GM WATCH MONTHLY REVIEW No. 47
REVIEW EDITOR, CLAIRE ROBINSON
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MONTHLY REVIEW CONTENTS
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ENGINEERING CONSENT
RESISTANCE/BANS/RESTRICTIONS
GM APPLICATIONS/EXPANSION
NON-GM SUCCESSES
GM HYPE
GM FAILURES
FOOD SAFETY
CORPORATE TAKEOVER
GM/CLONED ANIMALS
COMPANY NEWS
CORPORATE CRIMES

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ENGINEERING CONSENT
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+ OZ: GOVT PUSH POLLS ON GM CROPS AND FOODS
"The Australian government push-polled Australians on GM crops and foods to dishonestly inflate support for GM in its latest survey," says Gene Ethics Director, Bob Phelps.

"It was unethical to falsely imply in the questionnaire that GM has solutions to key environmental problems when they do not exist now and are ten years from commercial reality, if ever," he says.

"Gene Ethics saw the draft questionnaire but Biotechnology Australia rejected our proposal that people be asked their opinions on the costs, risks and hazards of GM foods and crops, as well as their claimed benefits," he said.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8127

To see some of the loaded questions in this absurd push poll ("... what about genetically modifying plants... (i) to make the food healthier; (ii) to make the food last longer" etc.) go to
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8131

+ OZ: GM PUSH VILIFIES ORGANICS
Recent attacks on organic food are about discrediting it to soften up the public to accept GM crops, Dr Maggie Lilith of the Conservation Council of WA and the Say No to GMO campaign said. Some of the attacks emanate from Lord Dick Taverne, a British pro-GM lobbyist with no scientific or other relevant qualifications.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8108

+ U.S.: BIASED QUESTIONNAIRE ON GM FOODS
In the US, the International Food Information Council (IFIC) has been commissioning research into consumer attitudes to GM foods for years. The results of each survey are press released, attracting wide-scale media coverage. In 2002, for example, IFIC reported, "American consumer support for food biotechnology is holding steady, while specific benefits are resonating even more in the latest survey ..."

IFIC survey questions include:
"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?"

The results might be different, said University of California L.A. communications professor Michael Suman, if the survey 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?"
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8127

+ CANADA: WOULD YOU EAT WORMY CORN?
Perhaps the ultimate example of how to dress up a propaganda exercise as scientific enquiry, is the infamous Canadian study of consumer preferences with GM and non-GM sweet corn. A leading researcher into scientific ethics called for the study to be retracted after GM Watch reproduced a photograph showing a large sign suspended above the non-GM corn during the study that asked shoppers: "Would you eat wormy sweetcorn?" The GM corn, by contrast, was labelled as "quality sweet corn". The researchers had claimed in their paper that the corn was marked simply as either genetically engineered or regular.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/p1temp.asp?pid=72&page=1

+ EUROPEAN COMMISSION FUNDING GM PROPAGANDA
The unelected European Commission has wasted nearly half a million euros of taxpayers' money over the past two years trying to persuade the public to accept GM crops through a publication called GM Compass. The publication claims to be neutral (neither pro- nor anti-GM) yet almost entirely features "good news" stories about GM. GMO Compass is primarily the work of a company that goes by the name of 'Genius' which happens to number amongst its customers: American Soybean Association, BASF, Bayer CropScience, EuropaBio [the lobby group for the European biotech industry] and Syngenta.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8123

+ ENGINEERING CONSENT IN SWITZERLAND
In November 2005, the Swiss people voted via a national referendum for a five-year moratorium on the commercial planting of GM plants. But if anyone thinks that this commendable piece of democratic decision-making means that is the end of the matter, think again.

A whole programme of national research (known as NFP 59) is under way into the "benefits and risks" of the deliberate release of GM plants. This has already sparked controversy due to the exclusion in highly questionable circumstances of a prominent researcher with a track record of genuine investigation into the risks of GM plants.

In that context, a recent job advertisement related to NFP59 is interesting. A psychologist is sought for a post involving the study of the public acceptance of biotechnology (read: GMOs). The implicit assumption is that resistance to GM is not rational but the product of emotions/perceptions that can be "better taken into account" by researchers in order to build public acceptance when publicising the deliberate release of GM plants.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8138

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RESISTANCE/BAN