GM Watch
  • Main Menu
    • Home
    • News
      • Newsletter subscription
      • News Reviews
      • News Languages
        • Notícias em Português
        • Nieuws in het Nederlands
        • Nachrichten in Deutsch
      • Archive
    • Articles
      • GM Myth Makers
      • GM Reports
      • GM Quotes
      • GM Myths
      • Non-GM successes
      • GM Firms
        • Monsanto: a history
        • Monsanto: resources
        • Bayer: a history
        • Bayer: resources
    • Videos
      • Latest Videos
      • Must see videos
      • Agriculture videos
      • Labeling videos
      • Animals videos
      • Corporations videos
      • Corporate takeover videos
      • Contamination videos
      • Latin America videos
      • India videos
      • Asia videos
      • Food safety videos
      • Songs videos
      • Protests videos
      • Biofuel myths videos
      • Index of GM crops and foods
      • Index of speakers
      • Health Effects
    • Contact
    • About
    • Donations
News and comment on genetically modified foods and their associated pesticides    
  • News
    • Newsletter subscription
    • News Reviews
    • News Languages
      • Notícias em Português
      • Nieuws in het Nederlands
      • Nachrichten in Deutsch
    • Archive
      • 2022 articles
  • Articles
    • GM Myth Makers
    • GM Reports
    • GM Quotes
    • GM Myths
    • Non-GM successes
    • GM Firms
      • Monsanto: a history
      • Monsanto: resources
      • Bayer: a history
      • Bayer: resources
  • Donations
  • Videos
    • Index of speakers
    • Glyphosate Videos
    • Latest Videos
    • Must see videos
    • Health Effects
    • Agriculture videos
    • Labeling videos
    • Animals videos
    • Corporations videos
    • Corporate takeover videos
    • Contamination videos
    • Latin America videos
    • India videos
    • Asia videos
    • Food safety videos
    • Songs videos
    • Protests videos
    • Biofuel myths videos
    • Index of GM crops and foods
  • Contact
  • About

GMWatch Facebook cornfield banner

INTRODUCTION TO GM

GMO Myths and Facts front page.jpg

SCIENCE SUPPORTS REGULATION OF GENE EDITING

Plant tissue cultures

GENE EDITING: UNEXPECTED OUTCOMES AND RISKS

Damaged DNA on fire

GENE EDITING MYTHS AND REALITY

A guide through the smokescreen

Gene Editing Myths and Reality

ON-TARGET EFFECTS OF GENE EDITING

Damaged DNA

New Labour spin operation underway - push for commercialisation

  • Print
  • Email
Details
Published: 04 March 2004
Twitter

We were warned by the leaked cabinet documents to expect an onslught of spin using 'science' and the 'developing world', and we're certainly getting it.

We've had Taverne's article yesterday, a Cabinet leak that commercialisation will go ahead today, 2 written replies from Ministers invoking the Nuffield report, and now news (see below) that Labour-supporting Prof Joe Perry has worked a statistical miracle

The timing of the release of these statistics from Perry on Nature's website is obvioulsy intended to distract attention from the Environmental Audit Committee's findings against GM commercialisation tomorrow. This is clearly a New Labour spin op at its most cynical.

The pugnacious Prof Perry likes to call on Patrick Moore in suggesting that the environmental movement has been taken over by communists and Trotskyites. Even after he was shown evidence of Moore's track record as an industry front man, he continued to make these claims. An evangelical Christian, Perry also claims GM crops are in tune with God's will.
---

Scientists back GM crop findings
By John Mason, Food and Rural Affairs Correspondent
Financial Times, March 4 2004
http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1077690879847

The imminent decision to approve the growing of genetically-modified maize in the UK will this week be supported by scientific advice that the crop remains more wildlife-friendly than conventional varieties, despite a European Union ban on atrazine, a widely-used and powerful weedkiller.

On Friday scientists involved in the farm-scale evaluations of GM crops will announce that the ban on atrazine does not overturn their original findings, published last October, that growing GM maize does less damage to biodiversity than non-GM maize crops.

Scientists had found that growing GM maize was more beneficial to weeds and wildlife. But this result was rendered out-of-date by the ban on atrazine, which is used extensively in conventional maize production. Environmental groups claimed withdrawing such a powerful weedkiller could make conventional maize production less damaging to wildlife and so overturn the result.

But Professor Joe Perry, the ecological statistician from Rothamsted Research station who recalculated the trials results following the ban, concluded that if atrazine was not used for conventional production, the benefits to wildlife of growing GM maize were reduced by about one-third but still remained significant.

His findings, to be published on the website of the scientific magazine Nature, will be welcomed by the biotechnology industry and disappoint environmentalists who had hoped the atrazine ban could force ministers to change their minds and block the commercialisation of the UK's first GM crop.

Margaret Beckett, the environment secretary, is due to announce the controversial go-ahead for GM maize next week, subject to a number of conditions.  

Menu

Home

Subscriptions

News Archive

News Reviews

Videos

Articles

GM Myth Makers

GM Reports

GM Myths

GM Quotes

Non-GM Successes

Contacts

Contact Us

About

Facebook

Twitter

Donations

Content 1999 - 2023 GMWatch.
Web Development By SCS Web Design