By the way, you should read the 2nd rebuttal to your article. Here is a piece of it:
Response to author's call
In response to the author's comment regarding not being "pro-GM", I would suggest that perhaps the tenor of her articles don't do her feelings justice. There must be some reason why the majority of readers across time seem to be getting the incorrect impression. Regarding the issue of good journalism, I won't disagree, but it's interesting that the few positive responses to the relentlessly pro-GM sounding articles usually seem to come either from those who express a marked pro-GM bias, themselves, or from those who don't reason particularly well. Personally, I'm going to withhold judgement about the articles being 'fair and insightful' until I see some good supporting evidence.
But my intent is to help, not criticize. The author asked for links to articles that show poor methodologies being used elsewhere. Surely she's aware of the difficulties of proving negatives, but I do have a few examples. One that comes to mind are the remarkable number of field trials of GMO crops that purport to demonstrate their safety, but which fail to follow the 'life cycle' of GM proteins as they leave the plant and enter the gut flora of pollinating insects or the soil biota. Where do those genes go after leaving their initial points of contact, and what influences do they have as they travel through the environment? Nobody really knows, because very few (especially Monsanto et. al.) have asked. However, the most recent research suggests that this gap in inquiry has allowed the gut flora of field insects exposed to GM proteins in situ, to mutate and confer host immunity. That wasn't, according to Monsanto et al., supposed to happen! There was no evidence that it could happen! The reality is that the evidence was waiting to be discovered, but the GM industry never honestly looked for it. It wasn't found until independent researchers thought to inquire. How much more evidence of harm is out there, lying hidden until somebody insightful enough and wealthy enough to ask, can run the correct studies?
Unfortunately, the absence of evidence was taken as the evidence of absence. This seems to hallen a lot with Monsanto. It's too bad that economic and political interests often push this mental sleight-of-hand onto unsuspecting members of the public and the press. When one substitutes logical fallacy for logic, and bolsters one's world view with selective evidence, the mistaking of all sorts of absurdities for truth becomes easy.
An issue related to "absence of evidence" is the sheer politics of publishing scientific reviews critical of Monsanto's work. Surely the author knows that scientific research and publishing are highly political endeavors, despite the official dogma that science is free and independent of such un-scientific concerns. Independent? Hogwash. The practical reality is that science is almost as political an endeavor as - well, as politics itself. And those pushing GM are currently the same ones holding the clout, and always have been right back to the beginning of this game.
http://www.foodnavigator.com/Science...media-approach