GM-free Scotland

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No such threshold

Hijacking The Vatican

December 2009 

Pusztai gets the prize Did the Food Standards Agency really try to look at the evidence for health effects of organic food when it commissioned a review?
This year's Stuttgarter Friedenspreises 2009 has been awarded to Dr. Arpad Pusztai and his wife Dr. Susan Bardocz.The award is for their tireless advocacy for independent risk research. Both scientists have made an essential contribution to the broader understanding of the dangers of genetic manipulation
Nitrogen pollution: GM fix unstuck
Artificial fertilisers are the world's worst environmental problem.  Are GM nitrogen sources the next road to ruin? Meddling with fats, or solving one problem with another
Eat your way to a healthy heart on a diet of processed junk food? Of course you can, courtesy of GM. 
Science and agriculture - industry in the driving seat
In case you ever wondered about the biotech industry's influence on  science and agriculture, there seems no doubt who's in the driving seat of GM crop research and commercialisation.
Is animal feed an ingredient?
The biotech industry and regulators would like us to believe that animal produce from livestock fed GM feed isn't relevant to the GM issue.  But perhaps it's time we started asking if the GM in animal feed is, in fact, an ingredient in our food? 
Nutritional value of organic food
In the hands of our Food Standards Agency, the 'last word' on the nutritional value of organic food seems, strangely, very different from the first, second, third, fourth, and fifth words. 
Organic benefits: the science

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November 2009 

French scientists reveal more problems with Roundup herbicide
When the biotech industry starts shooting the messenger and creating diversions, you can be sure that the independent scientists in its sights are holding a smoking gun. 
Nutritionally enhanced dangers
Ever wondered what Monsanto would do when someone finally delivered irrefutable proof of harm from one of its GM crops?  Well, maybe this ... 
GM rejected around the world
The biotech industry claims that the adoption of GM by farmers and regulators worldwide is proof of its worth.  In that case, what does it prove when traders won't trade in GM, farmers choose to plant non-GM to the extent that they can't get enough seed, and governments are hesitating to approve GM, or are rejecting it outright? 
An illusion called choice
The UK Food Standards Agency insists it is interested in only two things about GM food: safety and consumer choice.  It is bound to defer to the EU on safety issues, but on choice it's view is ultimately it is up to each of us to decide what we want to eat. Look around your supermarket and ask how true is the FSA's position?   
Ireland goes GM-free
For a small country like the Republic of Ireland or Scotland, high-quality produce is the only way to compete in a globalised market place, because any other way is a race to the bottom. 
The day of the Triffid flax
'Flax' doesn't exactly conjure up images of venemous, three-legged plants rampaging through the countryside, but put a rampaging gene in there, and it can cause just as much grief as a Triffid.

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October 2009 

Simple crops, superweeds
Approximately 96 percent of all soya beans grown in the US and 64 percent grown globally were glyphosate-resistant in 2006. Yet, the impact of herbicide-tolerance on the crops' yield is modest, and can be non-existent or even negative. 
GM water footprint could be final nail in the coffin for developing countries
One of the dark sides of the green revolution, which enabled us, within a single generation, to produce twice the amount of food is that we are now using three times the amount of water to do it. For drought-prone developing countries, the global food market means they are exporting scarce water in exchange for dollars plus employment for a few, and poverty plus starvation plus disease for many. 
Unethical fines imposed on EU states
What sort of a law is it that fines a country for refusing to import unethically-sourced materials? 
The GM terror
Genetic modification: now officially one of the recognised terrors of the modern world. 
'Charity' and 'philanthropy'? Think again
Who ever heard of a capitalist charity?  It's one which gives to the poor with one hand so that it can take back more than it has given with the other. 
Shooting scientists, trampling research, stifling debate - not your average science
Besides wishful thinking about the safety of genetic transformation, another favourite occupation of pro-GM scientists seems to be shooting other scientists and rubbishing their work.

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September 2009 

US tax payers subsidise junk food
Would any responsible government use taxes to promote ill health? Apparently yes, and then some. 
The dance of the chromosomes
Time-lapse photographs taken of a single point on a chromosome inside the nucleus in a living cell, demonstrated very graphically why GM is an inherently disruptive technology. 
The White Book
Are the EU and USDA playing political games trying to put a veneer of science over the carefully preserved void of knowledge about GM?  If so, they don't have American scientists nor European governments behind them. 
Engineering acceptance
Is someone out there trying to make us believe our supermarkets can't supply the food their customers want to buy?  It's a short step from 'we can't get non-GM to 'so, you'll all just have to eat GM ... ' 
Enter 'SmartStax' - the latest GM crop
Have you ever wondered how biotech companies could look at the hazard warnings being sounded for gene technology, and ignore them?  Well, it seems their attitude to their latest invention is that “SmartStax is a game-changing technology” (Monsanto Vice President of US Product Management).  If SmartStax GM maize is a game of Russian roulette, they've just put eight bullets in the gun. 
The lucrative business of probiotics and 'feel-good' supplements
How are we being persuaded to pay more to buy less?  Watch out for claims that GM 'functional' foods are so healthy they're a must-have no matter what the price, and so natural they don't need regulation.

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August 2009 

Setting trust aside

As the Eurobarometer polls continue to tell the European Commission that its people don't want GM food, GM exporting countries continue to pile pressure on Europe to buy the GM they want to sell. Would it be any wonder if the Commission tried to generate 'proof' that EU acceptance of GM food is increasing? 
Pesticides and GM
Pesticides and GM are inextricably linked.  The bad news is they're both also inextricably linked to ill-heath. The good news is there is one way to avoid all three. 
Is the risk to scientific integrity too great?
Truly independent scientists are the biotech industry's Achilles' heel: they are willing and able to uncover inconvenient truths about its products, and can speak out about their findings. But there seem to be schemes afoot to keep them under control. 
GM Watch banquet
Has GM-free Scotland whetted your appetite for more information on GM? Then, try a GM Watch banquet. 
Write to them
If you have an issue you want to pursue, like GM, don't be fobbed off by 'representatives' who aren't listening to you or who don't want to hear.  You have a right to engage in the democratic process, and it's very easy. 
Difficult times for Monsanto
Monsanto's finding it tough: its products aren't quite performing as expected neither in the market nor in the ground, and that old bogey-man, GM contamination, is still lurking out there. 
Telling or not
The biotech industry won't waste money on safety-testing GM.  But it manages to spend an awful lot on persuading governments to accept it.  Have you ever thought about the implications of this? 
Back to the dark ages
When 'Roundup Ready' crops were introduced commercially in 1996, they were touted as a way to make the farmers' task easier, cheaper and safer, reducing the amount of herbicide used and protecting the environment. Critics foresaw a very different scenario unfolding: increasing use of pesticides to cope with increasingly resistant weeds, the farmers' task becoming ever more difficult, expensive and dangerous, and the environment being a major looser in the game.

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July 2009 

Non-target effects of genetic modification
The intended effects of genetic transformation may or may not be achieved, but unintended effects are a certainty. 
EFSA fails to agree on GM potatoes
A first in Europe: the European Food Safety Authority has failed to approve a GM crop. 
Charity or humbug?
A charity aiming to help the developing world. Can there be anything wrong with it? Well, yes if it depends on patents on life. 
America's shifting?
Is America finally re-setting its course in a non-GM direction? Look at the evidence. 
Fear the future
If GM is as good and as safe as the biotech industry makes out, why do its critics have to be intimidated into silence?

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June 2009 

Viral DNA dangers
Almost every GM crop ever created has included of a useful little piece of DNA copied from the Cauliflower Mosaic Virus (CaMV). But can intact, functional CaMV 35S end up inside our cells and our intestinal flora, and if it gets there can it cause harm? 
New GM contamination rules
Strict new rules to crack down on those who accidentally pollute the environment through GM contamination came into force in Scotland on 23 June. They mean Scotland's stance on GM contamination is now much tougher than in England, where polluters may be able to exempt themselves from liability. 
GM maize in Malawi: visions of a problem
In 2005 Monsanto announced its intention to donate 500 metric tons of hybrid maize seeds to farmers in Malawi, despite lack of cultivatable land, water, energy, access to credit, agricultural training, local markets, and road infrastructures, and ignoring the implications of the patents and other industry blocks on seed-saving linked to GM, or of dependence on expensive agrichemicals and outside technologies. 
Seedless GM corn syndrome
Farmers in several provinces in South Africa have been hit by crop losses this year after planting Monsanto's GM maize. Monsanto has trivialised the problem by claiming that “less than 25%” of their corn was affected. However, Grain SA has estimated the failed harvest at between 80,000 and 150,000 tons, affecting 28% of the 1003 farmers who bought the maize, and some farms have suffered up to 80% crop failure. 
Government spin doctor barred
Dr. Ian Gibson, a well known enthusiast and spin doctor for GM crops and food, was a member of the UK Government's Select Committee on Science and Technology until he was barred from standing as an MP at the next election after the expenses scandal. 
Golden Rice: golden distraction
Now we have the final proof that Golden Rice is, and has always been, nothing more than a PR exercise to brand GM as a saviour of the Third World, and become a Trojan Horse to get GM into the global food chain. 
Research in Argentina reveals dangers of Glyphosate
Reports in the Argentinean press describe how one of its scientists has been subject to a campaign of intimidation. The scientist's alleged offense? To use his thirty-years expertise in embryology to test a chemical which we are all likely to be exposed to.
Take action - just write
Here's a nice hint on how to get your favourite catering outlet to ditch GM ... JUST WRITE.

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