Biotech Industry Uses Fake Famine To Promote GM Food

" The PR exploitation of drought and hunger in Zambia shows that for the [genetically modified (GM) food] lobby there are no limits, even when it involves rewriting history and manufacturing crimes against humanity," GM Watch's Jonathan Matthews writes. In 2002, Zambia sparked a firestorm when it refused to accept U.S. donations of GM corn to offset a looming famine. The Zambia government had concerns about the safety of GM foods. Industry-friendly experts, the U.S. State Department and U.S. trade officials began savaging the Zambian government and the environmental movement. For example, the Hudson Institute's Alex Avery attacked Dr. Charles Benbrook, a former Executive Director of the Board on Agriculture for the US National Academy of Sciences, for having the "blood of the starvation victims" on his hands. "Benbrook's crime had been to tell the Zambian scientists during their fact-finding mission that there was no shortage of non-GM foods which could be offered to Zambia and that, 'To a large extent, this ‘crisis' has been manufactured ... by those looking for a new source of traction in the evolving global debate over agricultural biotechnology,'" Matthews writes.