brilliant article - thanks to Patrick Mulvany for forwarding this.
---

GM The Great Betrayal
by Geoffrey Lean
Daily Mail Friday 20 February, 2004

LET US get one thing straight, before the spinning torrent of misinformation being prepared by ministers is unleashed on the long-suffering British public.

Despite what we will be told, the Government's decision to allow the planting of GM maize is far from the rational, science-based assessment of the risks and benefits that we have the right to demand from our rulers.

No. The leaked Cabinet minutes show this to be an entirely political act, taken in defiance of the scientific evidence and public concern, by a Government desperate to curry favour with big business, appease President George Bush and, above all; to save the face of a Prime Minister.

It is also bound to backfire, further damaging what little is left of public trust in the, Government and casting the long term future of GM agriculture into jeopardy. For both Tony Blair and the biotechnology industry, the victory will be Pyrrhic indeed

Once again, the Prime Minister's credibility is bang in the centre of the controversy. Back in October he promised the House of Commons he would ‘proceed only according to the science’ in making a decision on GM. ‘To be frank about it, the Government has got no interest in this one way or another, other than to do the right thing,' he said.

Cynical

Frankly, to use Mr Blair's expression, this was, hard to credit even at the time, given his long, evangelical espousal of GM and his desire apt to cross President Bush.

The; U .S: administration has close .connections with Monsanto and other biotech companies and Bush has not hidden his fury at Europe's refusal to import American GAF food. He expects Mr Blair's unthinking support.

It is clear that he has got it and I am afraid to say that it is now downright impossible to believe that Mr Blair has done 'the right thing'.

For in three and a half decades of rummaging around the darker corners of the environmental policies of some pretty disreputable governments, I have rarely come across so breathtakingly cynical a document.

Despite the presence of 13 ministers at the crucial meets of the Cabinet Office ministerial sub committee on biotechnology on February 11, when the GM crops go ahead was discussed, it records no consideration whatsoever of the pros and cons.

Instead, the meeting was devoted to debating how best to spin the decision.

Ministers discussed how public apposition could be worn down', how 'key MPs' could be persuaded to 'prepare the ground' before the decision is announced, and how important 'careful presentation' would be.

In their desperation to find a sellable 'line' on GM, they plumped for trying to persuade the public of the dubious proposition that growing GM crops in Britain would help feed hungry people in the Third World.

(This is despite the fact that surplus food already produced by Western countries is routinely dumped in the Third World.)

Margot Wallström, the EU environment commissioner, scornfully demolished that fallacy last autumn, saying that U.S. biotech companies had introduced them `to solve starvation among shareholders, not the developing world'.

In practice, introducing the crops will almost certainly worsen the plight of the poor, enabling wealthy farmers to undercut smaller producers.  True, ministers went on to discuss measures to limit GM contamination of neighbouring crops and to compensate those affected, but even this was presented as putting such concerns ‘into perspective’.

Ethics

During all this the controversial Science Minister, Lord Sainsbury, properly absented himself. But he joined the meeting for what was, if anything, an even more cynical discussion of 'a strategy to promote the effectiveness of the biotechnology industry'.

At this point, ministers said that raising ethical issues 'could be counter productive' and advocated 'making the public aware of clearly beneficial aspects of biotechnology', such as new drugs, as 'a useful way of creating a rational environment for debate on the more controversial aspects'.

Well, if the spin obsessed ministers chose to ignore the facts about GM; let us remind them.

First, the Prime Minister's own strategy unit found little economic benefit in GM technology for Britain.

Next, a review chaired by his own chief scientist concluded that genes from GM crops would contaminate organic and conventional produce, and that GM. food could cause future health hazards.

This evidence confirmed points made repeatedly by the Daily Mail over the past five years.

Finally, the Government's own field trials let the Prime Minister down. They were specifically designed to give GM crops the all clear, so they ignored the main hazards, such as contamination of other crops and wildlife by stray genes.

Instead, the trials concentrated in artificially favourable circumstances merely on the effects of the weedkillers used on the crops.

But, much to ministers' consternation, the weedkillers sprayed on GM beet and oilseed rape so damaged wildlife they had to be abandoned.

This left drowning ministers clutching at just one straw: Growing GM maize had proved better for wildlife in the trials than cultivating traditional crops.

But this was only because the weedkiller used on the conventional crops was particularly, devastating when compared with the type used on Top officials privately, admit the overriding considerations in reaching, the decision were to avoid handing a victory to environmentalists and critical newspapers such as the Daily Mail, to avoid displeasing President Bush and to save Mr Blair from embarrassmen.GM, crops. Since the problem weedkiller is now going to be banned, the results are invalid anyway.   

Defeat

In truth, it's not much of victory. Just one crop out the three is to be approved, and then only for one year.

But still, the GM industry will be able to boast of having Britain's backing. It should be careful: for this decision sows the seeds of future defeat. Biotech firms are likely to make it worthwhile for a few farmers to grow GM maize here.

Protesters will then pull it up, with public support. Hostility to the technology will grow, making it impossible to introduce GM crops that might in years to come, be proven safe and have real benefits.

But none of this nor public opinion, protecting the countryside or safeguarding future health seems to matter to ministers so much as trying to show that, like some tinpot tyrant, Mr Blair, America's poodle, is always right.