Sense About Science Publications and Contributors
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Contents
Repeat Contributors
Full List of Contributors
Making Sense of GM Contributors
| Making Sense of GM - Contributors[87] | ||
|---|---|---|
| Contributor | Background | Quote on GM[88] |
| Professor Derek Burke | Professor Derek Burke was a member of the advisory council of SAS in 2004 and chair of the UK regulatory committee on GM foods (Advisory Committee on Novel Foods and Processes - ACNFP) for almost a decade (1988-97), during which time the first GM foods were approved for the UK. During much of his time at ACNFP, Prof Burke was also Vice Chancellor of the University of East Anglia (1987-1995) and a member of the governing council of the John Innes Centre (JIC). Both institutions have benefited from investment in GM research, with the JIC enjoying multi-million pound investments from biotechnology corporations like Syngenta and Dupont. He was also a member of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics group that produced the report 'Genetically modified crops: the social and ethical issues'. The report was described by Guardian columnist George Monbiot as 'perhaps the most asinine report on biotechnology ever written.In the 1980s he worked for a biotech company (Allelix Inc of Toronto) and until 1998 was a director of Genome Research Ltd. | Genetically modified crops are being grown extensively in North and South America and China and have become a part of the normal diet there. In Europe the contention continues despite the fact that millions of US citizens eat GM soya without any ill-effects. European consumers' opposition to GM foods has had serious repercussions for plant research, for the commercial development of new crops and, most importantly, for developing countries that could benefit most. Several countries in Africa and elsewhere have resisted growing them, mainly for fear of being unable to export them to the European market[89] |
| Professor Ian Crute | He was a member of the Lead Expert Group for the Global Future of Food and Farming Foresight project and he currently serves on several boards and committees connected with science and innovation within the UK agri-food sector, including as a trustee director of the John Innes Foundation and the East Malling Trust. He was director of Rothamsted Research, a major British agricultural research institute, from 1999 until January 2010. | I applaud the Government's decision to allow commercial cultivation of herbicide tolerant (HT) GM fodder maize in the UK. "HT varieties provide the prospect of reduced economic inputs for hard-pressed farmers striving to compete and sound scientific studies have also demonstrated the potential for some environmental benefit from the way these varieties are likely to be managed. "It is particularly heartening to the scientific community in this country that the Government has clearly signalled its resolve to act on the basis of factual argument and a rational assessment of risk rather than emotive rhetoric and opinion unsupported by evidence" he said[90] |
| Professor Phil Dale | Professor Phil Dale is in the Department of Crop Genetics at the John Innes Centre, the UK's leading plant biotechnology institute, where he is also Leader of the Genetic Modification and Biosafety Research Group. He is a keen supporter of GM crops and has probably had more opportunities than any other individual to express that support on official UK Government advisory committees.He is a trustee of SAS. As of 2009 he evaluates production of HIV AIDS antibodies in GM plants and is part of PharmaPlanta. He is on the advisory council for Sense About Science. | I think we have focused far too much on the negative effects of GM and the risk assessment. We need to start planning for exactly how we go about growing these crops effectively rather than worrying about if we should grow them." There were more than a billion acres of GM crops being grown internationally. "We are falling behind," he said[91] |
| Dr Alan Dewar | Dr Alan Dewar is the director of Dewar Crop Protection Ltd. He was previously head of Entomology at Broom's Barn, a division of Rothamsted Research, formerly known as the Institute of Arable Crops Research (IACR), which has employed a number of pro-GM scientists, including ones who have simultaneously worked for the biotech industry lobby group CropGen. IACR/Rothamsted Research has had Dupont, Novartis, Syngenta and AgrEvo (which became part of Aventis CropScience, and later Bayer) amongst its 'Commercial Partners' . Dewar has undertaken research for Monsanto and was involved in a conflict of interest controversy in 1999 during the UK Farm Scale Evaluations . He has 35 years' experience in agricultural entomological research in institutes within the BBSRC (Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council) including the Institute of Grassland and Environmental Research. | Scientists monitoring plots of GM sugar beet have recorded a significant increase in spiders, beetles and other insects that provide important food for the nestlings of skylarks, lapwings and partridges. They claim in a study published today in the Royal Society journal Proceedings B that GM crops engineered to be resistant to broad-spectrum herbicides could be better for wildlife than conventional crops doused with less powerful weedkillers. The study was run by the Broom's Barn research station in Suffolk, Britain's national centre for sugar beet research, and was part-funded by Monsanto, the American agrochemicals company and principal supplier of GM technology. Alan Dewar, an entomologist at Broom's Barn, said the study was vetted by independent scientists and that Monsanto had no role in determining the way the data was collected or how the findings were published...Dr Dewar said. "I've spent 19 years crawling around sugar beet fields and I have never in all that time seen a skylark's nest. I saw my first one in one of the GM plots," he said. "I didn't expect these things to happen but they did and I was quite pleased"[92] |
| Professor Malcolm Elliott | Malcolm Elliott established The Norman Borlaug Institute in Leicester in 1994. Following detailed discussions of The International Advisory Board of The Institute it was re-established, as The Norman Borlaug Institute for Global Food Security, under the auspices of a working partnership of Rothamsted Research and The University of Nottingham in November 2011. He is the founding Editor in Chief of the Springer open access journal Agriculture and Food Security. Tracey Brown, the director of SAS sits on the editorial board for this journal. He is currently working on a project to perfect a cloning process to produce trees tough enough to withstand an acid environment. His department has just been given a £250,000 grant to develop the new 'super tree'. | Malcolm Elliott wrote an article for the telegraph entitled: 'People will starve to death because of anti-GM zealotry'[93] |
| Dr Helen Ferrier | Helen is chair of the Agri-Food Panel at Campden BRI and is a Director of the Boards of Rothamsted Research Association and of East Malling Research. She is a member of the Institute of Food Science and Technology. She is the NFU’s Chief Science and Regulatory Affairs Adviser and has worked for the National Farmers’ Union since June 2004. | We have a huge global challenge to feed a population that is due to hit nine billion by 2050 while having less impact on the environment and tackling climate change,' she added. 'To achieve this we will need every weapon in our armoury. That includes GM crops that have been adapted to cope in dry conditions, need fewer pesticides and offer nutritional benefits'[94] |
| Professor Les Firbank | Firbank is Professor in Sustainable Agriculture at the University of Leeds and a member Advisory Committee on Releases to the Environment (ACRE); Defra Demonstration Test Catchment Science Advisory Committee; Independent Director, Assured Food Standards Ltd, director of Firbank Ecosystems Ltd, head of North Wyke Research, Agro-ecologist and Head of Land Use Research at the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology. He is on the editorial boards of Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment; International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability and Journal of Environmental Management. From January 2012-2013 he was involved in the The CPSL (Cambridge University Programme for Sustainability Leadership) collaboration with the UK dairy industry on Natural capital. | On GM he notes: 'Our best knowledge suggests Canada and countries in Europe will have to take on an even greater share of world food production,' he says. 'It is therefore important to ask now if we have the moral right to continue to ignore technologies, including the genetic manipulation of crops, that in a few years could insure this food production reaches an absolute maximum and will help the planet provide enough food for the nine billion people who will be living on it." (On Northwyke research: it was "Formerly part of IGER, (Institute of Grassland and Environmental Research), it now has a new identity within Rothamsted Research, the oldest agricultural research institute in the world[95] |
| Professor Mike Gale | Professor Mike Gale (died July 2009) was a Fellow of the Royal Society and an Emeritus Fellow of the John Innes Foundation. He was previously the Head of the Comparative Genetics Unit at the John Innes Centre, which receives funding via Lord David Sainsbury's Gatsby Trust and the BBSRC as well as via several of the major biotech corporations. His particular interest was cereal genetics. Gale was briefly the Director of the JIC prior to the appointment of Professor Chris Lamb. Gale is on record as saying that a GM moratorium would be a serious financial blow to the JIC... He was also, together with Derek Burke and Brian Heap, a Member of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics' Working Party on Genetic Engineering., as such he contributed to both their May 1999 report and their December 2003 report, both of which argued that there is a moral imperative to develop GM crops. | If the advances made in creating genetically modified foods are not used to increase food output the world could find itself in the grip of a food crisis in as little as 15 years, perhaps even ten, said Professor Mike Gale of the John Innes Centre, one of Europe's largest independent centres for research into plant and microbial science...The current annual production of 1.8 billion tons of cereals must be increased to three billion tons a year, Prof Gale told the BioScience 2004 conference at Glasgow's SECC. He warned: "We have doubled food production over the past half century. Now we have to do it again, but this time we have to do it sustainably. We don't have any more good land and we don't have any more water and we have to use fewer chemicals[96] |
| Professor Peter Gregory | Professor Peter Gregory was one of the leading scientists who worked on a study that called for urgent action to avert global hunger. He is the chief executive of East Malling Research, and Professor for Global Food Security at the University of Reading, where he works with Reading's new Centre for Food Security and its Director, Professor Richard Tiffin. He is an Associate of the Walker Institute and amember of the Soils Research Centre. | East Malling Research chief executive Professor Peter Gregory, argued: 'A lot of what has gone on in public domain has been the exploitation of fear. About two trillion meals containing GM products have been eaten in the past 12 years, yet there's not been a single case of ill health reported'[97] |
| Dr Wendy Harwood | Dr Wendy Harwood is a Senior Scientist responsible for the Crop Transformation Group at the John Innes Centre, Norwich. Her group provides a range of crop transformation resources to the research community, works on improving the methodology for producing GM crops, particularly cereals, and on the safety assessment of GM crops[98]. | Dr Wendy Harwood, senior scientist, John Innes Centre, said: ``The full data set has not been made available, but the findings do not contradict previous findings that genetic modification itself is a neutral technology, with no inherent health or environmental risks. ``Without access to the full data, we can only say that these results cannot be interpreted as showing that GM technology itself is dangerous. ``However they do indicate possible concerns over long-term exposure to Roundup that require further study'[99] |
| Mr David Hill | David Hill is a non-executive director at Champollion[100]. He was formerly director for the PR and lobbying firm, the Bell Pottinger Group based in a part of the business known as The Collective. He was a senior executive at Bell Pottinger Communications and managing director of its subsidiary Good Relations Ltd. At Good Relations he was a public relations advisor to Monsanto. | For GM, after years of misinformation and scare stories, people find it difficult to accept that their fears about genetically modified foods are groundless – no more valid than concerns about MMR vaccines causing autism. As the American Association for the Advancement of Science recently stated: ‘It is quite clear – crop improvement by the modern molecular techniques of biotechnology is safe.’ Most people don't realise that the scientific debate on the safety of GM foods effectively ended a long time ago. In the EU alone, there have been 130 research projects over 25 years, and involving more than 500 independent research groups, none of which have found any evidence of harm. Around the world there have been two trillion GM meals eaten with no ill effects. This is hardly surprising; genetic modification is a more precise method than blasting the seed genome with mutagenic radiation, which is one of the ‘natural’ techniques available to organic seed growers and the basis for all crop improvement. Unlike conventional approaches, GM innovations are screened for potential allergens. Many genetically modified crops, such as blight- and pest-resistant potatoes, could reduce pesticide applications. Take the vitamin A-enhanced ‘golden rice’ that could save tens of thousands of lives per year, but which has been attacked by Greenpeace in what molecular biologist Professor Nina Fedoroff calls a ‘humanitarian abomination’. It is time for the superstition to end, and the ‘environmentalist’ figleaf that it hides behind to be dropped for ever[101] |
| Professor Roger Hull | Professor Roger Hull is a John Innes Emeritus Fellow in Disease and Stress Biology. He has lectured at the University of Concepción (UDEC) in Chile on a distance learning based course run by the Biosafety International Network and Advisory Service (BINAS) of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and gives researchers, policy makers, lawyers, ethics experts and biotechnology regulators the skills to deal with the complex issues surrounding the assessment and management of biological risks[102]. The course was expanded to expanded into a network of centres - Malaysia, Belgium, Italy and Kenya[103]. | Last night Professor Roger Hull, of the John Innes Institute in Norwich, warned that the release of genetically modified viruses into the environment had to be carefully monitored for possible hazards. The risks, he told the meeting, were probably no greater than being killed by falling glass in a Glasgow earthquake, and far less than crossing the road, but added: "Scientists engaged in the work must use sophisticated approaches to reduce that risk"[104] |
| Professor David James | Professor David James is an Emeritus Fellow at East Malling Research and led a plant biotechnology programme working on the molecular biology and tissue culture of fruit plants. He was appointed to a Chair in Bioprocess Engineering at the University of Sheffield in 2006 with a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award "Research and Training in Biopharmaceutical Bioprocessing for UK Bioindustry". Has received research funding from companies such as Pfizer, Lonza Biologics, Biogen Idec, MedImmune, Asterion, and Pall Corporation. | Professor David James, of Horticulture Research International in Kent, said that scientists have isolated a "magic bullet" which stops the bacteria which cause tooth decay from sticking to teeth. The "bullet" is a protein which binds to the surface of the tooth and protects against attack by the bacteria for 80 days by preventing the germs from binding to the enamel. The protein, which does not occur in nature, can be produced by inserting a single gene into plants using GM techniques. Fruit with modified DNA could soon provide a "natural" alter-native to anti-decay medication. Professor James said that the first target will be the apple and the strawberry. "Ideally we would want to deliver this as a raw product," he said. "Fruit is good for you anyway. It is true that there are sugars and acids in apples which are not good for your teeth, but even natural apples are probably, on balance, good for your teeth"[105] |
| Professor Jonathan Jones | Professor Jonathan Jones is a Fellow of the Royal Society and senior scientist at the Sainsbury Laboratory of the John Innes Centre (JIC) (1988-present as at June 2010).[106]. Since the late 1980s he has headed a lab within the Sainsbury Laboratory, using molecular biology and genetics to better understand plant disease resistance with a view to engineering disease resistance genes into crop plants. Jones is on the science advisory board of the Two Blades Foundation.[107] His biography on the Two Blades Foundation website says, Dr. Jones has co-founded 2 companies; Mendel Biotechnology, founded in 1997 to carry out genomics experiments to discover and exploit key regulators of crop productivity, and Norfolk Plant Sciences Ltd, to combine health promoting traits and disease resistance traits in potato and tomato. Dr. Jones was elected a Professor at the University of East Anglia in 1997, a member of EMBO in 1998, and was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 2003.[108]. Monsanto is an investor and collaborator in Mendel Biotechnology.[109]. Mendel had been granted over 20 biotechnology and GM patents, as listed on its website.[110] Its interests include developing "energy grasses" for biomass and biofuels[111]. In 2009 Medel made two collaborative partnerships: one with Monsanto and the other with Bayer CropScience.[112]. | Signatory Professor Jonathan Jones, of the Sainsbury Laboratory in Norwich, says British scientists are creating world-changing crops, but they are being blocked by Europe....Prof Jones said: "It's incredibly frustrating. It deters scientists from doing the work in the first place because they know that it won't get approved. "Even when the science is approved by the European Food Standards Agency, it goes to the Council of Ministers who are inevitably split on political grounds and then it stalls." Britain is fairly enlightened compared with the rest of Europe and will allow initial trials, but Europe cannot seem to get its ducks all in a row so we can move forward[113] |
| Professor Chris Lamb | Professor Chris Lamb (died August 2009) was appointed director of the John Innes Centre in Norwich, UK, in 1999. He was also the John Innes professor of biology at the University of East Anglia. He was previously regius professor of plant science at the University of Edinburgh for 9 months and, before that, professor and director of the Plant Biology Laboratory at The Salk Institute for biological studies in La Jolla, California, which he joined in 1982. Lamb took up the post of director of the John Innes Centre in October 1999, taking over from the JIC's acting director Mike Gale. A BBSRC press release at the time noted his "extensive experience of knowledge transfer issues and of managing the interface between academic research and the commercial sector". Professor Ray Baker FRS, the Chief Executive of the BBSRC, was similarly quoted as saying that Lamb had "an excellent track record" in "exploiting scientific know-how in applied and commercial projects".[114]. He was the co-founder of Akkadix, a failed biotechnology company. | "It feels as if we are being given a second chance to explain the potential of genetic modification and as a society we need to get it right this time," says Professor Chris Lamb, the director of the John Innes Centre, Europe's premier research plant and microbial research institute. "Genetic modification of crops is a safe technology. It has the potential to be a powerful tool for improving the sustainability of agriculture and for helping to provide global food security[115] |
| Professor Chris Leaver | Professor Chris Leaver, is Emeritus Professor of Plant Science, and formerly Sibthorpian Professor and Head of Department of Plant Science, University of Oxford. He has been one of the most privileged voices in Britain on the subject of GM crops. He was a leading Fellow of the Royal Society, Leaver was a member of the working group that produced the Society's 1998 report 'Genetically Modified Plants For Food Use' and from spring 2000 to summer 2003 Leaver was on the senior decision making body (the Council ) of the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), the leading funding agency for academic research in the biosciences in the UK. For most of that time, the BBSRC's Chairman was Peter Doyle, a director of Syngenta. He is a Trustee for the John Innes Foundation, is on the advisory board of Science Media Centre, and is a Trustee of the controversial lobby group Sense About Science. | Contrary to the belief of some in the scientific community, Dr Arpad Pusztai does not have horns or a malevolent cackle. Nor does he inhabit an imposing gothic mansion bought with the proceeds of guest appearances as an eco-hero. In fact, he lives in a modest semi in Aberdeen. This elderly man is one of the most divisive figures in biology. Many blame him for tilting the balance in the PR battle over GM food towards public rejection. His research on GM potatoes - which came explosively into the public spotlight in a World in Action programme in August 1998 - has been dismissed as poorly done, muddled and even fabricated. Yet to anti-GM campaigners he is a hero - the scientist who stood up to the establishment and, as a result, had his career squashed at the behest of shadowy forces in the GM industry and the government."I think it did a lot of damage because . . . the vast majority of people were somewhat neutral at the time," said Professor Chris Leaver, a plant scientist and strong supporter of GM at Oxford University. "I think the NGOs . . . decided that they would make a play using him. I think he got hijacked and then he got out of his depth"[116] |
| Professor Alan Malcolm | Alan Malcolm is director of the Oxford International Biomedical Centre, Alan Malcolm was Chief Executive of the Institute of Biology from 1998 until 2009 when he successfully led its merger with the Biosciences Federation. He is now leading Decibell Communications. He held posts as Director of the Institute of Food Research and as Director General of the Flour, Milling and Baking Research Association. During his time as Chair of Biochemistry at Charing Cross and Westminster Hospital Medical School, he also held the chairmanship of the Biochemical Society and was Chair of the Scientific and Research Committee of the Arthritis and Rheumatism Council. Alan was a member of the COMA Committee on Folate in the Diet. He was Chairman of the British Nutrition Foundation from 1998 to 2000, and a member of the Government's Food Advisory Committee for seven years. More recently he was a member of the Advisory Committee for Novel Foods and Processes (ACNFP) and has also been Vice-Chairman of the Food and Drink Technology Foresight Panel for six years. | Speaking at the Oxford Farming Conference, Professor Malcolm reminded delegates that with predictions for the rate of world population growth, society was faced with choosing between destroying environmentally sensitive areas such as the Amazon rainforest in order to grow food, or using GM technology to grow food on saline and arid soils, and to increase yields in crops grown on existing farmland[117] |
| Professor Vivian Moses | Professor Vivian Moses has worked tirelessly to promote GM crops and food in the UK, most notably through his role as Chairman of the panel of scientists of CropGen, the biotech-industry funded lobby group. He is on the advisory panel of Sense About Science, as well as being a Scientific Advisory Forum member of the Scientific Alliance. He has written articles on GM for a number of publications, including Spiked. Vivian Moses formally retired in 1993 and is now emeritus professor of microbiology at Queen Mary & Westfield College, University of London, and visiting professor of biotechnology at King's College, London. He is also Emeritus/Founding Director of The Centre for Genetic Anthropology at UCL. Throughout the 1960s, and for about 12 years in total, he was a staff scientist of the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory, funded by the Atomic Energy Commission, at the University of California, Berkeley. From 2000-2002 Vivian Moses played a co-ordinating role in the EU project Educating The European Public For Biotechnology,[118] | Sir; As predictable as a bank holiday traffic jam is the anti-GM brigade's knee-jerk reaction to any biotech development ('GM 'eel' ice cream a dangerous idea', The Grocer, 1 July, p28). They do it routinely, some obviously trying to defend market share and protect their brand name against a globally successful and rapidly growing technology. In little more than a hundred words, your correspondent claimed the introduction of a low-fat ice cream was "frivolous" (ever heard of "organic" cotton?) and "unwanted" (let the market decide). She questioned whether the new ice cream would be safe. Please may we have evidence? It should not be marketed as healthier, she said, simply because it is low-fat. So on what grounds are so-called organic foods marketed as healthier? On she went: the health impacts of genetic engineering have not been fully tested. Yet they have been looked at a lot more than in organic foods. And finally, the old saw about mystery toxins. No data was offered, just an unsupported allegation, perhaps to counter the recurrent findings of dangerous mycotoxins in organic products which then have to be withdrawn as unsafe[119] |
| Professor Pat Nuttall | From 1977, Nuttall did post-doctoral research at the University of Oxford and the NERC Unit of Invertebrate Virology in Oxford. She remained at the NERC unit, which was renamed the Institute of Virology and Environmental Microbiology (IVEM). She became its director in 1996 until 2011. During this period she oversaw the major restructuring of the centre. She also chaired the Partnership for European Environmental Research from 2008 to 2010. Nuttall has been professor of arbovirology in the Department of Zoology of the University of Oxford since 2013. She is a fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford. | No specific quotes related to GM in Nexis search |
| Ms Ellen Raphael | Ellen Raphael describes herself as an 'Independent Public Relations and Communications Professional'.[120] She is associated with the libertarian anti-environmental LM network. Until 2010 she was the Assistant Director of the controversial pro-GM lobby group Sense About Science. prior to working for Sense About Science, worked for the PR company Regester Larkin, which numbers several biotech corporations amongst its clients. One of Raphael's colleagues was former Monsanto man, Harry Swan. Raphael joined in April 2001 and her 'main clients' included 'SST, Transco, Nimir Petroleum, EDF Trading and ICI Argentina for whom she provides general consultancy services.' | No specific quotes related to GM in Nexis search |
| Dr Dee Rawsthorne | Dr Dee Rawsthorne is Outreach Coordinator at the BBSRC. She has worked in a variety of departments and posts within the JIC science administration before moving to the Science in Society post in the joint JIC/IFR Communications Department. Prior to this she undertook a USDA funded post-doc in the Plant Pathology Dept at Cornell University. | No specific quotes related to GM in Nexis search |
| Professor Alison Smith | Professor Alison Smith has worked at the John Innes Centre for over 25 years studying how plants make and use starch, to understand its synthesis and turnover in potatoes, peas, cereals and Arabidopsis. She is an honorary Professor in Biological Sciences at the University of East Anglia. Her current research seeks to discover how plant growth and yield in different environments is coordinated with the assimilation and storage of carbon using biochemical, genetic and molecular biological techniques to study this question in Arabidopsis and in cereals. | No specific quotes related to GM in Nexis search |
| Dr Duncan Stanley | Dr Duncan Stanley is a research staff and student development adviser at Loughborough university, before which he worked at the University of Leicester. He has held postdoctoral research positions at HortResearch and at the John Innes Centre where his research focused on the breakdown of starch in barley seeds during Germination. | No specific quotes related to GM in Nexis search |
| Dr Philip Taylor | Dr Philip Taylor is Managing Director of South Darenth Farm. He grows organic fruit and has grown GM crops. Prior to farming he carried out research on the molecular biology of plant pathogen Interactions. He has worked for Plantwise and has worked in the universities of Durham, Ilinois and Hull. He is an assistant editor for the journal World Agriculture. | No specific quotes related to GM in Nexis search |
| Professor Joyce Tait | Professor Joyce Tait is Director to the ESRC’s Innogen Centre (Innovation in Genomics), an interdisciplinary programme to study the social and economic implications of advances in the life sciences, where she was formerly the Scientific Adviser. She has sat on the ESRC Genomics Survey Advisory Board, a member of the Sustainable Food and Farming Research Priorities Group, DEFRA, the Scottish Science Advisory Council, a Member of the Scientific and Technical Council of the International Risk Governance Council (IRGC), was on the Assessment Panel for the BBSRC Crop Science Initiative and chaired the Nuffield Council on Bioethics Working Party on ‘New Approaches to Biofuels’. | IDEOLOGICAL pressure groups are getting too much say in the genetically -modified crops debate said a Scottish scientist at the science festival in Glasgow. By obscuring the distinction between ideology and science to confuse the public, said Professor Joyce Tait, organisations such as the organic-farming Soil Association were effectively dictating terms. Professor Tait, director of the Scottish universities' policy research and advice network - which provides science-based advice to a range of clients including the Scottish parliament - said: "It is a strange irony that the Soil Association has been able to dictate terms to government regulators to a greater extent than any other trade association, including the agrochemical industry, has ever achieved - yet it still keeps its public image as the underdog"[121] |
| Ms Kate Thodey | Ms Kate Thodey is a postdoctoral scholar in bioengineering before which she was a postgraduate research at the John Innes Centre. Her research focused on the genetic regulation of carbon and energy metabolism in plants. | No specific quotes related to GM in Nexis search |
| Dr Roger Turner | Dr Roger Turner is a soil chemist. He was formerly Chief Executive of the British Society of Plant Breeders, he has sat on the advisory council of the Scientific Alliance, he is the beneficiary of a pension from one of Aventis's subsidiaries Rhone Poulenc. | "The positive response from trial growers and the audit process is very encouraging," said SCIMAC chairman Dr Roger Turner. "Overall it shows that the guidelines are based on procedures which farmers are familiar with and which do not represent a major departure from current best practice within the industry. "The farm-scale evaluations in the UK have presented a unique opportunity within Europe to apply a set of protocols developed specifically to allow access and choice to both GM and non-GM crop production. This experience, in what is without doubt the largest ever series of co-ordinated field trials in the UK, clearly demonstrates that the SCIMAC approach is workable in practice, robust in safeguarding the integrity of GM and non-GM crops and capable of being audited," he said[122] |
| Professor Michael Wilson | Member of the Scientific Alliance. Chief Executive Horticulture Research International (HRI). Horticulture Research International (HRI) is the UK government's main testing and development arm for market gardening, fruit and related crops. It is said to have the largest single team of horticultural scientists in the world and an income of approximately £24 million per annum. It is classed as a non-Departmental Public Body (NDPB) and is responsible to the UK's Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA, formerly MAFF). It also receives funding via the BBSRC. | It is just dangerous lies. There is no evidence whatsoever and every scientific society has agreed that there is no health hazard and there is no more environmental hazard than growing any other crop. 'I am just staggered and amazed pressure groups have used this issue as a vehicle to attract additional membership.' Prof Wilson said the biotech industry was already flocking abroad, with giants such as Unilever losing interest in GM due to a heavy public backlash[123] |
Resources
Contact
- Website: senseaboutscience.org.uk
- Facebook: senseaboutsci
Notes
- ↑ 'Sense About The Energy Gap', Sense About Science, 15 July 2005.
- ↑ 'Sense About Bird Flu', Sense About Science, 1 April 2006.
- ↑ 'I Don't Know What to Believe', Sense About Science, 19 April 2006.
- ↑ 'Peer Review and the Acceptance of New Scientific Ideas'Sense About Science, 3 June 2006.
- ↑ 'Sense About Homeopathy'Sense About Science, 1 September 2006.
- ↑ 'Standing Up For Science', Sense About Science, 6 September 2006.
- ↑ '2006 Celebrities and Science Review', Sense About Science, 30 December 2006.
- ↑ 'Making Sense of Weather and Climate', Sense About Science, 15 March 2007.
- ↑ 'There Goes the Science Bit', Sense About Science, 4 October 2007.
- ↑ '2007 Celebrities and Science Review', Sense About Science, 30 December 2007.
- ↑ 'Making Sense of Testing', Sense About Science, 15 March 2007.
- ↑ 'Sense About Brain Gym',Sense About Science, 1 April 2008.
- ↑ 'Sense About Anti-EMF Products', Sense About Science, 1 September 2008.
- ↑ 'Making Sense of Radiation', Sense About Science, 6 October 2008.
- ↑ 'I've Got Nothing to Lose by Trying It', Sense About Science, 9 November 2008.
- ↑ 'Standing Up For Science II',Sense About Science, 19 November 2008.
- ↑ '2008 Celebrities and Science Review', Sense About Science, 30 December 2008.
- ↑ 'Detox Dossier', Sense About Science, 1 January 2009.
- ↑ 'Debunking Detox', Sense About Science, 5 January 2009.
- ↑ 'Making Sense of GM', Sense About Science, 9 February 2009.
- ↑ 'Sense About Chiropractic', Sense About Science, 10 June 2009.
- ↑ 'Making Sense of Screening', Sense About Science, 26 October 2009.
- ↑ 'Sense About Systematic Reviews', Sense About Science, 1 November 2009.
- ↑ '2009 Celebrities and Science Review', Sense About Science, 30 December 2009.
- ↑ 'Making Sense of Statistics', Sense About Science, 29 April 2010.
- ↑ 'Reforming Libel: What must a Defamation Bill achieve?', Sense About Science, 31 August 2010.
- ↑ 'So you've had a threatening letter. What can you do?', Sense About Science, 31 October 2010.
- ↑ '2010 Celebrities and Science Review', Sense About Science, 30 December 2010.
- ↑ 'What should a Defamation Bill contain?', Sense About Science, 28 February 2011.
- ↑ 'Public Views on Scientific Evidence', Sense About Science, 14 September 2011.
- ↑ '2011 Celebrities and Science Review', Sense About Science, 28 December 2011.
- ↑ 'Peer review: The nuts and bolts', Sense About Science, 12 July 2012.
- ↑ 'Sense About Lie Detectors', Sense About Science, 31 July 2012.
- ↑ '2012 Celebrities and Science Review', Sense About Science, 28 December 2012.
- ↑ 'Sense About Genetic Ancestry Testing', Sense About Science, 7 March 2013.
- ↑ 'Making Sense of Food Additives', Sense About Science, 9 April 2013.
- ↑ 'Evidence Based Medicine Matters', Sense About Science, 25 April 2013.
- ↑ 'Making Sense of Uncertainty', Sense About Science, 27 June 2013.
- ↑ 'I've Got Nothing to Lose by Trying It', Sense About Science, 16 September 2013.
- ↑ 'Making Sense of Drug Safety Science', Sense About Science, 13 November 2013.
- ↑ '2013 Celebrities and Science Review', Sense About Science, 27 December 2013.
- ↑ 'Making Sense of Chemical Stories, 2nd Edition', Sense About Science, 19 May 2014.
- ↑ 'Ask for Evidence - Spoof Diets', Sense About Science, 25 July 2014.
- ↑ 'Sense About The Energy Gap', Sense About Science, 15 July 2005.
- ↑ 'Sense About Bird Flu', Sense About Science, 1 April 2006.
- ↑ 'I Don't Know What to Believe', Sense About Science, 19 April 2006.
- ↑ 'Peer Review and the Acceptance of New Scientific Ideas'Sense About Science, 3 June 2006.
- ↑ 'Sense About Homeopathy'Sense About Science, 1 September 2006.
- ↑ 'Standing Up For Science', Sense About Science, 6 September 2006.
- ↑ '2006 Celebrities and Science Review', Sense About Science, 30 December 2006.
- ↑ 'Making Sense of Weather and Climate', Sense About Science, 15 March 2007.
- ↑ 'There Goes the Science Bit', Sense About Science, 4 October 2007.
- ↑ '2007 Celebrities and Science Review', Sense About Science, 30 December 2007.
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- ↑ James Randerson, 'Education: Biological divide: Interview: Arpad Pusztai: The scientist at the centre of a storm over GM foods 10 years ago tells James Randerson he is unrepentant' The Guardian, 15 January 2008.
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