widely as possible, and to sending it to a newspaper editor and PR operative
with this intent. Later it emerged that the original author of the letter
was another PR operative involved in a Monsanto dirty tricks campaign.
According to Trewavas, writing on the AgBioView listserv, opponents
of GM are interested solely "in destroying US agribusiness". He advises
enlisting the help of far right US congressmen like Jesse Helms by alerting
them "that a subversive organisation directed
from europe is attempting to destroy US agriculture and US farming."
Trewavas has had two articles attacking organic farming published in
the journal Nature. Both are opinion pieces involving no original research
and his sources and arguments are open to question. The second of the two
Nature pieces is taken apart at
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/trewavas.htm
Trewavas is not disinterested in his promotion of GM crops and crusade
against organic farming. He is a GM crop researcher who serves on the governing
council of the John Innes Centre, a biotech institute which has been mired
in controversy over its pro-GM propagandising.
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/organic.htm
Turner, Roger
Chief executive, British Society of Plant Breeders
Turner is head of SCIMAC, the industry body whom the Government have
left to "police" the introduction of GM technology into UK agriculture.
He said about GM that he had "No reservations at all. It's great... public
getting fantasies, not facts." At a 2002 conference in Cirencester, Turner
gave a talk called ""GM crop adoption: is Europe being left behind?" in
which he said farmers are already losing business because they cannot be
as efficient as GM growers - in the production of beets for sugar-making,
for example. We await with bated breath the evidence that GM crops improve
agricultural efficiency, especially as the evidence so far shows the contrary.
We wonder too if Turner is aware of British Sugar’s position on GM sugar
crops they have unequivocally said they don’t want them.
In the AEBC register of members’ interests, Turner has declared "a
pension from Rhone Poulenc Rohrer". Rhone Poulenc is, of course, one of
the parent companies of Aventis, the company whose crops are grown in the
UK GM trials.
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/fav.htm
U
UN World Development Program (UNDP)
UNDP’s influential annual 'Human Development Report' has traditionally
emphasised human rights and environmental and social sustainability in
its development programmes for the third world. That all came to an end
when two World Bank executives, Mark Malloch Brown and Sakiko Fukuda-Parr,
were appointed to the UNDP. Mark Malloch Brown was previously the World
Bank's vice president for external affairs and its vice president for United
Nations Affairs. Fukuda-Parr was an economist for the World Bank. The effects
of World Bank involvement in every third world country has been to force
open local markets to multinational corporations, including GM companies.
So some analysts were not surprised when Malloch Brown said of GM: "it
would be wrong for rich Northern consumers... to block development of these
technologies that hold so much promise to help feed the poor". His first
act was to commission Fukuda-Parr to write UNDP’s 2001 'Human Development
Report'. Previous reports have contained clear analysis of the true causes
of inequality, but this was the first to promote the notion that GM crops
are the solution for third world poverty and that western environmentalists
are standing in the way of their progress. Oxfam, Greenpeace International,
Actionaid, the Intermediate Technology Development Group and more than
290 grassroots and farmers’ groups around the world objected strongly to
the report's conclusions. UNDP then issued an Open Letter defending the
report, in which they named only Greenpeace as a critic. Conveniently,
the report came out days before the OECD meeting on GM food and crops in
Bangkok, chaired by Lord Selbourne (chair of the British Chemicals Stakeholder
Forum), and delegates predictably endorsed it.
See also: Fukuda-Parr, Sakiko; Malloch Brown, Mark; World Bank
W
Waites, Prof William
University of Nottingham
Paid advisor to CropGen
Even this spokesman for the GM industry was not impressed by the Food
Standards Agency's proposed study (in 2000) for monitoring the health impact
of GM foods on consumers. Waites said: "It took decades to prove the link
between smoking and ill health, and that was fairly obvious. I wouldn't
expect them to find anything meaningful in 18 months."
Wambugu, Florence
WAMBUGU, Dr. Florence, Director, Regional Office, A Harvest Biotech
Foundation International (AHBFI), Runda Mimosa vale, Hse No. 215, P.O.
Box
25556, Nairobi, KENYA. http://www.ipgri.cgiar.org/institute/trustees.asp
Some of the many, many contributors:
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), United Nations Environment
Programme (UNEP), United States Department of Agriculture (USDA),
USA, and World Bank http://www.ipgri.cgiar.org/institute/support.htm
Site map: http://www.ipgri.cgiar.org/catalogue/map.asp
ngin bulletin: GM food may save Africa, says scientist/Sat, 04 Aug
2001
Wambugu’s book, Modifying Africa, argues GM crops are a panacea for
African poverty and hunger as they will increase food production, decrease
prices and improve farmer incomes.
An ex-Monsanto trained scientist and advisor to DuPont, Wambugu is
now employed to promote biotech in Africa by the ISAAA an organisation
which receives a major part of its funding from the biotech industry.
Wambugu's relationship with the industry organisation, Africabio, has
also attracted controversy. According to the co-ordinator of Biowatch South
Africa: "Dr Wambugu participated in public debate here and became almost
hysterical when her tactic of using her daughter in the audience to question
and attack those critical of genetic engineering was exposed. To us, these
fellow Africans paid by the big US corporations to promote GE without applying
any critical thought are like people who have no memory, no history. People
like Dr Wambugu... were brought here by Africabio to present a "politically
correct" face to the organisation, the same reason they are targeting small
farmers here. Africabio is an industry front organisation whose aim is
to promote GE in Africa and prevent any trade barriers to its members."
(letter to the Daily Nation, Wednesday, September 20, 2000)
The article by Florence Wambugu in the Oct 2002 issue of WPR, on p.13
was a most unfortunate selection. Dr. Wambugu, a black woman, and leading
plant
geneticist in Kenya who helped create the genetically altered sweet
potato, is eternally paraded about the globe by the biotech industry as
the “voice of the
people.“ She is presently, the director of the African Center of the
International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications
(ISAAA), which is
funded by biotech companies like Pioneer, Monsanto, Novartis and AgrEvo
as well as government agencies like the U.S. Agency for International
Development (USAID).
She is portrayed as a savior of her people in the industry-written magazine
children’s magazine, Your World: Biotechnology & You (v.10, i.1 2001).
It is
produced by the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), the primary
biotech trade association representing more than 900 biotech companies,
academic
institutions, state biotechnology centers and related organizations
in all 50 U.S. states and more than 27 other nations. BIO sends Your World
gratis to
schools around the globe. According to the BIO, there are over 5,000
schools that are getting copies. Val Giddings, a vice president of BIO
(Biotechnology
Industry Organization), was quoted as saying, "I wish we could clone
her."
In short, Dr. Wambugu is aiding the present-day colonialization of Africa
by transnational corporations (TNC) such as Monsanto. Few of the promises
by
that powerful industry have come to fruition. The crops do not produce
more or reduce the amounts of pesticides used. More importantly, in the
case of
Africa, the poor cannot afford the additional cost of the product.
Through globalization, the biotech crop patents will bind the poor of Africa
to the TNC until
the end of time. Ask Percy Schmeiser, the Saskatchewan farmer whom
Monsanto sued, about the benevolence of the biotech industry.
Washington Legal Foundation the pro-biotech activities
of the Washington Legal Foundation, a lavishly-funded industry front
which had filed a brief in the U.S. Supreme Court urging the Court
to
find that genetically engineered seed did qualify for patent protection
under federal law.
Marcus Williamson <http://www.connectotel.com/gmfood/> pointed out
that,
"Whilst [the Washington Legal Foundation] don't have any exact info
about who's funding them (to the tune of $4m in 2000!), the 'Links
to
other organisations' and 'WLF Clients' includes many of our old
friends".
Among the "old friends" that Marcus noted were Elizabeth ("I've been
called a paid liar for industry so many times I've lost count") Whelan's
American Council on Science and Health, the Cato Institute [adjunct
scholar, "the Junkman", Steven Milloy, whose 'junkscience' campaign
was
launched with the help of Big Tobacco - see item 4 below] and the
American Enterprise Institute.
Whelan, Elizabeth
Author of "Panic in the Pantry" and "Toxic Terror", and President
and founder of the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH) which
has published articles promoting GM food and denigrating organic food.
PR Watch describe ACSH an "industry front group that produces PR ammunition
for the food processing and chemical industries." ACSH's corporate funders
have included Monsanto, DuPont, Dow, the National Agricultural Chemicals
Association, Pfizer, and NutraSweet Company. http://www.cspinet.org/integrity/corp_funding.html
Whelan says: "I've been called a paid liar for industry so many times I've
lost count."
Wilson, T Michael
Former deputy head of the Scottish Crop Research Institute (SCRI) and
now Chief Executive of Horticulture Research International.
In a 1999 press article, Prof Wilson called upon organic farmers to
"bury the hatchet" and accept GM crops in the light of positive evidence
of their benefits. Prof Wilson indicated the compelling nature of the evidence
by citing "an independent U.S. survey, carried out by Cornell University"
which "showed that the use of GM crops in Northern America cut farmers’
bills for pest and disease control chemicals by $465 million. It also reduced
tillage and other energy costs and encouraged more wildlife."
Sadly, investigation showed the report (which is not peer reviewed)
* Was not authored by a Cornell researcher but by the chair of industry
body ISAAA, who has never been a Cornell researcher
* Does not mention wildlife or biodiversity
* Does claim economic benefits and pesticide reduction from GM crops
but these figures turn out not to be based on independent data but on producer
estimates! Genuinely independent research suggests that the opposite is
true: GM yields are down from non-GM yields, and chemical usage is up.
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/false.htm
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/rightwing.htm
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/watchingdrpusztai.htm
World Bank
The World Bank (the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development)
and International Monetary Fund were established at the end of World War
II under agreements reached (by the victors) at the United Nations. The
institutional blueprints closely resembled plans proposed by US government
task forces. The World Bank provides loans and gives banks incentives for
investing in developing countries. The ostensible purposes of the World
Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) were to reconstruct after the
war, and to prevent the return of the trade barriers, unstable exchange
rates, and inflation which had contributed to the war. The actual effects
have been to force open the world's local economies to multinational corporations,
including GM companies. This effect has been strengthened by the recent
appointment of two former World Bank officials, Mark Malloch Brown and
Sakiko Fukuda-Parr to the UN World Development Programme (UNDP). Brown
and Fukuda-Parr wasted no time in turning around the traditional UN focus
away from poor farmers’ rights and environmental sustainability and
towards the adoption of GM crops in the developing world.
See also: Fukuda-Parr, Sakiko; Malloch Brown, Mark
Yerxa Rufus
Financial Times (London) August 20, 2002, Tuesday London
A canny early move from Supachai Panitchpakdi, who takes over next month
as director-general of the World Trade Organisation. The former Thai
deputy premier has irked both Brussels and Washington lately by wading
into their transatlantic steel trade dispute and threatening the WTO's
traditional
consensus by posing as a champion of developing countries.
So Supachai has selected two trade veterans to be his US and European
deputies. Britain's Rod Abbott has 30 years' experience as a European Union
trade
negotiator. Witty and with an ear for well-turned phrases, he knows
the mind of Pascal Lamy, cerebral EU trade commissioner. That'll prove
invaluable for
Supachai as he pushes ahead with the Doha trade round and the inevitable
haggling over reducing Brussels' farm subsidies. The US deputy, meanwhile,
Rufus Yerxa, has Geneva experience as the US ambassador to Gatt, the
WTO's predecessor, where he had a reputation for charming opponents. Yerxa
has
been international counsel to Monsanto, the bio-technology group. Just
the man Supachai will need should the US ever bleat to the WTO about
EUrestrictions on genetically modified food.
CSPI
>> 2a. from http://www.prwatch.org: Guest Choice & "The Food Police"
Make
> Strange Bedfellows
>
> Lobbyist Rick Berman runs the DC-based Guest Choice Network, a mean
and
> nasty PR operation serving the tobacco, booze and food industries.
(See
> PR Watch Volume 8 #1 for the inside scoop on Berman & Co.)
> http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/2001Q1/berman1.html
>
> His favorite target is often Michael Jacobson's "food police" at
the
> Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) [see, for example,
> Guest Choice's, er... hilarious: 'Top changes CSPI would make if
they
> ran the Girl Scout cookie drive'
> http://www.nannyculture.com/index_parody.cfm?PARODY_ID=8].
>
> But now, after years of sitting on the sidelines in the genetically
> engineered food debate, Jacobson has received biotech funding from
the
> Rockefeller Foundation, and CSPI is praising the alleged benefits
and
> safety of GE food.
>
> As a result, Berman's Guest Choice Network is praising CSPI, especially
> after CSPI's Gregory Jaffe told the New York Times that the benefits
of
> GE food, "without any evidence of harm to humans or the environment
-
> partly explain why engineered crops are spreading so rapidly."
>
> Oh really, Gregory? We suspect that the failure of the US FDA to
require
> mandatory safety testing or labeling -- and the failure of the snoozing
> food police at CSPI to demand they do so -- are the more obvious
reasons
> why GE foods have stealthily grabbed market share in the US.
>
> Politics is known for strange bedfellows, and Mike Jacobson and Rick
> Berman are today's odd couple. Source: 6/17/01 CSPI letter to NYT,
and
> Guest Choice Network
> ---
> 2b. Guest Choice & The Food Police: Strange Bedfellows Continued
>
> The tobacco, booze and food industry lobbyists at Rick Berman's Guest
> Choice Network usually castigate Michael Jacobson's Center for Science
> in the Public Interest (CSPI) as the dreaded "food police" when it
comes
> to fat and sugar in the diet. But they are loving CSPI's promotion
of
> genetically engineered food. CSPI, Monsanto's former lawyer Mike
Taylor
> (now at Resources for the Future) and Monsanto's former cow growth
> hormone lobbyist Carol Tucker Foreman (now back at Consumer Federation
> of America), are all getting substantial grants from the Rockefeller
> Foundation, a huge supporter of the alleged benefits of genetically
> engineered crops.
> ---
> 2c. "The Food Police?" CSPI Got Big Bucks to Flack for GE Foods
>
> Last year Michael Jacobson's Center for Science in the Public Interest
> (CSPI, also known as "the food police") received $200,000 from the
> pro-biotechnology Rockefeller Foundation to be a moderate voice in
the
> raging debate over genetically engineered (GE) foods. CSPI has since
> made many statements very favorable to GE foods and recently called
for
> government action against companies marketing non-GE foods. Ironically,
> CSPI's Integrity in Science Project criticizes and reveals the special
> interest funding and agendas of other nonprofit organizations.
> Apparently the food police don't see accepting a $200,000 grant to
flack
> for GE food as a "competing interest" to their own objectivity and
> scientific integrity