Following on from GM Watch's 'Reviews of the Year' series, which brought 10 different perspectives on the past year from around the world, here's the first part of GM Watch's own selection from the past 12 months.
Many of the people and organisations mentioned below can be found in the GM Watch profiles on the Biotech Brigade: http://www.gmwatch.org/profile.asp
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How was it for GM Watch?
Part 1
JANUARY
*GM Watch attacked by a pride of professors!
Prof Derek Burke in an article in The Scientist accused GM Watch of mud-slinging and of lowering the tone of the GM debate. The article also quoted Prof Sir Peter Lachmann FRS who declared GM Watch a "rude and aggressive" organisation that bent the truth to suit its agenda. Lachmann claimed that GM Watch typified a backward-looking anti-scientific movement that undermined progress and resulted in "dead people and starving populations" in the developing world. Prof Philip Stott joined in the chorus by using his greenspin blog (!) to proclaim GM Watch, "One of the more unpleasant groups involved in the GM debate", not to mention "nasty... petty and sad". Was it something we said?
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=2239
*Monsanto's GM showcase fails in Kenya - the hype falls apart
The virus-resistant GM sweet potato, featured in hundreds of newspaper articles around the world as a massive success, was finally shown to have totally failed with the publication of an article in the Kenyan press reporting the results of 3 years of field trials.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=2481
*'Eco-imperialism' in New York - exploiting the poor for corporate purposes
A conference that its organisers said would make 'eco-imperialism' a household word took place at the Sheraton Hotel, New York. Opposition to GM crops, its organisers claimed, was part of a 'war' against the poor. CS Prakash was among the speakers.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=2441
*Leaked Indian Government report explodes ISAAA hype
Every January the industry-backed ISAAA lobby group claims massive increases in GM crop production around the world. The Times of India reported 'INDIA A KEY GM CROP CULTIVATOR', saying India, thanks to Bt cotton, had made it to the list of top ten transgenic crop-growing nations. But a leaked internal government report showed just how misleading this was. The area involved in Bt cotton was 'almost neligible,' said the official government report which concluded, 'This points to the low acceptability of Bt cotton by farmers'.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=2299
*GM crops linked to rise in pesticide use
A report by one of the US's leading independent agronomists, Dr Charles Benbrook, drawing on US government data showed how GM crops in the US have significantly increased the amount of herbicides and pesticides used.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=2206
FEBRUARY
*GM giant culls top jobs in Europe
German GM giant Bayer announced it was getting rid of the bosses of its GM programmes throughout Europe, including Bayer's UK head of bioscience Dr Paul Rylott.
Rylott was also Chairman of the ABC GM-lobby group, founded by Dupont, Monsanto, Syngenta, BASF, Dow and Bayer CropScience. Rylott was involved in lobbying (successfully!) for the dismissal of Tony Blair's former Environment Minister, Michael Meacher. The ABC's public relations company Lexington Communications has very close connections to Blair's New Labour.
http://news.independent.co.uk/business/news/story.jsp?story=496178
MARCH
*How the BMA report was fixed
The Daily Mail, tipped off by GM Watch, reported on the Sense About Science connection of the man who drove the British Medical Association's apparent change of heart on GM:
"Tony Blair's Government has embarked on an orchestrated PR strategy designed to break down public opposition to GM... Yesterday, on the day [Government minister] Mrs Beckett backed GM, the British Medical Association announced a remarkable U-turn on the issue and effectively abandoned its opposition. The BMA's decision was driven by Professor Sir David Carter, who it emerged is a supporter of a pro-GM lobbying group." - Daily Mail, 10th March 2004
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=2851
Find out more about how the BMA report was fixed http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=2853
APRIL
*Genocide? What genocide?
April marked the tenth anniversary of the start of the Rwandan genocide and GM WATCH produced a series of pieces looking at the LM network which, as with Bosnia, rewrote the historical evidence in favour of the murderers. Now their central preoccupation is promoting GM crops and reproductive cloning!
"From genocide deniers to biotech apologists"
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4
http://www.lobbywatch.org/p1temp.asp?pid=39&page=1
MAY
*South Africa's regulatory capture
GM Watch began a focus on regulatory capture in South Africa with a profile of GM regulator, Muffy Koch
http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=271
South Africa provides one of the worst examples anywhere in the world of regulatory capture. As one South African critic told us, "In the UK you have the likes of [lobbyists] Lord Dick Taverne and Sense about Science and they are a bit of a nuisance, but in South Africa we have their equivalent actually running the show!"
http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=170
*UN hunger message spun off course
A new report from the Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations, AGRICULTURAL BIOTECHNOLOGY: MEETING THE NEEDS OF THE POOR?, led to claims of UN support for GMOs. Among the background researchers for the report was Joel Cohen who while at USAID helped Monsanto get its notorious (and useless!) GM sweet potato project off the ground, using USAID money to have Florence Wambugu trained by Monsanto for the purpose. Norman Borlaug was also among a number of avidly pro-GM 'background researchers' acknowledged in the FAO report.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=3594
* Lord Sainsbury expected to quit
Science Minister Lord Sainsbury was reported to be planning to leave the Blair Government at the next election. He leaves with his GM investments in meltdown, his family business underperforming, and having done his best to push UK science in a disastrous direction while corrupting the political process.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=3409
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=3286
*Industry's regulatory coup in India
PV Satheesh of the Deccan Development Society issued an important warning that "the powerful industrial lobby in India" was working to hand over control of GM approvals to "an industry dominated committee in the name of a fast track approval." At the same time an important and detailed new study by agricultural scientists was released showing how unsuccessful GM cotton was proving in Andhra Pradesh.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=3405