Useful information on one of the key GM proponents in southern Africa + couter-arguments to her paper 'GMOs - Fact and Fiction'

Item 2 best viewed on web-page in tabular form:
1.Intro to 'GMOs - FACT AND FICTION'
2.Critique of Jennifer Thompson's ‘Fact and Fiction’ of GMOs by Dulcie Krige
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1. From Andrew Taynton, [email protected]
'GMOs - FACT AND FICTION'
Critique of Professor Jennifer Thompson's 'GMOs - Fact and Fiction': [see also item 2 below]
http://www.cdrive.co.za/ge_info/jt.htm

Original: Professor Thompson's 'GMO's - Fact and Fiction'
http://www.mcb.uct.ac.za/Staff/jat/Fact%20and%20Fiction.htm

Professor Thompson's web site:
http://www.mcb.uct.ac.za/Staff/jat/index.htm

Professor Thompson on the board of AfricaBio & ISAAA: "AfricaBio's board includes Jennifer Thomson, a Professor at the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of Cape Town who is also an advisor to the biotech-industry funded Council for Biotechnology Information in the US. She is also a Board Member of ISAAA. Thomson was also involved in the drafting of the South African Biotechnology Strategy. She recently had a book (Genes in Africa) published which promotes the benefits of GM crops for the developing world." http://www.lobbywatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=170

Third World Lobbyists:

AfricaBio: http://www.lobbywatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=170

ISAAA - International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications: http://www.lobbywatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=66

For more visit 'The Biotech Brigade':
http://www.lobbywatch.org/p1temp.asp?pid=1&page=1
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2.Critique of Jennifer Thompson’s ‘Fact and Fiction’ of GMOs by Dulcie Krige
http://www.cdrive.co.za/ge_info/jt.htm

This is a response to Jennifer Thompson’s ‘Fact and Fiction’ list for GMOs. She is a noted microbiologist but her field of expertise does not include social, ecological, environmental and health issues. Albert Einstein , May 1949, said in this regard: "We should be on our guard not to overestimate science and scientific methods when it is a question of human problems; and we should not assume that experts are the only ones who have a right to express themselves on questions affecting the organization of society." This re-affirms the value of multi-disciplinary research, and the inclusion of civil-society – and this is what bio-technology neglects to do.

There is no section in Jennifer Thompson’s list which details the effect of GMOs on yield and the economic impact this would have on farmers. This is a contentious issue, with the biotech industry providing different statistics to those of their opponents.

However the Ecologist, November 2003, reports that “Farmers growing Monsanto’s genetically-modified Bt cotton in the southern Indian region of South Telengana made seven times less money from their 2002 harvests than those growing non-GM varieties, according to the state government of Andra Pradesh. For farmers in North Telengana, net income from the cotton was five times less than from the local non-Bt varieties. Numerous studies of the commercial cultivation of Monsanto’s GM cotton in India have reported inferior yields and poor pest-resistance. A panel set up by the state of Gujurat said the cotton was ‘unfit for cultivation and should be banned’.”
See www.genecampaign.org/nebt.html.

Further, regarding the question of whether there is any benefit in GMOs, is the recent publicity around Dr Wambugu of Kenya’s years of work and vast sums of money to produce a virus resistant sweet-potato. However this ignores the fact that many of the local varieties of sweet-potato have this resistance, and money might better be spent organising the distribution of these varieties through farmer exchanges.

With regard to the frequent comments about the extent of research on GMOs it should be noted that such studies as are commissioned, such as studies recently undertaken for the British Government, are deeply flawed – for instance the recent British field trials on sugar beet, rape seed and maize looked only at the relative environmental effects of herbicides as used on GM and non-GM crops. This study took three years to complete but gives no valuable information since (buckling under pressure from the bio-tech industry) they did not look at the most important potential ecological impact of whether the genes from GM crops could spread and whether they could result in superweeds.

The following are points raised in the 'Fact and Fiction' list but these give the position as seen from an anti-GMO perspective. Not all points have been included as this would become very long – but all given in Jennifer Thompson's 'Fact and Fiction' are either inaccurate or highly debatable and can be challenged.

Jennifer Thompson’s Point [versus] The Facts as Seen From an Anti-GMO Perspective  Environmental Impacts [Comment]

Jennifer Thompson's Points

Environmental Impacts -

Point 4. 'Cross pollination can only become a threat if the crop plant has a resultant advantage. Thus if a recipient plant is cross pollinated to become resistant to a herbicide but the farmer does not use the herbicide the plant will not have an advantage.'

Comment: This implies that each gene confers a single characteristic eg herbicide resistance. However, as a result of the human genome project, it has now come to be realised that this is not true – ie that genetic determinism, and a one-to-one relationship between gene and output, is a fallacy. This means that when inserting a gene it may have untoward effects, since we simply do not know the other traits it codes for, and it may confer an unanticipated advantage which would allow the GMO to out-compete n