Dr. Michael T. Wilson

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  Published on: 3/20/2006    Last Visited: 2/23/2008  

  According to the press release, 'The book shows that intensive agriculture is good for health and the environment, and is essential if the world's population is to be fed without converting vast areas of biodiverse ecosystems into cropland, which would be necessary if organic agriculture, with its lower yields, were used.' It contained a chapter by Dennis Avery of the Hudson Institute, 'The Fallacy of the Organic Utopia', and one defending GM crops co-written by John Hillman from the Scottish Crop Research Institute and Michael Wilson of Horticulture Research International.

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  Published on: 2/23/2008    Last Visited: 2/23/2008  

  Prof Mike Wilson
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  Michael (Mike) T. Wilson
  
  Prof Mike Wilson is currently Chief Executive of Horticulture Research International (HRI), the UK government's main testing and development arm for market gardening, fruit and related crops.Prior to HRI he was the Deputy Director of the Scottish Crop Research Institute (SCRI).
  
  In the 1980s he spent six years in the Department of Virus Research at the John Innes Centre.His research into plant viruses led to considerable commercial interest and inventorship on five independent suites of internationally-granted or pending patents for general biotechnological applications.One project he undertook while at the JIC, relating to a commonly used viral promoter in GM crops, was funded by Lord Sainsbury's GM investment company Diatech.
  
  Wilson is still a consultant to Diatech.He is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and served on the UK Government's GM Science Review Panel.He is also an advisor to the Science Media Centre and, like a number of other leading GM proponents, is an advisory board member of the anti-environmental Scientific Alliance.He is also on the advisory council of the controversial pro-GM lobby group Sense About Science.
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  Wilson has moulded HRI in his own image, making it part of HRI's 'corporate policy' to improve the quality of information on GM technology available to the public, as he told the UK Parliament's Agriculture Select Committee:
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  Wilson told the Select Committee that he saw it as the mission of himself and his scientists 'to try and defuse some of the mis-information that has unfortunately prevailed in the last couple of years.' He was then asked, 'So you are an evangelical organisation?' and replied, 'I am frequently called evangelical, yes!'
  
  Wilson's evangelical contributions to the GM debate haveattracted serious criticism.In an article in the Scottish press, based on an interview he gave around the time he left SCRI, Wilson citied 'an independent U.S. survey, carried out by Cornell University' which 'showed that the use of GM crops in Northern America... encouraged more wildlife.' But the report in question, based on work not by Cornell researchers but by the industry-funded ISAAA, did not actually include any information about wildlife.
  
  In a contribution to the BBC's science messageboard, widely circulated on the Internet, Wilson claimed that Quist and Chapela's paper on Mexican maize contamination, published in Nature, had been rejected by the majority of its peer reviewers.In reality, the majority of its peer reviewers had approved it for publication after a particularly stringent peer review process.Dr Arpad Pusztai's Lancet published research also successfully came through a particularly stringent peer review process but that hasn't stopped Wilson dismissing it as 'media-hyped junk science' from a 'victimised icon'.
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  Wilson concludes his 'BBC' message, 'Battles of sound bites, and hysterical sensational propaganda claims get us nowhere.'
  
  Wilson's GM evangelism has also impacted on the direction of HRI's research support for UK market gardening.GM has been put at the centre of HRI's science, as Wilson told MPs. 'We use GM.Genetic engineering, and genetic enhancement, is an incredibly important tool in the research laboratories of HRI across the organisation.'
  
  Just as contentious has been Wilson's axing of HRI's successful Stockbridge House research station in the teeth of opposition from the horticultural industry, supported by the National Farmers' Union.According toThe Guardian, 'A leading research centre is facing closure in a move which has revived fears about scientific promotion of GM crops'.It noted that Stockbridge House had pioneered 'alternatives to genetic [manipulation] of plants.' A leading horticulturalist told MPs that the behaviour of Wilson and the HRI board over Stockbridge House was marked by 'sheer arrogance'.

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  Published on: 2/23/2008    Last Visited: 2/23/2008  

  Michael (Mike) T. Wilson

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  Published on: 3/22/2006    Last Visited: 3/5/2009  

  Professor David J. James Emeritus Fellow, Horticulture Research International, Wellesbourne [HRI directed by Mike Wilson - see below]
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  Professor Brian Thomas Head of Crop Improvement and Biotechnology, Horticulture Research International, Wellesbourne [see Mike Wilson, head of HRI, below]
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  Professor Mike Wilson Chief Executive, Horticulture Research International, Wellesbourne [consultant to Lord Sainsbury's GM investment company Diatech; an advisory board member of the anti-environmental Scientific Alliance; notorious for his aggressive and inaccurate attacks on GM critics]

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  Published on: 3/22/2006    Last Visited: 11/21/2008  

  Mike Wilson, who was SCRI's Acting Director until Hillman's appointment, co-authored an article with John Hillman defending GM crops for the book Fearing Food (1999), edited by Julian Morris and Roger Bate. 'Arguments against GMOs,' they argue, 'offer little scientific evidence, relying on shock and alarm to carry their case.' The critics are 'activists' who 'raise speculative risks, promote public fear and media misinformation' about 'their own imagined, improbable hazards'.
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  Another contributor to Fearing Food was Dennis Avery who attacked organic agriculture, and Avery was also amongst the references given for Wilson and Hillman's article.

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  Published on: 3/20/2006    Last Visited: 2/23/2008  

  Its Chief Executive since August 1999 has been Prof. Michael Wilson who had been Science Director at HRI since April 1999.
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  Wilson, who told the parliamentary Select Committee on Agriculture that he is frequently called 'evangelical' about GM,has moulded HRI in his own image, making it part of HRI's'corporate policy' to promote its views on GM technology to the public.As he told the Select Committee , 'We have issued statements, we have had public meetings, I have written articles in various books, I have appeared in the media in debates on GM issues, as have many of my scientists.We have participated in everything from round-table discussions and debating societies, to radio broadcasts and, as I mentioned before, the Synod of the Church of England have visited HRI.We feel it our obligation to explain the facts and the realities of GM technology; what it can do, what it is based on, what actually happens, and to try and defuse some of the mis-information that has unfortunately prevailed in the last couple of years.' Wilson's evangelical contributions to the GM debate have attracted serious criticism .
  
  Wilson's mission has also impacted on HRI's research support for UK market gardening.GM has been put at the centre of HRI's science, as Wilson told the Select Committee. 'We use GM.
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  Much of the concern centered on the determination of Wilson and those around him to drive through the decision without consultation.

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  Published on: 3/20/2006    Last Visited: 2/23/2008  

  This was developed at the Sainsbury Laboratory by Mike Wilson who is still a consultant to Diatech.
  
  In a Financial Times article, Lord Sainsbury cites the following statistics: British universities spun off 199 companies in 2000, up from an annual average of 67 in the previous five years and a mere 'handful' before that.The UK's ratio of companies to research spending is now more than six times higher than the US. 'It's a dazzling record,' Lord Sainsbury is quoted as saying and he laments the nation's failure to celebrate such a 'stunning change in the entrepreneurial attitudes of our universities'.
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  One of the original advisors to the Science Media Centre was Diatech consultant, Mike Wilson.Wilson was also one of a number of scientists with links to Lord Sainsbury's funding network who served on the UK government's GM Science Review Panel.

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  Published on: 3/20/2006    Last Visited: 2/23/2008  

  Mike Wilson of Horticulture Research International serves on the Alliance's Advisory Forum, as do a number of other leading GM proponents, including Tony Trewavas, Philip Stott, Vivian Moses of CropGen, and Martin Livermore - a PR consultant formerly with Dupont, who is also a Fellow of the International Policy Network.
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  Moses and Wilson are also part of Sense About Science.

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  www.lobbywatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=56 - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 3/22/2006    Last Visited: 3/5/2009  

  Mike Wilson, who was SCRI's Acting Director until Hillman's appointment, co-authored an article with John Hillman defending GM crops for the book Fearing Food (1999), edited by Julian Morris and Roger Bate. 'Arguments against GMOs,' they argue, 'offer little scientific evidence, relying on shock and alarm to carry their case.' The critics are 'activists' who 'raise speculative risks, promote public fear and media misinformation' about 'their own imagined, improbable hazards'.
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  Another contributor to Fearing Food was Dennis Avery who attacked organic agriculture, and Avery was also amongst the references given for Wilson and Hillman's article.

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