Martina Newell-McGloughlin

Martina Newell-McGloughlin is a scientist at University of California, Davis. She is Director, Life and Health Sciences Research, UC Davis Office of Research, and Director, International Biotechnology Program at UC Davis (2001-present).

She is International Biotechnology Research Expert and Spokesperson at the US Department of State (1999-present).

UC biotech program

As of 2005 she was director of the UC Systemwide Biotechnology Research and Education Program (UCBREP).

According to the UCBREP website:

She has a special interest in Developing World Research and is part of the USAID Applied Biotechnology Research Program. She speaks frequently before scientific and other associations, testifies before legislative bodies, and works with the media. She was the keynote speaker at the International Genomics Conference in 2007 following in the footsteps of such notables as Francis Collins, Craig Venter and Leroy Hood. She travels worldwide for various organizations including the US State Department and the USDA as an expert on biotech research and education issues. She was recently requested by the Gates Foundation to brief their directors and by the Pontifical Academy of Science to brief the Vatican on future opportunities and challenges in Biotechnology.

In 2009 the UCBREP lost its funding and closed.

Industry task force to design risk assessment for GM foods

Newell-McGloughlin was one of four "Task Force Experts" convened by the industry lobby group, the International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI) to run ILSI's task force on designing EU safety assessments of genetically modified foods. The task force's work led to the production of a document called "Nutritional and Safety Assessments of Foods and Feeds Nutritionally Improved through Biotechnology". The document was then cited in an official Guidance by European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) regulators who were designing the safety assessment.

ILSI states,

The value of the document was confirmed when the European Food Standards Authority (EFSA) referenced it in its Guidance Document of the Scientific Panel on Genetically Modified Organisms for the Risk Assessment of Genetically Modified Plants and Derived Food and Feed and when Japan and Australia cited it in their country comments to Codex.

Newell-McGloughlin's fellow ILSI "task force experts" were

• Bruce Chassy, University of Ilinois
• Gijs Kleter, Wageningen University. According to a report by the German NGO TestBiotech, he is a member of the GMO Panel of the EFSA that recommends approval of GM foods as safe AND has been working with ILSI for years.
• Richard Phipps, University of Reading

Task force members included representatives of all the big GM seed/agrochemical firms:

• BASF
• Bayer CropScience
• Dow AgroSciences
• Monsanto Company
• Pioneer Hi-Bred, a DuPont Company
• Syngenta Corporation

Task Force Leader:

• Kevin Glenn, Monsanto (Chair)

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