Jeffrey Smith’s book ‘Seeds of Deception’ has been translated into several languages, so presumably it sold well in english when it was first published a couple of years ago. A basic premise of the book is that genetically modified (GM) food is unsafe.
I’ve searched and searched for an example of an unsafe GM food that is being sold commercially and can’t find one – and neither it seems can the UN. There have been foods that didn’t pass the tests and so didn’t make it onto the supermarket shelves.
I heard Smith on local ABC radio when he was in Brisbane promoting ‘Seeds of Deception’ about eighteen months ago. He was being interview by Steve Austin and every time Austin asked for an example of an unsafe food, Smith sort of wiggled out of the question with reference to how GM foods have not been properly tested and how it is our children who will suffer.
A second book by Jeffrey Smith about how GM foods are gonna kill us will be published in August. Called ‘Genetic Roulette’ it will apparently document the health risks from GM foods… and I thought that is what the first book ‘Seeds of Deception’ was all about?
I reckon Smith should tell us right-a-way what the health risks are. Why should we wait until August?
Unless it’s all hype, as David Tribe explains at his blog, click here.
I am starting to wonder how many people buy these books to be titillated rather than informed? Perhaps it’s a bit like the hysteria surrounding global warming? The elite, in particular, want to talk about it, and be frightened by it, but do they really believe it?
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
There is a common thread with all these dogooder alarmists, John Ray says that it is pathological, he may well be right.
http://antigreen.blogspot.com/
Just listened to replay Michael Duffy interviewing Patrick Moore, ex Greenpeace, who described the Greenpeace style of fear mongering – all for financial gain. Time and time again Greenpeace refuse to acknowledge the science and run with the ‘frankenfood’ and ‘devils element’ type of nonsense
Moore says that since leaving Greenpeace he has revalued many of the positions he had held and reversed much of his thinking.
http://www.greenspirit.com/
There seems to be some consternation about GM cotton field performance in India which frankly surprised me.
A Google will turn up a number of reports but this one has some considerable detail.
http://www.ddsindia.com/www/PDF/BT_Cotton_-_A_three_year_report.pdf
I suggest the issue concerned me enough to suggest Detribe do a separate post on the issue. Perhaps a fuller explanation of the issues is required.
If you know better than the elite flapping their hands over GM & AGW, what then are the REAL genuine threats we should be focusing on instead?
If the varieties of our staple crops are increasingly homogeneous and centralised, is there sufficient redundancy in to the global food production system, ie is it fail-safe enough? Assume a tipping point, ie where say, 1 catastrophe and 1-2 other less significant events combine to produce a severe outcome, how resilient is the current, spreading model of food production? (one eg: people worry about the nuclear threats, but what if bombs are dropped on key seed banks and production facilities? or there could be a major blight and droughts coinciding?) Does this get enough consideration? It’s not the kind of issue that corporations are going to tackle. There are more urgent immediate concerns such as trade regulations, present ag problems, and productivity and malnutrition in the 3rd world so should we ignore the potentional future failure points in the responses that are emerging today?
Stinky you should learn to take it a bit easier, all these disaster scenarios that you are fabricating are making me a bit edgy, you dont work in the insurance industry do you?
Friends,
Let’s not lose sight of what Jeffrey Smith is actually up to. “Genetic Roulette,” just like “Seeds of Deception,” are done up by Yes! books, a vanity publisher in Fairfield, Iowa.
Vanity publishers are for those who can’t find a publishing house that will buy the rights and market the book. Instead, these publishers charge the author for printing and related costs, and leave it up to the author to market the book.
Needless to say, there’s an eager market out there for Smith’s rubbish, but Smith has to pander to it and the more aggressively it’s done, the more the money flows. He’ll have cohorts in the enterprise, of course.
Cohorts include Fairfield, Iowa-based Maharishi International (sic) University, where yogic flying is taught side by side with enlightened business management techniques. John Fagan of Genetic ID teaches business there, by the way. Fagan pioneered the use of genetic testing to foment opposition to GM crops by fostering the notion of “genetic contamination” and until recently, his lab was the top favorite of anti-GM groups, primarily Greenpeace.
Jeffrey Smith is a member of the Natural Law Party, the political wing of the movement that runs the university, and closely toes the party line.
The Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who runs the university, tells his disciples that they will be denied nirvana if they eat GM food.
Of course, there will be other sponsors of the book as well–the usual gaggle of back-to-nature corporate conspiracy eco-doomsters. But behind these middlemen, and behind the hype, bizarre ideologies and quasi-Indian mysticism, is Jeffrey Smith the man. And he’s in it for the money.
Schiller.
“yogic flying”
wow that sounds like fun. that’s an unexplored mkt! hippy accident insurance
“cog” you are using my email address without my approval – desist.
See, no consideration what are the REAL genuine threats we could be focusing on instead. Would would you prefer that us miserable, mislead doomsdayers focus our efforts on?
“Perhaps it’s a bit like the hysteria surrounding global warming?”
Nah…global warming has got plenty of scientific backing (There’s good well researched papers in pretty much every recent Science and Nature). I can recall only a single peer reviewed anti-GM paper in the last 5 years (introgression of GM genetic elements into Mexican maize landraces. Can’t remember whether it was in Science or Nature). That particular paper was panned over it’s methodology and should never have passed the peer review process.
When most scientists back the existance of AGW and the safety of GM foods then I tend to agree with them – even though AGW is seen as fear-mongering on this blog and being pro-GM just the opposite.
Must annoy some people that scientists care more about consistant science than consistant politics.
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