GM Foods - Up-Date

From: "GM Watch"
To:
Sent: Monday, August 11, 2008 8:22 PM
Subject: [Ban-GEF] Dr Pusztai on the 10th anniversary of GM safety scandal


> 1.Dr Pusztai on the 10th anniversary of GM safety scandal 2.The
> Pusztai scandal laid bare
>
> NOTE: On the 10th August 1998 the GM debate changed forever with the
> broadcast of a programme on British TV about GM food safety featuring
> a brief but revealing interview with Dr Arpad Pusztai about his
> research into this issue. Item 1 is Dr Pusztai's comment on the
> anniversary, while item
> 2
> is GM Watch's look at the scandal he helped expose and the attacks he
> subsequently suffered.
> ---
> ---
> 1.Dr Pusztai on 10th anniversary of GM safety scandal
>
> Dear Claire and Jonathan,
>
> I thought that I should write to you on the 10th anniversary of my 150
> seconds of TV "fame" and tell you what I think now. It is very
> appropriate to write to you because you have provided the most
> comprehensive service to inform people about the shenanigans of the GM
> biotechnology industry and its advocates.
>
> On this anniversary I have to admit that, unfortunately, not much has
> changed since 1998. In one of the few sentences I said in my broadcast
> ten years ago, I asked for a credible GM testing protocol to be
> established that would be acceptable to the majority of scientists and
> to people in general.
> 10 years on we still haven't got one. Instead, in Europe we have an
> unelected EFSA GMO Panel with no clear responsibility to European
> consumers, which invariably underwrites the safety of whatever product
> the GM biotech industry is pushing onto us.
>
> All of us asked for independent, transparent and inclusive research
> into the safety of GM plants, and particularly those used in foods.
> There is not much sign of this either. There are still "many opinions
> but very few data"; less than three dozen peer-reviewed scientific
> papers have been published describing the results of work relating to
> GM safety that could actually be regarded as being of an academic
> standard; and the majority of even these is from industry-supported
> labs. Instead we have the likes of Tony Trewavas and others writing
> unsupported claims for the safety of GM food and defaming people like
> Rachel Carson who can no longer defend herself; not that she needs to
> be defended from such nonentities.
>
> In normal times one would not pay much attention to such people
> desperately trying to be seen as the advocates of true science, but
> these are not normal times. The mostly engineered (GM engineered) food
> crisis gives the GM biotech industry and its warriors an opportunity
> to come to the fore with claims that GM is the only way to save a
> hungry world; a claim not much supported by responsible bodies, such
> as the IAASTD. The advocates of GM also now think that they have found
> a chink in the armoury of people's resolve that they can exploit by
> telling us that we would not be able to feed our animals without GM
> feedstuffs. In this way, they hope to bring in GM by the backdoor.
> Please remember that whatever our animals eat, we shall also get back
> indirectly. Rather ominously, there has been no work whatever to show
> the safety of the meat of GM-fed animals.
>
> We must not underestimate the financial and political clout of the GM
> biotechnology industry. Most of our politicians are committed to the
> successful introduction of GM foods. We must therefore use all means
> at our disposal to show people the shallowness of these claims by the
> industry and the lack of credible science behind them, and then trust
> to people's good sense, just as in 1998, to see through the falseness
> of the claims for the safety of untested GM foods.
>
> Let's hope that on the 20th anniversary I shall not have to write
> another warning letter about the dangers of untested GM foods!
>
> Best wishes to all
> Arpad Pusztai
> ---