GMW: GM SCIENCE - SUPPORTED BY A TISSUE OF LIES

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GMW: GM SCIENCE - SUPPORTED BY A TISSUE OF LIES

" GM WATCH " <info

Mon, 20 Feb 2006 22:35:00 GMT

 

 

 

 

GM WATCH daily

http://www.gmwatch.org

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Press release from GM Free Cymru

Immediate release

 

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GM SCIENCE -- SUPPORTED BY A TISSUE OF LIES

Revealed -- how the GM industry kills off " uncomfortable " research

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Fact: Two years ago, when Prof Bela Darvas and his colleagues in the

Hungarian Academy of Sciences revealed a massive buildup of toxins

associated with plantings of a GM maize called MON810, and indicated that

they wanted to repeat and extend their research, Monsanto immediately

shut off supplies of seeds and effectively killed off the research

project.

 

Fact: In 2005, when Dr Judy Carman asked Bayer CropScience for 100g of

GM InVigor canola seeds for field tests in Australia, the company

simply ignored her request and made the research impossible.

 

These cases are by no means unique (1).

 

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Within the GM science community there has been concern for several

years about the " corporate control " of the scientific agenda and about

the

difficulties encountered by independent researchers who have discovered

" uncomfortable " things about the health and environmental impacts of GM

crops and foods (2).

 

There is also concern about the manner in which the regulatory

authorities have comprehensively ditched the precautionary principle,

and about

the vast list of " junk science " articles in the literature based upon

the nonsensical concept of " substantial equivalence " (3).

 

Genuinely independent GM research is made extremely difficult because

of lack of funding; because of the hostility of regulatory and advisory

bodies such as ACNFP, FSA, ACRE and EFSA and indeed of Government

Departments like DEFRA; because august scientific institutions like the

Royal Society are robustly pro-GM; because the GM lobby is well

practiced in the dark arts of obfuscation and spin; and because

scientists who

question the safety of GM are routinely personally vilified by the

industry. Dr Arpad Pusztai, Dr Mae-wan Ho and Dr Ignacio Chapela have

been

knocked over and have come up fighting (4), but there are many others

who have simply been silenced and subdued by the hired hit-men of the GM

industry (5).

 

It has now been revealed that the GM industry routinely refuses to

supply GM seed and other GM " reference material " to bona fide scientists

who ask for it, citing as justification patent protection and " commercial

in confidence " rules (6). In the case of the Bt10 fiasco, Syngenta

even refused to send to the EC reference materials needed by research

laboratories for the development of a testing and monitoring programme

(7).

 

" This means that one of the fundamental principles of science has now

been abandoned, with the apparent connivance of certain governments, "

says Dr Brian John of GM Free Cymru. " Science has always operated on the

assumption that experiments must be replicable in order that results

may be verified or falsified. But if the GM multinationals refuse to

allow their GM seeds and reference materials to be examined by anybody

other than their own scientists, there is no way that anybody should

trust

their results, whether or not they have been through a peer review

process. Integrity is immediately swept away, and corruption takes its

place. "

 

GM Free Cymru has therefore made the following demands:

 

1. We demand that all owners of GM seed and reference materials who

have submitted experimental results in support of their applications for

GM consents must state unequivocally, in writing, that identical

materials are available to bona fide researchers who wish to repeat the

published experiments.

 

2. We demand that the regulatory bodies which have issued " opinions "

or given consents for GM crops and foods should immediately revoke those

decisions pending the receipt of assurances as in (1) above.

 

3. We demand that all applications in the regulatory pipeline should

be placed on hold until (a) the applicants have given assurances that

every single experiment described in supporting dossiers may be repeated

by independent researchers without let or hindrance, and (b) all

published results are verified independently.

 

4. We call upon all journals which publish GM-related papers (whether

or not peer-reviewed) to refuse to publish unless and until they have a

written commitment from the seed owners that they will freely provide

identical GM materials for the conduct of repeat experiments by

independent researchers.

 

5. We call upon all scientists working in the GM field, no matter what

their affiliations may be, to support these demands so that integrity

and respect for scientific principles may be restored.

 

" These are minimum demands, " says Dr John. " The on-going refusal by GM

multinationals to provide GM materials to independent researchers is a

scientific outrage. Until the demands are met, we have to assume that

GM crops and foods are dangerous, that industry-sponsored published

research is untrustworthy, and that the GM approval process is supported

by a flimsy tissue of lies. " (8)

 

ENDS

Contact:

Brian John

Tel 01239-820470

 

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NOTES

 

1. See this for example: http://www.gefreemaine.org/index.php?page=13

GM Free Cymru is building a dossier of cases involving refusals by the

GM seed owners to supply seed and other materials to respected

scientists and research laboratories. Check for updates here:

http://www.gmfreecymru.org/

 

2. There is a large literature on the vilification of dissenting

scientists, the use of personal attacks as a diversionary tactic, and

of the

use of spinning and dissembling techniques whenever the GM industry

needs to deal with " uncomfortable " evidence of harm relating to GFM food

and crops. See Jeffrey Smith's book " Seeds of Deception " (2004), Green

Books, or see the following:

http://www.seedsofdeception.com/

http://www.gmwatch.org/

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/appeal.php

http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5989

http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/cm199899/cmselect/cmsctech/\

286/9030804.htm

 

3. On the Precautionary Principle:

http://www.biotech-info.net/in_defense.html

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/prec.php

http://www.mindfully.org/Precaution/2003/Science-Based-Precaution4apr03.htm

On Substantial equivalence:

http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/downloaddoc.asp?id=1050

Prof Janet Bainbridge: " The presumption of safety of novel GM plants

on the basis of substantial equivalence lacks scientific credibility,

given modern expectations of standards of evidence

http://www.organicconsumers.org/ge/substequiv.cfm

" Beyond Substantial equivalence " , Oct. 7, 1999, Nature, by Erik

Millstone, Eric Brunner and Sue Mayer

" Showing that a genetically modified food is chemically similar to its

natural counterpart is not adequate evidence that it is safe for human

consumption. "

 

4. When confronted with uncomfortable evidence, the first instinct of

the GM industry is to " shoot the messenger. " See the following:

http://counterpunch.org/tonak06262004.html

http://www.mindfully.org/GE/2005/Chapela-State-Enemy19jan05.htm

http://www.healthcoalition.ca/pusztai.html

http://www.psrast.org/pusztai.htm

 

5. See Jeffrey Smith, " Seeds of Deception " . During the Nazi era in

Germany " ....... far from being subjected to force, many scientists

voluntarily oriented their work to fit government policies - as a way of

getting money and of exploiting the new resources that Nazi policies

made available ......... Most researchers, it turns out, seem to have

regarded the regime not as a threat, but as an opportunity for their

research ambitions. " (Nature, 7 April 2005)

Encouraging the people of Britain to stand up to Hitler, Winston

Churchill said this: " ....... if we fail, the whole world, including the

Unites States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink

into the abyss of a new Dark Age, made more sinister, and perhaps more

protracted, by the lights of perverted science. " (June 18th, 1940)

 

6. http://www.gefreemaine.org/index.php?page=13

25 May 2005

 

7. Syngenta Dodgy Dossier -- GM Free Cymru

http://www.gmfreecymru.org/news/Press_Notice8December2005.htm

 

8. For an example of the " dodgy science " used in support of GM

applications for approval, see this:

http://www.gmwatch.org/p1temp.asp?pid=66 & page=1

 

 

 

 

 

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