The long argument over whether or not genetically-modified crops will be grown in Britain has ended. The argument over whether they should is another matter entirely!STEPHEN WATSON BrightonSir: “GM crops are given qualified go-ahead” (10 March). Why should “the primacy of science” and US commercial interests over-rule the clear result of public consultation?ROGER N CARTWRIGHT Carnforth, Lancashire Naive photography Sir: The kindest thing one can say about Betsy Schneider making an exhibition of photos of her naked child (“I hope these photos of my daughter are provocative”, 9 March) is that Ms Schneider is really naive. Arena Leisure operate low grade races at all three all-weather tracks, Lingfield, Southwell and Wolverhampton on an almost daily basis.If the prize money for these races is so low that there is insufficient to pay owner, trainer, jockey, plus costs then there is inevitably going to be a temptation for money to be made on the betting side in various ways. James Lawton goes on to ask what did the class of race have to do with it.I believe that the class of race has a lot to do with the problem generally.
The process was carried a small step further on Tuesday with the appearance of George Tenet, the CIA director, before the powerful Senate Armed Services Committee. The most fascinating parts of his testimony threw brief shafts of light onto the differences within the Bush administration over the evaluation of the available evidence before March 2003 – between the instinctively cautious CIA and its director on the one hand, and vice-President Dick Cheney and the civilian hawks at the top of the Pentagon on the other.
Mr Tenet cuts an odd figure in the Bush national security team He is the lone holdover from the Clinton era. What we should now do is to allow the process to continue, to monitor progress through Parliament and to let the managers achieve service improvements by keeping all procedures under review and making incremental adjustments where necessary.The last thing that is needed is another wholesale reorganisation.GEOFF HARRIS WarwickSir: Johann Hari (10 March) naively ignores the reality of private finance in the NHS. Hundreds of thousands of older blind or partially sighted people are being left to cope alone when their sight fails, and are at an increased risk of accidents, poverty and social exclusion because of inadequate state support.Seventy three per cent of people interviewed for the report, “Unseen”, are living in or on the margins of poverty and 44 per cent had experienced an accident or fall as a direct result of their sight loss and went without vital and inexpensive equipment that could have prevented accidents.RNIB believes urgent measures are needed to address the crisis in care for older people.
A badly designed, scientifically invalid study would not shorten this list, but would have the potential to do great harm.KENNETH CAMPBELL MSc Clinical Oncology Student Institute of Cancer Studies University of Birmingham Old and lonely Sir: Your article “Old people ‘being robbed of will to live’ by loneliness” (8 March) certainly reflects the findings of a report published by the Royal National Institute of the Blind last week. Clinical experts have pointed out that none of these are trivial diseases and measles carries the risk of brain damage or death.The things which “we do not know for certain” cannot cause autistic spectrum disorders is boundless. Only then could one meaningfully compare the two groups.Mr Hewes suggests we simply compare the two groups and sound alarms if there is a difference This sounds harmless but is not. If rates differ because of some independent unknown factor, the effect of publishing raw data would be to further reduce vaccination rates. This would not reduce autism rates but would expose many more infants to the dangers of measles, mumps and rubella. It was arguably Sir Richard’s care over confounders that led to his discovery.I repeat, a comparative study is feasible but neither simple nor cheap – to account for confounders one must have data; only obtainable by large-scale, expensive and time-consuming retrospective data collection. I did not say a retrospective study of vaccinated and unvaccinated children would be worthless because it would be impossible to account for other causes of autism; I said it would be worthless unless it took account of potential confounders.
Sir Richard Doll did not set out to establish a causal relationship between cigarette smoking and lung cancer; he was very surprised when the link emerged. Many governments around the world have used similar methods and they have been labelled dictatorships. Why do we allow the US and the UK to do the same thing?ABELARDO CLARIANA-PIGA SouthamptonSir: Monday’s leading headline “Scientist ‘gagged’ by No 10″ and the Government’s response to the recent whistleblowing by Clare Short lead me to ask, do we no longer live in a society with freedom of speech?GILL BULLEN Rugby, Warwickshire MMR study Sir: Nick Hewes (Letters, 8 March) takes me to task for an assertion which I did not make. When I queried this policy I was told it was so that inaccurate information would not be given out (How, precisely?). How come NHS Direct are prepared to deal with anonymous callers when “inaccurate information” could have far-reaching consequences? Smacks of an incipient police state to me.PETER WHITBY Porlock, SomersetSir: I was detained in Chile during the Pinochet dictatorship for almost two years No charges, no tribunal, no recourse to the legal system Some people were tried by military tribunals, in secret. (And they do check, I experimented with a fake post code just to make certain). It is a fallacy that a written constitution protects our freedoms more surely than one that is unwritten: the written American constitution allowed slavery notwithstanding all its talk of freedom and equality.Any constitution is only as good as the determination the people have to uphold it and to mould it to protect their freedoms and rights.PAUL JACKSON PrestonSir: I find it disturbing that, for example, Customs and Excise and the Inland Revenue refuse outright to answer any telephone questions without first checking the postal address of the caller.
