Letter writers take to the barricades on GM issue


07 June 1999


Letter writers take to the barricades on GM issue


LETTER writers in The Independent and The Guardian were
again engaged in the debate on genetically modified (GM) food.


A continuing concern is the intervention of the Prince of Wales with
the role of the scientists (the subject of the Princes criticism)
another source of dispute.


But one letter that catches the eye is from a member of the Nuffield
Council on Bioethics working party on GM crops – one of the Princes
scientists who draws scorn elsewhere.


Professor Michael Lipton, from the University of Sussex, argues that
GM crops should be an “important part of the answer” to feeding the
worlds poor. He suggests that GM crops “can and will save millions of
lives, unless stopped, either by failure to change the incentives and
institutions now directing GM resources, or by blanket opposition”.


Just how powerful that opposition has become is reported in another
section of The Guardian. An article reports that consumer
attitudes to GM crops, stimulated by a host of environmentalist groups,
has been largely responsible for a retreat by supermarkets on carrying
GM products.



  • The Independent 07/06/99 page 2 (The Monday Review)
  • The Guardian 07/06/99 page 17, page 2/3 (G2)

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