www.checkbiotech.org ; www.raupp.info ; www.czu.cz

Lord Taverne -- Dick Taverne QC -- currently a member of the House of Lords'
Science and Technology Committee, speaks out on the proven benefits of
genetically modified (GMO) crops following a decade of commercial use on
more than one billion acres worldwide, January 2006.

"I am a keen environmentalist. Environmentalism is a very, very important
cause. But it's got to be based on evidence," says Lord Taverne, who
expounds on those views in a new video at biotech-gmo.com. "I became more
and more interested in the whole question of genetic modification because
that, in a sense, has been the central battlefield on which the anti-science
and science forces have locked horns."

"The evidence is fairly clear on certain points," Lord Taverne, a former
member of Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace, continues. "First of all,
there can be no doubt that so far there is no evidence of any damage to
health -- any danger to health. It's reduced the use of pesticides. It
produces greater productivity. And, if it reduces the amount of farmland you
have to use, it can actually be very beneficial to biodiversity . . . very
beneficial to the environment."

Lord Taverne is founder of the charity Sense About Science which promotes an
evidence-based approach to scientific issues and the public understanding of
scientific research. He is the author of The March of Unreason: Science
Democracy and the New Fundamentalism.

Lord Taverne's exclusive interview can be found at Monsanto's "Conversations
About Plant Biotechnology" website: www.monsanto.com/biotech-gmo

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