Actual GMO Experts Available to Respond to Activist Jeffrey Smith's False and Misleading Claims

    PRIEST RIVER, ID, January 11, 2014 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Credentialed academic experts in relevant fields of plant biotechnology, agricultural science and food safety are available to respond to news media outlets considering reporting on the views of Jeffrey M. Smith and his deceptively named Institute for Responsible Technology.

Smith has no academic background in science of any kind, and his claims about the health and safety of foods derived through plant biotechnology are false and well-refuted. A detailed academic rebuttal of Smith's previously published health claims can be found at http://www.academicsreview.org.

Journalists seeking independent, credible science and health information about GMOs should contact Academics Review for referral to an appropriate academic expert to address Smith's irresponsible claims.

Smith is currently on an international junket funded by the organic and alternative health industries, holding supposed "GMO health" seminars. Although Smith is presented by himself and his sponsors as an "expert" and "international best-selling author" on the risks of GMOs, he has no scientific background or expertise. His self-published books do not appear on any recognized best-seller lists, and Smith has no academic or peer-reviewed publications to his name.

Smith's so-called "institute" is run from his home in Fairfield, Iowa, and reports no employees or paid contractors other than Smith and his wife on publicly available tax return filings.

Smith's background is limited to being a swing dance instructor, running for local office as a candidate with the Maharishi-linked Natural Law Party built around the powers of transcendental meditation and running marketing for a GMO testing company led by the Maharishi's "raja for food purity, safety and health invincibility" responsible for the promotion of the Maharishi brand of "Vedic Organic" agriculture. Smith's work is financially sponsored by a range of organic, natural product and alternative health companies who are better able to sell higher-priced products by fueling consumer fear and mistrust of well-regulated, more affordable products that may be produced using biotechnology or other conventional agriculture tools.

About Academics Review

Academics Review is an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Academics Review was founded by two independent professors of food-related microbiology, nutrition and safety issues. Bruce M. Chassy, Ph.D., and David Tribe, Ph.D., are two of the most widely recognized experts in the world on how plants grow and the resulting effects plants, as foods, can have on human health.

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