from Claire Robinson, WEEKLY WATCH editor
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Dear all:
This week we have some seriously disturbing research results on GM soy from Russia (NEW RESEARCH). And Terminator patents have been granted in Europe and Canada (TERMINATOR).
The bad news is balanced by a towering achievement in South Africa, which has been persuaded to cease GM imports until a study on the economic effects can be completed (AFRICA).
And there are lots of interesting reports on the hype and the problems with GM in India (ASIA and LOBBYWATCH).
Finally, the kiwis surely speak for us all when 74.5% of them tell pollsters that they want their food production to stay GM-free; 79% want zero tolerance of GM contamination of seeds; and 77% want zero tolerance of GM contamination of crops in the field. (AUSTRALASIA)
Claire This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
www.gmwatch.org / www.lobbywatch.org
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CONTENTS
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NEW RESEARCH
ASIA
AUSTRALASIA
EUROPE
AFRICA
THE AMERICAS
LOBBYWATCH
GM WHITE ELEPHANT OF THE WEEK
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NEW RESEARCH
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+ ABNORMALLY HIGH DEATH RATE IN PROGENY OF RATS FED GM SOY, SAYS RUSSIAN STUDY
Abnormally high death rates and growth retardation have been found in the progeny of female rats who had GM soy added to their food, a Russian study led by Dr Irina Ermakova of the Russian Academy of Sciences has found. Thirty-six per cent of rats born to GM-fed mothers weighed less than 20 grams - evidence of their extremely weak condition.
With the rats fed GM soy, a massive 55.6% of their progeny were dead within three weeks, compared with 9% of the progeny of rats fed non-GM soy and 6.8% of the progeny of the control group, which was fed a diet without any added soy.
Dr Ermakova commented, "The morphology and biochemical structures of rats are very similar to those of humans, and this makes the results we obtained very disturbing."
Visit http://www.regnum.ru/english/526651.html to see the data laid out in a table. Also at this URL is an astonishing picture comparing same-age rats from the GM soy group and the control group. The GM soy rat is a fraction of the size of the control rat.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5861
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5866
+ TRANSGENE FOUND IN BLOOD, LIVER, SPLEEN AND KIDNEY OF GM-FED PIGS
Fragments of the Cry1A(b) transgene, present in Bt crops, have been detected in blood, liver, spleen and kidney of piglets raised with GM feed, according to a paper by Raffaele Mazza et al in Transgenic Research. http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5866
COMMENT BY PROF JOE CUMMINS:
... the method of isolating the cellular DNA, though very effective, did not tell whether or not the transgenic DNA fragments were joined to chromosomal DNA or whether they were free in the cells or their nuclei.
Earlier studies from Germany showed that bacterial viral DNA fragments from food were inserted into the chromasomal DNA molecules of mammals. Further work is needed to detect transgenic DNA integrated into the cells' chromosomes.
Finally, the report claimed that health risks from isolated DNA have never been detected but that conclusion is wrong!
Isolated bacterial DNA or DNA fragments injected, inhaled or eaten are known to promote inflammation and autoimmunity through the CpG [a molecule that stimulates immune system to fight disease] stimulation of innate immunity. There are hundreds of publications dealing with that effect.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5867
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ASIA
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+ BT COTTON HIT BY MORE PROBLEMS IN INDIA
Not for the first time, wilt is affecting Bt cotton in India. In the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, a fact-finding team has been studying a large area of wilt on Bt cotton.
This follows the case of a large area of Bt cotton being affected by an unusual disease caused by Tobacco Streak Virus, which normally affects sunflower and groundnut crops and is not known to attack cotton crops.
The report says this suggests an "increased vulnerability of transgenic plants to new diseases".
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5868
Kavitha Kuruganti of the Centre for Sustainable Agriculture in Andhra Pradesh points out that a disease called Para-Wilt was reported in previous years as a problem by scientists, mostly with Monsanto's MECH 184 Bt cotton. At that time there was an attempt to attribute the problem to the particular hybrid in question. But this year wilt is being found on different Bt cotton hybrids, which means further scientific investigation into the real source of this problem is urgently required.
Kavitha says that "earlier in the week, there was a large public hearing [jan sunwai] in Dhar district supported by people's movements where scores of farmers testified in front of a large audience consisting of farmers, activists, biotech experts, government and company representatives about the failure being witnessed there in Dhar district. For the companies, however, it seems to be business-as-usual." With nobody fixing liability on them, Kavitha says, they are ignoring the problems and simply carrying on with their notorious marketing gimmicks.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5876
+ BT HYPE IN INDIA
An article in India's Economic and Political Weekly contains a reminder of the remarkable justifications given by India's official experts for the introduction of Bt cotton: "Optimistic predictions of the GEAC, the ICAR and the department of biotechnology (DBT) quoted an additional income of Rs 10,000 per acre for the farmer. The DBT also claimed that crop yields would increase by 80 per cent. For the chair-person of GEAC, the fact that Bt cotton would drastically reduce pesticide use by 80 per cent among other benefits was reason enough to grant approval."
Somehow these officials all lost sight of what was happening in the first country to approve Monsanto's Bt cotton in Asia - Indonesia - which was experiencing such bad results that the company was actually forced to abandon selling GM seeds there altogether.
Bt cotton commercialisation in India was also dogged by bad reports, culminating eventually in the actual banning of three types of Monsanto's Bt cotton in Andhra Pradesh and of one type more widely.
Monsanto, via its own surveys and via industry-friendly scientists, did its best to make all the rosy predictions come true. One of the most notorious pieces of research in this regard was a paper by Qaim and Zilberman published in Science. They claimed outstanding yield increases from Monsanto's GM cotton - results they projected as relevant to farmers throughout the developing world. Their yield increases were exactly in line with the Indian department of biotechnology's predictions - 80%!
The paper proved an embarrasment even to India's pro-GM lobby. In a piece posted on CS Prakash's AgBioView list, former Syngenta man, Dr Shantu Shantharam, complained that, "This kind of shoddy publication based on meagre and questionable field data in reputed journals like SCIENCE do more harm to science and technology development, perhaps set GMO technology backwards."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5872
+ INDIAN FARMERS' LEADER SAYS GM CROPS ARE ANTI-FARMER
GM crops are anti-farmer and there seem to be no good reasons to plant them, says Dr Krishan Bir Chaudhary, Executive Chairman, Bharat Krishak Samaj (India's premier farmers' organisation).
EXCERPT from Dr Chaudhary's paper:
In India, transgenic crops are being experimented with and even released, without a coherent approach to the whole matter. It is not clear why transgenic agriculture is considered "frontier" or indispensable by numerous agricultural research bodies both in the public sector and private sector.
... It is time that the agricultural research establishment, the agricultural education establishment as well as the agricultural policy-makers first look at [sustainable] options before chasing technologies that are unsustainable and anti-farmer.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5857
+ PREVALENCE OF PATENTS RAISES CONCERNS
The worldwide extension of patent regime on life forms has raised new concerns for both agriculture and public healthcare sectors, reports Ashok Sharma. The frequency of bio-piracy has also increased. Attempts to patent turmeric, neem fungicide, basmati rice, naphal wheat landrace and a method of preparing wheat flour are a few of several recent examples of how traditional knowledge of countries is being looted.
India has begun documenting its traditional knowledge in digital format and is unilaterally sharing the information with overseas patent offices. This would further foster biopiracy.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5876
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AUSTRALASIA
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+ OZ AG MINISTERS BOW TO BIOTECH BANDITS
State Agriculture Ministers have decided to legalise GM canola seed contamination, letting biotech companies off the hook for GM contamination of Australian crops. The Primary Industries Ministerial Council announced that they would allow up to 0.5% contamination of seeds for 2006 and 2007 and would try to reduce this to 0.1% in future years.
The new contamination levels virtually guarantee that low level GM contamination will continue indefinitely.
"The decision to allow the sale of GM contaminated seeds next year supports the interests of biotech companies, not farmers," said John Hepburn of Greenpeace. "Seed companies will be able to sell contaminated seed to farmers, without having to tell them. This is a recipe for further contamination and will add further costs and difficulties for organic and GMO free growers".
Scott Kinnear of the organic farmers' group Biological Farmers of Australia said, "We will have no option but to recommend to our farmers that they do not grow organic canola in Australia from now on. This mirrors the decision taken some years ago by more than 1000 organic canola farmers in Canada who are seeking to sue Bayer and Monsanto for loss of income through a certified class action."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5874
+ CHANCE WANTS QUARANTINE LAWS TIGHTENED
Western Australia Agriculture Minister Kim Chance says federal quarantine laws need to be tightened to prevent further instances of GM contamination. Chance's comments follow revelations that GM material has been found in canola crops growing near Albany, in southern Western Australia.
He says if the situation persists, the states will lose the ability to choose whether or not to adopt GM technology. "The worst possible outcome in my view is that we get forced into a position as the US did and as Brazil did where they had made a decision to not be GM or at least keep GM separate from non-GM, and then find that by default other things happen that take that control away from the industry."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5875
+ AG MINISTERS MUST ACT ON GM CONTAMINATION, SAY JAPANESE CONSUMERS
Agriculture ministers from canola-growing states face mounting pressure over the uncontrolled spread of GM canola contamination. Japanese consumers have added their voice to calls from farmers and environment groups about the need to find and eliminate the source of GM canola contamination and keep Australia GM-free.
The Seikatsu Club Consumers' Co-operative in Japan, which has 260,000 members and buys 1% of Australia's canola crop each year, has written to Federal Agriculture Minister Peter McGauran, urging him "to take more strict measures to prevent seed [contamination] from genetic pollution, including stronger rules for field trials, and to ensure more strict identity preserved distribution."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5860
+ NZ PUBLIC WANT ZERO TOLERANCE OF GM CONTAMINATION
Facts and figures from NZ polls on public attitudes to GMOs:
* 74.5% of New Zealanders support the nation's food production remaining GM Free (polled August 2005)
* 2 years ago when GM was much more of a headline issue it was 70.1%
* 79% of New Zealanders support the current policy of zero tolerance to GM contamination of seed imports
* 77% support zero tolerance of GM contamination of crops in the field.
* more New Zealanders lack confidence (45%) in the regulator ERMA's ability to regulate GMOs than have confidence (40%)
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5873
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EUROPE
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+ SWISS LOOK SET TO APPROVE GM MORATORIUM
Swiss voters look likely accept a moratorium on GMOs in agriculture in a November 27 ballot.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5856
+ EU MINISTERS CLASH OVER MONSANTO MAIZE
EU agriculture ministers have clashed over approving two GMO maize types, failing to agree over allowing imports and again revealing their differences over biotech foods, officials said. The two maize types are both made by Monsanto. Neither requested use was for growing.
In a separate vote, the ministers also failed to secure a majority either to approve or reject a draft order for Greece to lift a ban on planting seeds of another Monsanto GMO maize.
One of the Monsanto maize varieties that ministers were considering was MON863. A feeding study on rats, which Monsanto refused to publish until forced to do so by the German courts, showed this maize caused significant changes in factors such as levels of white blood cells, kidney weights and kidney structure.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5859
+ BIOTECH INDUSTRY SLAMS EU COUNCIL GM RULING
Industry body EuropaBio has slammed the EU Agricultural Council's decision to uphold a Greek ban on GM corn, claiming that the judgement flies in the face of European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) advice on biotech crops. The organisation called the council's inability to reject the Greek government's temporary ban on Monsanto's MON 810 corn "disappointing".
GM WATCH comment: EFSA's judgements are wholly dependent on the data supplied by applicants like Monsanto. The organisation also has a reputation for bias.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5870
+ PROVE U.S. MAIZE ISN'T MODIFIED - EU
EU biotech experts have extended controls on imports of US maize products, saying they need proof shipments are free of an illegal GMO, a spokesman said.
In April the EU said US exports to Europe of corn gluten feed and brewers grains, a by-product of ethanol, must be certified by an internationally accredited laboratory to prove the absence of Bt10 maize, a GMO not authorized in Europe.
The EU restrictions were to due to expire at the end of October and have now been extended for three months, said Philip Tod, the European Commission's health and food safety spokesman.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5878
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AFRICA
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+ SOUTH AFRICA HALTS GM IMPORTS
All applications for commodity imports into South Africa of GMOs have been halted pending the outcome of a study that the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) has just commenced, which is looking at the impacts of GM imports.
The African Centre for Biosafety comments, "This study is something that civil society groups in South Africa have long been calling for. This is quite a significant victory for us and a blow for industry, taking into account the manner in which the entire GM issue has been handled in SA to date, with industry running amok here."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5863
+ GROUP THREATENS KARI WITH COURT ACTION OVER GMOs
Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) has been threatened with a court action if it fails to divulge information regarding GMOs. Africa Nature Stream - an NGO opposed to the introduction of GMOs in the country - gave KARI seven days to respond to questions regarding the GMOs and their impact on human life.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5855
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THE AMERICAS
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+ RESISTANT PIGWEED PLAGUES GEORGIA COTTON
Earlier this year Georgia confirmed the world's first population of Palmer amaranth resistant to glyphosate, a herbicide commonly sold under the brand name Roundup. This will cause problems for cotton farmers, says a University of Georgia weed specialist.
Right now, glyphosate-resistant Palmer amaranth is known to infest about 500 acres of cotton in central Georgia. Stanley Culpepper, a UGA Cooperative Extension weed scientist studying the outbreak, said seeds from at least 100 fields in the area have been harvested to determine any further distribution.
"This could be a real threat to future cotton production in our region," he says. "It's the one weed cotton farmers didn't want resistant to Roundup."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5878
+ CHAPELA DROPS LAWSUIT BUT FIGHTS ON
Ignacio Chapela, the UC Berkeley professor whose tenure battle came to symbolize the movement to protect scientific research from corporate interests, withdrew his lawsuit against the school last week, but promised to continue to "expose a deeply damaging miscarriage of the university's mandate."
Chapela sued the UC Regents last spring for wrongfully denying him tenure because of his opposition to the university's deal with Novartis. A month after he filed suit Chapela was granted tenure, but he did not withdraw his suit.
Chapela said he hoped the suit would expose the mishandling of his tenure case but came to realize, after meeting with his lawyer and supporters for six months, that he must find other means to that end.
"The claims I made are still valid," said Chapela in an interview, "but I realized people will get the image that I got what I wanted and am still whining. That's the opposite of what I wanted, which was to create a chink in the armour of this massive system that is UC."
Chapela said he will not abandon his efforts to hold the university accountable. He said, "I look forward to continue challenging, in the best forums that I can find, what I believe is a corrupt and illegitimate takeover of the public university away from its public mandate."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5865
+ COLOMBIAN INDIGENOUS TERRITORIES DECLARED GM-FREE
More than 300 indigenous leaders and authorities from the indigenous territories of Zenu in San Andres de Sotavento, together with 5 organizations of organic producers, have declared their territory GM-free. The decision was based on the important role of corn in their culture and food sovereignty. At the moment they conserve more than 25 different varieties of corn.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5869
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LOBBYWATCH
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+ BIOTECH FIRMS PROMOTE BIOTECH MYTHS IN INDIA - REPORT
An interesting report, "Biotech firms, biotech politics: negotiating GMOs in India" by Dr Peter Newell of the University of Warwick, identifies key "narratives" used to promote biotech in India as well as identifying those who help to promote these myths.
Among the key narratives Dr Newell lists is the same kind of "crisis narrative" that Chataway and Smith in a recent report identify as the means by which Dr Florence Wambugu has successfully promoted her biotech banana project.
Wambugu claimed the banana as an important crop for food security, documented a serious decline in yield, attributed the problem to infection, and claimed "incredible" successes for her tissue cultured bananas in resolving these problems.
Chataway and Smith showed there was a lack of convincing evidence to support any of the components of this narrative. What evidence there was often suggested the exact opposite of what was claimed. Despite which, Wambugu's narrative had been highly successful in both winning backing for the project and in making it appear a success. Smith noted that these types of narrative were common in the promotion of biotech.
In India, Dr Newell identifies as the central mantras of the crisis narrative there: "declining productivity, lack of fertile lands, and rising costs of inputs". These are said to "make biotechnology the 'only way' forward."
Newell also identifies "a set of assumptions that leading firms have played a key part in constructing and embedding in policy debate". These include:
*** "Pro-poor biotechnology":
This narrative about the potential of biotechnology to meet the needs of the poor "serves to reassure investors and suspicious publics about the technology".
The irony is, says Newell, that the very firms that have helped to promote this narrative have both a limited ability to deliver a pro-poor biotechnology and a professed reluctance to accept that role.
*** The "myth of the biotech superpower", China:
"One recurrent feature of this general narrative about the enormous potential of agricultural biotechnology and the urgency with which it is to be tapped is the 'myth of the biotech superpower', China." However, the analysis underpinning this myth is "weak on detail", says Newell.
Nonetheless, China is used by biotech lobbyists throughout Asia to try and spur on governments to introduce pro-biotech policies for fear of missing the biotech train which they are told is leaving without them.
Ironically, says Dr Newell, this myth has been successfully promoted at a time that the "very country they seem to regard as their greatest competitor, China, has made a relative retreat from its former unbridled support for the technology. China should offer a salutary lesson in this regard."
*** From IT to BT:
India's success in the field of information technology (IT) is presented as a replicable model for the successful development of biotechnology in India. Newell writes that the assumptions underlying the comparison "are in many cases ill-founded as Scoones (2002) points out, but their status as 'givens' in policy debates that gain reinforcement through constant repetition and uncritical acceptance is unquestionable."
Dr Newell concludes, "It is clear at the moment that larger biotech multinational companies have been reasonably successful in associating their own narrow commercial interests with the broader development goals of the Indian state." It is ironic that they have achieved this at a time when many other countries have become more cautious about this technology.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5862
+ MONSANTO'S CORPORATE ENGINEERING OF PUBLIC DEBATE
According to an interesting new paper by Rajeev Patel and others, published in the International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health, "Monsanto... has engineered public opinion to reduce critical scrutiny."
Monsanto, the authors argue, has followed "a tried-and-true set of PR tactics designed to tie GM crops to the question of hunger, to silence debate on the topic, and to challenge critics as technophobic. This PR strategy removes debate that is vital for public and environmental health."
In portraying GM crops as a "solution" to hunger worldwide and promoting company defenders from developing countries, Monsanto has positioned itself "as a development partner, as a benevolent philanthropist who has technology to 'share.'"
EXCERPT:
... there is no evidence that GM crops, such as RoundUp Ready soybeans, can help to feed the malnourished in the developing world. Peasant farmers in the developing world are largely unable to afford traditional agricultural technologies, let alone the expensive and new transgenics (which are often created to express traits that have little to do with increased yields or nutrition). Monsanto fails to note that transgenic crops require infrastructure-rich environments which are often lacking, in part, or in whole, in the agricultural production regimes of those in developing countries. By ignoring these facts Monsanto reconstructs the present, remaking it in terms that severely misrepresent the real-world conditions in developing countries. Instead, Monsanto creates a unilinear trajectory of historical change, one in which the only possibility is to capitulate to both the diagnosis and the remedy offered by Monsanto.
This 'hope-dashing' is not just a central tenet to GM food, but a rhetorical tactic that is associated with the neoliberal worldview that 'there is no alternative' to corporate-led globalization. The success of the system is evidenced by its ability to prevent us from even conceiving of alternatives.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5871
+ SMOKE, MIRRORS AND GORDON CONWAY
The UK Guardian has published an interview with Gordon Conway, the ex-president of the Rockefeller Foundation, now chief scientific advisor at the UK's Dept for International Development (DfID). The Guardian spins the article so that Conway appears to endorse GM foods as a solution to world hunger: its subtitle reads, "Are we facing a future of death and famine? No, but we must learn to love GM foods".
In fact, Conway distinguishes between genetic engineering and tissue culture, a non-contentious aspect of biotechnology that doesn't involve gene tinkering. He says, "A good example of what we support are the new varieties of rice and bananas in Africa, which are produced from tissue culture. Both crops are spreading rapidly and producing results." He adds, "GM probably will deliver results but it'll take time."
Ironically, a careful examination of the evidence* suggests the tissue cultured banana projects are not necessarily producing the right results! Which leaves one wondering where the man brought in to make DfID's work more science-based actually gets his information.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5858
* see 'Smoke, Mirrors and Poverty'
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5823
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TERMINATOR
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+ CORPORATES GAIN CONTROL OVER NATURE'S SEEDS AS TERMINATOR PATENT GRANTED
The patent for the controversial "Terminator technology" was granted in Europe on 5 October 2005. The Terminator patent has been approved for all plants that are genetically engineered so that their seeds will not germinate. A patent was also granted in Canada on 11 October 2005.
Although the GM industry claims that Terminator technology will help contain the spread of GM contamination, Greenpeace's Lucy Sharrat believes otherwise: "GM technology can not be controlled by Terminator seeds. On the contrary, it is likely that farmers will find their harvest being contaminated with this Terminator technology, if introduced. This is a real threat for estimated 80% of the farmers all over the world who save their seeds for cultivation."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5864
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GM WHITE ELEPHANT OF THE WEEK
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+ LAND-MINE DETECTING PLANTS
Every now and then, the biotech lobby puts out a story about GM land-mine detecting plants in an effort to give GMOs a humanitarian gloss. This story has now appeared again - but even a subscriber to the pro-GM AgBioView list has responded with cynicism. He writes:
Would 'Land-mine Detecting Plants' Work?
Jonathan Gressel [via AgBioview]
Did I miss something?
I can just envisage how this will be done. First one will have to plow and disc the land-mine infested field so that puny Arabidopsis can compete with the indigenous vegetation (or will they run a spray rig across it with herbicide? - statistically safer), then drill in the Arabidopsis, which is hopefully herbicide resistant so other species won't overgrow it, spray herbicide to prevent this problem and then you have to get down on your knees and crawl through the field to see if the Arabidopsis changed color. A great way to clear land-mines with a plant. Luckily I am red-green color blind, so I won't volunteer.
In the old days, the engineer who designed a bridge stood under it when the first overloaded cargos were sent across to make sure it met specifications. For their sake, I hope the genetic engineers who designed this plant will not try to meet that type of challenge.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5866