This is the second part of the real story behind the British Food Journal's Award for Excellence for Most Outstanding Paper in 2004, and why the award and the paper now need to be retracted.
For both parts and multiple links to source materials + a photo of one of the signs the researchers used to bias consumer responses, go to:
http://www.gmwatch.org/p1temp.asp?pid=72&page=1
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RETRACT THIS PAPER - PART 2
Attempts to defend the research
One of the paper's co-authors, Shane Morris has made a number of attempts to defend the research and his role in it. On examination, however, these turn out to be as misleading as the research itself.
*Morris says it's all "FAKE information and Lies!!!"
When we first drew attention to the evidence in Stuart Laidlaw's book, Morris replied on his blog with a piece entitled "More Spin, FAKE information and Lies!!!" in which he denied ever seeing any "misleading 'signs'".
So where does the photo on page 89 of Stuart Laidlaw's book come from?
The copyright belongs to the Toronto Star, the largest-circulation newspaper in Canada. It was one of several photographs taken at Wilson's farm store by one of the Star's top photographers, Bernard Weil. Weil is something of a hero in journalistic circles. Less than two years later, he was injured in Afghanistan when a grenade was thrown into his car. Last Fall, he was one of the first photographers into New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
It would clearly be more than surprising if either Weil or the Toronto Star were complicit in "FAKE information and Lies!!!"
*Morris says no "misleading signs during the data collection period"
Bernard Weil's photo of the "wormy" corn sign was one of several shot at Wilson's store during a media day held by Doug Powell and Jeff Wilson to publicise their study. The corn in the bins below the signs had just been harvested and was on sale as part of the study.
This is something that their press release for the event confirms.
"The first sweet corn and table potatoes of the season, including genetically engineered varieties, were available for consumers at Birkbank Farms today. The crops are part of an experiment comparing different pest management technologies coupled with consumer buying preference in a complete farm-to-fork approach." (HARVEST OF GENETICALLY ENGINEERED SWEET CORN AND POTATOES BEGINS AT BIRKBANK FARMS, 30.Aug.00)
That is what was said on August 30, 2000. The British Food Journal paper also confirms that August 30 was when the two types of corn were put on sale to customers at the store.
"Sales of both types of corn were recorded from August 30, when the corn was first harvested, to October 6..."
There's even a table in the paper where you can see how many dozen cobs of corn were sold on August 30.
So when Morris claims, "No data from any such "signs" were included in publication data", it is simply untrue. The "wormy" sign was photographed above the non-GM corn bin during the data collection period.
See the sign here:
http://www.gmwatch.org/p1temp.asp?pid=72&page=1
*What Morris denies, Powell confirms
Curiously, although Morris claims the misleading signs were never there while the research was going on, the lead researcher, Doug Powell, has never made any attempt to disassociate himself from the signs. Powell's young daughter was photographed by Weil at the media day in front of the signs and in his book Laidlaw reports asking Powell explicitly about the "wormy" corn wording, and Powell's reply is included on page 118.
Powell told Laidlaw that the "wormy" question was simply rhetorical. He did not suggest that the wording or the sign were not part of the research. And it would be strange if he had. It was Powell, after all, who invited the media out to see his study on the day Bernard Weil took his photographs. In other words, this was the impression Powell wanted - at that time, at least - to present to the world.
On Powell's Food Safety Network website you can also read a letter of complaint that Powell wrote to the Toronto Star about an article about the research by Stuart Laidlaw - Altered food tested at the market, October 8, 2000. In his letter Powell says, "We simply asked consumers to decide for themselves, as the picture accompanying the story illustrated."
The picture accompanying the story was one of Bernard Weil's, showing Powell's young daughter in front of the corn bins with the signs above, ie Powell confirms that the signs photographed by Weil were a critical part of the choice presented to consumers.
*Morris says he has photographic evidence of no misleading signs
Morris has also sought to dismiss the photographic evidence by producing his own. His photographs, he says, confirm there were no such "misleading signs during the data collection period".
But in the photograph of the signs that Morris has put on his blog, the resolution is so low that the wording on the relevant sign above the non-GM sweet corn bin simply cannot be read. However, from what can be seen - in terms of the number and position of words and the style of lettering - the sign would seem remarkably similar to the "wormy" corn sign in Bernard Weil's photograph!
The only differences in Morris's photograph appears to be the addition of the big sign in the middle of the picture (apparently, added shortly after August 30), and when Weil took his photographs the hand-written signs, including the "wormy" corn sign, were lower, resting on the back of the sweet corn bins.
*Morris says Greenpeace Canada had no problem with his work
The other image Morris has put on his blog, and repeatedly drawn attention to, is styled, "Greenpeace Canada review of work." This text links to a photograph of Greenpeace Canada's former National Biotechnology Campaigner, Michael Khoo, looking at a sign in Wilson's store. Morris implies that if the Greenpeace campaigner wasn't happy with what he saw, he would hardly have kept quiet about it.
So we asked Michael Khoo about this. He told us that, contrary to what Morris claimed, it had been apparent in every way that he and Greenpeace disapproved of pretty much everything Morris and his co-researchers were up to.
Khoo said, "I well remember when I visited the experimental farm, which was a bit of a propaganda lab. Jeff [Wilson] and he [Shane Morris] took me around for a while, they were friendly, I took some pictures and spoke to their intern who had been conducting the "study".
Shane himself well knows that I thought his consumer testing booth had no validity, I told him so. I certainly never endorsed anything there and he is self-delusional if he says he remembers otherwise.
I formally request that my photo be removed from his website, as it only serves to blatantly misinform the public."
Khoo also said he remembered discussing with the Star's Stuart Laidlaw "how their 'study' lacked basic methodological integrity, principally because there were leading elements like the 'wormy' corn sign."
Khoo was subsequently quoted by Laidlaw in an article in the Star as saying, "It's junk science." The article said that in Khoo's view, "the study was deliberately skewed to favour Bt corn, out of fear that consumers would reject the controversial technology." (Altered food tested at the market, Toronto Star, October 8, 2000)
*Morris seeks to attack Laidlaw's credibility
Morris has also sought to undermine Stuart Laidlaw's credibility. Laidlaw is a leading journalist at the Toronto Star - at one time serving on the paper's editorial board before choosing to go back to reporting. He was invited to join the Star's board as a direct result of the articles on food and farming that formed the basis of his book.
Shane Morris, however, implies on his blog that journalistic peers give Laidlaw a doubtful rating. To this end he quotes extensively from a review critical of Laidlaw's book. The piece was published in a farming paper, the Manitoba Co-operator.
What Morris doesn't tell his readers is that the piece by Jim Romahn was about the only bad review the book received. Laidlaw's book was widely praised in major papers across Canada, even to a surprising extent in the pro-business Globe and Mail. The book has also, incidentally, been on reading lists at Queen's and Wilfrid Laurier universities, the University of Manitoba and, we understand, Doug Powell's own University of Guelph.
There were also positive reviews in the farm press, and even the Manitoba Co-operator, which ran Romahn's review, later ran a favourable column about Laidlaw and the book. It's also ironic that Shane Morris sets such store by a piece in the Co-operator, given that the same paper also ran a damning editorial about an article by Morris and Doug Powell that it chracterised as "offensive" propaganda marked by "irrational views" and "virulent attacks on respected scientists." (Rude Science , John W. Morris, The Manitoba Co-operator, June 21 2001)
Finally, it's worth noting that Stuart Laidlaw - currently the Star's Faith and Ethics reporter - is someone anxious to maintain his journalistic integrity. When we contacted him for his comments on Morris's claims, he was keen not to be seen as partisan in his responses: "I do no want to be drawn into this, other than to stand by my reporting."
That reporting includes not only the evidence of bias in the signs, but the evidence of bias in the literature available to the store's customers and the overt attempt by Powell to influence a customer's attitude and future purchasing preferences. This latter type of intervention is not only indicative of flagrant bias but also has direct significance, given that the store, as Powell's paper notes, had a high number of repeat customers. This, of course, is equally relevant to the bias in the literature customers could pick up at the store.
*Morris claims he wasn't there
In his initial response to the information from Stuart Laidlaw's book, Shane Morris claimed on his blog, "I wasn't even in the Country for your alledged (sic) 'sign' fraud!!"
Morris said he only arrived in Canada in mid-September 2000. Even if this were true, his own paper shows the consumer preference part of the study as running till October 6, so for several weeks of the study Morris cannot claim to have been out of the country. Michael Khoo, of course, says that he was shown around the study by Morris.
And any absence cuts both ways. How can Morris declare there were no misleading signs during the data collection period when, according to his own testimony, he was not even there for a significant part of the time?
CONCLUSION
The pro-biotech sales pitches Laidlaw documented at Wilson's farm store are consistent with the origins of this research. The editor of The Manitoba Co-operator, describes the lead researcher, Doug Powell, as someone who "morphed into a full-blown apologist for biotechnology, while still operating under his 'food safety' umbrella" at the University of Guelph. Powell is widely seen like this - as an aggressive biotech propagandist operating from within an academic setting. The dressing up of agitprop antics as scientific research is entirely consistent with this.
Initially, in their search for publicity, Powell and his co-researchers seem to have felt little need to disguise their lack of experimenter neutrality. After all, nobody engaged with these issues in their locality would have been in any doubt about where Powell et al were coming from. The extensive funding of Powell's "food safety" activities by the biotech industry and big agribiz corporations was also widely known.
This is how the Toronto Star reported on the research at the time:
"the study, a subject of intense criticism from organic farmers and activists opposed to GM foods, seems more likely to inflame the debate over biotechnology than settle any arguments... For supporters, it will be taken as proof of consumer acceptance of GM foods. For critics, it will be proof the biotech industry cannot be trusted to conduct a proper study of the issue."
It's revealing that the researchers were considered so partisan as to be synonymous with the industry. Such a perception is perhaps unsurprising. The biotech industry-funded Council for Biotechnology Information was amongst the study's backers, as was the Crop Protection Institute of Canada (the trade body of the agro-chem/biotech corporations - now known as Croplife Canada). And even in their press release for the media day the researchers had no qualms about devoting significant space to Wilson's assertions that reduced pesticide use is what his customers really wanted, and that Bt corn was already helping to meet this consumer demand. Their findings would later precisely mirror these assertions.
As they presented their research more widely, however, and sought to have it published, the researchers seem to have realised that, in order to have an impact, the propagandist origins and character of what they had been doing would have to be written out of the story. At this point the line between transparent farce and outright deceit seems to have been irretrievably crossed. Six years on, at least one of the researchers seems prepared to engage in a brazenly Orwellian effort to deny what actually happened and to present the study and the researchers as entirely non-partisan.
Whether reviewers and editors will continue to collude with such behaviour remains to be seen. Either way, important questions need to be posed about a culture of science and the academy that allows scientists who raise questions about GM, and other corporate interests, to suffer a barrage of criticism and abuse, and even terminal damage to their careers; while those whose opinions and findings support GM are validated and affirmed, regardless of whether those opinions and findings stand up to critical scrutiny.
This is the context within which a publicity showcase came to be rewarded as exemplary science.