Will this blog be closed because of GM article?

The GM Watch website is back after being shut down for nearly a week for printing an article which I have reproduced below - will that mean I now also face closure?

Photo: Severn Vale - no GM contamination yet

More of that in a moment but first another petition - to declare the UK a GM free zone. The address below will take you there: http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/gmfreeuk/

On 12/6/2007 the European Commission, with the support of the UK Government proposed to permit 0.9% unlabelled contamination of organic food with genetically engineered organisms. This decision will effectively bring organic standards down in line with conventional foods, which can already contain GM contamination of up to 0.9% - almost one in a hundred mouthfuls - without any necessary labelling. If this regulation is implemented by January 2009, it will have permanent and devastating implications for organic food.

The right to choose what we and our children eat will be denied. Currently GM food can be avoided by eating organic (Certified organic foods prohibit the use of GM ingredients). The survival of organic farming and food production would be threatened, even though the organic food sector is thriving. Here in the South West we have the highest concentration of Organic farmers and growers in the Country. The retail market for organic products in the UK is currently at £1.9 billion and growing. It is easy to see how this could wipe out an entire successful and sustainable farming community.

In a recent poll 79% of the public rejected Genetically Engineered food. It has to be remembered that no independent research on the long term effects of GM foods fed to animals or humans has ever been carried out. At the very least the precautionary principle should be applied to such untested technology. Please sign that petition:
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/gmfreeuk/

You can also write to the supermarkets and any other food retailer or manufacturer whose food you buy asking them to reassure you that they will oppose the proposed 0.9% contamination of organic food and continue to strengthen and maintain their non-GM food policy. Plus write to your local MP urging them to sign the all-party Early Day Motion (EDM) number 48 to show their support for keeping organic food GM Free and protect your right to choose GM Free food. Plus write to the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Rt. Hon Hilary Benn MP and demand that Britain should remain GM Free.

Why was the website closed?

In an attack on free speech a Canadian Government bureaucrat succeeded in censoring a UK public interest website which serves a global audience on the GM issue - but according to GM watch his goal went still further than that.

The concern was over their expose of how a group of researchers deliberately skewed research to favour GM corn. Shane Morris initially focused his legal threats on the use of the word "fraud" in the title of our article, but once the GM Watch website had been forced down, his real goal became clear. In a legal threat against GM-free Ireland, he stated: "You will note that the GM Watch website in the UK has been disabled. As a matter of urgency please remove the [sic] all the GM Watch material on GM FREE IRELAND's website that you have reproduced in connection with me." (emphasis added)

It's vital that this aggressive attempt at web censorship is totally defeated. As part of the response GM Watch are asking people to publicise this news, and the following article, as widely as possible. If you know a website where this could be posted, please ask them to reproduce this message and the following GM Watch article, in order to expose just how far some people will go to try and fix public debate.

The article they didn't want you to read is enclosed below:
http://www.gmwatch.org/p1temp.asp?pid=72&page=1

The British Food Journal's Award for Excellence for Most Outstanding Paper in 2004 went to research that should never have been published. What the reviewers mistook for an impressive piece of scientific enquiry was a carefully crafted propaganda exercise that could only have one outcome. Both the award and the paper now need to be retracted. Since this article was published a leading researcher into scientific ethics has called for the paper to be retracted.
New Scientist's report
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg19025533.300&feedId=gm-food_rss20

It was late September 1999. The scene was a news conference outside a Loblaws grocery store in downtown Toronto. Greenpeace and the Council of Canadians were launching a public awareness campaign urging customers to ask the chain to remove all genetically modified foods from their shelves.

"The food is safe," shouted someone on the edge of the crowd. Jeff Wilson, who farms about 250 hectares northwest of Toronto, was part of a small group of hecklers. He had come to the store with Jim Fischer, the head of a lobby group called AgCare which supports GM foods. Doug Powell, an assistant professor at the University of Guelph, was also there. And they had come prepared. Holding aloft a bug-ravaged cabbage, Wilson demanded, "Would you buy that?" Wilson claimed the cabbage could have been saved by genetic engineering.

According to a report in the Toronto Star, Doug Powell ended up in a shouting match with a shopper - 71-year old Evan John Evans, who told him, "I resent you putting stuff in my food I don't want." A year later and Powell and Wilson's street theatrics had given way to a much more carefully choreographed exercise in persuading people that GM foods were what they wanted.

The scene this time was not Loblaws but Jeff Wilson's farm store, just outside the village of Hillsburgh. Here Powell and Wilson were running an experiment that had been conceived following the Loblaws encounter. During summer 2000 Wilson grew both GM and conventional sweet corn on his farm. And following the first harvest in late August, both types of corn were put on sale amidst much publicity. The aim was to see which type would appeal most to Wilson's customers.

According to an award winning paper published in the British Food Journal, a sizeable majority opted to buy the GM corn. In the paper, authored by Wilson and Powell, and Powell's two research assistants - Katija Blaine and Shane Morris, the choice appears simple - the bins were "fully labeled" - either "genetically engineered Bt sweet corn" or "Regular sweet-corn". The only other written information mentioned in the paper that might have influenced the preference of customers was lists of the chemicals used on each type of corn, and pamphlets "with background information on the project."

What Powell and his co-authors failed to report was that the information on the chemicals came with a variation on the bug-eaten cabbage stunt Wilson pulled outside Loblaws. There Wilson had demanded of shoppers "Would you buy that?" In Wilson's store the sign above the non-GM corn bin asked, "Would You Eat Wormy Sweet Corn?" Above the the Bt-corn bin, by contrast, the equivalent sign was headed: "Here's What Went into Producing Quality Sweet Corn".

Toronto Star reporter Stuart Laidlaw, who visited Wilson's farm several times during the research, says, "It is the only time I have seen a store label its own corn 'wormy'". In his book Secret Ingredients , Laidlaw includes a photograph of the "wormy" corn sign, and drily notes, "when one bin was marked 'wormy corn' and another 'quality sweet corn,' it was hardly surprising which sold more." Laidlaw also notes that any mention of the corn being labelled as "wormy" or "quality" was omitted in presentations and writings about the experiment. This is certainly the case with the paper in the British Food Journal. Yet the paper describes in some detail the care that the researchers took to avoid biasing consumer choice - by having, for example, both corn-bins kept filled to the same level throughout the day; and by selling the two different types of corn for exactly the same amount. We are even told the precise purchase price: Cnd$3.99/dozen.

The emotively worded signs are not the only instance of glaring experimenter bias that went unmentioned in the award winning paper. During his visits to the store, Laidlaw noted that an information table contained, as well as press releases and pamphlets on the experiments, a number of pro-GM fact sheets - some authored by industry lobby groups, but no balancing information from critics of genetic engineering.

And the bias didn't stop there. The lead researcher, Doug Powell, actually demonstrated to the journalist his ability to influence customer responses to questions about Bt corn and their future purchasing preferences. Laidlaw describes how when a customer who'd bought non-Bt corn was walking to his truck, "Powell talked to him about Bt corn - describing how it did not need insecticides because it produced its own and that it had been approved as safe by the federal government. Powell then told me I should talk to the man again. I did, and he said he would buy GM corn the next time he was at the store. Powell stood nearby with his arms crossed and a smile on his face."

Outside Loblaws the previous Fall, Powell had ended up in an unsuccessful slanging match. Now Powell and his associates had engineered a setting in which customer responses could be influenced far more successfully. Seeing Powell in action convinced Laidlaw that the only conclusion which could safely be drawn from these "experiments" was that, "fed a lot of pro-biotech sales pitches, shoppers could be convinced to buy GM products."

But none of the "pro-biotech sales pitches" made their way into the paper for which Powell and his associates were commended. Instead, research that was little more than pro-GM propaganda was presented as providing a meticulous scientific evaluation of consumer purchasing preferences.

Attempts to defend the research

One of the paper's co-authors, Shane Morris has made a number of attempts to defend the research and his role in it. On examination, however, these turn out to be as misleading as the research itself.

Morris says it's all "FAKE information and Lies!!!"

When we first drew attention to the evidence in Stuart Laidlaw's book, Morris replied on his blog with a piece entitled "More Spin, FAKE information and Lies!!!" in which he denied ever seeing any "misleading 'signs'". So where does the photo on page 89 of Stuart Laidlaw's book come from?

The copyright belongs to the Toronto Star, the largest-circulation newspaper in Canada. It was one of several photographs taken at Wilson's farm store by one of the Star's top photographers, Bernard Weil. Weil is something of a hero in journalistic circles. Less than two years later, he was injured in Afghanistan when a grenade was thrown into his car. Last Fall, he was one of the first photographers into New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. It would clearly be more than surprising if either Weil or the Toronto Star were complicit in "FAKE information and Lies!!!"

Morris says no "misleading signs during the data collection period"

Bernard Weil's photo of the "wormy" corn sign was one of several shot at Wilson's store during a media day held by Doug Powell and Jeff Wilson on 30 August 2000 to publicise their study. The corn in the bins below the signs had just been harvested and was on sale as part of the study. This is something that their press release for the event confirms.

"The first sweet corn and table potatoes of the season, including genetically engineered varieties, were available for consumers at Birkbank Farms today. The crops are part of an experiment comparing different pest management technologies coupled with consumer buying preference in a complete farm-to-fork approach." (HARVEST OF GENETICALLY ENGINEERED SWEET CORN AND POTATOES BEGINS AT BIRKBANK FARMS, 30.Aug.00)

The British Food Journal paper also confirms that August 30 was when the two types of corn were put on sale to customers at the store.

"Sales of both types of corn were recorded from August 30, when the corn was first harvested, to October 6..."

There's even a table in the paper where you can see how many dozen cobs of corn were sold on August 30. So when Morris claims, "No data from any such "signs" were included in publication data", it is simply untrue. The "wormy" sign was photographed above the non-GM corn bin during the data collection period.

What Morris denies, Powell confirms

Curiously, although Morris claims the misleading signs were never there while the research was going on, the lead researcher, Doug Powell, has never made any attempt to disassociate himself from the signs. Powell's young daughter was photographed by Weil at the media day in front of the signs and in his book Laidlaw reports asking Powell explicitly about the "wormy" corn wording, and Powell's reply is included on page 118.

Powell told Laidlaw that the "wormy" question was simply rhetorical. He did not suggest that the wording or the sign were not part of the research.

Morris says he has photographic evidence of no misleading signs

Morris has also sought to dismiss the photographic evidence by producing his own. His photographs, he says, confirm there were no such "misleading signs during the data collection period".

But in the photograph of the signs that Morris has put on his blog, the resolution is so low that the wording on the relevant sign above the non-GM sweet corn bin simply cannot be read. However, from what can be seen - in terms of the number and position of words and the style of lettering - the sign would seem remarkably similar to the "wormy" corn sign in Bernard Weil's photograph!

The only differences in Morris's photograph appears to be the addition of the big sign in the middle of the picture (apparently, added shortly after August 30), and when Weil took his photographs the hand-written signs, including the "wormy" corn sign, were lower, resting on the back of the sweet corn bins.

Morris says Greenpeace Canada had no problem with his work

The other image Morris has put on his blog, and repeatedly drawn attention to, is styled, "Greenpeace Canada review of work." This text links to a photograph of Greenpeace Canada's former National Biotechnology Campaigner, Michael Khoo, looking at a sign in Wilson's store. Morris implies that if the Greenpeace campaigner wasn't happy with what he saw, he would hardly have kept quiet about it.

So we asked Michael Khoo about this. He told us that, contrary to what Morris claimed, it had been apparent in every way that he and Greenpeace disapproved of pretty much everything Morris and his co-researchers were up to.Khoo said, "I well remember when I visited the experimental farm, which was a bit of a propaganda lab. Jeff [Wilson] and he [Shane Morris] took me around for a while, they were friendly, I took some pictures and spoke to their intern who had been conducting the "study".

Shane himself well knows that I thought his consumer testing booth had no validity, I told him so. I certainly never endorsed anything there and he is self-delusional if he says he remembers otherwise. I formally request that my photo be removed from his website, as it only serves to blatantly misinform the public." Khoo also said he remembered discussing with the Star's Stuart Laidlaw "how their 'study' lacked basic methodological integrity, principally because there were leading elements like the 'wormy' corn sign." Khoo was subsequently quoted by Laidlaw in an article in the Star as saying, "It's junk science." The article said that in Khoo's view, "the study was deliberately skewed to favour Bt corn, out of fear that consumers would reject the controversial technology." (Altered food tested at the market, Toronto Star, October 8, 2000)

Morris seeks to attack Laidlaw's credibility

Morris has also sought to undermine Stuart Laidlaw's credibility. Laidlaw is a leading journalist at the Toronto Star - at one time serving on the paper's editorial board before choosing to go back to reporting. He was invited to join the Star's board as a direct result of the articles on food and farming that formed the basis of his book.

Shane Morris, however, implies on his blog that journalistic peers give Laidlaw a doubtful rating. To this end he quotes extensively from a review critical of Laidlaw's book. The piece was published in a farming paper, the Manitoba Co-operator.

What Morris doesn't tell his readers is that the piece by Jim Romahn was about the only bad review the book received. Laidlaw's book was widely praised in major papers across Canada, even to a surprising extent in the pro-business Globe and Mail. The book has also, incidentally, been on reading lists at Queen's and Wilfrid Laurier universities, the University of Manitoba and, we understand, Doug Powell's own University of Guelph.

There were also positive reviews in the farm press, and even the Manitoba Co-operator, which ran Romahn's review, later ran a favourable column about Laidlaw and the book. It's also ironic that Shane Morris sets such store by a piece in the Co-operator, given that the same paper also ran a damning editorial about an article by Morris and Doug Powell that it chracterised as "offensive" propaganda marked by "irrational views" and "virulent attacks on respected scientists." (Rude Science, John W. Morris, The Manitoba Co-operator, June 21 2001)

Morris claims he wasn't there

In his initial response to the information from Stuart Laidlaw's book, Shane Morris claimed on his blog, "I wasn't even in the Country for your alledged (sic) 'sign' fraud!!"

Morris said he only arrived in Canada in mid-September 2000. Even if this were true, his own paper shows the consumer preference part of the study as running till October 6, so for several weeks of the study Morris cannot claim to have been out of the country. Michael Khoo, of course, says that he was shown around the study by Morris. And any absence cuts both ways. How can Morris declare there were no misleading signs during the data collection period when, according to his own testimony, he was not even there for a significant part of the time?

Conclusion

The pro-biotech sales pitches Laidlaw documented at Wilson's farm store are consistent with the origins of this research. The editor of The Manitoba Co-operator, describes the lead researcher, Doug Powell, as someone who "morphed into a full-blown apologist for biotechnology, while still operating under his 'food safety' umbrella" at the University of Guelph. Powell is widely seen like this - as an aggressive biotech propagandist operating from within an academic setting.

Initially, in their search for publicity, Powell and his co-researchers seem to have felt little need to disguise their lack of experimenter neutrality. After all, nobody engaged with these issues in their locality would have been in any doubt about where Powell et al were coming from. The extensive funding of Powell's "food safety" activities by the biotech industry and big agribiz corporations was also widely known.

This is how the Toronto Star reported on the research at the time:

“the study, a subject of intense criticism from organic farmers and activists opposed to GM foods, seems more likely to inflame the debate over biotechnology than settle any arguments... For supporters, it will be taken as proof of consumer acceptance of GM foods. For critics, it will be proof the biotech industry cannot be trusted to conduct a proper study of the issue."

It's revealing that the researchers were considered so partisan as to be synonymous with the industry. Such a perception is perhaps unsurprising. The biotech industry-funded Council for Biotechnology Information was amongst the study's backers, as was the Crop Protection Institute of Canada (the trade body of the agro-chem/biotech corporations - now known as Croplife Canada). And even in their press release for the media day the researchers had no qualms about devoting significant space to Wilson's assertions that reduced pesticide use is what his customers really wanted, and that Bt corn was already helping to meet this consumer demand. Their findings would later precisely mirror these assertions.

As they presented their research more widely, however, and sought to have it published, the researchers seem to have realised that, in order to have an impact, the propagandist origins and character of what they had been doing would have to be written out of the story. Six years on, at least one of the researchers seems prepared to engage in a brazenly Orwellian effort to deny what actually happened and to present the study and the researchers as entirely non-partisan.

Whether reviewers and editors will continue to collude with such behaviour remains to be seen. Either way, important questions need to be posed about a culture of science and the academy that allows scientists who raise questions about GM, and other corporate interests, to suffer a barrage of criticism and abuse, and even terminal damage to their careers; while those whose opinions and findings support GM are validated and affirmed, regardless of whether their claims stand up to critical scrutiny.

This is the context within which a publicity showcase came to be rewarded as exemplary science.