>Instead you send a long piece that
>includes in its references the infamous Monarch study cited as a fact.
Good job.
This is really despicable.
John Losey, the author of the study that Hanly calls infamous, is a highly reputable insect ecologist who quite legitimately published preliminary results on bt in Nature. Nature most likely chose to publish Losey's statement because it contradicted statements that Monsanto had made without any data whatever. (And how could Monsanto be expected to provide evidence -- that is valuable proprietary intellectutal property after all, so you'll just have to believe us!)
Monsanto fought back by organizing a conference on the subject. But Monsanto and the scientists that it backs were caught attempting to put out a press release on the conference's conclusions before the conclusions were actually made. No matter, Monsanto has easy access to a powerful pro-GM press with which to soldier on.
Monsanto is caught lying, but it is Losey's work that is now "infamous." It is Losey who is the target of a massive campaign by one of the major funders of biological research. It is he who will in all probability be denied tenure and possibly be driven out of science -- pour encourager les autres.
But I suppose that Losey probably couldn't pass an exam on Marxism. Therefore he, like the working class itself, cannot be a progressive force. Only the bourgeoisie can be progressive, and Monsanto is its vanguard. What is a butterfly or a scientific career in the face of the motor of history? Thank goodness LM saw through the error of sectarianism!
Tom
Thomas Waters twaters at panix.com Bronx, New York