Fears over 'secret GM trials'

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Tuesday, November 18, 2008
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This is Devon

GM CROP trials could be held in secret to stop protesters trashing test sites.

Senior Government figures are said to be keen to review the security arrangements around areas where trials take place in a bid to protect them from opposition groups.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) confirmed ministers were "taking stock" of the arrangements for growing genetically modified crops in the UK, amid concern that vandals are harming the work of scientists and holding back agriculture.

But Westcountry anti-GM campaigners insisted such a move would fly in the face of public opinion and could even pave the way for any mention of modified food being removed from packaging.

Under existing EU rules, scientists must publish on a website the location of any GM trials. But the measure has made it easy for opponents to destroy the crops, most recently on a farm near Leeds, where 400 potato plants were pulled up.

Environment Secretary Hilary Benn has placed his faith in the "science" and recently told Labour activists that the real contribution of GM foods cannot be known "unless we run controlled experiments".

And Lord Mandelson, the new business secretary, has in the past publicly stated his support for the "crucial role" that "safe bio-technology" has in agriculture.

A Government source told The Independent newspaper: "We need to review the security arrangements. The rules are a charter for people who want to stop the experiments. A lot of information has to be put in the public domain and that makes it very easy for people to trash them."

However, Robert Vint, the national co-ordinator of Westcountry-based Genetic Food Alert, said there were "very sensible reasons" for publicising the location of test sites, most notably to monitor contamination with non-GM crops.

But he added: "It is quite clear the Government wants to push ahead with this, against the will of the British public. It is not the role of Government to re-educate the views of the public."

And he warned the move could be a step towards removing rules about making clear on packaging if items contain genetically modified ingredients.

"If they get away with secret trials, next it will be making sure people don't know what is in their food," he said.

The Government insisted "sensible and credible decisions" on GM food could not be taken without "solid scientific evidence".

A Defra spokesman said: "The Government has always maintained that human and environmental health are paramount, but the destruction and vandalism of GM crop trials risks withholding potential benefits to agriculture while simultaneously harming the UK's science base. The Government is therefore taking stock of the situation, but no announcements have been made on any new measures."

In September, then-farming minister Lord Rooker hit out at anti-GM protestors, claiming they are on a "messianic mission" not based on science.

He said the public was being "taken for a ride" by campaigners who behaved as if opposition to the technology was a "religion".

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  • Profile image for This is Devon

    by Justin, Cornwall

    Tuesday, November 18 2008, 6:10PM

    “Paul, you just don't get it DO YOU!......I feel sorry for people like you,deliberate ignorance of this issue is clear to see.These large Bio-Tech companies don't give two hoot's about are outer enviroment and never will,because western Government is BIG BUSINESS. Third World Countries are used as testing grounds for the wider implementation,over time of these new variant hybrid seeds which will be used on us in the future. The Third World is just their world lab,for experimenting with the enviroment and people who believe that they have been saved by this new form of bio-food.You just don't see the bigger picture Paul......a great shame....If you want to believe this junk science/propaganda...then go ahead...believe it!,but when the time comes in the future.... the price to are enviroment will be huge and human/animal life will be effected overtime. I am glad you can live with this form of Bio-terrorism on are world...
    Paul.”

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    by Paul, St Austell

    Tuesday, November 18 2008, 4:04PM

    “I'm sick and tired of hearing the same tired old arguments about how GM food will kill us all. It won't. Billions of people across the world are benefiting from eating it, and have been for over a decade now with no ill effects. In fact, the only ill effects that even Justin can cite were those conjured up by Arpad Puztai who found that if you fed rats on poisins (i.e. lectins), then they showed signs of poisoning. This work was utterly discredited last century and really doesn't warrant further discussion.

    However, it's indicative that of the lack of substance in these arguments that utterly discredited work from a decade ago is all they have to beat GM technology with. Along with the usual whinge about market controls - albeit in deliberate ignorance or dissemblance about the fact that conventionally-bred plants are in the hands of megabusinesses too. Ooer, don't eat bread containing the biggest UK milling variety of the past two decades, because the variety rights used to be owned by... MONSANTO

    So - lie upon lie and resorting to any imagineable smear tactic to justify their paranoid fears and prevent European agriculture from making the advances it needs to to feed us with any semblance of reliability. Go away dinosaurs and stop peddling your nonsense. The rest of the world has moved on and proved your fearmongering to lies, over and over again. Billions of times.”

  • Profile image for This is Devon

    by Justin, Cornwall

    Tuesday, November 18 2008, 1:25PM

    “Well said....FWK, I take my hat off to you. As a topic,this has to be one of the greatest threat's to are planet's bio-sphere. GM sould be listed under all the other highly dangerous man made toxins ever developed.For over a decade,the public have rejected GM foods. Intuitive concerns had been reinforced by the highly publicised finding's of the first Government sponsored animal tests,in which strange lesions were found in the guts of GM-fed rats. To their credit,the supermarkert's adopted non-GM policies and,by October of 2002,they were using no GM ingredient's in their own brands.More recently organisation's like the Soil Association have raised concern over animal feed with the added ingredient's of GM.Due to a legal loop-hole,foods or animal feeds that directly contain GM ingredient's must be labelled as "GM",there is no such requirement for meat anddiary foods produced from animals fed on GM crops. Any use of GM animal feed could be hidden from the consumers. In 2006, The New statesman raised the issue that the supermarket's admitted that their non-GM policies did not cover animal feed and the use of GM grown maize to feed those animals in the first place,even when the supermarket's stated on their food product's it was GM free!.It's amazing to think that most of the meat we buy in supermarket's has been GM treated. The soil association stated that 73% of animal feed tested contained some sort of GM. The pig sector uses GM maize and soya because of it's cheapness to produce.So what this really means is that all non-organic product's we buy in the supermarket's,such as diary and meat contain these harmful toxins.Some restaurant's are selling meat which meat to customer's without them knowing where that meat has been sourced from. I don't wonder BIG BUSINESS want's to get rid of local small farmer's when they can produce food product's which will cost less to develop and keep the Bio corp's happy to carry on destroying are outer enviroment which seems to me,to be the ONLY reason they started this CRAZY journey in the first place. The POWER to control what we eat will be greater than ever in the future and these evil people would rather like to see us all suffer under the hands of this new bio-weapon.created by man when there was no need to create this frankenstein monster in the first place. Nature is the greatest force on this planet..........NOT MAN!”

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    by FWK, Crediton

    Tuesday, November 18 2008, 10:36AM

    “A justifiable objection to the trialing of GM crops is concern not so much as to whether the resulting foods may be harmful to humans but the danger of pollution of the gene pool of wild and cultivated species by cross-pollination from these crops. There are also concerns about the effect of some of these crops on pollinating insects, either directly or indirectly. The normal testing procedure for new crop varieties is to start with limited trials in one or two locations and then a more extensive roll-out across the country. At the very least it would seem wise to prevent this second phase until sufficient research has been carried out at a more basic level to confirm or allay fears as to the impact of these crops on the environment. There are of course fundamental concerns about how GM crops are used by their producers to manipulate markets to the benefit of the company rather than the users. GM crops have already caused great disruption to cropping systems in India with no benefit to the farmers and in some cases loss of yield and financial hardship compared to more conventional methods. All these aspects should be fully scrutinised before the commercial release of GM crops is contemplated in the UK.”

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