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GMW:_SEEDS_OF_DECEPTION_-_UK_TOUR

" GM_WATCH "

Tue, 27 Apr 2004 14:27:43 +0100

 

 

GM WATCH daily

http://www.gmwatch.org

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" I confess that I picked up this book with a certain jadedness: after working

with breaking GM news for several years, I didn't think there was much more that

a book could tell me that my non-scientist's brain could also make sense of. How

wrong I was.

 

Jeffrey Smith, who used to work for a GM testing company, has written the story

of the GM foods scam in an account that is as compelling as it is lucid. Once

I'd started it, I couldn't put it down. Smith has an extraordinary gift for

writing about this complex and highly technical subject in prose that romps

along as effortlessly as a railway station novelette -- but without compromising

one iota of journalistic integrity or scientific rigour. "

Claire Robinson's GM WATCH review of SEEDS OF DEEPTION

http://www.mindfully.org/GE/2003/Seeds-Of-Deception-Review5dec03.htm

 

JEFFREY SMITH UK TOUR DATES

 

Monday May 3

MATHRY(Nr Fishguard)

5p.m. - late + members of GMFree Cymru

Mathry Community Hall Pembrokeshire

Contact: Chris Samra Tibberts c.samratibbs

 

Tuesday May 4

CARDIFF

12.30 - 2.00 p.m. + Dr Vyvyan Howard

Welsh Assembly

Contact: Rachael.Langlands-Brown (Langlands-Brown, Rachael (AM

Support Staff))

 

Wednesday May 5 7.00 – 8.30 p.m.

EDINBURGH

National Library of Scotland (Exhibition Hall),

Contact Scottish Green MSPs Office 0131 348 6363

 

Thursday May 6 7.30 p.m.

FINDHORN

Upper Community Centre, The Park Findhorn

Contact: Gordon McAlpine Gordon

 

Saturday May 8 5.00 p.m.

ARDERSIER, INVERNESS

Highland Green Gathering, Kylerona Farm, Ardersier Inverness

Contact: Donny MacLeod Macleod.organics

Or Myra Carus myra

 

Monday May 10

LONDON

7.00 – 9.00 p.m + Rt. Hon. Michael Meacher MP

Chair: Zac Goldsmith, The Ecologist

The Meeting Place, Drummond Street, London NW 1

Contact: amanda

 

Tuesday May 11

BRISTOL

7.30 – 9.30 p.m.

Meeting Room 1, University of Bristol Union Building,

Contact; Bristol Genetix Group 0117 927 6322

 

Wednesday May 12th

TAUNTON

7.00 – 9.00 p.m.

Committee Room, Municipal Hall, Taunton, Somerset

Contact: bgarstang

 

Thursday May 13th

TOTNES

7.00 – 9.00 p.m.

Chairman " John Sherrell, FARM

Civic Hall, Totnes, Devon

Contact: amanda

 

Friday May 14th

NORWICH

7.30 – 9.30 p.m.

Chair: Professor Tim O’Riordan

Environmental Sciences, UEA

Assembly House, Norwich, Norfolk

Contact: caro.clarke

 

For more information please contact Amanda at Green Books 01803 864013

wwww.greenbooks.co.uk

 

SEEDS OF DECEPTION

Exposing Corporate and Government Lies about the Safety of Genetically

Engineered Food

Jeffrey M. Smith Foreword by Michael Meacher

Published April 2004 £9.95

 

" Seeds of Deception is a major event in informing the public about the safety or

(more precisely the lack of it) of genetically modified foods, which are hailed

to be one of the most important scientific developments of our age. In contrast

to the bland assurances from official propaganda, the book lays bare the

concerted machinations of the biotechnology industry, the media, politicians and

the regulatory authorities, all united in their effort and using any means to

allay the rightful concerns and fears of the public about this unpredictable and

unsafe technology. "

-Arpad Pusztai, Ph.D. Leading Expert on Safety Research conducted on GM Foods

 

Worldwide industry manipulation and political collusion, rather than sound

science, have brought genetically engineered food into our daily diet. Seeds of

Deception reveals that company research is rigged, alarming evidence of health

dangers is covered up, and that political and corporate bullying form the seedy

background to the spread of GM crops. Seeds of Deception shows that:

 

* Scientists have been offered bribes or threatened. Evidence has been stolen,

and critical data has been omitted from research reports or distorted.

* Government employees who complained have been harassed, stripped of

responsibilities, or fired.

* Laboratory rats fed a GM crop developed stomach lesions, and seven of the

forty rats died within two weeks. The crop was approved without further tests.

* When top scientist Arpad Pusztai of the Rowett Institute in Aberdeen tried to

alert the public about his alarming discoveries, he lost his job and was

silenced with threats of a lawsuit.

 

Seeds of Deception includes the internal memos by US Food & Drug Administration

scientists which warn of toxins, allergies, and new diseases; all these memos

were ignored by their superiors, who included a former lawyer for Monsanto. The

book also reveals how industry studies are designed to avoid finding problems;

and that the US FDA withheld information from Congress after a genetically

modified supplement killed nearly a hundred people and disabled thousands.

 

If you think that GM food is safe, this book will change your mind.

 

Jeffrey M. Smith has worked in the field of genetically modified (GM) foods for

nearly a decade. In 1998 he ran for US Congress to raise public awareness of

their health and environmental impacts. He is the founder and director of the

Institute for Responsible Technology.

ISBN 1 903998 41 7 226 x 150mm 304pp

 

 

SEEDS OF DECEPTION Foreword by Michael Meacher MP

 

This is a brilliant book which combines shrewd dissection of the true nature of

GM technology, a devastating critique of the health and environmental hazards of

GM crops, and scarifying examples of the manipulation of both science and the

media by the biotech industry.

Despite the British Government's GM Nation Debate in mid-2003, the level of

understanding of GM remains alarmingly low in the UK. This book should be

compulsory reading, not only for the general public, but even more so for the

decision-makers who have never been exposed to systematic analysis of the

problems created by GM.

What is so exciting about this book is that it is no dry text of scientific

exegesis-it positively fizzes with the human drama of the cabals and

conspiracies behind the scenes which have littered the history of Big Biotech in

its frantic efforts to get itself accepted. It is meticulously documented and

powerfully written, somewhere between a documentary and a thriller.

It reveals above all that GM is not some arcane issue about science or

technology-it is ultimately about power. There are no consumer benefits from GM

crops, the alleged benefits to farmers are deeply disputed, environmental and

health testing has never been carried out, non-GM farmers are being put

seriously at risk. So why is GM being pressed at all? The answer, set out

painstakingly and frighteningly in this book, tells us a great deal about how

power is exercised today-funding political parties and key individuals,

networking around opinion-formers and decision-makers, and fixing strategic job

swaps between the biotech industry and Government. And this is not just

conjecture; plenty of examples are given which illustrate how secretive and

malign these influences are.

The main area of cover-up is undoubtedly the GM effects on health. It is a

staggering fact that there have been virtually no clinical or biochemical tests

of the impacts of eating GM foods on human health. Jeffrey Smith sets out, like

a detective story, the unravelling of the L-tryptophan fiasco, the StarLink

maize allergy mishap, and the cauliflower mosaic virus promoter hazard, as well

as a host of other health risks, both predicted and unpredictable.

But the kernel of the book is the commercialization of politics and the

politicization of science. For those who still believe the constitutional

fantasy that governments act in accordance with their manifesto in the general

interests of society, this book will come as a shocker. The exercise of power

today is much more hard-nosed and ruthless, and the power-brokers are not the

electorate, but Big Business. As a case study of this suborning of democratic

accountability, Jeffrey Smith's account is an eye-opener. But most of all it is

a call to arms, not only to prevent the contamination of the nation's food

supply, but even more to tackle the poisoning of the nation's decision-making

system by the undercover wielding of economic and financial muscle and PR

manipulativeness of Big Biotech.

March 2004

 

Rt. Hon. Michael Meacher MP was Minister of State for the Environment from 1997

to June 2003. He has served longer as a minister and opposition spokesman than

anyone in the current government, having been on the front bench for 27 of the

past 30 years since Harold Wilson appointed him a junior industry minister in

1974.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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