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August 1999

Medicine Makers: Biotechnology Crops To Produce Low-cost Medicines
30/8/99, The London Free Press
Molecular farming - a little-known part of the biotechnology boom - uses crops to produce low-cost medicines and proteins to treat disease. It is the subject of an international conference in London this week.

Who Voted For Consumer Activists?
24/8/99, University of Kent at Canterbury
The important question here is not whether consumer activists are right or wrong about a particular subject. Rather, what we ought to be asking ourselves is whether democracy should be permitted to be eaten away by the oligarchic networking of increasingly powerful lobbyists and whether Britain's advocacy groups deserve to be hailed as the solution to a problem - the degradation of British politics - of which they are merely a glaring symptom.

Anger As Sites For GM Trials Are Revealed
20/8/99, Farmers Weekly
Farmers and proponents of genetically modified crops criticised the government's decision to publish the precise locations of forthcoming GM oilseed rape sites. The details appeared on Department of Environment Transport and the Regions' internet site this week and included farm addresses and grid references of the fields where trials will be conducted.

An Irishman's Diary On Ecoterrorism
19/8/99, The Irish Times
There was something not quite right about these tales of petrol being sprayed on genetically modified sugar-beet in Wexford. It seemed an un-Irish way of protesting, strangely ignorant of the Irish cultural attachment to the land. Who would do such things? Not country people for sure; and now we learn, not Irish people at all. Most people campaigning against GM crops here are foreign, which no doubt explains their tactics.

Scientists Call On Organic Farmers To Bury Biotech Hatchet
16/8/99, The Express
A leading Scottish scientist, Professor Michael Wilson, has called on organic farmers and biotechnologists to bury the hatchet and realise the mutual benefits of genetic modification. But, says Professor Wilson, who has just taken over as chief executive of Horticulture Research International, this will require more scientists to come out of their laboratories to explain to people what is going on.

Monsanto Doesn't Sell So-called Terminator Seeds
15/8/99, Monsanto
Monsanto doesn't sell so-called Terminator seeds. This is because they don't exist. In fact, "Terminator technology" is no more than a concept. The patent on this concept is owned by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and a company called Delta and Pine Land, not Monsanto.

Greenpeace Vandalism In England, Direct Action Against Knowledge
12/8/99, AgrEvo Company
Greenpeace, just as any other social organisation, can have its own ideology, disseminate it and defend it with its own arguments. But, in no case, is there justification for the use of violence, the invasion of private property or the destruction of others' work and possessions.

Let's Deal In Facts, Not Scare Stories
11/8/99, Western Morning News (Plymouth)
It's always a shame when facts spoil a good story, but the letters about GM crops in your issue of July 14 make me glad to be a scientist concerned with facts rather than someone hag-ridden by myths and misrepresentations. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, we used to be told, but even a little knowledge is better than having one's mind filled with scare stories.

Monsanto's Response To ASA Ruling
11/8/99, Monsanto Press Release
Monsanto would like to thank the Council of the Advertising Standards Authority for its ruling. With our advertising campaign last year we intended to inform the public of our opinion - and enthusiasm - on the subject of plant biotechnology. We perhaps did not take sufficiently into account the difference in culture between the UK and the USA in the way some of this information was presented.

Anarchists 'Hijacking' GM Food Protest Groups
11/8/99, The Evening Standard
Professional agitators have infiltrated groups protesting at genetically modified crops, police say. They have identified links between organisers of the GM food protests and those responsible for the 18 June action that ended in a riot in the City of London.

Ripe For Picking
07/8/99, The Economist
Britain's nearly 20-year-old biotech industry already has the "clusters" of companies that industrial theory recommends. America may have five times as many biotech firms as Britain, and scores of real products to show for its efforts, but Britain has its own powerhouses around Oxford and Cambridge, and in Surrey and central Scotland, to compare with American clusters around Boston and San Francisco.

Funding Boost For Biotechnology Innovation
05/8/99, Department of Trade and Industry
A £ 6.45 million Government programme to help ensure that the UK keeps top spot in Europe in biotechnology was announced today. The Biotechnology Exploitation Platform Challenge (BEP Challenge) encourages more effective collaboration between academic institutes to make the best use of the knowledge generated by their research in the biosciences.

Insect Resistant Crops Are Beneficial For Both Agriculture And The Environment
05/8/99, EuropaBio
EuropaBio, the European Association for Bioindustries, commented on research reported in the August 5th, 1999 issue of 'Nature' magazine which described delayed development of a laboratory selected resistant strain of pink bollworm in genetically enhanced (GE) insect resistant cotton and the possible effect on insect resistance management.

BIO Fears Bt Cotton Report In Nature Could Mislead Public, Farmers
04/8/99, Biotechnology Industry Organization
In response to a study by University of Arizona entomologists appearing in the scientific correspondence of the Aug. 5 Nature, Michael Phillips, Ph.D., the Biotechnology Industry Organization's executive director of food & agriculture expressed surprise that the researchers claim their narrowly focused laboratory study of larval insect development has relevance to the effectiveness of refugia strategies for insect resistance management.

National Cotton Council Reaffirms That Bt Cotton Resistance Management For Pink Bollworm Is Sound
04/8/99, National Cotton Council
The National Cotton Council (NCC) today said it remains convinced that current resistance management strategies for pink bollworm -- including the use of refugia -- are appropriate and reaffirmed its commitment to preserving the effectiveness of Bt cotton.

Nation Must Protect GM Crops Say Biotech Giants
04/8/99, The Express
The wealthy biotech industry appealed to the Government to help protect farm-scale trials of genetically modified crops next year. In fact, despite the recent public upheaval, leading researcher Professor Ingo Potrykus claimed that a new strain of genetically modified rice could save 400 million people from malnutrition.

GM Squad In Wrong Field Boob
02/8/99, The Mirror
More than 40 GM food protesters destroyed a dozen acres of a crop and blitzed the farm at Caenby Corner, north of Lincoln - then found they had targeted the wrong fields. They thought they were attacking experimental cereal crops but wrecked normal maize instead. Forty-six of the environmentalists were arrested.

Greens Row Over GM Crop Attacks
01/8/99, Sunday Express
Britain's leading green campaigners are embroiled in a row over whether GM crop trials should be targeted for attack by Greenpeace. But what clearly emerges from this debate is the condemnation of Greenpeace's stance by the majority of the environmentalists as "dangerously anti-science".