The London Based SciDevNet, which is “committed to putting science at the heart of global development,” has an interesting post up today entitled, “Is science journalism ignoring censorship?” The questions raised by the author, Nick Ishmael Perkins, are first discussed in the context of traditional censorship issues, such as when governments restrict access to information. This is fairly straightforward. What is…Continue Reading…
It is not unusual for public figures to be unhappy with how they are portrayed in the media. Sometimes their complaints are understandable, other times not so much. What is unusual is for a public figure to take legal action against a journalist. That’s because in the United States there is a very high bar…Continue Reading…
I’m not feeling the love:
For GMO opponents, it’s been a good news/bad news week. The good news: Vermont became the first state to mandate the labeling of foods containing genetically modified ingredients. (More about that in a minute.) The bad news: New York Times food writer Mark Bittman, a darling of the food movement, wrote a column that called…Continue Reading…
From The Economist’s Demography and Development blog, several months ago: FACTS can be stubborn – and irritating. It is satisfying—perhaps even gratifying—to accept the idea that genetically modified crops are causing thousands of Indian farmers to commit suicide (as this article claims). The notion seems plausible: farmers take out higher debts on the promise that GM seeds…Continue Reading…
I recently gave a talk on agricultural biotechnology and the media to a graduate class taught by Calestous Juma at Harvard’s Kennedy school. I spoke about the frankenfood meme, the Monsanto effect and slanted journalism. During the Q & A, one of the students asked me when I thought misinformation on GMOs would stop appearing…Continue Reading…
The anti-GMO troops in the United States received some unwelcome news this week from Margaret Hamburg, commissioner of the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA). At a congressional hearing on Thursday, Hamburg reiterated the FDA’s support for voluntary GMO labeling initiatives, but nothing beyond that: The way FDA has for many years interpreted the law…Continue Reading…
The list of supermarkets, companies and restaurants hopping aboard the anti-GMO train keeps growing. Last year Whole Foods and Chipotle made headlines for their pledges to go GMO-free. [CORRECTION: Only Chipotle has made that pledge; Whole Foods has committed to labeling any of its products that contain GMOs] Numerous food companies have already slapped such a label on…Continue Reading…
In the U.S. food is taken for granted. There are well-stocked supermarkets and no shortage of cookbooks and eateries to indulge appetites. This bountiful supply allows Americans to focus more on the aesthetics of food and, to an increasing degree, where and how it is produced. For the millions around the globe who do not…Continue Reading…