Brian John | When scientists are anti-science

Poster credit of David Icke

Moderator’s Note: We have our fill of scientists from corporate
America who insinuate themselves into governmental positions, many with considerable
decision making authority. According to my research, there are more
than two-dozen former Monsanto, Dow, and Syngenta scientists currently serving
inside the US government with most of these attached to the FDA and the USDA
(including especially APHIS and ARS). The regulatory agency-industry
merry-go-round is the mark of a neoliberal regime where the regulated are also
the regulators. I always thought of this as a uniquely American form of
systemic corruption.



Turns
out that EU and European countries have the same exact problem. In this guest
post, our colleague and anti-GMO activist, Brian Johns, examines recent words
and actions by Anne Glover, the EU’s “Chief Scientist” who has been promoting
transgenic food as safe and dismissing the growing evidence that suggests
otherwise. Her relationship with the biotechnology industry is one of guilt by
affiliation rather than direct association but there are plenty of scientists
on both sides of the Atlantic with conflicts of interest.

This
report first appeared on 19 March 2014 and can be found at Spinwatch.

Europe’s Science Chief seeks to
eliminate scientific discourse

THE ANTIPATHIES OF ANTI-SCIENCE
SCIENTISTS

Brian John | London | March 24,
2014

Anne
Glover, the EU’s chief scientist, is playing politics with science warns Brian
John of GM-Free Cymru. Her role in promoting GMOs as safe and attempting to get
rid of the precautionary principle, he argues in this guest post, is all part
of a carefully crafted attempt to redesign science and to impose a scientific
orthodoxy worked out with the “learned” academies. Dismissing some GMO
discoveries by claiming they are “contested” ignores how scientific debate
really works.

Since
taking office in 2012, EU Science Chief Anne Glover seems to have taken it upon
herself to redefine the meaning of the term “scientific evidence” and to shake
up the manner in which scientists work and communicate with each other.

In
two staged “interviews” published in Euractiv¹
it has become apparent that she sees her role as providing science in support
of the predetermined political positions of her boss, EC President Barroso. She
will deny this, of course, but if we look at one field - the contentious area
of GMOs - we see immediately that she is intent upon the “scientific validation”
of the line pushed relentlessly by the Commission - ie that GMOs are safe and
that they should be allowed without any great hindrance into the food supply, even
if there is no public taste for them and no demand from retailers. This
pressure towards market liberalisation and the insidious dismantling of GMO
regulations is now being increased by the US Transatlantic Trade and Investment
Partnership (TTIP) negotiators.

Politics
will always be a dirty business.  But there is something far more worrying
going on here, and it has to do with science itself.  If you look at the
carefully crafted statements from Anne Glover, a number of things become
apparent:

She
is seeking to re-define the term “scientific evidence” by claiming that there
is no substantiated evidence of harm associated with GMO crops and foods.  Leaving
aside the matter of what is substantiated, and what is not, and who does the
substantiating, Glover is perpetrating a falsehood here.  She has repeated
it over and again.² As she knows full well, there is a large body of
peer-reviewed literature which shows harmful direct and indirect effects
arising from the growing of GMO crops.  She seems to be suggesting that
the evidence cited by hundreds of scientists, in these publications, is not “evidence”
at all, simply because she does not agree with it or finds it inconvenient.  If
nothing else, this shows a deep disrespect for working scientists and a lack of
awareness of how science works through a process of data collection in the
field and in the laboratory, and by hypothesis testing in a climate of mutual
respect.³

She
is arguing that the Precautionary Principle is no longer needed in the assessment
of GMO crops and foods, since in her view the arguments about safety are over.   This
is both arrogant and dangerous, putting at risk the health of Europeans on the
basis of a deeply flawed premise.  This undermines one of the key
underpinnings of EU law and Codex Alimentarius in the matter of GMOs - namely
that they are different from conventional organisms and are liable therefore to
be uniquely unpredictable and potentially dangerous for health and the
environment. Many would agree that the “presumption of high risk” has now been
amply confirmed through scientific investigation.⁴

She
is also arguing that GMOs in Europe have been “regulated to death” - with the
implication that these regulations are now holding back progress and need to be
changed or even dismantled.  That again is a dangerous attitude, in which
she seems (on the basis of her own convictions about GMO safety) to be seeking
to undermine the regulations which protect the people of the EU. Her role is to
advise Mr Barroso, not to seek to change the EU regulations in tune with her
personal views.

She
refers to learned “independent” bodies like the European Academies of Science
Advisory Council (EASAC) in support of her position on GMOs, presumably on the
assumption that such academies are uniquely qualified to tell the rest of us
what to believe and what to do.   The report to which she frequently
refers, called “Planting the Future”, does not even have any cited authors -
and it is essentially a position statement distributed by a relatively small
scientific community whose members are seeking to protect their own status and
to guarantee a flow of research funds into their own pet projects.⁵  Is
that too cynical a view?  Having watched the Royal Society’s take on GMOs
over the years, it seems reasonable.  It is of course a standard tactic
for somebody in Glover’s position to “defer” to some distant reputable body and
to quote it verbatim, giving her words a gloss of respectability and deflecting
responsibility in the event that their assurances about safety turn out, in due
course, to be false.

She
repeats the EASAC line that controversies about the negative impacts of GMO
crops and foods are based upon “contested science”.¹ This is
disingenuous and even dishonest, especially when she implies that papers
purporting to show that GMOs are safe are somehow “uncontested”.  That is
of course nonsense - all the science in the GMO debate is contested in the
literature and in public discourse, and so it should be.

Finally
- and this is the most serious issue of all - Glover seems intent upon
establishing a scientific orthodoxy with respect to GMOs, determined by an
unelected and biased small group of scientists (including herself) who have
decided that the GMO safety debate is over, and that GMOs are harmless.  She
does not recognise the integrity of the scientists who argue otherwise, and
indeed she denies that their published conclusions are based upon proper “evidence”.
 We have known for years that the scientific establishment hates mavericks
and researchers who challenge the “consensus” or “accepted wisdom” - and it
seems blissfully unaware of the irony of this situation, given the long history
of religious and political suppression of scientific research and results.  The
Flat Earth comes to mind, as do the names of Galileo, Stalin and Orwell.  The
scientific establishment has already been heavily implicated in the disgraceful
treatment meted out to such honest scientists as Pusztai, Ermakova, Carman,
Chapela and Quist, Huber, Carrasco and Seralini.⁶  There is no
sign of a change in this attitude.

What
we want from Europe’s Chief Scientist is a demonstration that she knows what
science is and how it works, and an acceptance that “scientific evidence”
exists on both sides of every scientific argument.  We want respect and
recognition for those whose views she might not personally accept.  And we
want an acceptance that in the field of GMOs (as in many others) there is no
consensus about safety and environmental impacts.  Can she bring herself
to make a simple statement to that effect?  On the current evidence in the
public domain, we doubt it.



Notes

 


[1] Interview with Anne Glover (Euractive.com)







[2] The assessment of GMOs in Europe must, by law, take into account both
direct and indirect effects. It is therefore not acceptable to argue, as Glover seems to be doing, that only trait-specific effects should be examined and
assessed.







[3]










‘Scientific evidence is evidence which serves to either support or counter
a scientific theory or hypothesis. Such evidence is expected to be empirical
evidence and in accordance with scientific method. Standards for scientific
evidence vary according to the field of inquiry, but the strength of scientific
evidence is generally based on the results of statistical analysis and the
strength of scientific controls.’   (Wikipedia) 











-->




‘ ... the
totality of scientific research outcomes in the field of GM crop safety is
nuanced, complex, often contradictory or inconclusive, confounded by
researchers’ choices, assumptions, and funding sources, and in general, has
raised more questions than it has currently answered’.  ENSSER Statement signed
by 297 scientists.

 

[4] See http://www.versaland.com/2013/01/23/critical-thought-for-earth/, Prof Don Huber, Emeritus Professor of Plant Pathology, Purdue University: 










‘The
wealth of literature documenting these health and safety concerns continues to
grow while I know of no long-term safety studies that indicate that our current
glyphosate herbicide practices or GMO toxins in feed and food are safe.’  (Published
Letter, 23 January 2013)





[5] European Academies Science Advisory Council (EASAC). Full report here: Planting the Future.






[6] See Brian John (2014) Perverted science: The manipulation of GM Research; Jonathan Matthews (2012) Smelling a corporate rat: Seralini attackers exposed;  Union of Concerned Scientists (2012) Heads they win, tails we lose: How corporations corrupt science.