More AgBioView responses - from Prof Bob Orskov on pushing biotech, + Craig Sams on lotsmororganicscares - both shortened. Plus more background on the nomorescares.com in item 2.
1. AgBioView 2
2. Anti-Organic Industry Groups Smear for Profit?
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1. AgBioView
From: "Bob Orskov" <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Dear Colleagues, I sometimes feel this debate is being dominated by aggressive GM proponents sometimes blended with arrogance and ignorance!! I have no problem with GM research [but] some statements made are really upsetting in case somebody believes it. One gets the feeling that if enough dollars are thrown at it, it will be taken up. The aggressiveness is clearly shown by insults thrown at Arpad Puztai.." Europeans need more education so that they can at last understand that GM food is good for them". The flip side to this, of course, is that the US consumers are rather gullible!!
For people with a choice perception or wholesomenes of food is extremely important. The large reduction in beef consumption in Germany due a very small risk of CJD is a case in point. Adults do not require meat or milk so both meat and milk consumption could be decimated overnight if the consumer suspected GM or hormone contamination for which they had no confidence.
"Two billion people are suffering from Vit A deficiency so the golden rice must be used ". What statistics! what lies! "GM food is necessary to prevent world hunger. " What lies! I said in my previous letter that Vietnam with about the smallest amount of arable land per inhabitant is now the second largest exporter of rice. They learned from the pressure of war and sanctions to make better use of biomass even though some poor villages are still suffering from [the] after effect of Agent Orange sprayed on them in the name of human rights. They are still wasting large amounts of biomass and the ministry believe they could increase population from 70 to 100 million without depending on imported food. We could double our world population without help from GM by making much better use of biomass which would also reduce pollution problems. China feeds 22% of the worlds population from 7% of the arable land...
Let us be honest and sensible. My advice to GM enthusiasts would be if you want an impact then push less and be more sure of your ground. At the moment you put people off since they can choose. There are many options with which to increase food supply, some countries have shown the way. We may have to pay more attention to resource efficiency and less to labour efficiency as the two are generally negatively correlated. Let us in this debate forget the need of greedy shareholders and think more about real poverty alleviation.
Your sincerely Bob Orskov Aberdeen
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From: Craig Sams <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Gosh! Talk about incest in the biotech support world! Andura Smetacek has come up with a long list of food poisoning cases from the "NoMoreScares" website in response to my plea for the abandonment of Dennis Avery's unsustainable claim that you are more likely to die from eating organic food because of the E.coli O157:H7 content. So who does she quote to rebut me? Alex Avery! The same person who has already admitted that his facts were incorrect.
I have repeatedly said that there is no known case of E.coli O157:H7 arising from certified organic food and nobody seems able to refute this, because they can't. I'm not saying that there won't ever be such a case, just that this particular falsehood is a smear that should be abandoned by anyone who claims that 'science' should prevail in this discussion.
Andura quotes (from Alex Avery):
May 2000: Tesco Markets (UK) organic mushrooms contaminated with E-coli (product recalled) FACT: These were not organic mushrooms and the E.coli was not the virulent O157:H7 variety. The Daily Mail headline was inconsistent with the content of the article and the story was buried, with embarassment, the next day.
May 1999: Organic Valley vegetable soup (UK) botulism spores found in cans (product recalled) FACT: This was bad canning practice and had nothing to do with E.coli.
November 1996: Odwalla organic juices E coli contamination (49 illnesses reported and one child death, product recalled) FACT: This was most definitely not organic juice. There is no organic taboo against pasteurisation, and this company was not an organic processor.
Thousands of people die every year from food borne pathogens. Records show that the level of incidence has increased considerably in the past decade. There is no way that this can be statistically linked to organic food. However, the meat industry has taken steps to rectify matters and Sweden's elimination of salmonella shows that good hygienic practices are effective. It is very counterproductive to continue to try to argue that somehow organic food is more dangerous than conventional food, especially as so many organic regulations are specifically structured to ensure good health in food animals...
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2. Anti-Organic Industry Groups Smear for Profit?
[For more of the low down on organic attacks and attackers, see http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/organic.htm ]
The anti-organic report 'Organic Industry Groups Spread Fear for Profit' was launched on September 21st 2000. A full copy of the report is available on-line as a pdf file at NoMoreScares.com
NoMoreScares.com's members include the National Center for Public Policy Research, from which one of the authors of the report comes, which is an anti-environmentalist "think tank" advised by, amongst others, Dennis Avery -- the big daddy of organic scare stories.
Another of the report's authors, Graydon Forrer, as well as being a former USDA director of consumer affairs is also the current managing director of Life Sciences Strategies, LLC which specialises in "communications programmes" for the bio-science and pharmaceutical industries.
The third of the report's authors is Alex Avery who is described as from the Center for Global Food Issues. The latter is part of the right wing Hudson Institute from whence Dennis Avery , Alex's father, has spread many of his bogus organic attacks. The Hudson Institute's sponsors include biotech corporations Aventis, Dow, Monsanto, Novartis and Zeneca.
The contact for NoMoreScares.com is given as the self-styled "Junkman", Steven Milloy. Milloy's internet mission against what he terms "junk science"was founded with Philip Morris tobacco money as part of their campaign to undermine industry-critical research. The Philip Morris campaign was waged via front organisations such as The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition, of which Milloy was director, and which is listed as the originator of the Junk Science website.
The reports' authors acknowledge editorial, writing and research support from "the London Institute for Economic Affairs." A pro-GM clique centred on the IEA has been the source for many of the anti-organic scare stories on this side of the Atlantic, such as those put out in the Counterblast TV programme (broadcast on BBC 2 on 31 January 2000), coordinated by Roger Bate Director of the Environment Unit at the IEA
Many GM proponents are quoted in the report. For example, Thomas J. Hoban of North Carolina State University is quoted as saying, “This anti-biotechnology campaign is a key marketing strategy for the organic i n d u s t ry.” Hoban's GM promotion is so extreme and misleading that he was the subject of a PR Watch article, "The Professor Who Can Read Your Mind", by Karen Charman (PR Watch Vol. 6, No. 4 / Fourth Quarter 1999 - link from http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/pblinks.htm)
Needless to say among the GM proponents the report quotes with approval is one 'Sir John Krebs'.