from: Linda Steele to: letters@fairlady GM Food Article in Fair Lady November 2013 issue What a disappointingly biased article about GM foods. I expected better from Fair Lady, at the very least an article examining the different views, and maybe going a little bit deeper into Monsantos business model and the ways it enforces its patents. Basically the article tells people who might be concerned about the GM issue that they are hysterical, know nothing, and should leave it all to the clever scientists and not worry their little heads about it, while providing very little actual useful information on the effects of GM seed on the planet and on the nutritional value of foods. Just to name a very few examples of the highly emotive language used in the magazine contents page and in the article: hysteria; monster; hysteria (yes, again); hullabaloo; hot air; reputable scientists (who will now clear things up for us. Yay); overwhelming scientific consensus; serious, professional scientists (as opposed to what?); junk science; superstition; conspiracy theory; scare-mongering. These terms do not belong in responsible journalism. Tabloid journalism, maybe. Maybe Fair Lady should stay away from scientific articles until it finds someone who knows how to write them in a scientific manner. The paragraph that reads pretty much every single major scientific and biotechnology regulatory oversight body in the world - have deduced that GMOs pose no harm to human health simply poses the question to me: Who are the bodies that disagree? What do they say? The examples used in the article are what a serious scientist *cough* would refer to as anecdotal evidence. As a keen backyard gardener, I am not happy with the growing monopoly that Monsanto is gaining. Monsanto patents all its seed and even puts contracts on the seed packets that people can buy in a shop. So if eg a tomato ends up on a compost heap and a new plant grows from that, the consumer is in breach of contract. I am glad I dont have to buy their seeds! This is not intended to be a full critique of the article, just the musings of a very unhappy lifelong Fair Lady reader who was sitting with her coffee and the latest edition of the magazine on this bright and sunny Sunday morning.
Posted on: Sun, 27 Oct 2013 08:00:42 +0000
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