With the final farm-scale evaluation of GM crops to be published tomorrow, the GM lobby is in full cry in the Sunday papers painting critics as "extremists", "fundamentalists" etc. Some are from the biotech industry backed institutes, or like Chris Lamb have biotech industry interests of their own. Taverne , of course, has a team at Sense About Science of truly repugnant political extremists, writing his scripts.

And item 3 confirms just how extreme the GM lobby is. The people mentioned as driving the support for reproductive cloning are Ian Gibson, who has been shown to be merely a mouthpiece for GM Godfather Derek Burke, and Evan Harris who works hand in glove with Susan Greenfield, the Science Media Centre etc. As Dr David King, director of Human Genetics Alert, rightly says: "The kind of ethics we see in this report, which is incapable of saying a clear 'no' to anything, is no ethics at all. The extreme bias discredits the committee and the political cause it is espousing."

Find out more about the individuals and institutions mentioned here in the BIOTECH BRIGADE directory at www.gmwatch.org

1.Fear of extremists kills off GM tests
2.Green groups 'deceive public to stop GM crops'
3.MPs say lift ban on reproductive human cloning
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1.Fear of extremists kills off GM tests
Threat to dig up experimental crops drives British research overseas
Robin McKie, science editor
Sunday March 20, 2005
The Observer
http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/sciences/story/0,12243,1442075,00.html

Research on crops that can withstand climate change, provide allergy-free foods and give consumers cheap sources of nutrition have been abandoned by British scientists.

This country's leading plant scientists have told The Observer that the threat of 'field-trashing' by environmental activists is now so high, they had given up all attempts to grow new varieties of genetically modified crops here.

In some cases, trials are being carried out in eastern Europe and China. In others, crop varieties designed to help British farmers withstand global warming have simply been abandoned.

'Environmentalists have complained that scientists keep promising to deliver a new generation of GM crops but have failed to do so,' said Professor Ian Crute, director of Rothamsted Research in Hertfordshire. 'But every time we attempt a field trial of a new laboratory-created variety, extremists come along and dig up our plants.'

It is a point backed by Chris Lamb, head of the John Innes research centre in Norwich. 'Every trial we carry out has to be published on a website on which the site's six-digit grid reference is given. You may as well put up an illuminated sign and invite campaigners to dig it up.'

No field trials of new GM crops have been attempted by Rothamsted scientists in the past 18 months. 'We have had to export our experiments to other countries and they are the ones who will reap the benefits,' added Crute.

Among the varieties being studied at Rothamsted are those designed to create wheats that would contain no gluten, a protein linked to cases of severe allergic reactions in some individuals, particularly among children.

Rothamsted scientists have also been working on varieties of GM rape that would provide oils whose make-up would mimic those of fish oils.

'These are particularly rich in nutrients that help brain and eyesight development in children,' said Crute. 'We are overfishing our oceans and these plants could be crucial in providing us with cheap sources of key nutrients.'

However, in both cases scientists have had simply stopped field trials and given their work to researchers who are now working on field trials in East Europe and China.

'These are likely to become valuable crops and our farmers, who would have been first in line to grow them, will now be pushed to the back of the queue of those seeking to grow them,' added Crute.

The revelations come as the final farm-scale evaluation of GM crops is to be published tomorrow. This will focus on the environmental impact of GM winter oil seed rape. The trial results are expected to be ambiguous.

This generation of crops was designed to be tolerant to certain forms of pesticides. The next generation was intended to be far more exciting, added Lamb.

'We have learnt a great deal about the genes that control when a plant comes into flower,' he said. 'As global warming begins to have a major impact on crop growing, this knowledge will become extremely important.'
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2.Green groups 'deceive public to stop GM crops'
By David Harrison
Sunday Telegraph, 20 March 2005
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/03/20/ngm20.xml&sSheet=/portal/2005/03/20/ixportal.html

Aid agencies and environmentalists have deceived the public over genetically modified crops by deliberately ignoring scientific evidence that supports the technology, according to a new book.

The March of Unreason, by Dick Taverne, the Liberal Democrat peer, accuses Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and other green groups of turning their opposition to GM plants into a "religious crusade", based on "blind faith and deep bias" rather than serious research.

Lord Taverne, a member of the House of Lords science and technology committee, accuses environmentalists and aid agencies of ignoring "solid science", citing each others' reports, and using discredited studies to push the case against GM crops.

He also argues that the green lobby has whipped up public hysteria with scare stories and emotive terms such as Frankenstein foods when the science shows overwhelmingly that GM crops will help to ease world hunger and poverty, help the environment and improve public health.

The peer, who is also the founder-chairman of the charity Sense about Science, said that the green lobby's activities had done enormous damage to Britain's biotechnology industry, a field in which it was a world leader.

As a result of the opposition, the Government imposed a five-year moratorium on GM crops - from 1999 until last year - and has still to approve their full-scale commercial production.

In the book, which has been published ahead of tomorrow's announcement by the Government of the results of its latest field-scale evaluation of GM crops, Lord Taverne gives many examples of the green lobby's "misuse" of evidence and research.

He highlights how a report by the charity Action Aid in 2003 quoted studies by Greenpeace, other green pressure groups and its own "branches" before concluding that GM crops would not benefit the Third World.

Lord Taverne said, however, that the study ignored the findings of independent experts, the National Academy of Sciences USA, several other national academies of science, the Third World Academy of Sciences, four Royal Society reports and two reports by the Nuffield Council. "But because it is published by an aid agency and relies on reports by green lobbies to which most newspapers are sympathetic, the press treats it with deference," he said.

The book also refers to the case of the Monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus), a species said by one study to be at risk from GM crops. Its cause was adopted by green groups and received widespread media attention.

Soon afterwards, however, eminent plant biologists rejected the research when field studies found that the impact on the butterfly was negligible. Despite this, green groups still say that GM crops kill the Monarch.

Another report, Feeding or Fooling the World - Can GM crops really feed the hungry? - published in 2002 by the Genetic Engineering Alliance, a coalition of 120 British-based organisations calling for a ban on GM crops, applies "a similar lack of rigour", according to Lord Taverne.

"Every possible quotation that supports or might appear to support the case for a freeze is cited, irrespective of its academic worth; no evidence against is mentioned, however eminent and independent the source... in places this report seems almost deliberately designed to mislead," the author said.

Lord Taverne mentions another report by Action Aid, this time on the Golden Rice project. This involved genetically modifying rice to produce Vitamin A in the body - a breakthrough hailed by scientists as an important step towards helping 14 million children under five years old who suffer from Vitamin A deficiency, which can lead to measles and blindness.

The charity's report dismissed the project as worthless and cited a "finding" by Greenpeace that a child would have to eat about 7kg of cooked Golden Rice to obtain the required amount of Vitamin A.

The report failed, however, to quote the conclusions of the project's original researchers, who said that a child would benefit by consuming 200g of rice a day.

Lord Taverne said that to dismiss the project on the basis of Greenpeace's claims was "like quoting the Pope as an unbiased authority on contraception".

Most of the media have swallowed the green lobby's line, he said. A genetically modified tomato puree was popular until the press began a campaign against Frankenstein foods in 1999, prompted by publicity given to a study in The Lancet.

The research highlighted the adverse effect of GM potatoes on rats, but was discredited as "flawed" by the Royal Society.

It said that no conclusions should be drawn from it, but Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and their allies, continued to stress health hazards from GM crops, Lord Taverne said.

To illustrate the green lobby's "eco-fundamentalism" Lord Taverne cites the response of Lord Melchett, then the director of Greenpeace, to a question asked by the Lords select committee on GM crops, which reported in 1999.

Asked about his opposition to GM plants Lord Melchett replied: "It is a permanent and definite and complete opposition based on a view that there will always be major uncertainties. It is the nature of the technology, indeed it is the nature of science that there will not be any absolute proof."

The European Commission encourages GM crops, which it has declared to be safe, but EU member states, except Spain, are reluctant to license them.

Lord Taverne's book says, however, that GM technology will lead to more efficient land use and produce more nutritional, varied and cheaper food. The crops will be able to grow in arid and saline areas, survive drought, eliminate the need for pesticides and free land for wildlife.

He highlights the widespread use and success of GM crops in countries including the US, China, South Africa, India and Argentina and expresses puzzlement that the public accepts biotechnology for medicines such as insulin, but not plants.

Green groups rejected the peer's accusations. Tony Juniper, the executive director of Friends of the Earth, said that the green lobby took science "very seriously" and studies so far had failed to prove the long-term safety of GM crops.

"Science has its limits. We have concerns about the social, economic, environmental and ethical impact of this technology," he said.

Action Aid also denied that it had ignored scientific evidence, while Pete Riley, the spokesman for the Five-Year Freeze Campaign, another anti-GM lobby group, said.

"Dick Taverne and his friends should get out and find real solutions to the world's problems, and not just help those who want to profit from new technology."

The March of Unreason, Oxford University Press, £18.99
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3.MPs say lift ban on reproductive human cloning
Antony Barnett, public affairs editor
Sunday March 20, 2005
The Observer
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,11026,1442059,00.html

The creation of a creature that is half-man/half-animal may be thought to be the stuff of a science fiction novel, but this week an influential group of MPs will recommend that the government considers overturning its ban on such experiments.

In a report into human embryo research in Britain, the commons science and technology committee will suggest that human embryos could be implanted into animals for research purposes. It will also say parents should be allowed to chose the sex of their child for 'social reasons' and that the cloning of human embryos should be allowed for medical purposes.

The report is so controversial that it has split the MPs who sat on the committee and is likely to see a number of them condemn its findings as too 'pro-science'.

A leaked copy of the report has been obtained by The Observer. It concludes that 'chimeric' experiments - a mixture of genetic material in one animal or human - could produce 'valuable and highly ethical research in the future'. It states that the current Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act's prohibition of such research is 'largely symbolic'.

'Beyond animal welfare arguments, it is not clear why this should be any more unacceptable than flushing the embryo down the sink, which is its likely alternative fate,' the report states.

The report quotes embryologist Professor Henry Leese, suggesting that little is known about the development of the human embryo in a living organism as opposed to a test tube. 'Such research could yield valuable insights into the causes of infertility and miscarriage,' the report says.

Experiments creating human hybrids are gathering pace. Molecular biologist Irving Weissman at Stanford University, California, injected human brain cells into mouse foetuses, creating a strain of mice approximately 1 per cent human. He is considering producing mice whose brains, in genetic material at least, are 100 per cent human.

Scientists believe that the more 'human' research animals become the better able they will be to develop drugs and produce organs for transplantation. The National Academy of Sciences in the US is about to issue guidelines for chimeric research that is expected to lead to several new experiments in this field.

The committee's suggestion that research should be allowed in this contentious area is just one of several likely to create heated debate. The report suggests a radical rethink of existing law. 'Parents, rather than the state, must be assumed to be the right decision-makers for their families,' it argues.

The idea that scientists should be allowed to clone human embryos will anger religious groups which lobbied for the ban in the first place.

But the committee goes even further by suggesting they should be free to 'genetically modify' human embryos to allow couples to create designer babies, and in some cases be allowed to choose the sex of their child. The report suggests that choosing a baby's sex for social reasons may be acceptable and that there is no evidence it harms individuals or society. It says couples should be allowed to undergo fertility treatment which includes selection of embryos that are disease-free and for tissue type, as long as they remain within the law.

According to sources familiar with the inquiry, the committee has been completely divided with five MPs rejecting the report's conclusion. It is understood the 'pro-science' tone has been driven by the Labour chairman, Dr Ian Gibson, a former dean of biology at the University of East Anglia, and Dr Evan Harris, former health spokesman for the Liberal Democrats.

Dr David King, director of Human Genetics Alert, said: 'The kind of ethics we see in this report, which is incapable of saying a clear "no" to anything, is no ethics at all. The extreme bias discredits the committee and the political cause it is espousing.'

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