UK: Further resign from FSA steering group

Professor Brian Wynne, who was vice chairman of a steering group set up by the Food Standards Agency to gauge the public mood on GM food, has resigned, saying that the public consultation was "rigged" from the start in favour of the controversial new technology, The Telegraph reports. According to the professor, this is another arm of propaganda to try and push the opinion of the British public in the right direction. Professor Wynne, a sociologist at Lancaster University, is the UK's leading expert on public engagement with science who has also advised House of Lords and EU committees.
 
The steering group of 11 experts was appointed by the FSA in November 2009 to begin a dialogue with the public on the growing use of GM crops in food, with the purpose to try and find out consumer views of GM products appearing on supermarket shelves. According to recent surveys, a third of the population are against the technology, even though most of the meat eaten in the UK is already from animals fed on GM. Government ministers have backed the  technology and there are ongoing trials in Britain, even though no crops are grown commercially. Earlier in the week another member of the group, Dr Helen Wallace, Director of Genewatch, resigned in protest at the FSA's allegedly close links with the agri-chemical industry (we reported earlier). The Food Standards Agency insisted the dialogue would be balanced.

The Telegraph