from Claire Robinson, WEEKLY WATCH editor
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Dear all:

Yet another study, this time from the US, shows that GM cotton neither improves biodiversity or yield. And a GM grass has escaped into the wild in Oregon (RESEARCH).

Worth reading in full is Nathaniel C. Comfort's incisive review of GM fundamentalist Lee Silver's new book (for excerpt, see SCIENCE & RELIGION).

Claire
www.gmwatch.org / www.lobbywatch.org

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CONTENTS
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RESEARCH
SCIENCE & RELIGION
LOBBYWATCH
AFRICA
THE AMERICAS
ASIA
EUROPE
AUSTRALASIA
GM MEDICINES
TAKE ACTION!

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RESEARCH
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+ GM COTTON FAILS TO IMPROVE BIODIVERSITY OR YIELD
Another hammer blow for the hyping of GM cotton as a miracle crop has been struck by a large-scale study showing no benefits for biodiversity, no yield increases, no reductions in herbicide use, and increasing problems with secondary pests. The research was carried out by ecologist Yves Carriere of the University of Arizona and published in Proceedings of the National Academies of Science.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6857

+ GOLF COURSE GM GRASS ESCAPES IN OREGON
A glyphosate-resistant GM grass designed for golf-courses has escaped into the wild in Oregon, USA. The manufacturer is the Scotts Company, Marysville, Ohio.

Jay Reichman and colleagues at the US Environmental Protection Agency's labs in Corvallis, Oregon, identified nine escapees among grass varieties sampled within a 4.8-kilometre radius of the site where the bentgrass is being cultivated, the most distant 3.8 kilometres away. The team showed that the GM grass has spread both by pollinating non-GM plants to form hybrids, and by seed movement.

The escape is worrying the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) enough that it is running its first full environmental impact assessment of a GM plant.

Lawn and grass seed is exported from Oregon all over the world, including to the UK. http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6872

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SCIENCE & RELIGION
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Lee M. Silver is currently flavour of the month among biotech promoters with the publication of his new book attacking biotech critics as irrationalists driven by "subliminal" embedded religious beliefs. But 'Challenging Nature: The Clash of Science and Spirituality at the New Frontiers of Life' is actually a testament to the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of most biotech promoters.

+ LEE M. SILVER - CHALLENGING NATURE
A review for the CENTER FOR GENETICS AND SOCIETY of of Silver's new book, describes it as "a really bad book about what he thinks other people think."

Silver is a Princeton professor with a background in mouse genetics who caused a stir with his 1997 book, 'Remaking Eden', which asserted the inevitability of using human genetic engineering to manipulate future generations. Its terms "GenRich" and "Naturals" neatly encapsulated the possibility of an entrenched genetic aristocracy.

In 'Challenging Nature' Silver moves on to analyzing the supposed belief systems of biotechnology critics. But virtually the whole book is an assault upon a straw target of Silver's own creation, spiced with irrelevant criticisms of outdated examples of unscientific thinking.

He is notably unfair, disingenuous and sloppy. He misrepresents several scandals in the field of agricultural biotech. Some of his quotes are mangled; some of his citations are wrong. http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6873

+ SILVER-TONGUED NONSENSE - GM WATCH REVIEW
In 'Challenging Nature' Silver claims people in Asia accept biotech without demur. This is because, according to the author, "Playing god only makes sense in the context of the traditional monotheism that prevails in America or the post-Christian monotheism of Mother Nature common in Europe. In Asian culture it doesn't make sense, which is the reason why there's no grassroots opposition there to either embryo research or genetically engineered crops."

This is nonsense. Asia has seen some of the most vociferous and effective opposition to GM crops anywhere in the world. In Thailand not only commercial GM crops but even GM trials are banned. India has also been a hotbed of opposition, and the global prospects for GM wheat commercialisation hit the buffers because of the strength of opposition in Japan, a country where millions of concerned citizens have signed petitions opposing GMOs. http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6873

+ REVIEW OF SILVER'S BOOK FOR 'AMERICAN SCIENTIST'
An excellent review of Silver's book by Nathaniel C. Comfort.

EXCERPTS:
... the history of science is more than the conquering of spiritual darkness by the light of reason. Both religion and science have mixed legacies; both have done harm as well as good. And both tend to be most dangerous when they become dogmatic and intolerant, and when they confuse faith with knowledge...

Strange to say, but Challenging Nature ... shows a Victorian perspective on science versus religion to be ideally suited to cheerleading for modern biotechnology and genomics. Silver uses the unreconstructed science-religion conflict as a foil for that old-time scientism: the belief that true knowledge can come only from natural science and that technology can therefore solve all social problems. So convinced is he that technology - especially biotechnology - is good for what ails us that he can see only one r