GM Foods And Conflict Of Interest
Heaven soon
GM
Foods And Conflict Of Interest
As in the case with the pharmaceutical
industry, the studies that are done,
at least
here in the United States, are paid
for by the
companies trying to get approvals for
their
drugs. Then often, the products
generally do a
little better than placebos (or at
least in
the trials given to the government).
But they
also come with a load of side effects
that are
sometimes many times worse than the
problem
the drug is supposed to correct. It
even gets
worse. The people in position of
testing or
judging the utility of some drug or
product
often have past associations with the
companies that are promoting the new
product.
These people are said to be part of a
‘revolving door syndrome,’ in which
they
have worked or hope to work with the
corporations that they are in a
position to
test or judge. All of this cronyism
and makes
for something other than science. Here
is a
case in point…The scientist in charge
of a
taxpayer-funded trial that may
determine
whether genetically modified crops
will be
grown in the UK has been attacked for
his
close links to the US biotech giant
Monsanto.
Professor Jonathan Jones, head of the
Sainsbury Laboratory at the John Innes
Centre,
the UK’s leading plant research
centre, has
shrugged off the controversy,
insisting he has
never tried to hide his business
relationship
with Monsanto or the GM industry. But
as the
scientist overseeing the first UK
trials of a
GM potato, Jones has found himself at
the
centre of a storm after anti-GM
campaigners
used social networking sites such as
Twitter
to highlight the close links between a
company
he founded, Mendel Biotechnology, and
Monsanto….
Hey, Professor Jones, did you ever
hear of
‘Conflict of Interest’?
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