Three years after I wrote Genetic Roulette, pro-GM scientists have finally taken me up on my challenge to supply evidence that counters any of the 65 risks highlighted in the book. So, it will be a great pleasure for me to respond to the 65 arguments recently posted on a new attack-Jeffrey website. Their effort offers a priceless opportunity to not only revisit each health risk, but also to show more precisely where and how the biotech industry comes up short in its defense.
In my initial challenge to the GMO industry, I sought rigorous, independent scientific data that would enrich the global discussion and better characterize GMO risks. But the posts written by biotech apologists Bruce Chassy and David Tribe demonstrate without doubt how flimsy and unsupported the industry’s claim is that GMOs are safe. Their evidence is neither independent nor rigorous. Instead, Chassy and Tribe merely dust off the same old false assumptions and blatant fabrications that have long been exposed as hollow and even shameless. GMWatch describes it as “disinformation and ad hominem attack dressed up as ‘the open-minded search for truth.'”
Dr. Brian John offers this take on the new site:
The whole exercise is utterly grotesque—and is based on the hoary old line that they (Chassy and Tribe) represent “proper” science and that anybody who disagrees with them or who provides “inconvenient” evidence is by definition either a charlatan or a nutter. Their line is that proper peer-reviewed science always shows that GM products are entirely safe, and that on the other side there is nothing but “misinformation.” That of course is a grotesque distortion—there are scores of peer-reviewed papers that Chassy and Tribe have to explain away as aberrations or as based on fraudulent research. In a bizarre sort of way, one has to admire their strange obsession, and one cannot dispute the vast amount of effort that they have put in to their latest exercise in vilification. Poison pours off every page on the web site.
And this is from the review of the site by GMWatch.
New Site Pushes Disinformation
The only thing that’s surprising about this desperate attempt on the part of the GM brigade to smear Jeffrey Smith’s book Genetic Roulette is that it took them so long. Jeffrey’s book has been out there since 2007 and we have seen it light fires under activists and scientists alike. They usually say something like: “I had no idea that all this scientific research showing problems with GM foods was out there.” Then they say: “Why weren’t we told?”
Jeffrey performed a great public service in publishing his book. But—and we hope he takes this as the compliment it’s meant to be—Jeffrey emphatically is not the point of this book. It’s a collection of scientific studies—many of them peer reviewed and published—showing negative findings on GM crops and foods. There are also cautionary statements by conservative, careful, and experienced scientists, based on solid data.
All Jeffrey does is present this dry-ish material in a way that’s understandable by the most scientifically challenged and jargon-phobic among us. As a talented science communicator, he stands aside and lets the findings speak for themselves, in the clearest of terms.
As Tribe and Chassy want to rubbish Jeffrey Smith’s book, they also have to rubbish the work of the scientists who carried out these studies, along with the judgment of the editors and peer reviewers of the scientific journals where the papers were published.
Tribe and Chassy will also have to prove that all the scientists within the US government who expressed warnings about the dangers of GMOs, and who are quoted in Jeffrey’s book, were out of their minds when they spoke or wrote those words. And if they were, then what does that say for the US regulatory system that the biotech industry likes to put forward as assuring safety? Doesn’t exactly inspire confidence, does it
So Jeffrey Smith’s great sin, it seems, is to let the science speak for itself. This is the opposite of what Tribe and Chassy do. They grab a selection of worrying scientific findings that are foregrounded in the book. Then they engage in a childish game of wild speculation and distraction in a desperate attempt to make the data mean something other than what they obviously do mean. . .
When I wrote Genetic Roulette, I collaborated with more than 30 scientists, referenced hundreds of publications, and had each of the 65 health risks reviewed by at least three scientists. We all did our very best to make sure the information was accurate and up-to-date. I will likewise take the time necessary to prepare proper responses to Chassy and Tribe’s arguments.
Safe eating,
Jeffrey