Now that the influential science journal Nature has branded a paper they published on biotech corn growing in Mexico not well researched enough and said it should not have been published, and another researcher called it a “testament to technical incompetence,” the University of California at Berkeley’s Ignacio Chapela and David Quist are lashing out, claiming a “vendetta” has been launched against them.
But the work of Chapela, a board member of the anti-biotech Pesticide Action Network, is “merely the latest in a series of biotech hoaxes” and earned Nature‘s condemnation, Dennis Avery, director of global food issues for the Hudson Institute, writes.
“The report was especially disturbing because it fanned fears that genes from genetically modified crops could actually ‘jump’ into regular plants and destabilize their genetic makeup. Indeed, environmental activists, who have long warned of such nightmares, quickly exploited the Nature article… Unfortunately, for Greenpeace and other anti-GMO groups, Quist and Chapela’s findings began to dissolve under the skeptical questioning of respected genetic scientists across the globe.”
