GM POLL/Frankenstein in the Mail/Superweeds? Dont know ya!

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GMW: GM POLL/Frankenstein in the Mail/Superweeds? Dont know ya!

" GM WATCH " <info

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 10:41:33 +0100

 

 

 

 

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1.GM POLL

2.Frankenstein comes to life

3.Superweeds? Don't know ya!

 

COMMENT

 

All 3 items are from the Daily Mail. As with The Mirror on Iraq,

tabloids can sometimes be on the side of the angels.

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1.GM POLL

 

Have your say: Are you worried about the damage GM food could wreak?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/dmpolls/index.html?in_poll_id=13693 & in_page_id=\

711

 

Results so far:

1. Yes

81%

 

2. No

19%

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2.Frankenstein comes to life

Daily Mail, 26 July 2005

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/newscomment.html?in_article_\

id=357081 & in_page_id=1787

 

When the Mail launched its campaign against the introduction of GM

crops - or Frankenstein foods - to Britain, triggering a huge political

debate, we were accused by the Government of scaremongering.

 

Tony Blair, his eager accomplices in the scientific establishment and

the (mainly American) GM conglomerates tried to ride roughshod over the

public anxieties the Mail was articulating.

 

Month by month, year by year, the Mail stuck to its guns, sending

reporters around the world to document the dangers posed by GM

products and

to prove that the claims made by their proponents were specious.

 

The public responded magnificently, boycotting GM products in their

millions.

 

New Labour, for its part, continued to attack the Mail and launched a

massively expensive PR blitz to persuade the foolish public of the error

of their ways.

 

Today, with the nightmare emergence of a superweed in Britain, the Mail

- though it gives us little pleasure to say so - stands utterly

vindicated.

 

The Prime Minister has always insisted that any decision on GM crops

should be based firmly on the scientific evidence. Just how much does he

need?

 

Yesterday we learnt (via an obscure Government website, naturally) of a

new herbicide-resistant weed.

 

Our countryside is now threatened by a superweed that requires more -

not less - herbicide to control. How bitterly ironic.

 

Earlier trials showed that modified crops would decimate the

populations of bees, butterflies, beetles and songbirds.

 

So the great mystery remains: why does Mr Blair stubbornly champion GM

crops?

 

Is it because (doubtless prompted by Presidents Clinton and Bush) he is

cravenly anxious to suck up to the huge US biotech corporations,

regardless of the impact on this country?

 

Is it because the Science Minister Lord Sainsbury - who has invested a

fortune in GM - is the driving force behind the policy and, as the

donor of GBP13.5million to Labour, a hard man to ignore?

 

Or is it because Mr Blair's Director of Communications David Hill

worked for GM giant Monsanto?

 

When the Mail coined the phrase Frankenstein foods, we could have been

accused of hyperbole. Today, that accusation simply doesn't bear

scrutiny.

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3.Superweeds? Don't know ya!

 

GM super-weed discovered in UK field [box]

Daily Mail, 26 July 2005

 

" The concept of a superweed is very interesting. We have all seen The

Day of the Triffids and I guess that can cause some alarm but frankly I

do not believe it is a problem. "

Dr David Evans, Zeneca research director, June 1998

 

" The whole notion herbicide tolerance will create a superweed is to my

mind a rather peculiar concept. "

Sir Robert May, chief government scientist, April 1999

 

" I have no worries about GM technology producing superweeds any more

than I have worried about ordinary crop breeding producing superweeds. "

Sir Robert May, chief government scientist, April 1999

 

Superweeds are " very unlikely to invade our countryside or become

problematic plants " .

Sir David King, govt's chief scientific advisor, July 2003

 

The emergence of superweeds is a " distant future possibility for the

UK " .

DEFRA report on GM crops, March 2004

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" There is research showing that where a weed gets an advantage, such as

GM resistance to weedkillers, then it becomes extremely difficult to

kill off without using very nasty chemicals. "

Michael Meacher, ex-UK environment minister, July 2005

 

 

 

 

 

 

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