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from Claire Robinson, WEEKLY WATCH editor
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Dear all
Welcome to WW52 bringing you all the latest news in brief on the GM issue.
NGIN/GMWATCH has continued to attract considerable attention as a result of George Monbiot's recent Guardian article, "Invasion of the Entryists", a fully referenced version of which is now available on George's site at www.monbiot.com. The article drew on our new Biotech Brigade database at
www.gmwatch.org
In addition, the Guardian's environment correspondents have kindly given us an award - well, of sorts! They also give some ironic "eco-gongs" to our friends in the Living Marxism (LM) network, which has a long history of infiltrating media organisations and science lobby groups in order to promote its own agenda and which is now embedded right at the heart of the UK's science-media groups dealing with the biotech issue. (See HIGHLIGHTS)
The Royal Society and others have tried to brush off the Monbiot/GM WATCH revelations as "paranoia", "conspiracy theories", "nonsense", "hilarious" etc.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=1895
What they have completely failed to do is respond to any of the well-evidenced facts that they have welcomed into their midst people whose attitude to the truth is reflected in their long history of denial of the horrors of the Rwandan genocide, of massacres, torture and other war crimes in Bosnia and terrorist atrocities in Ireland.
Even our eco-gong was eclipsed this week by some really good news. Bayer CropScience, the UK arm of German biotech and chemicals giant, has just pulled 6 of its GM seed approval applications in the UK
http://www.forbes.com/home_europe/newswire/2003/12/18/rtr1186107.html
This follows on from news that Bayer has stopped all testing in the UK. Now if that isn't a seasonal blessing, I don't know what is!
Talking of which, there won't be a Weekly Watch next week for obvious reasons, but we'll be back the following week with our roundup of the end of the year.
We'd like to wish all our readers a very Merry Christmas and a GM-Free New Year!
Claire [email protected]
www.ngin.org.uk
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CONTENTS
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QUOTES OF THE WEEK
SETBACKS TO THE GM LOBBY
ECO-GONGS OF THE WEEK!
OTHER HIGHLIGHTS OF THE WEEK
RESOURCES OF THE WEEK
HEADLINES OF THE WEEK
SUBSCRIPTIONS
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QUOTES OF THE WEEK
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+ MICHAEL POLLAN ON SUPPRESSION OF SCIENTIFIC DISSENT
"We let the prestigious peer reviewed journals decide for us, license our journalism... but what happens when a journal decides to unpublish something? Does it mean that the peer review process, the gold standard, was really just tin?... The powerful interests, challenged by a troublesome discovery, can discredit that discovery simply by muddying the waters, with media attacks, retractions, and firings. The very sorts of attack that would actually bring more attention to the source of dissent in the political pages of the newspaper usually bring only silence in the science pages. There [seems to be] no need to disprove the science. But the answer should be more science, not attack followed by silence." - Journalist Michael Pollan, speaking on a live webcast from UC Berkeley: 'The Pulse of Scientific Freedom in the Age of the Biotech Industry', a public conversation with scientists whose work has been suppressed.
Speakers included Ignacio Chapela, organiser of the event, recently denied tenure; Arpad Pusztai, who was fired and gagged for his work on GM potatoes; Tyrone Hayes, whose work on atrazine was quashed; and John Losey of monarch butterfly fame.
The complete event is available in the Berkeley web archive.
http://webcast.berkeley.edu/events/archive.html
+ DEVINDER SHARMA ON FEEDING THE HUNGRY, UNFAIR TRADE, AG SUBSIDIES AND FOOD SECURITY
"I come from a country that has the dubious distinction of producing a surplus of 65 million tons of food, yet has the largest population of malnourished in the world." - Indian food policy analyst Devinder Sharma, explaining how India's 'surplus' rice and wheat is exported to developed countries for animal feed, so that India may earn hard currency.
"If Orwell were writing today, he would say, 'All animals are equal but some are even more equal than human beings.' In Europe a cow receives three US dollars per day in subsidy; in Japan, it's eight, whereas half of the world's farmers live on less than two dollars per day. The cow is the most food-secure animal in the world." - Devinder Sharma, referring to the situation where cows in developed countries receive more in subsidies than what many farmers in developing nations earn daily.
Read the article from which these quotes are taken, "The business of world hunger," by Bronwyn Chester, about Devinder Sharma's speaking tour of the US, at
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=1889
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SETBACKS TO THE GM LOBBY
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+ FALLOUT FROM BIOTECH BRIGADE/MONBIOT ARTICLE CONTINUES
The following email from Bob Ward, PR man for the Royal Society (RS), was one of several forwarded to us from the "psci-com: on the public understanding of science" list. Predictably, the dismissive responses to the information posted about the new GMWATCH directory on biotech promoters and about George Monbiot's related Guardian article all come from interested parties:
Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2003 15:42:25 -0000
From: "Ward, Bob" <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: New global directory of pro-GM lobby group/promoters
Ho ho ho! For those interested in both sides to the debate about so-called "Independent Science Reporting", it might be worth reading the letters in 'The Guardian' responding to George Monbiot's hilarious article at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/letters/story/0,3604,1103605,00.html
Merry Christmas to all those conspiracy theorists out there!
Bob Ward
Senior Manager
Policy Communication
Royal Society
6-9 Carlton House Terrace
London
SW1Y 5AG
In a letter to The Guardian in response to the Monbiot article, to which he here refers, Ward claimed that the RS didn't host the Sense About Science Working Party on peer review, yet we have leaked documents showing the Working Party has indeed been hosted at the RS. The document also shows that Ward could not be unaware of this as he is named in the documents as one of those delegated by the RS to liaise with the Working Party!
More on Sense About Science: http://www.lobbywatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=151
More on the RS: http://www.lobbywatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=113
To see the rest of the fallout
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