Incorrect reports on genetic engineering are being circulated in the internet, which could be aimed at discrediting anti-genetic engineering lobbyists, Green Party Agriculture Spokesperson Ian Ewen-Street said today.

On Monday the Green Party issued a statement referring to an alleged United Nations Food Safety Agency decision to reject genetically engineered hormonal milk.

According to information sent to anti-genetic engineering newsgroups, the decision was unanimously made by the agency to support a moratorium on Monsanto's recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH) in milk

Today Mr Ewen-Street said the truth was that the UN agency had considered new evidence that the hormonal milk was unsafe but that a final decision had been shelved.

"I have yet to discover exactly how we and others have been misled here," he said. "But one aspect of the incorrect story which does disturb me is that a Professor Sam Epstein has been quoted as the source. This man is a well known author and cancer researcher who has done much to publicise the dangers of pesticides. His name has apparently been misused, either by an over-enthusiastic reporter or more likely by someone wishing to deliberately distribute misinformation.

"Clearly I must be more careful with overseas reports on genetic engineering, and I retract the release I issued on Monday headed `UN decision a timely warning for NZ Dairy Board'."

ENDS

© Scoop Media

Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>