Fields of Gold

I cannot help thinking that the BBC made a mistake in the dates on which this film for television was first broadcast. Saturday and Sunday 8th/9th June, 2002 must have been somewhat inappropriate, judging from the negligible feedback available.

Co-written by Ronan Bennett and Alan Rusbridger, science correspondent of the Guardian newspaper, `Fields of Golds' sets out on the not at all science-fiction story of things going wrong in genetically manipulated crops experiments. Also the film includes the illegal use of an antibiotic drug in a hospital, with the result of a few people dying. Far fetched? Not at all: here in Spain in the last few months we have had two such similar cases of unlicensed drugs being used and even being sold in pharmacies.

This film, then, raises some very dark questions: how far are the big multinational pharmaceutical groups prepared to go in the pursuit of money? Are they out of responsible government control? Is transgenic food really the answer? Personally I have very strong doubts on this last question, but no doubts on the first two. There is a lot of shouting in favour of and against the breeding of transgenic crops. Anna Friel as Lucia Merritt the photographer for the newspaper, and Philip Davis as Roy Lodge the reporter, put in good performances and help hold the whole lot together. Anna Friel does not just look nice but also acts rather well, and Philip Davis as the rather slovenly, ill-mannered and drunk working- companion offers some really good moments, though I rather fancy the last scenes were a bit overdone. The climax did not seem to follow the basic line adopted throughout the film. The message was clearly stated, evidently.

Patients in a hospital develop VRSA - Vancomycin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus - caused by a pharmaceutical company experimenting with transgenic crops, and which is supposedly highly contagious in the air or even from contact by clothes. In fact, Staphylococcus aureus is a hospital- and community-acquired infection, derived from vancomycin-resistant enterococci recognised in 1988, and is not contagious in the air as purported in this film (John Hopkins Memorial Hospital). The Pennsylvania Department of Health also has published a very recent paper on this matter [Oct.11th 2002 /51(40);902].

Thus I was unable to make the connection with references in the film to Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) or Aphteuse Fevers, as this is confined to animals and is a virus of the order Mononegavirales family Picornaviridae, genus Aphthovirus, which could not be caused as depicted in the film. Also, such references to FMD in Britain might be called an ill-judged moment. Half the farmers in England have either gone out of business or are still struggling to make up economic losses as a direct consequence of the recent outbreak. There were a few other loose ends which had me guessing a bit.

However, technicalities apart, the film was obviously intended to raise serious questions on how science can get out of hand, especially in the field of genetic engineering which is gathering momentum by the day and outstripping paquidermic legalities, and so deserves recommendation at the very least. Better still would be that the BBC make a bit more noise on these issues and repeat the showing of the film at a better moment - for example in the middle of the Christmas holidays. Hopefully a few US TV channels will show it: it might well put somebody off their transgenic turkeys and genetic groceries ....

Phil Davis and Anna Friel are terrific in this story, which I wish was sci-fi but sadly I believe that it's prescient. The themes are skillfully taken apart until it's clear what the real enemy is, and whose greed is responsible for the disaster. I enjoyed this film; it wasn't perfect but its message should be taken to heart before it's too late.

This is a very chilling moving and definitely worth seeing. Well ahead of it's time, it gives insight into what Big Pharma, Big Business and governments can and will do to protect profits over lives. If anyone thinks this isn't happening in today's world of chemicals, genetically modified organisms, they are delusional. When the movie was produced in 2002, it was considered science fiction. In 2018 it's now science and the concept is no longer fiction.

'Fields of Gold': Science fiction. For many commentators the science used here was nonsensical. According to the Independent newspaper, the Science Media Centre's director, Fiona Fox, was not impressed by this movie. "It's a fairly safe bet that if the authors of Fields of Gold, the drama about GM crops screened on BBC 1, are asked to produce a sequel to their "conspiracy thriller", they will write in a new role for a sinister, biotech-funded media centre. The real-life Science Media Centre (SMC) found itself cast in its own conspiracy by the drama's authors - Alan Rusbridger, editor of The Guardian, and his co-author and Guardian colleague Ronan Bennett - after a row about the plausibility of the science in the anti-GM storyline. In a series of newspaper articles and television interviews, the writers described the new SMC as a "lobby group" for big biotech companies, and accused the centre of orchestrating an ugly, secret campaign to discredit the programme and "dump on" The Guardian and the BBC. The truth about the SMC and its role in this story is less sinister" (quoting from the Independent newspaper). Rumour has it that Rushbridger later blocked Fox's sister Claire from writing a column in the Society (social services) section of his newspaper the Guardian. Subsequently Guardian gossip columnists ran a series of attacks and innuendos about Fiona Fox. Touchy...

I can not think of a more chilling film. It is a pity that this movie is not available in the United States. I had the luck of watching it in a hotel room in London during a week long trip. I intensely admire the BBC for their intellectual programming. This film would almost never be shown on any American network, sadly. Yet it is a wakeup call to the world of the serious need for drug regulations to be tightened. It is perhaps the most serious call for action in the cellular science era. The warning contained in Fields of Gold cannot be missed, nor avoided by any stretch of the truth. Perhaps one of the most true-to-life depictions in the movie is the portrayal of dazed, confused, elderly people being raped by pharmaceutical companies. The film conveys a mistrust of drug companies I have not left behind in the 3 years since I watched the film. While the movie is admittedly terrifying to adults and children, having seen it when I was 14, the movie put into context many things that all citizens should know. I would wish that everyone could see and learn from this movie.