False balance between public scientists and non-expert activists on orange crisis and GMOs

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Normal orange (left) and orange stunted by citrus greening, right. Image: Richard Perry, The New York Times)

I’m so grateful to any author that takes the time to write about citrus greening disease and its potential solutions.  When I saw the posting in Fast Company by Satta Sarmah, I was happy that someone might be providing a additional resources on the disease and its solutions.

When you read the article Does orange juice have to genetically modify or die? it does a good job describing some of the proposed solutions, some of which will involve the addition of transgenes. They mention Dr. Eric Mirkov’s (Texas A&M) installation of a spinach gene and Dr. Jude Grosser’s (Univ Florida) efforts with other transgenes.  While many solutions have been attempted, a subset of them show strong potential to help solve the problem. To this point it is a factual summary of what science has done.

Then Sarmah makes the classic journalist mistake—striving for balance.  If scientists propose solutions, there must be some other opinion of equal importance, right?

Sarmah introduces what Bill Freese thinks, which further just obfuscates the issue. Freese works for the Center for Food Safety, an activist organization that continually fights applications of biotechnology.

I’m again disappointed that the efforts of public scientists trying to solve a massive problem affecting many family farms, are upstaged by the empty words of an activist sworn to end any application of biotechnology.  It is classic false balance, teaching the controversy, non-experts with agendas given the same space as those dedicating their lives to scientifically solving critical issues in agriculture.

Read full, original article: The Citrus Crisis and False Balance

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