News | November '07 | Wormier and wormier
Regular visitors to GMfreescotland are no doubt wondering by now why they are reading so many 'wormy' articles: we've had MISCONCIEVED WORMS, SLAPP ON FREE SPEECH, WORMY GOVERNMENT, WORMY CORNERSTONES, and WORMY REASONS all in one month!
The reason for this deluge of worms?
The whole story has involved so many players, official bodies, organisations (not always quite what they appear to be ) and different countries, all confused by so many claims, counterclaims, shifting versions, misinformation, propaganda and suppression of information, that trying to winkle out some kind of truth required the brain of Sherlock Holmes and an awful lot of time and perseverance.
At the end of it all, the story doesn't, and probably never will, make sense.
Consider this ...
A study into growing GM corn and consumer preferences was carried out on a small Canadian farm in 2000. The results were published in a British Journal in 2003. A journalistic book criticising the study because of the presence of signs which might bias consumer choice, was published in 2004. A UK GM-concern group posted an article on its website about the signs in 2006. The third named author of the published paper made legal threats to the GM-concern group in 2007.
The times involved may tell a tale.
It seems to have taken longer for four authors (at least two of them highly experienced) to get a 13-page paper published than it did for an entire book, also requiring research, to get off the press. We can only speculate on the reasons: Badly planned science? Results which needed reworking to make them palatable? The two commercial GM corn strains tested seven years ago are likely to become obsolete soon, and a tiny study of consumers in rural Canada has little relevance elsewhere anyway.
The lead author of the paper (whose name will always remain most associated with the research) seems to have been unconcerned about the presence of the signs, about the contents of the book or about the website article. The third-named author took exception to the criticism of the published paper, and took action three years after the appearance of the book and sixteen months after the appearance of the article on the website. By this time, anyone who was going to read the article or the book had probably already done so.
The actual achievements of the scientific endeavour and subsequent legal threats seem to have been:
- to highlight the failings of 'peer reviewed publication' as a recommendation of good, or useful, science
- to highlight the insidious undermining of democracy by governments and individuals with biotech stars in their eyes and cash in their pockets
- to change the title of an out-dated website article from suggesting fraud to suggesting propaganda (is there a difference?)
- to draw lots of extra attention to the whole affair long after it should have died down
- and to give us lots of wormy articles to write and a headache, just trying to sort it all out.
WORMS R.I.P.
(maybe)