Minister to abolish GM scrutiny body 

The commission established by the government to monitor ethical
and social issues linked to GM crops is to be disbanded after
its members insisted that conventional and organic farmers
should be protected from contamination by GM crops - and be
compensated if safeguards fail. 

With the results of the latest GM trials due in February, Mrs
Beckett ["environment secretary"], already known to be hostile
to the Agriculture and Environment Biotechnology Commission,
is expected to announce its demise early next month, before
it can cause further difficulties. 

When public hostility to GM crops was at its height four years
ago, the government defused the row by creating a commission
to discuss the social, ethical and economic issues surrounding
their introduction in the British countryside. 

They put in charge Professor Malcolm Grant, the provost of
University College London, and appointed a wide range of
members, from opponents of GM crops to staff of biotech
companies. 

But the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
(Defra) and other pro-GM forces in the government, particularly
Tony Blair, had not factored in the persuasive powers of Prof
Grant, who managed to produce three influential consensus
reports. 

For the government, the most difficult of those emerged a year
ago when the commission insisted the consumer should have the
freedom to buy non-GM British food. 

Sue Mayer, director of Genewatch UK and a commission member,
said: "If the commission is abolished as planned with no other
body picking up the social, ethical and economic dimensions of
the GM debate, then the government will be failing the public
again."

Paul Brown, environment correspondent
Wednesday December 29, 2004
The Guardian 
http://www.guardian.co.uk/gmdebate/Story/0,2763,1380455,00.html

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 "Perceptions" note:

 Try googling "blind science" - then item #19

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