This clean bill of health for the BBSRC has everything to do with the committee of MPs in question and not least its Chairman, Labour MP for Norwich North, Ian Gibson. Gibson is very close to the John Innes Centre, which is based in Norwich. The JIC, apart from receiving sizeable funding from the BBSRC is also the beneficiary of the largesse of Labour's Science Minister, Lord Sainsbury.

This cosy world goes to the very heart of what's so wrong with the BBSRC, which until just over a year ago was presided over by Peter Doyle, a director of biotech giant Syngenta and the former executive director of GM company Zeneca (now part of Syngenta). Doyle originally took up his BBSRC post while still Zeneca's executive director. Zeneca/Syngenta were for several years major investors in the JIC. Doyle is said to be a crony of Tony Blair's.

Doyle's replacement as Chief Executive at the BBSRC is Prof Julia Goodfellow. She's the wife of geneticist Dr Peter Goodfellow, who is head of discovery research at biotech/pharma giant GlaxoSmithKline. The last time we checked GlaxoSmithKline had 3 representatives sitting on BBSRC boards. They are far from the only representatives of large corporations on the boards of the BBSRC.

Syngenta sits on 3 boards, AstraZeneca on 2,  Pfizer on 4, and Unilever on 2. Also represented are Genetix plc, Lilly and Merck Sharp & Dohme. In these circumstances it is perhaps not surprising that biotechnology has been swallowing up the lion’s share of the research funds.

Yet none of this seems to have raised any concerns among the commitee of MPS who only appear to want the BBSRC to do a better job of winning public acceptance for GM crops.

For more on the BBSRC: http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=21&page=B
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MPs commend research council despite GM shortcomings
Polly Curtis
Education Guardian, February 12, 2004
http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/news/story/0,9830,1146733,00.html

The government agency responsible for funding animal and plant research was today given a clean bill of health by a committee of MPs, but told to sharpen up its communications policies in the wake of "failed" attempts to win the public over on GM foods.

The Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), one of the seven scientific research councils, is responsible for funding animal, plant and cellular biology research. Its remit covers high profile debates such as GM foods and animal diseases such as foot and mouth disease and more recently chicken flu.

The Commons committee of MPs which investigates science and technology, led by Labour MP for Norwich Ian Gibson, said in its report of the research council, published today: "Over the course of this short inquiry we have found much to praise at BBSRC.

"Its strategy closely adheres to priorities set by Research Councils UK and it is, for the most part, administered transparently and efficiently with the support of its community."

Despite being pleased with the work the council carries out, the committee criticised how the council relates to the public, the scientific community and other research councils in joint funded projects.

The report had specific criticisms about the council's failure to involve the public in the GM debate. Despite attempts to engage the public with the issue of GM, attitudes remained largely negative, it said.

"Negative reports are undoubtedly sometimes exaggerated There is little evidence, for example, to support claims that the anti-GM climate in the UK has created a 'brain drain'. But there is clearly a need for improved public engagement to create a climate of mutual respect and informed debate.

"There are difficult lessons to be learnt from the failure of BBSRC to win public trust in its ability to determine a socially acceptable agenda for GM research.

"BBSRC must use these lessons to inform its future public engagement policy to prevent any repeat of the stalemate which has hampered research in this field. In particular, BBSRC needs to engage more in public dialogue, not simply public education, activities."

The report warned the council that it must learn lessons from the handling of GM and make sure that the public is engaged with the new issue of nanotechnology.

The BBSRC released a statement which said: "We are pleased that the committee found much to praise at BBSRC, and that it considered the administration to be largely transparent and efficient, and, most importantly, supported by the community.

"BBSRC endorses the committee's view of the importance of public engagement and we accept that more needs to be done. We are increasing resources to focus on dialogue aspects of public engagement and we will continue the shift in our activities towards more consultative approaches."

Last June the committee reported on the Medical Research Council, the largest of the publicly funded research councils. The report attacked the management of the council, claiming its financial mismanagement had damaged research and its evidence to parliament had been "deliberately misleading". The government later rejected the report but committee leader Dr Gibson stood by its findings.
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If climate change and the CJD fiasco can teach us anything, it is that science is too important to be left to the politicians or to a scientific establishment in bed with big business. Our academic institutions have given up all pretence of being citadels of higher learning and disinterested enquiry into the nature of things; least of all, of being guardians of the public good. The corporate take-over of science is the greatest threat to our survival and the survival of our planet. It must be resisted and fought at every level.'
Geneticist Dr Mae-Wan Ho and GM Watch editor Jonathan Matthews http://www.i-sis.org.uk/isisnews/i-sisnews7-17.php