[714] in peace2
GM Crops
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Anton F Van Der Ven)
Thu Apr 26 14:47:27 2001
Message-Id: <200104261847.OAA294102@lattice.mit.edu>
To: NOVA@wgbh.org
cc: fair@fair.org, peace-list@MIT.EDU, greens-announce@MIT.EDU,
save-request@MIT.EDU, mrg@massgreens.net
Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2001 14:47:08 -0400
From: Anton F Van Der Ven <avdv@MIT.EDU>
To Frontline/Nova
This is with regards to the survey on your website about whether or
not we should grow genetically modified crops.
(http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/harvest/exist/)
The format of your survey is highly questionable, especially
for a program such as Frontline, whose goal is to educate
the public about relevant issues in society. It seems as if the
intent of the survey is to test the effectiveness of the Biotech
industry's propaganda in changing the minds of people who are
skeptical about genetically modified crops. Indeed every time we
answer "no" to the question "should we grow GM crops" we receive
information defending GM crops which are clearly taken straight
from PR pamphlets of chemical/biotech companies such as Monsanto,
Dupont, Aventis, etc. Although, when we answer "yes" to the same
question, we do receive well known arguments critical of GM crops,
they often do not address the arguments, many of which are false, raised
on the pages that defend GM crops. This is highly disturbing
since ample evidence exists to refute many industry claims out right.
I will give some examples from your web page of blatantly deceptive
and sometimes completely false statements defending the use of
GM crops:
(1) The pro-GM pages prominently state that "farmers typically
produce GM crops using fewer pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers"
and that "farmers raising crops bearing herbicide resistance -- such
as those using the Monsanto-crafted soybean that is resistant to the
company's broad-spectrum weed killer Roundup -- will use fewer
chemicals in a season than they would while growing conventional
soybeans". These are core claims made by the Biotech industry
for which no evidence exists.
In fact much evidence suggests that the opposite is true. First
of all, it is well known that two thirds (2/3) of GM crops are
specifically designed to make them more resistant to herbicides
and pesticides so that companies such as Monsanto can sell more
of these chemicals. That was very explicitly one of the major
components of the Monsanto business strategy when they introduced
GM crops. Furthermore, according to Extra (vol. 13, no.3 pg. 11)
"an analysis ... of 8,200 agriculture university surveys revealed
that farmers planting Monsanto's `Round Up Ready' soybeans used
two to five times as much of the herbicides as farmers planting
non-GM varieties. Meanwhile, the US Environmental Protection
Agency, which regulates pesticides, raised the allowable residue
limits for Round Up on forage crops."
The above facts are widely available in the literature, and the
failure to mention them in your piece on GM crops illustrates
severe incompetence or blatant pro-industry bias.
(2) A whole page is expended claiming "that scientists submit that
genetically modifying plants is completely natural". Statements
such as "Genetic modification couldn't be more natural,
geneticists say" and "we've been genetically modifying plants
(and animals) for millenia ... modern GM methods are simply more
precise, scientists stress" fill the page. While some scientists
and geneticists may say this, many renown scientists including
Prof. Jonathan King (MIT) and Prof. Richard Lewontin (Harvard)
refute this claim. In 1992, for example, Dr. Louis J. Pribyl of
the FDA's Microbiology Group warned (in an internal memo uncovered
in a lawsuit filed) that there is "a profound difference between
the types of expected effects from traditional breeding and genetic
engineering."
It is widely held by scientists that genetic engineering has made
it possible to combine genes from species that would never exchange
genetic material naturally. Nature allows a horse to mate with a
donkey to produce a mule, but no matter how hard it tries, a horse
cannot successfully mate with an apple tree through any traditional
breeding techniques. During genetic engineering, genes are taken from
animals, plants, insects, bacteria and viruses and are then artificially
inserted into the DNA of food crops, bypassing gradual evolutionary
processes and creating pathways for diseases and genetic weaknesses
to cross over to completely unrelated species.
These are widely made concerns by prominent scientists and it is an
indication of poor journalism and pro-industry bias that this
fact is completely absent from your piece about GM-crops.
(3) The web page entitled "What if you knew that GM seed companies
maintain that GM crops are the most thoroughly tested and highly
regulated food plants out there" is blatant industry advertisement
uncritically copied by your reporter. In this page, a false
impression is given that Biotech companies are required to
perform "thorough" and painstaking tests before GM crops can be
approved by "not one but three U.S. government agencies".
Whether or not approval of GM crops requires extensive testing
is not a debatable issue. It is an objective fact that can be
ascertained by simply looking at the regulations issued by the
relevant federal agencies. The reporter of this piece is
well aware, as he stated in another page, that "the FDA, for one,
has long maintained that most GM foods are `substantially
equivalent' to unmodified foods and are thus not subject to FDA
regulations" and that "biotech companies are not required to
consult with the FDA on new GM foods".
The fact that the reporter places contradictory statements
in the same piece without informing which of the two is false,
only serves to confuse the matter in the Biotech-industry's
favor. But the reporter does not stop here and continues to
mislead by stating that "the testing system has worked well".
"[When scientists] discovered that a protein in one type of
GM corn might be allergenic, regulators approved that corn only
for animal feed". It is interesting that the reporter ends the
story at this point, because it was exactly due to the lack of
regulations and federal oversight that this Aventis Starlink
corn ended up in taco shells for human consumption. I am sure
it is no coincidence that a direct quote taken from the web page of
Aventis CropScience ensuring that all products "based on
biotechnology undergo thorough safety evaluations" is also featured
in the same page.
In summary, this page drips with corporate PR and shows a clear
lack of journalistic professionalism.
(4) The impression is given that only one solution exists to
world hunger, namely the need to grow more food and it is only
"GM crops that will offer our best chance to adequately address
the challenge of feeding the estimated six billion people who,
in as few as 50 years by some estimate, will join the six
billion of us already here." According to many specialists on
world hunger and development including Peter Rosset, director of
the Institute for Food and Development Policy, these claims are
false. According to Rosset, hunger is not a result of population
density but instead of poverty and inequality. In a New York Times
article (9/01/99), Peter Rosset wrote:
"In fact there is no relationship between the prevalence of hunger
in a given country and its population. For every densely populated
and hungry nation like Bangladesh, there is a sparsely populated
and hungry nation like Brazil.
The world today produces more food per inhabitant than ever before.
Enough is available to provide 4.3 pounds to every person every day:
two and a half pounds of grain, beans and nuts, about a pound of meat,
milk and eggs and another of fruits and vegetables - more than anyone
could every eat."
The fact that you fail to mention these alternate arguments to
such a central claim of the bio-tech industry is a strong indication
of poor journalism and industry influence in your reporting.
The above list of deceptions is not complete, but for the lack
of time I will stop here.
In conclusion, I am shocked and dismayed that a program like
Frontline/Nova could be corrupted in so one-sidely putting forth
industry PR. It is especially disturbing that you have succumbed to
such poor and inaccurate reporting on an issue that will affect
all present and future humanity. I will never again in the future
contribute financially to WGBH or any other NPR affiliate.
Anton Van der Ven
__________________________________________________________
Department of Materials Science and Engineering
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
