The GMO Biotech Sector can’t win the Scientific Debate. Co-optation, Deception and Collusion
By Colin Todhunter
British
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Secretary Owen Paterson is a staunch
supporter of the GM sector (1). Despite criticisms of him being an
industry puppet (2) and content to ignore the devastating, deleterious
health, environmental, social and agricultural impacts of GMOs (3), both
he and other officials like the EU’s chief science advisor Anne Glover
(4) have been more than happy to act as mouthpieces for the GM sector by
making false statements and claims about the benefits and safety of
GMOs that fly in the face of scientific findings.
Paterson’s
support for GMOs is being carried out in partnership with a number of
institutions, including the Agricultural Biotechnology Council (ABC),
which is backed by GM companies such as Monsanto, Syngenta and Bayer
CropScience (5).
Evidence
recently emerged of meetings and briefings involving ministers and the
ABC and its industry backers, despite no such meetings with groups
worried about the impact of GM on human health and the countryside. In
response, GeneWatch UK made a Freedom of Information request to find out what was said at the briefings. Paterson’s
department refused to give details. GeneWatch lodged a formal complaint
with the Information Commissioner in the hope that ministers will be
forced to admit how GM companies are driving government policy. The
evidence strongly suggested that the Government is colluding with the GM
industry to manipulate the media and plot the return of GM crops to Britain.
Paterson’s
department refused to provide details of a telephone conference between
the department and the ABC on June 10 last year. Ten days later, Paterson made
a speech calling for opposition to be dropped and claiming GM crops and
food were ‘probably safer’ than the conventional equivalent. It also
refused to release a “message on media suggestions” sent by the ABC to
the ministry last April, or details of discussions between Monsanto and
the ministry two months before. In addition, his ministry would not
provide details of a meeting and emails between former environment
minister David Heath and the ABC.
However, details of certain emails have now been made public. They reveal what
the veil of secrecy is trying to hide and what many strongly suspected:
collusion between the government and the GM sector is rife.
The emails between civil servants and the GM industry reveal how the two developed a media strategy to convince the public about the merits of GM food.
Writing on the Mail Online website (6), Sean Poulter notes that the
email contacts were part of a wider strategy designed to relax European
regulations on growing GM crops and spend millions of taxpayers’ money
on GM research in British fields. Owen Paterson has pushed for faster
approval of new crops and lobbying for public support and has lobbied
the EU to allow biotech crops to be planted in Britain even if they are
banned elsewhere.
Poulter argues that such support
represents a coup for the GM industry and follows a meeting with
ministers and researchers in 2012 which came up with a series of ‘to do’
lists.
The GM sector is working to get its products into Britain by infiltrating
or creating institutions and co-opting strategically placed politicians
and officials in order to influence decision making and manipulate
public perception about GM crops. The ABC has been central in
influencing government policy. Indeed, Poulter notes that email
exchanges often coincided with major announcements by ministers, which
shifted government policy in support of GM crops.
BIS also created a list of journalists and influential people who should be targeted with information about the new strategy and asked the ABC if it wanted to add any names or flag up “potential pitfalls.” The ABC responded by adding some names, but it also highlighted a number of journalists on the list who had been critical of GM.
The GM sector – via Paterson’s and his Environment, Food and Rural Affairs department, the BIS, the ABC, the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Science and Technology in Agriculture (7), strategically placed scientists with their ‘independent’ reports (8) and the industry-backed Science Media Centre (9) – is mounting a full-fledged assault on Britain.
Its strategy also involves an ongoing attempt to get GM food into the EU via the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP/TAFTA), which is also shrouded in secrecy. The negotiations for this treaty are backed by the US GM sector: it is aimed at dismantling regulations on behalf of big corporations, bypassing democratic procedures and threatening governments with legal action (10-14).
The majority of the British public who express a view on GM food do not want it (15). However, we are experiencing a consistent, multi-pronged attack on democracy that seeks to distort the debate over the GM issue, hijack institutions, co-opt so-called ‘public servants’ and pass off vest commercial interests as the ‘public good’.
The GM sector will only get its products into Britain (and elsewhere) if its institutions and mouthpieces in government, academia and the media are left unchallenged. Part of the strategy involves counting on a misinformed and easily manipulated public.
Be informed and take action:
http://www.stopthecrop.org/
http://corporateeurope.org/
http://www.genewatch.org/
http://www.gmwatch.org/
Notes
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