We recently demolished Shane Morris's "get out of jail" card concerning the research paper he co-authored on consumer perceptions of GM and non-GM sweet corn.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6363
In his book 'Secret Ingredients' (see below), the Canadian journalist, Stuart Laidlaw, reported a series of examples of gross bias in the way Morris's research was conducted. This included a sign that described the non-GM sweet corn to customers as "wormy"! Laidlaw's book included a photograph of this sign.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6359
Morris's paper failed to make any mention of any of the biasing factors that Laidlaw identified. But Morris claimed in a response on his blog to have no knowledge of the "wormy" sign: "I wasn't even in the Country for your alleged "sign" fraud!!"
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6363.
We pointed out that his own paper showed the research going on for weeks after he arrived in Canada and that his cv showed him as working with the lead researcher, Doug Powell, in the period in question
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6363.
Having had that excuse blown out of the water, Morris has now produced his second "get out of jail" card. This time he says he has photographic evidence that shows "no misleading signs during the data collection period (see pic above)".
But when you look closely at the "pic above" on his blog, the image is at too low a resolution to allow you to read what the relevant sign above the non-GM sweet corn bin actually says!!!
Interestingly though, if you compare the sign in Morris's image to the one in the photograph in Laidlaw's book, you discover that the number of words, the length of lines etc. suggest that exactly the same notice may feature in both photographs!
If this is the case, then what Morris has done is put up a photo of the offending sign at such a low resolution as to render it unreadable while bragging that the photo shows there were no misleading signs!!!
So you can compare, the sign above the non-GM sweet corn bin in the photograph on page 89 of Laidlaw's book, reads as follows:
Would You Eat Wormy Sweet Corn?
[underlined] Regular Sweet Corn:
[inset] Insecticides: Carbofuran Sprayed 3X [inset under 'Carbofuran'] OR [inset to start under the 'C' of 'Carbofuran'] Bt Foliar Spray Sprayed 1X [inset] Fungicide: Bravo Sprayed Once; [inset] Herbicide & Fertilizer: 1 Application of Each.
[followed by three smaller lines of text - not inset]
To compare, look in Morris's image for the hand written sign above the 'Regular Sweet Corn' bin - to the right (as you look at the image) of the large central sign.
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1382/2258/1600/Storedisplay.jpg
Now Morris can very easily disprove that the offending sign is in his photo. All he has to do is put the image on his blog at a high enough resolution to allow everyone to read the sign in question. Without doing that his photographic evidence is worthless.
But even if Morris produces a photo with "no misleading signs", we will still have no explanation - unless Morris provides one - of why Laidlaw saw and photographed the "wormy" sign during the several visits he made to the store during the course of the research.
The sign clearly existed. There is not only the photographic evidence but Laidlaw reports discussing it with Doug Powell. To quote from the book:
"I visited the model farm several times... From what I saw, it was hardly surprising that the GM corn outsold the conventional. The sign over the conventional corn read, "Would you eat wormy sweet corn?" It is the only time I have seen a store label its own corn "wormy"...
In an interview, Powell said he saw no problem with the "wormy" sign. "It was a rhetorical question," he said. Rhetoric aside, when one bin was marked "wormy corn" and another "quality sweet corn," it was hardly surprising which sold more."
And if Morris can produce a picture to show the "wormy" sign wasn't there all of the time during the research, then what exactly was going on? Did the researchers put up the "wormy" sign only on certain days - the ones when Laidlaw was visiting, presumably! - and put up entirely different signs on other days? Clearly any such arrangement should have been specified in Morris's paper.
In this context, Morris in his most recent statement on his blog makes the interesting assertion:
"No data from any such "signs" were included in publication data."
He also claims that there's lots of photographic evidence of "no misleading signs during the data collection period (see pic above)."
But what does this mean? That some of the sweet corn was sold with misleading signs but these sales didn't appear in the final tally of sales????
There is nothing in Morris's paper to suggest that, while the harvested GM and non-GM sweet corn were both available for sale, any sales were excluded from the final data. so what onearth is he suggesting?
Morris has also still failed to explain the other instances of bias that Laidlaw witnessed, such as Doug Powell deliberately setting out to influence a customer's views and purchasing decisions, and the fact that pro-GM fact sheets from industry lobby groups were made available to customers without any balancing literature.
Finally, Morris has issued us with a challenge: "If you are so sure of your "facts" remove your cowardly question mark ("award for a fraud?") and accuse me of fraud directly."
Unless Morris stops ducking and diving and being so economical with the truth, and provides instead a clear explanation that accounts for *all* Laidlaw's evidence of experimenter bias, we will be only too happy to do so.
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[All the following excerpts are taken from Chapter 4 of "Secret Ingredients" by Stuart Laidlaw (McClelland & Stewart, ISBN: 978-0-7710-4595-0 (0-7710-4595-6))
http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/0771045956/701-4143836-5401911 ]
Jeff Wilson [one of Morris's co-authors] likes to refer to himself as Farmer Jeff. He grows market vegetables just outside the village of Hillsburgh, northwest of Toronto, northwest of Toronto, and operates a small greengrocery adjacent to his house... Wilson takes great pride in knowing most of his customers, talking to them about the growing conditions that brought them their food, and providing the best looking produce he can. "This stuff is just gorgeous," Wilson said one afternoon as we toured his cornfields... [referring to Bt corn]
Doug Powell [Morris's boss] used Wilson's farm and shop to test his theories on consumer reactions to genetically modified foods. The two have worked together for years. Wilson was an early head of AGCare, a farm group set up in the 1980s to confront consumer fears about pesticides, but he has spent the last few years promoting GM foods. Powell was active with the group as well, advising it on media and consumer relations and speaking on behalf of the group to defend genetic modification. In recent years their experiments at Wilson's farm have formed the basis of Powell's presentations at food and biotech industry conferences across North America...
Powell began his career at Guelph in 1996...
In 2000, Wilson turned over parts of his farm and produce store to Powell so he and his students could test their theories on communicating with consumers about GM food. The previous fall, the two men had showed up at a Loblaws store in Toronto with AGCare to counter the arguments being put forward by Greenpeace and the Council of Canadians as they launched their anti-GM food campaign in Canada.
The Food Safety Network has consistently produced studies showing that consumers can be convinced to buy GM food, that organic foods are not as safe as conventional, and that GM crops are popular with farmers...
Powell's working theory was that if consumers were told more about GM food they would buy it. ...to explore his theory, he and Wilson grew both genetically modified and conventional sweet corn during the summer of 2000. After the harvest, the food was sold in Wilson's on-farm store in bins clearly marking which was modified and which was not. The modified corn outsold the conventional by a wide margin: 8,160 cobs to 5,340. A survey of 174 consumers found that 69 per cent said they would prefer GM corn over conventional, while 26 per cent would not.
I visited the model farm several times that summer [harvesting and selling started August 30th], both with Powell or Wilson on hand and without them around. From what I saw, it was hardly surprising that the GM corn outsold the conventional. The sign over the conventional corn read, "Would you eat wormy sweet corn?" It is the only time I have seen a store label its own corn "wormy". The sign then went on to list the chemicals sprayed on the corn to kill bugs and weeds and the fertilizers used. Over the GM corn the sign read "Here's what went into producing quality sweet corn", and listed the fertilizers used to grow the corn. Another sign identified the corn as genetically modified. The descriptions of the corn as either "wormy" or "quality" were not mentioned in Powell's presentations to BIO 2002 or in his writings on the experiment. He did write, however, that "a few customers in the market were observed to fill their bags with regular corn and then pause to read the large signs above the bins, which explained the pest management regime for each type of corn. They then proceeded to empty their bags and refill them with Bt sweet corn."
In an interview, Powell said he saw no problem with the "wormy" sign. "It was a rhetorical question," he said. Rhetoric aside, when one bin was marked "wormy corn" and another "quality sweet corn," it was hardly surprising which sold more. Perhaps the choice by Wilson's customers to take home more than five thousand cobs of wormy corn rather than buy "quality" Bt corn showed some pretty deep misgivings about GM food.
An information table in the market contained press releases and pamphlets on Powell's experiments, as well as a number of pro-biotech fact sheets written by Powell and his students and industry lobby groups. There was no anti-biotech information on display.
On one visit I asked a man why he was buying regular corn over GM. He said he didn't believe that GM was good for the environment and worried about its health effects. As he walked to his truck, Powell talked to him about Bt corn - describing how it did not need insecticides because it produced its own and that it had been approved as safe by the federal government. Powell then told me I should talk to the man again. I did, and he said he would buy GM corn the next time he was at the store. Powell stood nearby with his arms crossed and a smile on his face.
The incident convinced me that the only conclusion that can be drawn from Powell's experiments was that, fed a lot of pro-biotech sales pitches, shoppers could be convinced to buy GM products. Any marketing man could have told him that.
[For more on Powell and the Food Safety Network: