GMW: Krebs to broadcast to children on GM and the future of food

[Guest guest]

GMW: Krebs to broadcast to children on GM and the future of food

" GM WATCH " <info

Mon, 22 Aug 2005 10:58:30 +0100

 

 

 

 

GM WATCH daily

http://www.gmwatch.org

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Every Christmas, Britain's Royal Institution runs a series of Christmas

Lectures aimed at school children (specifically 11-14 year olds) and

their families. The Lectures, which the RI describe as " our flagship

events " , as well as being delivered over 5 days directly to an

audience of

young people, are also televised nationwide by the BBC.

 

This year's Christmas Lectures are entitled " Food Matters " and come

with such engaging titles as " The gourmet ape " and " Yuck or yummy " . They

include consideration of whether " chemicals in food " are dangerous.

 

The " truth behind this " will be delivered by Sir John Krebs, the

controversial former head of the Food Standards Agency (FSA). Sir John

will

also be giving a lecture on " Food for the future " in which " John will

ask whether new farming methods such as genetically modified crops will

be the solution, or whether we will all have to become vegetarians " .

He'll also consider the question, " Will the future bring us the chocolate

bar that treats heart disease or the mood-enhancing potato crisp " .

 

The idea of the Christmas Lectures is to stimulate and entertain young

people's thinking over important scientific issues. Their ethos is one

that could be described as, all good fun based on all good science.

 

It's extraordinary in this context to consider what the review of Sir

John's record at the FSA - commissioned by the FSA itself - determined.

This review, conducted by Baroness Dean, concluded that the " vast

majority " of people consulted felt that the FSA under Sir John had

" deviated

from its normal stance of making statements based solely on scientific

evidence " , when " speaking against organic food and for GM food " .

Baroness Dean stressed that " This view was expressed not only by

stakeholders

representing organic and GM interest groups, but by those who would be

regarded as supporters and natural allies of the Agency " .

http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5122

 

So why, in these circumstances, choose Sir John to give the Christmas

Lectures? Enter the head of the Royal Institution, and close ally of Sir

John, Baroness Susan Geenfield.

 

(For more on Krebs; http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=73 )

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Susan Greenfield

GM WATCH profile

http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=144

 

Baroness Susan Greenfield CBE is a leading neuroscientist and Professor

of Pharmacology at Oxford University. Since 1998 she has also been of the Royal Institution (RI).

 

She makes frequent TV and radio appearances, and has written popular

science books and articles for the press. In 1998 she was awarded the

Michael Faraday medal by the Royal Society for disseminating science to

the public.

 

She has been described as 'our most visible scientist and, with her RI

appointment, one of the most influential.' That influence is felt at

the highest levels. She has been part of a consultation with the

Secretary of State for Industry on science funding. She has also given a

consultative seminar to Tony Blair on the future of science in the UK

and has

reported that, 'Tony Blair is really into the meshing of private and

public scientific research.' She has also submitted at Blair's request a

memorandum for his consideration on Genetics, Science and Risks. She is

also a Forum Fellow at the World Economic Conference at Davos.

 

Greenfield has been at the heart of efforts to control how

controversial scientific issues, like GM crops and cloning, are

communicated to the

public - most notably, via the Science Media Centre (SMC), which she

played the key role in founding, and via her work with the largely

industry-backed Social Issues Research Centre (SIRC), whom Greenfield

advises.

 

She was pivotal in the SIRC and RI co-convening a Forum to lay down

'Guidelines on Science and Health Communication' - a code for the media

and for scientists as to how science stories should be reported. Among

the Forum's members were Sir John Krebs , Chairman of the UK Food

Standards Agency , Lord Dick Taverne who went on to become the

Chairman of

Sense about Science , and Dr Michael Fitzpatrick , who is part of the

Living Marxism network.

 

According to another member of that network, Tony Gilland, in an

article for Spiked, 'For Greenfield, the importance of such a code of

conduct

is clearly demonstrated by the frenzied media coverage generated by

Arpad Pusztai's pronouncements on " poisonous " GM potatoes in February

1999. ...One of the problems in this instance, says Greenfield, was the

media spotlight " focusing on one maverick " .'

 

The SMC developed out of the work of the Forum, with Greenfield seeing

the need to go beyond guidelines and have an organisation that would

engage pro-actively with the media. Lord Bragg, President of both the

Science Media Centre and the RI, made clear in a debate in the House of

Lords that 'this issue has an economic dimension which is of crucial

importance to this country. Put bluntly, if ignorance stirred to hysteria

by sensationalism were to get in the driving seat, thousands of highly

skilled and remarkable opportunities for self-fulfilment, wealth

creation and knowledge formation would be lost. The more we know, the

more we

can make of what we know. There is the sniff of the born-again Luddite

in the air, and that could be destructive to our future as a trading

country whose increasing wealth depends increasingly on its brains. '

 

Bragg's linking of commercial considerations with the role of the SMC

would appear to sit happily with Greenfield's known views. She has

frequently expressed her approval of the highly entrepreunerial

character of

contemporary science . She happily identifies herself as one of those

accused of 'selling their souls' to the private sector. Her attitude is

best exemplified by her own research funding where she not only secured

GBP20 million pounds from a pharmaceutical giant (the then Squibb

Corporation) for her Oxford Department, but has since co-founded her own

privately funded firm, Synaptica, which aims to become a leading

neuroscience-based biotechnology company within

five years.

 

A Price Waterhouse Cooper report takes Synaptica as a model for how

scientists can gain greater financial rewards out of their biotechnology

research: 'Last year, for example, The Sunday Times (January 30, 2000)

reported that Dr Susan Greenfield, Director of the Royal Institution,

had taken out a patent on a naturally occurring brain molecule which

could hold the key to curing Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases. Oxford

University, where Dr Greenfield is also Professor of Pharmacology, has

taken a 30% stake in Synaptica, the company Greenfield and her

colleagues set up to research the peptide before selling the results to a

pharmaceutical operation. This approach – like that in many biotechnology

start-ups – clearly involves assuming a much bigger share of the

risk/reward ratio than is normally the case in Pharma, yet the

industry needs

just such people. We predict that a growing number of companies will

therefore adapt the model for themselves – and that the research

scientists they employ will ultimately have a financial as well as a

personal

stake in the molecules they are studying.'

 

In one of her Millenium lectures, Professor Greenfield defined one of

the key criteria for 'good science' as better industrial exploitation of

'the real practical advances that arise from research.' She complained

that UK performance was only 'respectable without being spectacular' in

this area. She measured this in terms of the number of patents being

generated by UK science, concluding,' UK science needs to translate its

strength into better industrial performance'.

 

To achieve more efficient commercial exploitation of scientific

research you need a supportive environment in terms of both political

policies

and public attitudes. According to journalist Peter Riddell , 'This is

allied to her belief in the need for more inter-changes between

scientists and politicians and the media. In the end, it comes

back to understanding the potential and opportunities of scientific

research. So there is no contradiction between Professor Greenfield's

role

as a media star, as a distinguished scientist and as an entrepreneur.

All three are linked.'

 

In order to forward her agenda Greenfield has shown a willingness to

work with very diverse allies. On 9th May 2003 a London conference titled

'Panic attack: interrogating our obsession with risk' was held at the

RI. It was advertised as being organised by Spiked with the RI and with

the far right pro-technology group Tech Central Station. Michael

Fitzpatrick and Bill Durodie were among multiple contributors to the

event

who were part of the Living Marxism network. Peter Marsh, director of

the Greenfield-advised SIRC was another contributor and the SIRC were

also named as a sponsor as were the far right International Policy

Network

..

 

This is not the only time that Greenfield has actively cooperated with

the Living Marxism network, whose members eulogise science and

technology and want no restrictions on cloning or genetic engineering. In

summer 2000 Greenfield was the co-convenor with Tony Gilland and Helene

Guldberg, two prominent members of that network, of Interrogating the

Precautionary Principle. This event was organised by the Institute of

Ideas

and held at the Royal Institution.

 

It is in this context that the long involvement in the Living Marxism

network of Fiona Fox, the director of the Science Media Centre - an

organisation which Greenfield says the RI served as 'midwife', needs to

be seen.

 

It is not just Greenfield's dubious alliances that are open to

question. Jon Turney, who teaches science communication in the

department of

science and technology studies at University College London, describes

Greenfield's attitude to communicating science as both dangerous and

unhelpful.

 

Turney writes, 'if large numbers of people fail to achieve some ideal

of scientific literacy this may be because they have got the message

that they have no real purchase on scientific decision making, not

because

they are incapable of mastering technicalities.' (How Greenfield got it

wrong)

 

Greenfield's outlook may have been affected by her marriage (until

2003) to Peter Atkins, the SmithKline Beecham Fellow and Tutor in

Physical

Chemisty at Oxford. Atkins has been described by the writer and

journalist Bryan Appleyard in an article about the science

establishment's

'attack dogs' 'fired by the ideology of scientism as 'AlScientism's most

crazed ideologue' . (Mugged by the science mafia, Sunday Times, November

30, 2003)

 

 

 

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