Royal Society president accuses Meacher of twisting facts to suit case against GM foods

The president of the Royal Society, the national academy of sciences, lambasted the former environment minister Michael Meacher yesterday for putting his own spin on the safety of GM food.

Lord May of Oxford, a former chief scientific adviser to the Government, said Mr Meacher had twisted the facts to suit the case against the introduction of GM foods.

Lord May said that the former minister was guilty of distortion and an ideological conviction, which had hampered an honest approach to the science of GM. He was referring to an article Mr Meacher wrote in The Independent on Sunday.

He said: "The recent newspaper articles by Mr Meacher appear to show an ideological opposition to GM crops, and present a severely distorted account of the scientific facts and uncertainties surrounding GM foods."

Mr Meacher quoted the Royal Society's report into GM crops to justify his concerns. Lord May said: "By quoting very selectively from the Royal Society report on GM plants published last year, Mr Meacher has also shown that he is not averse to applying his own spin to the scientific evidence on GM.

"Although Mr Meacher refers to our report, he conspicuously fails to mention its principal conclusion that there is no scientific reason to doubt the safety of foods made from GM ingredients that are currently available, nor to believe that genetic modification makes GM foods inherently less safe than their conventional counterparts."

Mr Meacher said that the notion of "substantial equivalence", which attempts to compare GM food with its non-GM alternative, was "scientifically vacuous" because it did not take into account the unpredictable nature of GM technology. But Lord May said substantial equivalence was far from being scientifically vacuous. It was being adopted by the World Health Organisation and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

He said: "The [Royal Society's] report pointed out that genetic modification may be used in future to improve the quality of food, which again Mr Meacher appears unwilling to acknowledge.

"Mr Meacher attempts to play up the uncertainties surrounding the techniques of genetic modification. A balanced account would also have pointed out that each act of conventional cross-breeding leads to the shuffling of far greater numbers of genes in an uncontrolled way. It is perhaps helpful that Mr Meacher has now made his ideological stance so explicit, so that the public can judge for themselves his statements on GM science."

Mr Meacher was unavailable for comment.

* Mr Meacher was appointed vice-chairman of a left-wing think-tank that has been critical of the Government. Catalyst describes itself as a "campaigning think-tank for the Labour movement and the left ... committed to the redistribution of wealth, power and opportunity".

Mr Meacher said yesterday: "An independent voice of radicalism within the Labour movement is very much needed at the present time."