GM crops bring prosperity and enjoy surging public popularity
The Canberra Times
July 9, 2007
Here’s a letter to the editor by David Tribe on GM crops. This letter was published in The Canberra Times.
Excerpt…
Canberra Times readers deserve something better than depressingly false rumours about genetic technology by Brian Souter (Letters, July 5).
Souter, for instance, mentions that Russian scientist Irina Ermakova found that many of her laboratory rats died when they were fed GM soy meal.
What he doesn't mention is that Ermakova is not an experienced nutritionist, and that the rats in her laboratory also died at extraordinarily high rates (6.8 per cent to 9 per cent) when fed "non-GM" rations.
This compares to "10 to 15-fold lower" death rates seen in well-run laboratories.
It is thus quite clear to experienced researchers in this field such as Hiroaki Aoyama, of Japan, who recently visited Australia that Ermakova's claims that GM soy meal is deadly are without any scientific foundation.
Souter makes other wild claims. He blames farmer suicides in India on genetic technology, but since 2003 a remarkable second green revolution has taken place in India, bringing unprecedented prosperity to the Indian cotton industry.
Souter doesn't see the relevance of the new green revolution, but since 2003 Indian national cotton output has doubled, and yields per hectare have risen by two thirds.
Both conventional commercial cotton hybrids and insect-protected GM cotton have played a part in the resurgence, and all Souter can see is farmer suicides….
Full letter to the editor at The Canberra Times.
