GMWatch launches new myth-busting website

GMWatch launches new myth-busting website
Immediate release, 22 July 2009

GMWatch has just launched its new website: www.gmwatch.org, which replaces the one forced off the web by 14 months of cyberattacks. A network engineer brought in to advise on the damage described these as the worst attacks he'd seen in his 20 years in the industry.[1]

The new site has been designed to be user-friendly, making it easy to navigate what George Monbiot has called "the world's most comprehensive database on the impacts and the politics of genetically engineered crops."[2] This includes GMWatch's archive of nearly a decade of news and analysis from GMWatch's daily, weekly and monthly lists, including material translated into several other languages.

GMWatch has been at the forefront of the global campaign of opposition to the imposition of GM food and crops, and the new site includes detailed guides to:
*how the media is manipulated by wildly misleading claims about GM;
*the myth-makers: the people hyping and promoting GM crops world-wide;
*the GM corporations and their toxic legacy of global pollution and deceit.

Jonathan Matthews, founder of GMWatch, commented, "Our campaign and this site are all about busting the myths about GM crops. The reality is that this is a technology shrouded in risks and uncertainties. It has failed to significantly increase the productivity of food and feed crops or deliver on almost any of the extraordinary claims made for it - but it is being relentlessly pushed by people, institutions and even governments with massive vested interests in its acceptance. The GMWatch website is the place to go for those who want to get at the reality behind the spin and hyperbole."

GMWatch co-editor Claire Robinson said, "Establishing the new GMWatch website alongside its sister site GMWatch Spinprofiles,[3] and the BanGMFood campaign[4] has been an enormous task, and we'd like to thank all our fellow campaigners who've supported that process, not least the volunteers who helped transfer our enormous archive. They've done an amazing job of work and we've now got our best ever campaigning armoury for attacking the web of deceit over GM foods."

Notes

[1] Interview about attacks on GMWatch
http://www.gmwatch.org/latest-listing/1-test/334-interview-about-attacks-on-gm-watch

[2] Comments on GMWatch
http://www.spinprofiles.org/index.php/Comments_on_GMWatch

[3] GMWatch Spinprofiles is at
http://www.spinprofiles.org/index.php/GM_Watch:_Portal
It's the GM portal of a free online index cataloging the details of industry-friendly experts, and the institutes, think tanks, and front groups they work out of in their battle to influence public opinion and public policy. It's an international undertaking, written collaboratively with wiki technology, aimed at tackling PR and propaganda activities on a wide range of important issues.

[4] The BanGMFood campaign is at
http://www.bangmfood.org/
It explains:
• why we need to act - with detailed references to scientific studies showing the harm caused by GM foods;
• how GM foods are being introduced by stealth;
• why GM and non-GM food crops can't co-exist;• what we can do to challenge the imposition of GM foods, primarily in a UK/EU context.

ENDS

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