Dear Ms Newman:

I understand that you have mentioned me at this site, including that “Companies these people represent are also known as paid PR promotions for GM.”   I do not represent any company, and demand a correction.

I have also written NGIN as follows:

Thank you for including me among your profiles (http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=112).  To be included in a group of so many truly great scientists such as Charles Arntzen, Roger Beachy, Peter Raven, Bob May, Jennifer Thomson, Anthony Trewavas, John Pickett, and Ingo Potrykus is a great honor that I intend to list on my CV.  

However, can you spell my name correctly?  It’s Roush, not “Rousch”.  That will make it much easier for people to find me at your site when they google the web.

However, in the interests of fairness and full disclosure, I must also confess to you and my colleagues that you have given me too much credit. First, I retired only from one email list, the anti-GM gentech, on which I spawned at least two free speech debates over whether I should be allowed to stay because I had the temerity to challenge many of the anti-GM myths being spread there.

Second, the journal Science concluded that the funding we received from industry did not constitute a conflict of interest and that “others were able to create the perception that (we) were hiding something”.  We did not hide anything of course, and the reason this issue came to light is that we told leading anti-GM campaigners in Australia about our funding and gave them pre-publication copies of our research.  One of them, Bob Phelps, even used some of our data in a poster to show that pollen moved a few km, in support of his contention that GM could not be contained.

In making these corrections, I note that several colleagues who are not yet on your list have asked me about how to apply.  If there is an application process, I don’t want their contributions to be judged as less than my own due to any errors in your records.

Dear  Ms Newman:

You have also taken my comments on the corn case out of context.   The original Wall Street Journal article referred to a grower who was trying to   produce
organically grown RED corn for extra value.    As the article stated  "But when the ears first emerged late last year, the farmer made a horrifying
discovery: Yellow kernels were mixed in with the red."

This farmer, organic or not, had not taken the most basic steps  to protect his purity even against any kind of yellow corn.  Surely that was his fault, not that of anyone growing yellow corn  of any genotype.

I prefer not to spend time on such issues and would appreciate it if you checked these details first.

Sorry Agronomist but you don't have to ask "How do you get on this list"

You need to read the names of the people on this list and then you should accept that many have considerable expertise in Science.

Then you ask youself why would some of the eminent scientists put their names to the letter... I suspect they did it because they believed in what the letter said.

Then you ask : Are these people more qualified than me? - and you answered that with a yes.

So at that point you take on their views and add them to your list of resources to enable you to self-question whether these eminent scientists are worthy of your contemplations.

By now you should have had the thought "Perhaps I had better consider my position in the light of these people"

And at that point you should have come to a simple conclusion .... Don't trust GM foods! The science is still out!

The fact that not everyone on the list has expertise means "diddly squat" it's the ones that have the necessary expertise that really count, and their warnings are reasonable and cautionary.

Rebel, you are giving me no choice when consumers should have a bigger choice than what you are allowing me. There is obviously no way that organic or just non-GM can be split from GM due to contamination. So in reality you would like me to eat, let me see, olive oil for the rest of my life. Great diet you’ve given me. But then again, GM will take over olive oil soon and I will be left to starve.
GM should not be allowed into the country until the full scientific evidence has been provided that it is safe to eat over long term trials. What part of moratorium don't you GM'ers understand? Leave it out of the country until it is checked.

So you've decided in your so called wisdom that the consumer should shut up because you are trying to control what we eat and wave us off like pesky flies. Too bad mate, it's made me more determined to know the truth and I'm very sure that it's not what you want us consumers to know.

Rick Rousch – I’ve looked at what non-GM said and she just gave a reference of you. Why should she give a correction for something that you’ve misrepresented. A bit arrogant that everyone should know how your name is spelt. By the way, I thought you were Canadian or American. I thought this was an Australian citizen forum

Dear Julie Newman NCF
I'd like to return to to argument that GM crops only succeed because of subsidies, and particularly to the example of India. There is ample evidence Indian farmers are taking up GM cotton varieties because of their economic benefits
http://gmopundit.blogspot.com/2005/12/technology-improvement-in-india.html
http://gmopundit.blogspot.com/2005/12/gm-cotton-successes-in-india-detailed.html
India, like Australia, is regarded as a low subsidy country. Enthusiastic takeup, with increased markets year after year, as in Australia, is alone evidence of economic benefit, but the links also show cost calculations featuring increased margins and higher cotton prices (premiums for GM).
Since these present a story that quite contrary to NCF view of Indian GM cotton, I wondered whether you would comment on them, Julie, and wonder if you would include them, for completeness, in your own website?

Re Opinionated2's mention of isis. I'd caution you, Opinionated2, against regarding this as a source of sound scientific comment. It a long story, but the short and gentle version is that the Institute is not mainstream genetics.

Dear Opinionated2:

Few scientists take ISIS seriously for reasons you can find easily at the website you cited. Look at some of the claims there:

“The only radical science magazine on earth: Science in Society”

How about Mae-Wan Ho’s latest book,

“Unraveling AIDS” (review the contents yourself!), promoted on the cover by Joe Cummins (fellow ISIS member and frequent co-author with Ho; so much for independence) and praised by Dr David Rasnick, who promoted the disasterous program in South Africa to deny HIV as the cause of AIDS and the use of drugs for suppression of AIDS (http://quackfiles.blogspot.com/2005/05/discredited-doctors-cure-for-aids.html) and Gary Null, who has a similarly inglorious career (http://www.quackwatch.org/04ConsumerEducation/null.html).

As noted by Agronomist, many of the people on ISIS’s list of “international scientists” are clearly not scientists. Compare their list to http://www.agbioworld.org/declaration/index.html supporting biotech with more than 3000 scientists, including 25 Nobel Prize winners, and supporters like Jimmy Carter. No Prize winners at all with ISIS. You’ll also find a summary of papers on GM feeding trials etc. at www.agbioworld.org

Dear Julie NonGMFarmer Newman: Not even retired Monsanto.
I am also on a dialup phone line, and thus often lag behind the posts and don’t have the speed to chase all your urls.

You’ll also find a summary of papers on GM feeding trials etc. at www.agbioworld.org

Where did Judy Carman ever predict the CSIRO results?

I’m still waiting for answers to many of questions, listed again in the last few days. In the meantime, you might be interested to learn that Germany has just approved the cultivation of GM corn (http://www.ellinghuysen.com/news/articles/26199.shtml). Germany will thus grow GM grain crops before Australia, and apparently there are already about 200 ha there.

Sweden's leading meat processor will end its decade long ban on the use of genetically modified (GM) feed by its member farmers.
http://www.foodnavigator.com/news/ng.asp?n=64630&m=1FNED16&c=kzldommuocyjajp