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>From http://www.observer.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,726234,00.html
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The conspiracy to undermine the truth about our GM drama
A BBC eco-thriller is at the centre of a furious row. Ronan Bennett, co-author of
Fields of Gold, says that the attacks are orchestrated and groundless
Sunday June 2, 2002
The Observer
One of the characters in Fields of Gold, a young, keen news photographer working
on suspicious deaths at a cottage hospital, tries to convince her senior, somewhat
jaundiced colleagues there is more to the story than meets the eye. Sighs all round.
The reporter she has been working with apologises sarcastically to his editor:
'Missed the story. Big conspiracy by the forces of darkness. It was right in front of
me
and I didn't see it.' The silly little girl is sent off with a flea in her ear.
Conspiracies are the stuff of thrillers, not real life. Except that Fields of Gold, a
two-
part drama about genetically-modified crops, has become the centre of an ugly little
conspiracy by those with a vested interest in discrediting it and personal grudges to
settle.
Last week The Times and Daily Telegraph ran prominent news stories in which a
number of senior scientists, who appear not to have seen Fields of Gold, attacked
the drama, which will be shown on BBC1 on 8 and 9 June.
According to Lord May, president of the Royal Society, it is an 'error- strewn piece of
propaganda'. Mark Tester, a Cambridge researcher who gave the production team
some helpful notes as we were about to start filming but has since changed his mind
on some of his earlier advice, claimed it risked 'inflaming further the anti-GM
attitude
in the West, to the detriment of the developing world'.
Fields of Gold was likened variously to Spiderman, Star Wars, The X-Files and Day
of the Triffids, and the BBC was upbraided for treating GM as 'fatuous science
fiction. Just now, when the Prime Minister has spoken so forcefully in favour of
rational discussion, it is particularly important to keep the debate on a realistic
footing.'
The Times headlined its piece: 'BBC drama peddles ludicrous lies on GM'; the
Telegraph's story was billed: 'Adviser accuses BBC of being anti-GM in "ridiculous"
thriller'. More puzzling, it accuses me of 'contaminating the GM debate with the
methods of Irish Republican agitprop' - puzzling because the drama is nothing to do
with Ireland, but understandable in the context of Telegraph editor Charles Moore's
bizarre personal crusade against me and my work.
Since the Telegraph accuses us of 'dramatically modified truth' and the Times
accuses us of 'lies', it seems odd that they are not being open about the origin of the
story. Nowhere did they mention it had been brought to them by a lobbying
organisation, Science Media Centre.
SMC was set up recently and, according to its website, has 'a brief to renew public
trust in science'. Its funders include Dupont, Merlin Biosciences, Pfizer, PowderJect
and Smith & Nephew - all biotech or pharmaceutical companies with a direct interest
in the promotion of the technologies the drama explores.
Though SMC seems keen to become a sort of Mandelsonian rapid rebuttal unit, it
has yet to learn the subtler arts of black propaganda. When 'Fiona' from the centre
was touting the story around last week, she finished her email with a last
inducement: 'There will no doubt be others keen to have a pop at BBC/Guardian in
one go.' Helpfully, she sent the email to the Guardian, sister paper of The Observer.
The Guardian's editor, Alan Rusbridger, my co-writer on Fields of Gold, declined the
honour.
Fields of Gold started life almost three years ago when Alan and I met Jane Tranter,
the BBC's drama commissioner, to discuss a possible serial about genetic
modification. Alan had been running a series of articles on Monsanto and other GM
corporations, assessing the impact of the technology on farming, the environment
and the developing world. We were all familiar with footage of environmental activists
trashing GM trial sites and mounting public concern about the contamination of
ordinary crops by their genetically-modified near neighbours.
There was also Dolly the sheep, the mouse with the hideous ear on its back, and, of
course, incessant speculation about human cloning. A rich and, on the face of it,
promising concoction. Jane commissioned us to write the scripts. These were
completed last summer, after the usual rewrites and editing, and filmed in the
autumn, directed by Bill Anderson and starring Anna, Friel, Phil Davis, Max Beesley,
Ron Cook and James Fleet.
The Times and Telegraph articles give the impression that Alan and I set out with the
intention of discrediting GM and that the BBC was our willing accomplice. The truth is
that Alan places himself in the 'don't know' camp, and while more sceptical I am
certainly not anti- science.
Part of the problem about the debate over science is its polarised nature. If, like me,
you have no fundamental ethical or practical objections to the new technologies but
are nervous about how they are being developed - and worried about the
involvement of big business - you tend to find yourself dismissed as a Luddite, the
phrase favoured by Tony Blair. Hardly a happy term for the 'rational discussion'
scientists say he is so keen to promote.
The substance of the SMC-orchestrated attack is that Alan and I made up the
science to suit our purposes. This is wholly untrue. From the beginning, we were
adamant that the drama should be grounded in the real world, that what we portrayed
should be plausible. Before we started writing, Alan collected a great deal of
research material. As with all research, every area you investigate takes you
somewhere else. We started with GM crops. That took us to the crisis in British
farming. That took us to animal husbandry - to pig-breeding in particular, a sorry and
distressing tale in itself. Pigs, we discovered, like all farm animals, are pumped
full of
hormones, growth promoters and antibiotics. None of this is new, but I was
astonished by the scale of the pharmaceutical industry's involvement in what we eat.
Pharmaceuticals led us to another very topical area: antibiotic resistance and the
pharmaceutical industry's continuing and urgent efforts to develop new drugs to
combat bugs that have learnt to get round existing medicines. We spoke to doctors
and scientists and read House of Lords select committee reports - rarely covered in
the media - on the alarming increase of antibiotic resistance and the emergence of
superbugs such as MRSA and the vastly more terrifying VRSA (vancomycin-resistant
staphylococcus aureus).
The phrase that stays with me is: we are one drug away from disaster. Every time
scientists invent a drug, the microbes eventually find a way to outsmart it. The
scientists then invent another drug and the cycle continues.
We have got used to MRSA in hospitals and care homes, but few people are aware
of VRSA, a highly infectious and deadly bug resistant to everything. So far, there
have been only a small number of limited outbreaks, but if VRSA ever got into the
human population the consequences would be catastrophic. The Pentagon and
Ministry of Defence have contingency plans for such an eventuality.
By the time we had digested this information we seemed to have come a long way
from our starting point of GM. But then we asked: what if VRSA got into a genetically-
modified crop? What would be a possible outcome? Two big questions here: one,
would it be possible to get the vancomycin-resistant marker gene into a crop?
Second, having got it in, how would it get out? Could VRSA be transferred
'horizontally', that is between organisms, for example from plant to animal to man?
I'm reluctant to get too technical or to give away the plot, but this is the key to the
scientific objections to Fields of Gold.
We did more research and eventually found a suitable storyline. As the scripts were
developed, the BBC production team sought scientific advice. Was our scenario
plausible? Among those contacted for their opinion was Mark Tester, who has now,
with the help of SMC, taken the lead in denouncing us.
In July 2001 he gave us the following advice on the question of whether you could
get a vancomycin-resistant gene into the crop: 'Usually a bacterium is used - you
could change this to a virus... The plant culture then needs to have hormones added
to it to encourage the growth from the culture of new plants, among which will be the
GM plants. All this must occur in sterile conditions... He also needs to be able to
prepare the DNA, so needs a device that can shake flasks at 37 degrees... The rest
is bits and pieces - pipettes, petrie dishes, kitchen scales, and time.'
In other words, yes. Or, as another scientist put it to us: an A-level chemistry
student
could do it in his kitchen. But now Tester appears to have changed his mind and
says the idea is 'ridiculous'.
He is also quoted in the Times on 'horizontal transference'. He is adamant that
'horizontal gene transfer' could not happen 'readily or easily' and is one of the false
premises of our scenario. Yet in July 2001 he told us: 'Horizonal gene transfer may or
may not occur... I remain open-minded.' Open-minded no longer, it seems.
In fact, scientific opinion remains deeply divided. Only last week, a three-year study
at the University of Jena in Germany concluded that genes from genetically-modified
crops can spread from plants into other forms of wildlife, supporting
environmentalists' warnings and raising the possibility that people who eat GM foods
may also be affected. The research may not have been taken seriously by Tester
and SMC, but Nick Brown, the Agriculture Minister, made an emergency
announcement advising farmers to plough in the crop, a reversal of the
Government's position that no such action would be necessary.
There are other contradictions between what Tester says now and what he said to us
almost a year ago. But this is really beside the point. More pertinent is the over-
excited way in which a certain section of the scientific community has responded. In
orchestrating their unpleasant campaign to denigrate the programme-makers, they
are confirming the suspicions of those who have legitimate concerns about how and
why the new technologies are being developed. Campaigners on GM are used to the
smear tactics described by George Monbiot last week in the Guardian when he
revealed how GM giant Monsanto used fake email addresses to lobby on its behalf
and attack opponents.
Equally unappetising has been the readiness of certain newspapers to run the story
without asking basic questions about its origins.
Fields of Gold is not Luddite, it is not anti-GM propaganda. It is not anti-science. On
the contrary, the GM characters make a powerful case for their technology in the
opening minutes. Pro and anti arguments are heard throughout and in the end no
character has his or her view entirely confirmed or overturned. All are left, as we all
must be for the present, in a state of not knowing.
Related articles
02.06.2002: Lobby group 'led GM thriller critics'
31.05.2002: BBC defends upcoming drama about potential dangers of GM crops
Guardian Unlimited � Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002
End<{{{
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