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Not once upon a time, Germany is a place where the thought police operate– today. Not 80 years ago.
According to the German blog “Gute Gene, schlechte Gene” (good genes, bad genes) the hands-on genetic engineering & molecular biology project “HannoverGEN” is going to be shut down by the green/social-democrat coalition which has just won federal elections in the German federal state of Niedersachsen. HannoverGEN was evaluated just a few months ago and was praised for its quality and its critical involvement with the technology (e.g. bioethical questions). It has also won an award which praised it as one of “Germany very special places”.
Niedersachsen will join an alliance of “federal states free of genetic engineering” which means that beside the practically non-existent green bioengineering in the field also all genetic engineering in public spaces and schools will be banned. Greenpeace and others had put in a lot of effort to discredit the project, e.g. by commissioning a “background study” about HannoverGEN. That study–of course–concluded that the project is “provisioning acceptance of agro-GMOs”. It turned out that the scientist who wrote the report never contacted any of the persons in charge of HannoverGEN and never saw any of the teaching materials which are being used there.
So the conclusion is that a really excellent teaching project is being shut down for political or anti-GMO ideological reasons and this is a tremendous loss for the schools in and around Hannover. Political parties and Greenpeace have distinguished themselves as the fighters of Big Agro once more and this is going to hurt science in Germany a lot.
The contract of coalition of SPD (social-democrat party) & greens:
http://db.zs-intern.de/uploads/1361279198-2013_02_18_Niedersachsen_RotGruen_Koalitionsvertrag.pdf
Page 74:
Gentechnikfreies Niedersachsen
Im Verbund mit der Landwirtschaft wird die rot-grüne Koalition alle Möglichkeiten ausschöpfen, Niedersachsen gentechnikfrei zu halten und dafür keine Fördermittel bereitstellen. [...] Das Projekt HannoverGEN wird beendet.Genetic-Engineering-free Lower Saxony
In alliance with the farming community the SPD/green coalition will be doing everything to keep Lower Saxony free of genetic engineering and will not be funding any projects. [...] The HannoverGEN project will be shut down.
The “background paper”, commissioned by Greenpeace and AbL
***
Hannovergen responds with rightful & harsh criticism on the “background paper”: http://translate.google.com/translate?twu=1?sl=de&tl=en&u=http%3A//www.genetik.uni-hannover.de/fileadmin/institut/pdf/TR/StellungnahmeHGEN.pdf
2013-02-19 21:45:55
Source: http://gmopundit.blogspot.com/2013/02/germany-is-place-where-thought-police.html
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