http://www.gmwatch.org/latest-listing/1-news-items/11801-pusztai-to-receive-stuttgart-peace-prize

Dr Pusztai on the 10th anniversary of GM safety scandal

The following is an email - of 10 August 2008 from Dr Pusztai to Claire Robinson and Jonathan Matthews of GMWatch, in which Dr Pusztai comments on the 10th anniversary of the television interview.

Dear Claire and Jonathan,

I thought that I should write to you on the 10th anniversary of my 150 seconds of TV "fame" and tell you what I think now. It is very appropriate to write to you because you have provided the most comprehensive service to inform people about the shenanigans of the GM biotechnology industry and its advocates.

On this anniversary I have to admit that, unfortunately, not much has changed since 1998. In one of the few sentences I said in my broadcast ten years ago, I asked for a credible GM testing protocol to be established that would be acceptable to the majority of scientists and to people in general. 10 years on we still haven't got one. Instead, in Europe we have an unelected EFSA GMO Panel with no clear responsibility to European consumers, which invariably underwrites the safety of whatever product the GM biotech industry is pushing onto us.

All of us asked for independent, transparent and inclusive research into the safety of GM plants, and particularly those used in foods. There is not much sign of this either. There are still "many opinions but very few data"; less than three dozen peer-reviewed scientific papers have been published describing the results of work relating to GM safety that could actually be regarded as being of an academic standard; and the majority of even these is from industry-supported labs. Instead we have the likes of Tony Trewavas and others writing unsupported claims for the safety of GM food and defaming people like Rachel Carson who can no longer defend herself; not that she needs to be defended from such nonentities.

In normal times one would not pay much attention to such people desperately trying to be seen as the advocates of true science, but these are not normal times. The mostly engineered (GM engineered) food crisis gives the GM biotech industry and its warriors an opportunity to come to the fore with claims that GM is the only way to save a hungry world; a claim not much supported by responsible bodies, such as the IAASTD. The advocates of GM also now think that they have found a chink in the armory of people's resolve that they can exploit by telling us that we would not be able to feed our animals without GM feedstuffs. In this way, they hope to bring in GM by the backdoor. Please remember that whatever our animals eat, we shall also get back indirectly. Rather ominously, there has been no work whatever to show the safety of the meat of GM-fed animals.

We must not underestimate the financial and political clout of the GM biotechnology industry. Most of our politicians are committed to the successful introduction of GM foods. We must therefore use all means at our disposal to show people the shallowness of these claims by the industry and the lack of credible science behind them, and then trust to people's good sense, just as in 1998, to see through the falseness of the claims for the safety of untested GM foods.

Let's hope that on the 20th anniversary I shall not have to write another warning letter about the dangers of untested GM foods!

Best wishes to all
Arpad Pusztai

Helen Slottje, 2014 Goldman Environmental Prize, USA
Goldman Prize

Published on Apr 27, 2014 (2,112 views)

Using a clause in the state constitution that gives municipalities the right to make local land use decisions, Helen Slottje provided pro-bono legal assistance, helping towns across New York defend themselves from oil and gas companies by passing local bans on fracking.

She is the North America winner of the 2014 Goldman Environmental Prize, the world's largest recognition for grassroots environmental activists. For more information visit http://www.goldmanprize.org/home

http://www.youtube.com/user/goldmanprize

Goldman Environmental Prize: The world's largest award for grassroots environmental activists
1,296 views 1 week ago

The Goldman Environmental Prize, founded in 1989 by San Francisco philanthropists Richard and Rhoda Goldman, continues today with its original mission to annually honor grassroots environmental heroes from the six inhabited continental regions: Africa, Asia, Europe, Islands & Island Nations, North America, and South & Central America. The Prize recognizes individuals for sustained and significant efforts to protect and enhance the natural environment, often at great personal risk...



MORE: http://www.youtube.com/user/goldmanprize/videos

http://archpsyc.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1859135

JAMA Psychiatry

Original Investigation | April 09, 2014

Mitochondrial Dysfunction as a Neurobiological Subtype of Autism Spectrum Disorder
Evidence From Brain Imaging

Suzanne Goh, MD1; Zhengchao Dong, PhD1,3; Yudong Zhang, PhD1,2; Salvatore DiMauro, MD3; Bradley S. Peterson, MD1

[-] Author Affiliations
1Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York
2New York State Psychiatric Institute, New York
3Department of Neurology, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York

JAMA Psychiatry. Published online April 09, 2014. doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2014.179

http://videocast.nih.gov/summary.asp?Live=13929&bhcp=1

IACC Full Committee Meeting, April 2014 Video

Air date: Tuesday, April 08, 2014, 8:45:00 AM
Views: Total views: 630, (471 Live, 159 On-demand)
Runtime: 06:48:21

Category: Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee

Description: The IACC will meet to discuss ASD research and services activities.
Author: Dr. Thomas Insel

Retweeted by Autism Revolution
Martha Herbert ?@marthaherbertmd 25 Jul 2012

Probably won’t find a single enviro culprit for #autism – many env agents, fewer physiological pathways. @AutismRevolutio @marthaherbertmd

Retweeted by Autism Revolution
Martha Herbert ?@marthaherbertmd 25 Jul 2012

Synapses, glial cells, brain energy & more: all highly environmentally vulnerable–to many things. #ASD @marthaherbertmd @AutismRevolutio

Martha Herbert ?@marthaherbertmd Feb 20 2014

MT - Beyond Hopelessness: Autism as a complex, chronic, whole-body disorder (not a permanent, brain-based trait)

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/05/03/us-health-autism-idUKKBN0DJ0H020140503

Environment as important as genes in autism, study finds

BY KATE KELLAND
LONDON Sat May 3, 2014 9:41pm BST

(Reuters) - Environmental factors are more important than previously thought in leading to autism, as big a factor as genes, according to the largest analysis to date to look at how the brain disorder runs in families.

Sven Sandin, who worked on the study at King's College London and Sweden's Karolinska institute, said it was prompted "by a very basic question which parents often ask: 'If I have a child with autism, what is the risk my next child will too?'"

The findings, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), suggest heritability is only half the story, with the other 50 percent explained by environmental factors such as birth complications, socio-economic status, or parental health and lifestyle.

The study also found that children with a brother or sister with autism are 10 times more likely to develop the condition, three times if they have a half-brother or sister with autism, and twice as likely if they have a cousin with autism.

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