Feeding us Lies
The Government has been deliberately misleading us about genetic engineering
By George Monbiot. Published in the Guardian 13th February 1999.
The geneticist Dr Arpad Pusztai is a dangerous man. He has released into the environment a virulent self-replicating organism, which is already running riot across Britain. It’s called the truth.Yesterday, the government moved rapidly to round it up and shove it back into the flask from which it spilt.
Jack Cunningham, the government’s pest control officer, told the Today programme that the public had nothing to fear from Dr Pusztai’s revelation that rats fed with genetically modified potatoes suffered damage to their immune systems and internal organs. Human health, he claimed, was the government’s overwhelming priority. Genetic engineering had only been deployed experimentally in Britain so far. Europe was introducing rigorous new labelling requirements for engineered foods. And no, English Nature had NOT called for a moratorium. The nation could breathe a sigh of relief. The verminous truth was on the retreat.
But, like all dangerous pathogens, it has a nasty habit of cropping up again, just when you thought it was under control. It has even managed to infect English Nature’s website. The agency, the website says, will “continue to recommend a moratorium on commercial releases”. In fact, it’s beginning to look as if the only place the bug has not re-infected is the well-guarded inner sanctum of the government.
Dr Cunningham has used subtle tactics to shut it out. Yes, genetically engineered crops have only been deployed experimentally: in British fields. But they have been deployed wholesale in British food. Most processed food now contains genetically modified products.
Yes, there are new labelling requirements for engineered foods. But no, they are not rigorous. Thanks to lobbying by the British government, European regulations are now so weak as to be almost meaningless. The British delegation insisted that there need be no warning about the presence of food additives, refined oils and flavourings made from engineered plants.
And no, Dr Cunningham, the British government has not put human health ahead of other priorities. Two weeks ago, the government announced that it is giving £13 million to the biotechnology industry, to help improve its profile and win public confidence. Last summer, both Jack Cunningham and Jeff Rooker, the Minister for Agriculture, held secret meetings with Monsanto, the world’s most aggressive biotech company. The meetings were arranged by Monsanto’s public relations consultants, Bell Pottinger. In October, Bell Pottinger was joined by Cathy McGlynn, previously Jack Cunningham’s special adviser.
Monsanto’s lobbying has been spectacularly successful. The government’s Invest in Britain Bureau now boasts that the UK “leads the way in Europe in ensuring that regulations and other measures affecting the development of biotechnology take full account of the concerns of business.”
Business concerns are also heeded elsewhere. Last summer, a part-time employee of Monsanto’s called Bill Clinton telephoned Tony Blair to insist that nothing be done to restrict the biotech sector’s expansion in Britain. Monsatan was one of the largest donors of “soft dollars” to Bill’s 1996 presidential campaign.
It was these considerations which underlay Tony Blair’s statement to the Commons last week. He told the House that imposing a moratorium on engineered crops would increase rather than decrease public concern. What he meant, of course, was that it would be bad for the image of the biotechnology companies.
The government contends that genetically engineered crops will help both to feed the world and save the environment. But the world already produces 50 per cent more food than it needs. People go hungry not because there is too little food but because food and the land on which it grows are concentrated in the hands of the rich and powerful. The biggest threat to future supplies is the environmental destruction caused by large-scale agro-industry: precisely the type of farming facilitated by genetic engineering. The corporate control of the food chain that modification allows will ensure that even less of the world’s food reaches those who need it most. We are Dr Cunningham’s guinea pigs, the subjects of a vast global experiment from which no good can come.
When Dr Pusztai told the truth, he was sacked from the government-funded institute for which he worked. Its director, Philip James, had given him permission to speak to a television crew about his research. When the programme was broadcast, Professor James supported him. A day later, he sacked him and made him sign a gagging order. The 22 eminent scientists who wrote a statement of support for Dr Pusztai this week are among thousands who would like to know why Professor James changed his mind.
The row over genetic engineering has long been portrayed as a dispute between environmentalists and scientists. But many of the most persuasive and cogent critics of this technology are themselves gene scientists. Some of them are among the foremost in their fields.
The environment cannot sustain genetically engineered crops. Science mistrusts them. The public doesn’t want them. Isn’t it time the government stopped forcing us to eat them, and fed us, instead, with the truth?