Two letters in today's Guardian (one from GM WATCH) as part of the continuing correspondence over George Monbiot's article on how pro-biotech lobby groups had been infiltrated by an extreme political network (connected to LM magazine) with an appalling history and an obnoxious agenda (see LM LINKS for a quickguide to the organisations and players)

1.Guardian Letters - Perry's prejudices
2.THE LM LINKS
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Guardian Letters
Thursday December 11, 2003
The Guardian

Facts and figures

Contrary to what Professor Perry might believe (Letters, December 10), Greenpeace has not been infiltrated by Trotskyists. There is a bloke down the corridor with a goatee, but other than that he seems normal. Given Joe Perry is chief statistician for the government's GM farm-scale evaluations, I do hope his prejudices stay out of his work.

Dr Doug Parr
Chief scientist, Greenpeace
...
Professor Perry smears the environmental movement as a counterweight to the detailed evidence on how contributors to LM and its off- shoots denied the events in Rwanda and Bosnia in which huge numbers of people were massacred and tortured. No wonder George Monbiot characterises some of our leading scientists as idiots savant.

Jonathan Matthews
GM Watch
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2.THE LM LINKS - from the GM WATCH directory

LM has spawned a network of political extremists who eulogise technologies like genetic engineering and reproductive cloning and are extremely hostile to their critics, who they brand as Nazis. What is particularly disturbing is that it is a network which engages in infiltration of media organisations and science-related lobby groups in order to promote its agenda. These people were even involved in advising on the strands of the UK's GM Public Debate.

It is represented, often in very senior positions, in a series of organisations which lobby on issues related to biotechnology, eg the Science Media Centre (director: Fiona Fox), Sense About Science (director: Tracey Brown; assistant director: Ellen Raphael), Genetic Interest Group (policy director: John Gillott), Progress Educational Trust (director: Juliet Tizzard), and the Scientific Alliance (advisor: Bill Durodié). Both Tracey Brown and Bill Durodie were also brought in in an advisory capacity in relation to the strands of the UK government's official GM Public Debate.

Find out more by following the links here:
http://www.lobbywatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=78

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