Leaked Letter Reveals Government GM PR Offensive

A confidential letter from the Cabinet Secretariat, leaked to Friends of the Earth, shows the extent of the Government's PR offensive in support of genetically modified (GM) food. The leak, which came the day before Minister Jack Cunningham was expected to make a statement to the House of Commons setting out the Government's GM policy, turned the Government's attempt to mount a PR offensive on its head.

The letter, dated 11 May 1999, from Cabinet Office official Paul Britton to the Private Secretaries of the Health Minister, Environment and Trade and Industry Ministers and others in the Number 10 Policy Unit, records a meeting on 10 May, at which Ministers Jack Cunningham, Tessa Jowell, Jeff Rooker and Michael Meacher were present. It reveals:

The existence of a "Biotechnology Presentation Group", which exists to spin Government policy to the media.
Government attempts to "identify an 'independent' scientist to appear on the Today Programme" to refute the findings of the Christian Aid report on the impact of GM foods in the Third World, and to "line up third parties to author articles in the media in the days before the announcement".
A decision to revise a key secret paper from the Chief Medical Officer and Chief Scientific Adviser on health and environmental risks from GM food. The original draft of the paper concluded that not enough was yet known about the risks of growing GM food.
A decision to "present the Government's stance as a single package by way of an oral statement in the House. This would allow the Government to get on the front foot."

The Presentation Group also noted that there was work to be done before the Government's "line" was "robust enough" on issues including biodiversity, herbicide resistance and cross pollination.

FOE Executive Director Charles Secrett commented, "The truth is out at last. The Government is not interested in a genuine debate on GM food. To persuade us to love what the biotech companies want us to eat, 'independent' scientists will be lined up who can be relied on to say what the Government wants to hear and Ministers will rewrite advice from their most senior medical and scientific advisers. The Government is wasting the time of officials all over Whitehall, not to ensure that decisions about GM food are made in the public interest, but to try to avoid looking stupid in the newspapers. This attempt is doomed to failure".