BIOTECH SENTRIES - GENETIC STATE:
"Monsanto officials..Air Force guarding..40 tons..U.S.-based Monsanto.. denied reports.. military area..concealed..tightly guarded..barred.. security reasons..must back off..amid strong protests.." THE JAKARTA POST March 17, 2001 Genetically modified cotton seed arrives in Makassar from S. Africa
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Funnily enough the contrarians are decidedly unhappy about the Sci Amercian feature, Barry Hearn of the EVAG writing, "Et tu SciAm? Et tu?"
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originated: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/2001/0401issue/0401hopkin.html
When I posted this Scientific american piece around, a friend asked " I'm curious Michael. What did you find interesting about this article? I read the print edition the other night and was very disappointed. The print edition contained a 4th article, also with a pro GMO slant, in my opinion. There are some really great graphs, that soften the blow a little, but all in all, it looks like Monsanto propaganda to me." to which I half-answered
"Only that it seemed less-pro GM than - for example what the Royal Society has been putting out - especially in its capacity as sc. adviser to the brit government."
He wrote back
"That's interesting. The R.S. must be pretty ham handed. S.A. burned a lot of it's credability with me on this one. They did a slick job of presenting the material as if it was a balanced treatment, with the pro/con interviews and all, but if you go thru the other 2 articles and sort of score them on a paragraph by paragraph basis you get an entirely different picture. Anti-GM arguments are presented and rebutted, pro-GM claims go unexamined. The illustrative examples are curiously one sided - toxic celery produced by *conventional* breeding; the limitations of safety testing methodology as it relates to studies with a *negative* result. And then there's that wonderful Socratic side step at the end of the article you quoted. Q: Why should we trust Monsanto to do safety testing? A: Who else would you have pay for it?
One other observation. The 4th article, the one not on the web edition, closes with a statement from a corn/soybeans farmer who makes the ludicrous claim to have halved his "pesticide" use since going to 100% GM crops. No where does it mention the the guy is the head of NCGA, ( nation corn growers Assoc. ). While their web page doesn't list NCGA's "industry partners", I think I can guess who they are."