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Scientist leading GM crop test defends links to US biotech giant Monsanto
Research professor Jonathan Jones says his verdict on a potato trial in Norfolk will not be influenced by his past commercial ties to Monsanto
Jamie Doward The Observer, Sunday 18 July 2010
The scientist in charge of a taxpayer-funded trial that may determine whether genetically modified crops will be grown in the UK has been attacked for his close links to the US biotech giant Monsanto.
Professor Jonathan Jones, head of the Sainsbury Laboratory at the John Innes Centre, the UK's leading plant research centre, has shrugged off the controversy, insisting he has never tried to hide his business relationship with Monsanto or the GM industry.
But as the scientist overseeing the first UK trials of a GM potato, Jones has found himself at the centre of a storm after anti-GM campaigners used social networking sites such as Twitter to highlight the close links between a company he founded, Mendel Biotechnology, and Monsanto.
Mendel's website states: "Mendel's most important customer and collaborator for our technology business is Monsanto, the leading agricultural biotechnology company in the world."
Jonathan Matthews, spokesman for GM Watch, which campaigns against the technology, said: "The frontman for the latest GM push in the UK is being portrayed as a dedicated public servant doing science in the public interest, but it now appears he not only has vested interests in the success of GM but even commercial connections to Monsanto."
It's absolutely disgusting to allow scientists who have such direct and blatant ties to Monsanto to be in charge of any publicly funded testing of these GM Crops. But, as the man said, maybe we're just fussy...
Jones made no reference to the links in an article he wrote recently for the BBC website that attacked anti-GM campaigners as "fussy eaters".
