Mark Henderson

Mark Henderson is science editor of The Times. He is not a scientist.

Activities

Henderson has written many pro-GM articles.

"Only GM can save the banana"

Henderson is one of several journalists who have repeated the periodically recurring 'crisis narrative' story to the effect that the banana will become extinct without GM:

• Mark Henderson, "Bananas 'will slip into extinction without GM'", The Times, 16 January 2003

The banana claim was countered by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, which issued a statement saying that small-scale farmers around the world grew a wide range of banana species not threatened by the disease that has attacked the Cavendish type sold mostly on the world's supermarket shelves.

Many of the articles quote the same scientist, Dr Emile Frison, who has links with several biotech industry-funded organisations (see Emile Frison).

For more banana-related scaremongering, see:

• GMWatch, "Only GM can save the banana", 2009

"GM crops help man and wildlife"

In 1998 Henderson wrote an article in The Times with the headline, "Modified crops help man and wildlife". Henderson wrote: "Genetically engineered crops can save farmers money, reduce chemical spraying and create a better habitat for birds and insects, scientists claimed yesterday." When, nearly two years later, the Monsanto-sponsored study that was the subject of the article was published in Pest Management Science (April 2000), it turned out that the delayed herbicide application involved in the trials produced a massive yield penalty that farmers would be unlikely to accept.

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