GM Watch
  • Main Menu
    • Home
    • News
      • Newsletter subscription
      • Daily Digest
      • News Reviews
      • News Languages
    • 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
      • Cornell 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
    • Links
    • Donations
    • How donations will help us
News and comment on genetically modified foods and their associated pesticides    
  • News
    • Latest News
    • Newsletter subscription
    • News Reviews
    • News Languages
      • Notícias em Português
      • Nieuws in het Nederlands
      • Nachrichten in Deutsch
    • Archive
      • 2021 articles
      • 2020 articles
      • 2019 articles
      • 2018 articles
      • 2017 articles
      • 2016 articles
      • 2015 articles
      • 2014 articles
      • 2013 articles
      • 2012 articles
      • 2011 articles
      • 2010 articles
      • 2009 articles
      • 2008 articles
      • 2007 articles
      • 2006 articles
      • 2005 articles
      • 2004 articles
      • 2003 articles
      • 2002 articles
      • 2001 articles
      • 2000 articles
  • Articles
    • GM Myth Makers
    • GM Reports
    • How donations will help us
    • GM Quotes
    • GM Myths
    • Non-GM successes
    • GM Firms
      • Monsanto: a history
      • Monsanto: resources
      • Bayer: a history
      • Bayer: resources
  • Videos
    • Index of speakers
    • Glyphosate Videos
    • Latest Videos
    • Must see videos
    • Health Effects
    • Cornell 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
  • Contact
  • About
  • Links
  • Donations
  • 2021
  • 2021a
SUBSCRIBE TO REVIEWS

GMWatch Facebook cornfield banner

SCIENCE SUPPORTS REGULATION OF GENE EDITING

Plant tissue cultures

GENE EDITING: UNEXPECTED OUTCOMES AND RISKS

Damaged DNA on fire

GENE-EDITED CROPS & FOODS

Help stop the new threat

News Menu

  • Latest News
  • News Reviews
  • Archive
  • Languages

Please support GMWatch

Donations

You can donate via Paypal or credit/debit card.

Some of you have opted to give a regular donation. This is greatly appreciated as it helps place us on a more stable financial basis. Thank you for your support!

2009 articles

Not another GM debate

  • Print
  • Email
Details
Published: 17 November 2009
Created: 17 November 2009
Last Updated: 22 October 2012
Twitter
1.Not another GM debate
2.Will our views on GM food be 'modified'?

EXTRACT: "It could also be interpreted as ignoring or manipulating public concerns in an attempt to 'sell' a policy favourable to commercial and industrial interests." - Scientists protesting at the Government's plan to hold another official GM debate
---
---
1.Not another GM debate
The Daily Telegraph, 17 November 2009
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/letters/6583030/Tearing-up-bankers-contracts-would-mean-the-FSA-trying-to-rig-the-market.html
 
SIR - We are concerned about the request by the Government to the Food Standards Agency to lead a dialogue to explore, yet again, the subject of genetically modified food with the British public (Comment, November 14).

A great deal of public funding has already been spent on shaping public views on GM. Focusing on just one technological approach to food production means this proposed exercise is likely to encounter the same problems that dogged past consultations.

A recent Royal Society report observed that "dialogue (with members of the public) should start with the problem that needs to be addressed (global food security), rather than presupposing any particular solution".

The focus of the FSA project on GM agriculture alone seems to fly in the face of the views of Britain's premier academy of science. It could also be interpreted as ignoring or manipulating public concerns in an attempt to "sell" a policy favourable to commercial and industrial interests.

We need a broader debate over agri-food and food security problems, together with the many potential solutions: social, political and technological.

Dr Tom Wakeford
Director of Public Engagement, Policy, Ethics and Life Sciences Research Centre,
Newcastle University

Dr Les Levidow
Senior Research Fellow, Development Policy and Practice,
The Open University

Dr Tom MacMillan
Executive Director, Food Ethics Council

Professor Erik Millstone,
Science and Technology Policy Research,
University of Sussex

Dr Bronislaw Szerszynski
Centre for the Study of Environmental Change,
Lancaster University

Professor Brian Wynne
Associate Director, Centre for Economic and Social Aspects of Genomics,
Lancaster University

Dr Michel Pimbert
Director, Sustainable Agriculture Programme, International Institute for Environment and Development
London WC1
---
---
2.Will our views on GM food be 'modified'?
Geoffrey Lean
Daily Telegraph, 13 November 2009
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthcomment/geoffrey-lean/6563658/Unlocking-the-English-countryside.html

Stand by for yet another attempt to persuade a resistant British public to consume genetically modified food. The Food Standards Agency - the same quango that constantly condemns the organic produce that people really do want - is about to organise, at ministers' request, a "dialogue project" to see how consumers “can be helped to make informed choices about the food they eat”.

Tomorrow, the agency will announce the members of a steering group for the dialogue, which it says will "include stakeholders”¦ with different views of GM". In fact, it seems that only two of the 11 to be named are known to oppose the technology.

It brings back memories of the last time the Government tried this tactic, six years ago. Again, it held a public "debate", whose purpose one senior official told me - was to "dispel the myths" put about by "extremists in environmental groups".

The exercise sought to overturn public opinion that was running at three-to-one against GM, in preparation for starting planting modified crops in Britain. But by the time it had finished, opposition among those who participated had soared to 90 per cent, with the uncommitted becoming increasingly hostile the more they learned about GM.

Many of those who took part ended up seeing the debate as "window dressing used to cover secret decisions to go ahead with GM crop development".

That could not possibly be what is happening this time. Could it?
  • Prev
  • Next

Menu

Home

News

News Archive

News Reviews

Videos

Articles

GM Myth Makers

GM Reports

GM Myths

GM Quotes

How Donations Will Help Us

Contacts

Contact Us

About

Facebook

Twitter

RSS

Content 1999 - 2021 GMWatch.
Web Development By SCS Web Design