Anti-GM scientists face widespread assaults on credibility.

• Author: Rowell, Andy
• Position: Biodevastation - Genetic modification

Anti-GM scientists and activists are increasingly having their credibility attacked through a campaign orchestrated by the biotech industry. Now that campaign has seen a prestigious scientific journal become the latest casualty. The attacks against the journal Nature culminated in the publication of an admission that it was wrong to print a scientific paper last year that was critical of GM. The admission was the first in the journal's history. It is apparently the latest example of biotech giants using front organizations and websites to discredit scientific research that criticizes GM technology.

The saga started in November 2001 when Nature published an article by scientists from the University of California Berkeley that alleged contamination of native Mexican maize by GM. As Mexico has a moratorium on commercial GM planting, it raised issues of genetic pollution in a center of unique maize biodiversity.

The paper led to the researchers and Nature being attacked by pro-GM scientists and the biotech industry. Nature finally buckled under the pressure, issuing a statement saying it had concluded "that the evidence available is not sufficient to justify the publication of the original paper."

The political context is that the biotech industry is trying to lift European, Brazilian and Mexican moratoria on genetically modified seeds or foods. It is desperate to open up Europe, having lost more than $200 million due to the moratorium on growing of GM corn alone. Nature has refused to comment further about the row.

Despite Nature's climb-down, the authors of the original study, David Quist and Ignacio Chapela, have published new evidence that they say vindicates their original findings. They add that two other studies by the Mexican government confirm their research and believe Nature has been "under incredible pressure from the powers that be."

"This is a very, very well concerted, coordinated and paid for campaign to discredit the very simple statement that we made," says Dr Chapela.

The central co-ordinator of the attacks has been C.S. Prakash, who is a professor of Plant Molecular Genetics at Tuskegee University, Alabama, and who runs the AgBioWorld Foundation. AgBioWorld was co-founded by an employee of the Washington-based right-wing think tank Competitive Enterprise Institute.

Prakash calls the Quist and Chapela study "flawed" and says the "results did not justify the conclusions." He says that they Were "too eager to publish their...