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Seeds of Deception: A GM thriller
By Elisabeth Winkler, editor of the Soil Association's membership magazine Living Earth.
17 May 2004
Reproduced with permission by the Soil Association
Jeffrey M. Smith was in London to talk about the dangers of genetically modified (GM) food. By sheer, and sweet, synchronicity, this was the same day (10 May 2004, one to remember) that Monsanto announced the end, for the foreseeable future, of GM wheat worldwide.
Jeffrey M. Smith was sharing a public platform with previous environment minister Michael Meacher and the Ecologist's editor Zac Goldsmith. They both handed the honour of making the Monsanto announcement (hot off the press) to Jeffrey - an opportunity that surely no advertising budget (not even Monsanto's millions) could buy.
Jeffrey M. Smith is the American author of Seeds of Deception. From Pusztai to Chapela, from rbGH to L-tryptophan (issues that the Soil Association has long been concerned about), the book chronicles attempts to cover-up the truth.
"If you think GM food is safe, this book will change your mind" says the strapline, and so confident is Jeffrey of this claim that his publishers are offering a reduced offer on six copies or more, so the book can be handed out to doubting Thomases.
Cover-ups are covert acts of bureaucracy. A phone call here, a lost file there - it is hard to pin down a chain of command. Jeffrey goes behind the smooth facade of corporate-speak and government collusion to reveal what's really underneath.
Take the Pusztai story. First, here is a recap of the scandal in Michael Meacher's words.
"The only government-sponsored work ever carried out on the health impacts of GMOs was Dr. Pusztai's work on rats and GM potatoes, and then, when it found negative effects, it was widely rubbished in government circles, even though his work had been peer-reviewed six times before publication."
Pusztai was portrayed in the media as a bumbling Professor Branestawm. Nothing could have been further from the truth. At the time of his research he was working on creating a model for testing GM foods for health safety. Pro-biotech, he was renowned for his thoroughness.
If such a scientist found something wrong with GM potatoes, you'd think this worry would be followed up. Instead he lost his job, his findings were hushed up and his reputation reviled.
Jeffrey gives us the missing details, and the human emotions. He asks Pusztai for his most shocking moment. Pusztai replies that it was his first sightings of the biotech industry's submissions for approval of GM soya, maize and tomatoes. He was reviewing them in order to brief the UK's ministry of agriculture (then MAFF), due to discuss GMOs with other European ministers (little did Pusztai know that they had already been secretly approved -- but that is another story).
"As a scientist, I was really shocked," Pusztai said. "This was the first time I realised what flimsy evidence was being presented to the committee. There was missing data, poor research design and very superficial tests indeed. Theirs was a very unconvincing case. And some of the work was really very poorly done. I want to impress on you, it was a real shock."
Up till then Pusztai had been confident that the scientific and regulatory authorities would scrutinise the new technology. Now he was no longer sure that his colleagues would do 'the right thing'. This moment of awakening, Jeffrey recounts, was a turning point for Pusztai.
It is a moment that activists know well: when you suddenly realise that the people in charge cannot be trusted. This is so shocking that sometimes you go into denial: it can't be true, you tell yourself.
Denial, despair, powerlessness -- whatever you feel when hearing shocking things, Jeffrey urges us to turn that emotion into action. It could be making sure that you eat GM-free food (including animal products fed on GM-free feed) -- and telling your local cafe, shop or supermarket your preference. It could be also reading Jeffrey's book.
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