A June 9 article by Elizabeth Millard notes ACSH's Stier and Whelan:
The presence of protests at gatherings like Bio 2004 has become fairly standard, said Jeff Stier, associate director of the American Council on Science and Health. In an interview with the E-Commerce Times, Stier said that although most demonstrators carry signs about the health effects of genetically modified foods, most often it is the presence of large corporations that really bothers them...
The presence of protests at gatherings like Bio 2004 has become fairly standard, said Jeff Stier, associate director of the American Council on Science and Health, a nonprofit consumer education organization.
In an interview with the E-Commerce Times, Stier said that demonstrators frequently mix up issues. Although most carry signs about the health effects of genetically modified foods, Stier has found that, most often, it is the presence of large corporations that really bothers them.
"They're anticorporate, and anti-agribusiness," he said. "They feel that if it's big and corporate, it must be bad. Then they use health to try and scare us."
Stier added that the ACSH supports the use of genetic engineering in food production. The group's president, Elizabeth Whelan, recently published an opinion piece in Environment News in which she accused antibiotech activists of sowing fear.
"American consumers should be appalled at the thought of antibiotech activists declaring war on so-called genetically modified organisms," she wrote.
Stier echoed her concerns, and noted that he was not surprised at the protests and subsequent arrests at the Bio 2004 conference, but he feels such demonstrations are unnecessary.
He said, "I think it's unfortunate when ideology gets in the way of science."
For the full article, see http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/34344.html