On December 26, the U.S.-based Organic Consumers Association posted a “news” item on their website claiming in a headline that new research found “wild bees reject biotech crops.”

(See: http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_3665.cfm)

The December 26 posting on the OCA website was cleverly formatted to make it appear it was from a December 23 press release issued by the widely respected Ecological Society of America – the organization that represents professional ecologists. Below the alarming headline were the words “Ecological Society of America, Dec 23, 2006” which is standard press release formatting.

Within days, dozens of “environmental” news websites had republished the piece with a link back to the OCA news page. By early January, major print newspapers in Italy (such as the Turin-based La Stampa, circulation 300,000+) ran the story as if it were a legitimate and accurate news item, even quoting Greenpeace Italy for their reaction.

In fact, the news was fabricated by grossly distorting research published in early 2005 to further the OCA’s long-running ideological campaign against agricultural biotechnology.

For starters, the ESA has never issued any press releases on the 2005 research, let alone one that concludes that wild bees “reject” genetically engineered crops. In an official comment, the ESA says that “some people have mistaken [the Organic Consumers Association webpage] as a full news release from the Ecological Society of America, which it is not.”

More directly, the 2005 paper’s lead researcher, Dr. Lora Morandin, says the group is misinterpreting her research. “They are taking our research out of context. We made no conclusions as to why there was lower bee abundance in the GM canola fields. Our two primary hypotheses are differences in the land surrounding the canola fields and low weed abundance in GM canola fields.”

In fact, several other studies have shown that because weed control is often more effective in herbicide tolerant biotech crops (such as was studied by Dr. Morandin and her coauthor), there are fewer weeds and, logically, fewer weed-associated insects. So the research is not at all alarming or surprising.

What is surprising is that widely respected major news outlets would fall for this activists’ con. It should be abundantly clear that these self-serving activist groups (heavily funded by commercial organic food companies) will stop at nothing to distort research findings to sour public opinion of critically needed advancements in farming.