Biotech Industry Uses Fake Famine To Promote GM Food [1]
Submitted by Laura Miller [2] on
" The PR exploitation of drought and hunger in Zambia shows that for the [genetically modified (GM) food] lobby there are no limits, even when it involves rewriting history and manufacturing crimes against humanity," GM Watch [3]'s Jonathan Matthews writes. In 2002, Zambia sparked a firestorm when it refused to accept U.S. donations of GM corn to offset a looming famine. The Zambia government had concerns about the safety of GM foods. Industry-friendly experts [4], the U.S. State Department and U.S. trade officials began savaging the Zambian government and the environmental movement. For example, the Hudson Institute [5]'s Alex Avery [6] attacked Dr. Charles Benbrook, a former Executive Director of the Board on Agriculture for the US National Academy of Sciences [7], for having the "blood of the starvation victims" on his hands. "Benbrook's crime had been to tell the Zambian scientists during their fact-finding mission that there was no shortage of non-GM foods which could be offered to Zambia and that, 'To a large extent, this ‘crisis' has been manufactured ... by those looking for a new source of traction in the evolving global debate over agricultural biotechnology,'" Matthews writes.