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Science hacks want Syngenta's dough

 

 

" GM WATCH " <info

 

 

Fri, 7 Jan 2005 14:59:41 GMT

 

 

Science hacks want Syngenta's dough

http://www.gmwatch.org

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When not on freeloading jaunts..., science hacks like nothing better

than to give each other

lavish prizes funded by pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline...

 

Led by the science writers' chairman, Palab Ghosh of the BBC, they have

now turned to GM food manufacturer Syngenta. And should that fail, the

resourceful lads and lasses have already targeted British Nuclear

Fuels. And after that? Well, there is always British American Tobacco or

Monsanto... (item 1)

 

1.Science hacks lap up corporate dough

2.BBC science correspondent Palab Ghosh - a profile

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1.From Private Eye no 1123, 7 Jan-20 Jan 2005

 

When not on freeloading jaunts to watch endangered whales or rocket

launches, science hacks like nothing better than to give each other

lavish prizes funded by pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline.

 

Every June, for example, half a dozen each get a GBP 2,500 Glaxo

science writers' gong at a major awards bash. But alas no more. Fed up

with

the ingrates taking their dosh and then rubbishing them, Glaxo has

slashed funding for the scheme, forcing the poor scribblers to take their

begging bowls elsewhere.

 

Led by the science writers' chairman, Palab Ghosh of the BBC, they have

now turned to GM food manufacturer Syngenta. And should that fail, the

resourceful lads and lasses have already targeted British Nuclear

Fuels. And after that? Well, there is always British American Tobacco or

Monsanto...

---

2.Pallab Ghosh - a GM WATCH profile

[for all the links to sources:

http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=203 ]

 

'The farmers here like genetic modification' was the opening line of a

report from India about GM cotton by Pallab Ghosh, the BBC's science

correspondent. Ghosh was reporting from the State of Gujarat. Nowhere in

his report did Ghosh mention that the harvest of Monsanto's GM cotton

in Gujarat, as elsewhere in India, had been so disappointing that a

six-member panel set up by the State government concluded 'it is unfit

for

cultivation and should be banned in the State'.

 

Another report from India by Pallab Ghosh was about the GM 'protato' -

a potato genetically modified to produce increased protein. Ghosh's

report made headline news in the UK, and was picked up in other media

reports around the world.

 

Pallab Ghosh's report claimed the GM potato was 'expected to be

approved in India within six months'. But the Indian press has

reported that,

'no request has so far been received from developers for field trials

or commercialisation of GM potato and... it cannot be approved in the

current year.' This directly contradicts Ghosh's report.

 

The key claim in Ghosh's report was about the protato's ability to

counter malnutrition, but this had already been exposed as fraudulent in

the Indian press 3 months earlier, in March 2003. (GM Potato Cannot Solve

Malnutrition Problems : Experts)

 

The publicity generated by Ghosh's report has caused irritation even

amongst pro-GM scientists in India. Prof. C Kameswara Rao, calls the GM

potato a 'dismal product' and points out that far from being approved

within months the protato is 'unlikely to see the light of the day in

this decade'. (Announcement of Release of GE Potato in India is Premature)

 

So why did the BBC not check out any of the claims that formed the

basis of this headline news story? The answer would seem to lie with

Pallab

Ghosh, whose story hung purely upon the discredited claims of the

Indian bureaucrat Manju Sharma and claims about the potential of GM

crops by

the chief executive of Dupont in India, Dr Balvinder Singh Khalsi.

 

This is not the first time that Ghosh has reported a story of value to

the GM lobby but which fell seriously below the normal standards of BBC

journalism. It was Ghosh who was behind the BBC's reports that the

British Medical Association was reviewing its position on GM crops and

food. Ghosh's claims again hit the headlines but the BMA issued a press

release the same day which showed the content of the story could not have

been checked with them. The BMA labelled parts of Ghosh's report

'wrong' and 'totally incorrect'.

 

Stories where the central facts have been subjected to so little

critical scrutiny might seem surprising from the current Chairman of the

Association of British Science Writers (ABSW), a group of 800 science

journalists and communication specialists in the UK. In that role

Ghosh has

commented critically, in evidence given before the House of Lords

Select Committee on Science and Technology, on the standard of

reporting to

be found even in science journals.

 

Ghosh has also reported critically on Dr Arpad Pusztai's work. This is

what Dr Pusztai had to say about Ghosh's coverage: '[he] came up to

Aberdeen after the RS [Royal Society] and the Science and Technology

Committee's sitting [in 1999] and he was all smiles and extremely

accommodating but when the interview went out on the BBC he twisted

everything

out of context. So much so that I decided not to have anything more to

do with the BBC.'

 

One interesting point about Ghosh's role at the ABSW is that it brings

him into contact with the ABSW's President, Dame Bridget Ogilvie. Dame

Bridget is the Vice Chairman of the highly controversial pro-GM lobby

group Sense about Science.

 

She was also a co-signatory to a letter attacking the BMA's position on

GM crops authored by the controversial GM supporter, Sir Peter Lachmann

FRS, who The Guardian identified as the person who phoned the editor of

The Lancet, Dr Richard Horton, in what, according to Dr Horton, was an

effort to intimidate him out of publishing Pusztai's research.

 

Both Sense about Science and Lachmann featured in Ghosh's BMA report.

Indeed, Ghosh's on-air report appears to have left the impression that

Lachmann was a spokesman for, rather than a critic of, the BMA. This led

the biotech company Bayer to subsequently quote what Lachmann had said

in a submission to the government in which they identified him

(Lachmann) as an official at the BMA! The online version of Ghosh's

report was

amended to clarify the fact that Lachmann was 'a vocal proponent of

GM'.

 

Interestingly, at the end of October 2003 Ghosh made no reference to

Sense About Science when helping to break the story that 114 scientists,

ostensibly led by Derek Burke, had written to Tony Blair to complain

about a lack of government support for GM, particularly in the recently

completed official Public Debate on GM. While Ghosh did note that Dame

Bridget Ogilvie was amongst the signatories, it was in fact Sense about

Science, to which both Ogilvie and Burke connect, which had organised

the letter as part of its campaign to lobby the government to ignore the

critical views on GM crop commercialisation expressed in the Public

Debate.

 

Ghosh is one of several UK science correspondents whose coverage of the

GM issue has led to accusations of bias and an over-cosy relationship

with the science establishment and its lobbyists. Others include Mark

Henderson at The Times, Steve Connor at The Independent and Andy Coghlin

at New Scientist.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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