GM Watch brings you… THE WORST OF 2006 - PART 1

2006 brought a litany of examples of how GMOs are promoted and imposed around the world by sidestepping critical scrutiny and overcoming opposition via lies and disinformation, hype and false promises, corruption and double dealing, diplomatic stratagems and trade pressure, and even violence and oppression.

Incidentally, if you're in need a pick-me-up after reading this, don't forget to remind yourself of all the good news last year - THE BEST OF 2006
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7438

Also available in German - BESTE NEUIGKEITEN 2006
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7439

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THE WORST OF 2006 - PART 1: JANUARY - JUNE

JANUARY

+ January: FUMENTO SACKED OVER MONSANTO PAYMENT
2006 got off to a flying start with the news that Scripps Howard News Service had severed all ties with the US columnist Michael Fumento because of his failure to disclose payments from Monsanto - a corporation that had been a frequent subject of praise in Fumento's opinion pieces. Fumento connects to both the Hudson Institute - home of Dennis and Alex Avery - and the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the corporate libertarians who co-founded CS Prakash's AgBioWorld. (A Columnist Backed by Monsanto, Business Week, January 13 2006)
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6132

+ January: USDA BLASTED
Quietly released in the dying days of 2005, a shocking report from the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) went almost unreported at the time, even though it roundly criticized many aspects of the oversight of GM crops. The report said the USDA "lacks basic information" on where field tests are or what is done with the crops after they are harvested, even in the case of pharma and industrial crops. Some of the media, though, did pick up on the report later in 2006 after GM contamination badly damaged US rice exports. (see AUGUST in PART 2)
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6086

+ January: TAVERNE DOES MONSANTO PROMOTIONAL
Lord Taverne, chairman of the pro-GM lobby group Sense About Science, did a GM-promotional for Monsanto. In a video promoting the corporation, Taverne claimed that Bt cotton is "benefiting small farmers all over the world". This in spite of all the evidence of the Bt crop's damaging agronomic and economic impact on small farmers, particularly in developing countries.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7432

Although Taverne heads Sense About Science, he has no background in science and has been accused of using scientific evidence selectively and unscrupulously to bolster his own prejudices - exactly the charge he levels at others!
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6148
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6115

+ January: KENYA'S AG SECRETARY IN CONFLICT OF INTEREST
Kenya's new Permanent Secretary for Agriculture, Dr Romano Kiome, turned out to be the former executive director of the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI), which has been involved in a series of controversial GM-crop collaborations with the likes of Monsanto, USAID and the Syngenta Foundation. Dr Kiome said he saw no conflict of interest in his being permanent secretary for the ministry which regulates GM crops and grants permits for plant research activities to the likes of… er, KARI. http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6089

+ January: DAMNING ERMAKOVA STUDY WITH…
The UK's GM food regulatory body, the Advisory Committee on Novel Foods and Processes (ACNFP), drew a critical comparison between a study by Dr Erina Ermakova of the Russian Academy of Sciences into the effects on reproduction of feeding rats GM soy, and one by Brake and Evenson involving mice. While Dr Ermakova's study found that female rats fed on GM soya had progeny that were five times more likely to die within three weeks of birth compared to mothers fed on normal soya, the Brake and Evenson study found no adverse effects in the case of mice. ACNFP described the Brake and Evenson study as "well controlled" but the nutritional science expert Dr Arpad Pusztai suggested the Brake and Evenson study had such poor nutritional design that it provided "no feeding protocol, no data, no weights, no feed intake, no growth pattern related to feed intake, absolutely nothing!"
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7080

FEBRUARY

+ February: FRENCH FARMER BANNED FROM 'LAND OF THE FREE'
Pro-GM lobbyists were cock-a-hoop in February when French GM crop-puller Jose Bove was stopped upon arrival at JFK airport, denied entry to the US and put on a plane back to France. Bove had been set to speak in New York at an event sponsored by Cornell's School of Industrial and Labor Relations. CS Prakash's AgBioView delightedly declared: "And Now for Some Really Good News... Jose Bove Sent Packing by U.S."

GM WATCH commented, "It's interesting that the banning of people who challenge major corporations is considered 'Really Good News', while the exclusion of those companies' suspect imports is considered an 'Outrage!'… 'But Bove has been to prison', we hear Prakash protest. Well, so too has Prakash's fellow GM propagandist, Dr Douglas Powell, and for far worse than tearing up GM crops, yet steps were specifically taken to get round Powell's criminal convictions in order to allow him to continue to enter the United States. And we don't remember Prakash calling that an 'Outrage!'"
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