The latest GM Watch podcast (6) looks at how pro-GM lobbyists mislead the media around the world.
You can listen to it on your PC via indymedia:
http://biotech.indymedia.org/or/2006/07/5173.shtml
or on your computer or MP3 player via iTunes http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=158600210
This podcast looks at recent examples of lobbyists distorting media reports and failing to disclose their vested interests in GM crop adoption.
It shows the often extreme vested interests of GM scientists, universites and institutes (in India, America and the UK), as well as professional lobbyists. Among the powerful lobby groups whose misleading influence on the media is highlighted in the podcast is the Washington DC based Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI).
Excerpt from the podcast:
"CEI's areas of lobbying correspond closely with where they get their money from. They get money from Philip Morris and they oppose restrictions on smoking. They get money from Monsanto and they oppose restrictions on GM crops. They get money from Exxon Mobil and they oppose action on climate change.
And this is worth remembering when Frances Smith [of the CEI] bangs on about 'scientific evidence' in relation to European regulation of GMOs. The CEI is quite prepared to disagree with the world's best climate scientists when their views don't suit them. The scientific consensus goes straight out of the window. The same goes for the effects of second-hand tobacco smoke or passive smoking. The CEI simply reinvents the 'scientific evidence' to suit their lobbying."
OTHER GM WATCH PODCASTS
POD5: Illegal GM proliferation
http://biotech.indymedia.org/or/2006/06/5159.shtml
POD4: Pharma crops and rBGH
http://biotech.indymedia.org/or/2006/06/5156.shtml
POD 3: Feeding the world and biotech PR
http://biotech.indymedia.org/or/2006/06/5154.shtml
POD 2: GM cotton in India
http://biotech.indymedia.org/or/2006/06/5152.shtml
POD1: GM resistance in Europe
http://biotech.indymedia.org/or/2006/06/5150.shtml
Or download any or all via http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=158600210