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Genetically Modifying Science (29/6/2003)

The concerted campaign to suppress and misinform over GM science continues. Will the scientific establishment dare to debate the scientific evidence in public, in terms that the public can understand? Dr. Mae-Wan Ho writes.

The credentials of the two-dozen scientists from seven countries, who launched themselves as an Independent Science Panel (ISP) on GM at a public conference - attended by UK's then environment minister Michael Meacher and 200 other participants, in London on 10 May 2003 - could not be more impeccable. Many are prominent scientists of international repute, with a string of peer-reviewed scientific publications to their name. They span the relevant disciplines of agroecology, agronomy, biomathematics, biophysics, botany, chemical medicine, ecology, histopathology, microbial ecology, molecular genetics, nutritional biochemistry, physiology, toxicology and virology.

It was an act of rebellion by scientists frustrated at the lack of open debate and discussion on a range of critical scientific evidence, and outraged at the concerted campaign by the corporate establishment to suppress and misinform. I never thought it would be easy. And sure enough, attempts were made to discredit the scientists right from the start, but then this is the fate of everyone who speaks out on this issue, as Michael Meacher himself was soon to discover.

On the eve of the launching conference, I received an e-mail message from a reporter of the Times Higher Education Supplement (THES) - *the* newsprint for university academics - threatening to write a report based on malicious slander about my scientific credentials, which has been circulating on the internet. I had, some weeks earlier, lodged a complaint against a total fabrication by a Syngenta scientist, formerly employed by the USDA; but decided to ignore insinuations about deficiencies of my publication record from Roger Morton, a regular and often eccentric contributor to the industry-linked AgBioWorld website.

As I have not had to apply for a job for some years, that leaves my curriculum vitae rather out of date. But for the sake of the ISP, I could not afford to let the THES trash my scientific credentials. So I spent the entire evening updating my publication list, while I had three guests staying the night. It was 1:30 am the next morning when I finally e-mailed the publication list to the reporter, together with a press pack for the ISP launch, saying it would surely be much more appropriate and important for him to come to the launch and hear what scientists like Dr Arpad Pusztai and others had to say.

The reporter didn't turn up for the conference, as his intended story has evaporated. I complained to the editor of the THES afterwards about the harassment. But this incident only underlines the need for the ISP.

Our ISP report, The Case for a GM-Free Sustainable World, was published 15 June on a newly created website, www.indsp.org, which also carries the complete list of ISP members with their specialty and affiliations. This long-awaited, authoritative report is a comprehensive dossier of scientific and other evidence, based on more than 200 primary and secondary sources, documenting the problems and hazards of GM crops and the many health, environmental and social benefits of sustainable agriculture. It created quite a stir around the world.

In no time at all, a 'rebuttal' concocted of further lies and misrepresentations, appeared on the AgBioWorld website, notorious for perpetrating misinformation and for its hate attacks on scientists and others critical of GM. Following the September 11 tragedy, it even posted a claim that I and Dr Vandana Shiva had blood on our hands.

The AgBioWorld statement begins, typically, by dismissing the ISP as "a group of anti-biotech organic food activists". Its "point by point refutation", equally typically, fails to confront any of the evidence presented in the report. The "refutations", presented as "FACTS", turn out to be nothing but bland statements, unsupported by any reference to published scientific literature.

The only substantial report cited is that from the International Council for Science (ICSU), whose members consist of the national academies of just over 100 countries around the world, including Britain's Royal Society, the French Academy of Sciences and the National Academies of Sciences in United States. According to the ICSU report, current GM foods are safe.

This sounds very authoritative but the report is not actually written by members of the ICSU, but by G. J. Persley, one of the directors of the Doyle Foundation. The other two directors have direct links to the biotech industry. Simon Best is a Board member of the Biotechnology Industry Organisation (BIO), former CEO of Zeneca Plant Sciences (which eventually merged with Novartis to become Syngenta), and founder and CEO of Ardana Bioscience. He was also responsible for introducing GM tomatoes into Europe in 1996. Andrew Bennett, formerly with the UK Department for International Development is now Director of the Syngenta Foundation. The ICSU report is not based on any peer-reviewed scientific paper, but on 'opinion' pieces and reports of the national academies claiming GM foods are safe.

Michael Meacher, UK environment minister who lost his job in the recent cabinet reshuffle, took the trouble to attend the launch of the ISP. Despite his many years as the heart of the UK's political establishment, he has faced a similar pattern of misrepresentation and attack since writing an article in the Independent on Sunday, 22 June, accusing the Blair government of burying scientific evidence damaging to the industry and of not taking science seriously enough. He reminds the government of the well-known risks of genetic engineering: the random insertion of foreign genes out of context with the host genome, horizontal transfer of inserted genes that often come from disease-causing viruses and bacteria.

The only Government-sponsored work ever carried on the health impacts of GMOs was Dr Pusztai's work on rats and GM potatoes, Meacher said, "and then, when it found negative effects, it was widely rubbished in government circles, even though his paper had been peer-reviewed six times before publication."

Meacher points out that the UK Royal Society had said in its reports last year, that the potential health effects of GM foods should be rigorously investigated before allowing them into baby food or to be marketed to pregnant or breast-feeding women, elderly people, and those with chronic disease. This was because GM "could lead to unpredicted harmful changes in the nutritional state of foods". The Royal Society, of course, is hardly a model of scientific independence. It has been severely criticised for its pro-GM stance, and for its persistent efforts to discredit the work of Arpad Pusztai and colleagues. It also draws funding from the biotechnology industry as do a number of the Fellows most prominent in shaping its position on GM.

Meacher further drew attention to "the only human GM trial, commissioned ironically by the Food Standards Agency", which found that GM DNA did in fact transfer to bacteria in the human gut. "Previously many scientists had denied that this was possible." Meacher said, "But instead of this finding being regarded as a serious discovery which should be checked and re-checked, the spin was that this was nothing new and did not involve any health risk - a Nelsonian putting the telescope to the blind eye if ever there was one."

Three cheers to Meacher for voicing many of the concerns of the Independent Science Panel and exposing the unpalatable truths about GM foods.

But immediately, the corporate machine set to work on damage limitation. The new Environment Minister, Elliot Morley, interviewed on BBC Radio 4 Today

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