Tag Archives: Jeffrey Smith

Over The Top Anti-GMO Writer

Richard Ha writes:

Mike Adams runs the anti-science, anti-biotech Natural News.com and he had a whopper of a post recently, even for him. He has lots of websites and makes lots of money from scaring people, but condoning the murder of pro-GMO supporters is over the top, and the anti-GMO movement should be careful not to be used by this nut case.

From Genetic Literacy Project:

FBI turns up heat on Mike Adams as ‘Health Ranger’ fiasco widens, plus Adams’ archive

Jon Entine | July 28, 2014 | Genetic Literacy Project

Last week, Mike Adams, the founder and editor of NaturalNews.com–a favorite site of Dr. Oz and anti-GMO campaigners, from Vandana Shiva to Center for Food Safety’s Andrew Kimbrell to the Food Babe to Jeffrey Smith, but also dubbed by scientists and journalists as the number one anti-science site in cyberspace–launched an all out offensive against crop biotechnology.

Adams posted a screed on his website (since sanitized by Adams; we’ve included link to the pre-censored version) attacking supporters of genetic engineering as modern day Nazis, suggesting that anti-GMO activists should consider murdering scientists and journalists for their crimes against humanity. Adams then alerted readers to another site, Monsanto Collaborators, which was more or less a handy online list of these so-called ‘Nazi perpetrators”–aka scientists, journalists and news organizations that believe biotechnology can play a constructive role in farming–for crazies who might want to follow Adams’ marching orders and begin assassinations. I was prominently mentioned by Adams, no doubt because of the scathing Adams profile and fact sheet summary GLP posted in April….

Read the rest here

Bill 113: What’s Next

Richard Ha writes:

Someone suggested that my change of plans re: putting 264 acres into preservation land smells of sour grapes – that I made a knee-jerk decision because I was upset that the anti-GMO Bill 113 passed.

But that’s not the way I make decisions. I am always looking five, 10 and 20 years ahead and planning what we need to do now to get where we need to be. Suddenly the future of farming on this island looked different, and I needed to be sure we have some flexibility at the farm.

Since I last wrote about this, though, I spoke with the USDA and found an option I didn’t previously know about. We can do a conservation easement that is less than the entire parcel. This will allow us to have a few small parcels that future generations could use for safety valve purposes, and still put land into the conservation easement. We will probably do this.

On Tuesday, the Hawai‘i County Council will decide whether to form an ad hoc committee of council members to analyze GMO issues and give the council recommendations for action. Otherwise, the mayor will do the analysis in-house.

It is no secret that I would have preferred for Mayor Kenoi to veto the anti-GMO Bill 113. But the reality is that the mayor did not have the votes to support a veto, and in this set of circumstances, I support the mayor over the council. He signed the bill, rather than wimping out and letting it pass without his signature. He was concerned about the rift in this community, and he assured the farmers that they would not get hurt.

And most of all, I know the Mayor is fact- and data-driven, something that is sorely missing from our current county council.

What I know about the county council is that its members have proven that they cannot separate fact from fiction, and therefore they are unqualified and unable to prepare us for the future.

In the recent Bill 113 debacle, our county council called Jeffrey Smith as its premier expert. This is an individual who has self-published two books about GMO foods but has zero scientific credentials and has been thoroughly debunked as any sort of credible GMO expert. He specializes in yogic flying (a kind of cross-legged hopping done in hopes of reducing crime and increasing “purity and harmony” in the “collective consciousness”). They allowed Smith to testify about GMOs for more than half an hour.

Three University of Hawai‘i experts on GMOs, on the other hand, were given a total of three minutes, between them, to testify. This averages out to one minute each.

If we are taking science into account, the Seralini study – which linked genetically modified maize and the herbicide RoundUp as having an increased cancer risk, and which was always widely pointed to as proving GMO foods were unsafe – was recently retracted by the scientific journal that published it, and rejected by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) for having serious defects and failing to meet scientific standards.

County Councilwoman Margaret Wille made a very inflammatory remark in a comment following a Honolulu Civil Beat article written by University of Hawai‘i professor Michael Shintaku. In her comment, she accused Professor Shintaku, as well as Dr. Susan Miyasaka and Dean Maria Gallo (also of the UH College of Tropical Agriculture), of being “unmistakeably caught in the predicament of becoming the mouthpiece for the GMO biotech industry that provides much of the funding for their employer.”

Michael Shintaku responded with a polite comment that detailed how she was incorrect. Many scientists voiced outrage at the inaccurate and flippant comment that impugned their integrity.

It seems, unfortunately, to be par for the course for some who are anti-science and anti-GMO. Have they made up their mind without regard to truth? Have they dug in their heels, refusing to ever even consider new evidence?

I haven’t. If suddenly there was real science that showed harm from GMOs, I would cross that off my list and move on to the next best solution that would help our island. To date, though, there has never been any such science, not anywhere.

Our county council clearly does not understand farming. Councilwoman Wille likes to show how many letters she has in favor of banning GMOs, but the smaller stack from people opposing the ban was from the farmers who produce more than 90 percent of the calories grown here on the Big Island.

Why is she listening to the gardeners and not the farmers? There is such a difference between gardening and farming. I compare it to cooking turkeys. Cooking one turkey is easy – you just turn the dial for the right time and temperature, and then poof! It’s perfect. Crispy on the outside and juicy on the inside. Cooking one turkey is similar to gardening.

Farming, on the other hand, is like cooking 20 turkeys an hour every hour. They cannot be burnt on the outside and raw on the inside. And they must be ready on time or your customers lose money. And every so often the power goes off or the house blows down and you have to start all over again. Farming is much more complicated than gardening.

Some anti-GMO people proclaim that we should all just eat organic. But have a look at Table 2 on page 19 of this Baseline Food Sustainability chart from the county.

Based on that table, we compared prices between a Kona supermarket and a Kona natural food store. The annual budget for a family of five at the Kona supermarket was approximately $20,000, while at the natural foods store it was slightly more than $42,000.

We did a similar comparison in Waimea, and the results were substantially the same. It is clear that most folks cannot afford organics.

Senator Ruderman, who owns a natural foods chain, claimed our price comparisons are wildly inaccurate, but they are not.

A few days ago, we learned that the Florida citrus industry, which has lost more than a million acres to citrus greening disease, may have found a GMO solution.

Although anti-GMO folks like to say they are on the side of farmers, if citrus greening disease makes it to the Big Island and we are not legally allowed to use the Florida GMO solution, it is only homeowners and small farmers who will be hurt.

Read this link for a sample of what some of the people who testified on the anti-GMO/County Council side of the argument were doing in the background. It is mean-spirited and it’s not who we in Hawai‘i are. There is no aloha in this.

Mainland GMO Battle, New York Times Arrive In Hilo

Richard Ha writes:

Yesterday, as I sat in on a Hawai‘i County Council discussion of the anti-GMO bill, I realized that I am starting to get a very uncomfortable feeling. It looks like the anti-GMO effort we are seeing here is being organized and run from the Mainland.

A reporter from the New York Times attended yesterday’s Hawai‘i Council Council meeting, too. I think they are tracking the money.

From Genetic Literacy Project (tagline: “Where Science Trumps Ideology”):

Hawaii anti-GMO ‘corruption’ scandal? Genetic Literacy Project investigation underway

Jon Entine | September 3, 2013
| Genetic Literacy Project

It’s shaping up to be an ugly week on Hawaii Island. Beginning in Hilo on Wednesday, September 4, the island Council will again debate controversial measures designed to curtail the growing of genetically modified crops on the island.

The Battle over GMOs on both Hawaii and Kauai has been rancorous, threatening to tear apart the aloha spirit that has defined the Hawaiian Islands for centuries. The ‘public discussion’
took a sharply political turn in May when Kohala Councilwoman Margaret Wille brought forward Bill 79, which banned GMOs but proposed to exempt the GMO Rainbow papaya crop, which is credited by scientists and independent experts for rescuing the papaya on Hawaii from extinction threatened by the ringspot
virus.

Bill 79 was widely regarded as a scientific and political mess, as the independent website Biofortified.org noted in its analysis. The
committee held four days of public comment sessions, with tensions running high and the debate turning personal. Wille withdrew the bill in early August after the hearings and a Council discussion made it clear that it was poorly written.

Now Wille is back with a similar measure. (The
GLP publishes a response to the bill below provided by the Hawaii Papaya Industry Association.) But this time, she has dubious company. South Kona/Ka‘u Councilwoman Brenda Ford has introduced her own “book burning” measure, proposing that all papaya fields be cut down and burned—the position supported
by the more radical anti-GMO activists who have come to dominate the anti side of the debate.

Funding corruption by anti-GMO campaigners? 

Activist leaders opposed to crop biotechnology, such as Walter Ritte, the Molokai-based political activist, have attempted to frame this battle as David vs. Goliath, threadbare grassroots campaigners fighting Big Ag. Although they claim their opposition to the innovative technology is home grown, a Genetic Literacy
Project investigation, still in its infancy, suggests that the opposition is flush with cash, getting hundreds of thousands of dollars each year from mainland anti-GMO organic organizations that have an ideological stake in blocking new farming technologies.

For nearly a decade, an impressionable anti-GMO mob mentality has been carefully cultivated on Hawaii island, but documents reviewed by the GLP suggest this increasingly ugly turn has been nurtured by slick and well financed outsiders….  Read the rest

Not only is outside money possibly dictating our future, but also of note is that Councilperson Brenda Ford arranged for someone named Jeffrey Smith to Skype into the County Council discussion yesterday from the Mainland.

It takes very little research to see that Jeffrey Smith is not credible, but goes around the country scaring people with his unsubstantiated claims that have been widely discredited by the scientific community. He has no scientific credentials and has self-published a book called “Genetic Roulette.”

Here’s what the independent, non-profit organization Academics Review says:

Yogic Flying and GM Foods:The Wild Theories of Jeffrey Smith

…The “scientific studies” that Smith says support his theories are thoroughly contradicted by a vast body of data and scientific
experience; they are wholly irresponsible. In his single-minded campaign against GM crops, Smith has shown an amazing capacity to ignore the scientific literature on almost every topic he discusses.

But, as he showed at that press conference when he explained the role that meditation should play in the “collective consciousness,” Smith is a gifted communicator.

He’s particularly adept at getting his message out via the latest online methods, which he uses to spread his misinformation about
biotechnology, in particular, to an ever-widening audience. In his most recent self-published book, Genetic Roulette, Smith claims to show 65 different “documented health risks” associated with biotech foods. Not one of them has been found to be scientifically valid by Academics Review.

Also from Academics Review, which is “an association of academic professors, researchers, teachers and credentialed authors from around the world who are committed to the unsurpassed value of the peer review in establishing sound science. We stand against falsehoods, half-baked assertions and theories or claims not subjected to this kind of rigorous review:”

Jeffrey Smith: False Claims Unsupported by Science

Jeffrey Smith has gained fame for claiming biotech foods are dangerous, but none of his claims are based on sound science. Smith has no discernible scientific training  yet makes 65 such claims in his book Genetic Roulette. Click here for a point-by-point response based on peer-reviewed science.

Others agree:

Discover magazine blog:

When the definitive history of the GMO debate is written, Jeffrey Smith is going to figure prominently in the section on pseudoscience. He is the equivalent of an anti-vaccine leader,
someone who is quite successful in spreading fear and false information. (AsDavid Gorski at the Science-based Medicine blog has noted, the anti-vaccine and anti-GMO movements are two birdsof the same feather.) 

Forbes:

For whatever reason, Smith hasbecome wildly popular among the antis, and his books—however dubiously written and sourced—are cited as canon by rank and file protestors.

Smith’s own Wikipedia bio: A variety of American organic food companies see Smith “as a champion for their interests,” and Smith’s supporters describe him as “arguably the world’s foremost expert on the topic of genetically modified foods.” Michael Specter,
writing in The New Yorker,
reported that Smith was presented as a “scientist” on The Dr. Oz Show although he lacks any scientific experience or relevant qualifications. Bruce Chassy, a molecular biologist and food scientist, wrote to the show arguing that Smith’s “only professional experience prior to taking up his crusade against biotechnology is as a ballroom-dance teacher, yogic flying instructor, and political candidate for the Maharishi cult’s natural-law party.” The director of the Organic Consumers Association says Smith is “respected as a public educator on GMOs” while “supporters of biotechnology” have described him as “misinformed and misleading” and as “an activist with no scientific or medical background” who is known for his “near-hysterical criticism of biotech foods.”

Per Wikipedia, then, Jeffrey Smith’s professional experience is in ballroom dancing and yogic flying.

Honestly, I don’t think any part of this debate is about us. From my local point of view, this whole mainland-fueled debate is about national organic farming vs. Monsanto.

But fighting this war here means local farmers become collateral damage. All we farmers want is not to get trampled by the elephants. If we on the Big Island cannot use biotech when farmers all around us can, we lose and eventually we Big Island farmers all go out of business. So what if food costs rise for the rubbah slippah folks, right?