GM-free Scotland

News | January '08 | EDM 425

 

Increasing personal attacks on scientists who voice reservations about the safety of genetic transformation, and attacks on GM-concern groups have prompted an Early Day Motion drawing attention to the worst examples. In case you missed it last month, Michael Meacher's EDM is reproduced below (Note 1 - EDM 425). You can raise some awareness in the right place about these anti-democratic and anti-science tactics by asking your MP to support the Motion (e.g. use www.writetothem.com).

The careful and quiet sniping at selected individuals referred to in EDM 425 means that wide background reading is needed to grasp its significance. MPs don't have time to familiarise themselves with every complex issue, especially if it affects their own constituents only indirectly. You may find, moreover, that your MP has difficulty in knowing how to deal with a request to safeguard democratic principles and rights: it seems there is no specific Government 'Department of Democracy' and no Government policy on the subject.

If your MP is reticent to support EDM 425 because he is insufficiently informed on the subject, feel free to pass on material from articles posted on this website. To help you, excerpts are reproduced below:

Note 2 – LET'S PLAY SHOOT THE SCIENTIST – describes how three scientists have recently been targeted.

Note 3 – SLAPP ON FREE SPEECH – describes how two anti-GM organisations have recently been targeted.

Note – EDM 425

EDM 425 SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH INTO GM CROPS 28.11.2007

Meacher, Michael

That this House regrets the continuing attempts to silence
or misrepresent scientists whose research indicates possible
human health problems from GM crops, as in the case of Dr
Irina Ermakova who was misled by the editor of Nature
Biotechnology into submitting an article to the journal to
be published under her name, with the article in fact
published under the editor's name with criticisms by four
well-known GM supporters not seen by Dr Ermakova prior to
publication; deplores the continuing efforts by an employee
of the Canadian Government, Shane Morris, to close down
websites in the UK and Republic of Ireland which have, along
with Dr Richard Jennings of Cambridge University, said that
research which claimed that consumers prefer GM sweetcorn
published by this employee and others and given an Award for
Excellence, is a flagrant fraud; and calls on the Government
Chief Scientist to protect the integrity and objectivity of
science by reasserting the right of scientists to have their
views published by journals without underhand interference
by journal editors, and for the Chief Scientist to encourage
journal editors to withdraw papers they have published which
subsequently turn out to be grossly misleading or even
fraudulent.

Note 2 - LET'S PLAY SHOOT-THE-SCIENTIST

Extract

Modern science has two cornerstones. One is repeatability. If your experiment fails to give similar results on replication, your materials and methods are unsound. The second is acceptance for publication after peer review. This helps define what is acceptable as good science, and delivers some quality control over the materials and methods used. It also provides a system for scientific findings to be openly added to our pool of knowledge.

... Where repeatability is only too likely, but industry doesn't want to give it a chance to happen, it will go to some lengths to get its way.

Trials conducted for the UK Government in Scotland in 1998 found that rats fed GM potatoes developed immune reactions in their gut wall. In this case, poor expertise couldn't easily be used to explain away the results. The scientist, Dr. Arpad Pusztai, was suspended, gagged and eventually dismissed. The Lancet recommended that Pusztai's study be repeated: this has not been done.

The assassinate-the-messenger vendetta waged on Dr. Pusztai has made him acutely aware of the “disastrous” effect which the biotech industry is having on science. He comments “In this industry-financed system corruption is spreading, with devastating effects on peoples' trust in scientific results and the trustworthiness of the scientists.”

Recently, he has identified “a relatively new and more sophisticated strategy in the armoury of the GM biotechnology industry and its promoters for discrediting anyone who is known to be sceptical about the merits of genetic modification/engineering of agricultural crops.” The new trick is to invite “one of the high-profile (GM) sceptics to write an article or essay on genetic engineering for a prestigious journal but reserving the journal's right for 'minor' editing of the article before it is published.” It seems that this 'minor' editing, in the right hands, can become very major editing indeed.

Russian scientist, Dr. Ermakova, was recently duped by Nature Biotechnology into submitting an article (not a paper) describing her experiments which showed a high mortality in rats pups after their mothers had been fed GM soya. Without her knowledge, the Editor printed it alongside a scathing, and not necessarily sound, criticism from four well-known and very vocal pro-GM scientists none of whom had any expertise in the experimental area.

A similar attempt was made on Dr. Pusztai by The Brown Journal of World Affairs. The assistant editor approached him as a “distinguished figure in international affairs scholarships to write about subjects pertaining to (his) areas of expertise”. He was asked to write an article for inclusion in a section on “How do the potential benefits of GMOs weigh against the potential trade disputes, environmental harms, and ethical and political conflicts GMOs bring? And what duties and responsibilities should producers of GMOs follow as use of their products increases globally?”. The article was to be aimed at a “non-scientific yet academic audience”. In line with his professionalism as a scientist and first-hand experience of the modus operandi of the biotech industry, Dr Pusztai wrote an article describing the damage to science being wrought by industry funding. The article was fully referenced with some 45 citations which he considered “essential for increasing the credibility of the paper”. However, the Journal then started trying to edit the piece, accusing Dr. Pusztai of presenting disorganised, rhetorical, unsubstantiated opinions. In the end the article was rejected.

... The latest victim in this shoot-the-scientist game, is Professor Christian Velot, a researcher in molecular biology in Paris. After organising (in his own time) conferences on biotechnology for the wider public, which pointed to the level of risk and uncertainties in the technology, he found his research funds for 2008 were confiscated, student assistants initially allocated to his research team were redirected to other units, he was told that his research team would no longer be part of the institute as soon as the funds for the current research ran out at the end of 2009, and that he would have to leave the premises even before that time.

Both Dr Ermakova and Professor Velot were signatories to the Institute of Science in Society's briefing to the European Parliament on the safety of GM in June 2007.

The Institute of Science in Society notes “There have been far too many cases where industries have interfered with the normal process of science and science publishing and often with the journals playing a far from professional role (see, for instance Science in Society 36 2007, 'Science and Scientist Abused' and 'Biotech Canada SLAPP Scandal'). The industries have sought to prevent researchers from publishing results that were contrary to what the sponsor wanted to hear, they have asked academics to put their names to papers they hadn't written, they refuse to make data available to the regulators or the scientific community or even ... to the investigators ... this prevents others from discovering exactly what was done and allows them to publish only the favourable results.”

SOURCES

Gundula Azeez www.soilassociation.org 17.10.07

Institute of Science in Society Press Release 1.11.07 and 4.12.07

www.freenetpages.co.uk/hp.a.pusztai/

Nature Biotechnology 25 2007 981-7

First Fruit, Belinda Martineau, 2001, ISBN 0-07-40027-3

Department of Health & Human Services Memorandum to the FDA Consumer Safety Officer 16.06.93 www.biointegrity.org/FDAdocs/17/index.html

Read the full article entitled LET'S PLAY SHOOT THE SCIENTIST

Note 3 – SLAPP ON FREE SPEECH


Extract

In 2004, the results were published of an experiment carried out by a Canadian University assessing the practicalities of growing and selling fresh GM (Bt) corn-on-the-cob compared with conventional produce sprayed with pesticides. The crops were grown together on a single farm and sold in the farm's own shop. Total costs for each type of corn were recorded and customer preferences were assessed when the two were offered for sale side-by-side.

The British Food Journal which published the paper described it as outstanding and gave it an award for excellence ... GM Watch, after getting sight of a photograph of the two corn-types being offered for sale in the farm shop, produced an article about the paper entitled “Award for a Fraud”. The 'fraud' referred to the fact that the Bt cobs had a sign above them describing them as 'quality sweet-corn', while the conventional cobs had a sign above indicating they were 'wormy'. The 'scientific study was declared by GM Watch to be a “carefully crafted propaganda exercise”.

... The third-named co-author of the paper, Shane Morris, an Irishman now employed as a senior consumer Analyst by the Canadian Government, took issue with GM Watch's suggestion that the research was a 'fraud'. His immediate reactions seem to have included: denial that the 'wormy' sign had been there; denial that he had been in the country or employed by the Canadian University at the time; blaming Greenpeace Canada for tacitly approving the study; and attacking the credibility of the journalist who took the 'wormy' photograph ... When all this failed to impress, Morris resorted to SLAPP.

Note. SLAPP stands for 'Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation'. It is litigation used by large organisations, or sometimes even individuals, to intimidate and silence less wealthy critics by so severely burdening them with the cost of a legal defense that they abandon their criticism. SLAPP can, of course, be attractive to lawyers because clients actually encourage them to run up large costs. SLAPP litigation is legal in countries which have determinedly pro-corporation governments.

Morris issued a string of legal threats.

The first SLAPP was to GM Free Ireland regarding a letter from the organisation to the Irish Times in which the GM Watch article was mentioned; the letter was not published, but was reproduced on the GM Free Ireland website.

The second SLAPP was to GM free Ireland's Internet Service Provider regarding that same letter.

Under this duress, GM-Free Ireland published a correction acknowledging that the organisation had no legal basis to make the claim of fraud, and pointing out that:

no findings of fraud were ever made by the British Food Journal in regards to the claims in the publication in question

the paper in question remains published as a valid piece of scholarly research

the academic award for the paper remains valid.

(COMMENT. These statements are all true, but none of them actually mean that a fraud has not occurred, only that no-one has invested the money and time needed to ascertain the truth .)

The third SLAPP was to the Internet Service Provider of the GM Watch website. The company, concerned that the term 'fraud' could be libelous, took the site down until the offending word had been changed (the title now reads 'The GM Propaganda Lab Award 2006').

And the fourth SLAPP targetted GM-Free Ireland again. Morris told the organisation “You will note that the GM Watch website in the UK has been disabled. As a matter of urgency, please remove all GM Watch material on GM-Free Ireland's website that you have reproduced in connection with me ... Also please remove all references to “fraud” and myself including those you cite from GM Watch ... If this is not done by close of business today, August 17, 2007, I will have to further instruct my legal representative on the matter.”

GM Free Ireland refused, except for updating the title of the quoted GM Watch article.

This sort of action on the part of Shane Morris seems to be a far from isolated incident.

Morris has a history of targetting GM-Free Ireland through his personal, Irish, pro-GM blog. Other Irish critics of GM have also been attacked by Morris's shoot-the-messenger-type letter-writing campaign to the newspapers. GM-Free Ireland has noted a number of incidents where Morris has used intimidation, defamatory allegations and harassment to interfere with sponsorship of Irish green group activities.

Unexpectedly, the whole story has now taken an interesting new twist.

AgBioView announced that “What the opponents of Powell's work pointedly failed to mention is that after the first week of the study the signs they complained about were taken down. Only then did the formal data-gathering phase begin – using machine-printed, laminated placards.” ... Morris, on his blog, wrote “There are lots of pictures and video footage of the store that show no misleading signs during the data collection period”, and provided his own photographs of this proof. These pictures can be dated as taken right in the middle of the data collection period.

However, when a lecturer in the School of Computer Science used his computing skills to examine all the pictures provided, he came to a very different conclusion. He looked at the original, very clear, photograph taken by the journalist who first revealed the scandal, and put it alongside the images from Morris's blog, which are taken from a bad angle and are blurry. After stretching to compensate for the angle, and overlaying the different signs, it is clear that they all contain the same, hand-written, words.

Read the full article entitled SLAPP ON FREE SPEECH

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