On 29 February I posted a few words on Marie-Monique Robin's attack on Monsanto. Her excellent documentary Le Monde Selon Monsanto (trailer in French and English) was screened on the Franco-German TV channel ARTE and was followed by a debate in which a certain Christian Vélot took part. Vélot teaches molecular genetics at the University of Paris Sud and leads a research team at the University's Orsay Insitute of Genetics and Microbiology. In the past four years he held several public conferences in which he fiercely criticised the use of GMOs for purposes not directly linked to laboratory research, highlighting the risks and dangers involved in releasing GMOs into the environment and using them in the food industry.These are the views he bravely and intelligently defended during the TV debate. But scientific independence has a price and in Velot's case it turned out to be a high one. A few days after the TV show he received a letter informing him that the the Institut d'Orsay would no longer require his lab's services once the current term ended in 2010. Christian Vélot's name can now be added to the long list of scientists who were harassed, threatened and ultimately fired for being honest with the public on the GMO issue. You can read the full story (in French) here. And in comics form here.
Europe, the free continent? Europe the GMO-free continent? Yeah, right.
Europe, the free continent? Europe the GMO-free continent? Yeah, right.
A petition (in French) in support of Christian Vélot and his lab can be signed here.
1 comment:
I think the problem is that the so called freedom we are enjoying -specially in developed countries- is just imaginary. I believe the media has done a very good job numbing our minds in order to keep us far from the reality of things and the real problems of the world.
Is democracy really making the world a better place for the people or simply being concern with the corporative rights? Noam Chomsky called this the forth freedom , the freedom of looting, invading and destroying all resources in the name of freedom. Money still rules.
In the meantime we just have to hang on and keeping active campaigning and helping each other with all our might.
Saludos Rebeldes
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