fixin the GMO data

[Guest guest]

Oct 7 2003

Steve Dube, The Western Mail (Wales)

 

THE Government has been accused of fixing the field trials of

genetically modified maize in Britain.

 

The claim, from the watchdog GM Free Cymru, came on the eve of a major

debate on the issue in the National Assembly today, and 10 days before

the Government plans to publish the trial results.

 

GM Free Cymru spokesman Brian John said the farm trials of GM maize,

which have been running for the past three years, have involved

deliberate scientific fraud on the part of the Government.

 

They involved the use of a highly toxic chemical on the non-GM crop,

while the GM crop was treated just once with another chemical, so

allowing weeds and insects to thrive.

 

"The Government are either corrupt or incompetent and probably both, and

the maize trials are worthless," said environmental scientist Dr John.

 

"The trials are a fraud and the results will not be worth the paper they

are written on."

 

Dr John said research by members of GM Free Cymru has revealed the

trials were fixed to minimise the environmental effects.

 

He said the group discovered evidence that questions the Government's

real intentions in planning its Field Sites Evaluation programme, and

comes at an embarrassing time - 10 days before the results are published

by the Royal Society on October 16.

 

The results of the field trials, where GM and non-GM crops are grown

alongside each other for comparison, have been widely leaked.

 

They are said to show that growing GM crops of both oil seed rape and

sugar beet damage insect and plant life.

 

But the plots of land growing GM maize harboured more wildlife than

adjacent plots growing conventional maize.

 

Dr John said this was hardly surprising because the conventional maize

plots were sprayed with Atrazine, a dangerous herbicide which is highly

toxic to insects.

 

The chemical has already been banned in France and other European

countries and is only used in Britain with strict controls because Defra

argued there is no substitute.

 

On the other hand, the GM maize plots were sprayed with the herbicide

Liberty - glufosinate ammonium - just once between planting and harvest.

 

Dr John said the GM firm Bayer, which has developed the maize variety,

effectively conducted the trials itself.

 

It stopped farmers from spraying more than once with the result that

weeds - and insects - proliferated in the GM crop, with the result that

in some cases it yielded as much as half the tonnage of the non-GM

maize.

 

"The trials should replicate what is going to happen if these crops are

grown commercially and that was not allowed to happen," he said.

 

"We suspect that the trials were effectively fixed in order to maximise

weed growth and insect populations on the GM plots and minimise the

effect on the environment."

 

Ian Panton, one of GM Free Cymru's experts on farm chemicals and their

effects, said the trials were useless.

 

"They give no guidance whatsoever as to the likely effects of growing GM

maize commercially in the UK."

 

Mr Panton said the Government also knew in advance of the trials that

the manufacturer's recommended herbicide for GM maize, used by some 75%

of growers, is Liberty ATZ, in which the proportion of atrazine is 32%.

 

Prof Mike Owen of Iowa University found the actual percentage of

atrazine used by GM farmers is closer to 90%.

 

"If this herbicide mix was ever licensed for use in the UK it would have

a much more dramatic effect on wildlife than the FSE programme

suggests," he said.

 

"The field trial results have been manipulated. They are utterly

worthless."

 

A Defra spokesman declined to comment on the group's allegations.

 

"Once the results are published, we will consider very carefully what

they show and their implications," he said.