Sense About Science aka UK Science Media Centre lobbies for the pesticide companies in the European Union despite Brexit

Corporate funded lobby group Sense About Science aka the Science Media Centre is trying to get Europe to control pesticide lobbies agricultural science view now after its moderately successful campaign controlling the nuclear sciences (post Leveson Inquiry). Going to the Science Media Centre Website you can see all the corporations that donate to this lobbyist “charity” including big Agro, nuclear energy etc

Here is the latest in UK lobbying for corporate interests that gives a link to the Sense About Science “Charity” web site

http://www.euractiv.com/section/agriculture-food/opinion/trusting-science-in-an-age-of-truthiness/

More info on the Science Media Centre controlling the perception of health and environmental effects here with the help of the BBC amongst others;

https://nuclear-news.net/?s=Science+Media+Centre

And an article discusing some of the arguments about industries claims of “sound science”or Fiona Fox MD of the Science Media Centre`s claim of “the right science”

SNIP

“…

How sound is ‘sound science’?

While in itself far from perfect, the EU has a ‘farm to fork’ policy where each part of the food chain is monitored and – at least in some areas – applies the precautionary principle. The US system in contrast focuses only on the end product, which can only be regulated or banned when there is a scientific consensus on its danger or toxicity. Meanwhile, Europe’s precautionary principle enables intervention without waiting for the end of the scientific debate.

From tobacco to climate change, there is a long history of industry tactics to create doubt over the scientific evidence, paying studies to maintain this doubt alive in the media and attacking any unwanted evidence as ‘junk science’ as opposed to ‘sound science’. In a hard hitting column published in Nature, science writer Colin Macilwain says: “The term ‘sound science’ has become Orwellian double-speak for various forms of pro-business spin.”9

This is just as true in food regulation. With TTIP, industry is taking its fake notion of ‘sound science’ to stage an ongoing attack on the EU food safety system, implying that it is not science-based. ECPA and CropLife for instance attack the EU pesticide risk assessment, demanding “the inclusion of science-based risk assessment as the unified basis for pesticide regulation”.10 Indeed, US-negotiators are already pushing strongly for a separate article on “science-based risk assessment” in TTIP.11

In fact, while industry claims that current EU risk assessments are more demanding than is scientifically legitimate, environmental and public health organisations are saying the opposite: science is showing that risk assessments and safety studies – notably for pesticides and GMOs – should be strengthened also in Europe.12 …”

END SNIP

https://corporateeurope.org/international-trade/2014/07/ttip-lose-lose-deal-food-and-farming

January 28, 2017 - Posted by arclight2011part2 | Uncategorized