Academics Review

Academics Review is a website set up in January 2010 that promotes genetically modified (GM) crops and denigrates critics of GM. It is fronted by pro-GM scientists Prof Bruce Chassy of the University of Illinois and Dr David Tribe of the University of Melbourne, who are referred to in a press release put out by the organisation as its "founders".

The press release from Academics Review of March 24 2010 lays out the purpose of the website - to attack Jeffrey Smith, author of two highly critical and influential books on GM, Seeds of Deception and Genetic Roulette:

Two food science and biology academics are launching a new Web site, Academics Review, to examine claims against GM foods by Jeffrey Smith.

Founders Bruce Chassy, Ph.D, professor of food microbiology and nutritional sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Dr. David Tribe, Ph. D., senior lecturer in food science, food safety, biotechnology and microbiology at the University of Melbourne, Australia, authored a point-by-point scientific analysis of Smith's claims, which is posted on the site.

"Reliable information is extremely important to enable people to make healthy choices," said Tribe. "We hope Academics Review will be a resource for anyone who respects the open-minded search for truth that is the basis for scientific thinking."

Chassy and Tribe point out anyone searching the Internet for information to help them decide on the safety of GM foods would likely find a lot by Jeffrey Smith, who, like many people pushing advice online, isn't an expert on the issue.

"Much of the 'evidence' Smith cites for his theories about GM foods has never been peer-reviewed or examined by the international community of scientists for verification," said Chassy.

Criticism

1. Chassy and Tribe go hunting again, by Dr Brian John, GM Free Cymru:

Well, if they can't close down GMWatch and Lobbywatch again, there was probably no option but for the forces of darkness to do their vilification on a spanking new web site - carefully designed and no doubt financially underwritten by all the usual culprits.

So this is the latest salvo in the "shoot the messenger" campaign - our old friends Bruce Chassy and David Tribe are now doing a hatchet job on Jeffrey Smith and all those whom he has cited in his books. Look at this page: http://academicsreview.org/reviewed-content/genetic-roulette/

The whole exercise is utterly grotesque - and is based on the hoary old line that they (Chassy and Tribe) represent "proper" science and that anybody who disagrees with them or who provides "inconvenient" evidence is by definition either a charlatan or a nutter. Their line is that proper peer-reviewed science always shows that GM products are entirely safe, and that on the other side there is nothing but "misinformation." That of course is a grotesque distortion -- there are scores of peer-reviewed papers that Chassy and Tribe have to explain away as aberrations or as based on fraudulent research. In a bizarre sort of way, one has to admire their strange obsession, and one cannot dispute the vast amount of effort that they have put in to their latest exercise in vilification. Poison pours off every page on the web site. Chassy was of course one of the rottweilers who went after Irina Ermakova in that infamous "Nature Biotechnology" set-up.

And calling the site "Academics Review - testing popular claims against peer-reviewed science" is rather entertaining - especially since the picture at the head of the site is of a library full of books. "Trust us - we are proper scientists" is the grand message designed to send the world into a frenzy of admiration...

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http://academicsreview.org/