GMWatch News Review archive

from Claire Robinson, WEEKLY WATCH editor
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Dear all:

Well done all those who turned up the pressure to stop Terminator in its tracks. It's worked - for the time being (TERMINATOR ACTION SUCCESS!).

We have to stay alert as it's almost sure to turn up again, just like the banned GMO StarLink (FOOD SAFETY SPECIAL), which has been found in food aid in Central America and the Caribbean.

Of course, even though the US government did not approve StarLink for human consumption in the US, it approved it for export!!!

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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FOOD SAFETY SPECIAL: STARLINK AGAIN
'REGULATION' FDA STYLE
LOBBYWATCH
MIDDLE EAST
THE AMERICAS
ASIA
AUSTRALASIA
EUROPE
PATENTS ON LIFE - BORLAUG'S AGIN 'EM!
GM VACCINES - TOO LITTLE TOO LATE
QUOTES OF THE WEEK
RALLY AND MASS LOBBY OF PARLIAMENT
TERMINATOR ACTION SUCCESS!

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FOOD SAFETY SPECIAL: STARLINK AGAIN
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+ BANNED GMO TURNS UP IN FOOD AID
Environmental groups say a banned GM variety of corn forbidden for humans in the US is being handed out in UN food aid to Central America and the Caribbean. A study found that samples of World Food Program shipments collected in Guatemala included StarLink along with other GM contaminants.

Starlink corn was pulled from the market in the US because of concerns it could provoke allergic reactions. Its discovery in consumer products prompted supermarket recalls of cornmeal, corn dogs, taco shells, soup and chili mixes in the US in 2000 and 2001.

The study looked at 77 samples of imported corn included in aid shipments or sold on the open market. Eighty percent was reported to include GM material.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4911

+ NGOs DENOUNCE DUMPING OF STARLINK
More than 70 environmental, consumer, farmer, human rights groups and unions from six Central American and Caribbean countries denounced the presence of StarLink in food aid. The organizations requested the World Food Program to immediately recall all food aid containing GMOs. "The WFP by introducing food aid with GMOs is placing at risk our children and pregnant women, the most vulnerable people in our society," said Julio Sanchez from Centro Humboldt in Nicaragua.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4912

+ Robert Vint of GE FOOD ALERT comments:
"This situation has only arisen because the USA, unlike other nations, supplies food aid in the form of dumped surplus grain. Other members of the World Food Programme - eg the EU and Japan -disapprove and instead supply cash to purchase food as near to the recipients as possible. Buying locally supports peasant farmers in developing nations as well as enabling choice; dumping free food puts local farmers out of business... It is reasonable to blame much of the rural unemployment and food dependency of developing nations on the impact of US food aid policies... Oxfam America has estimated that up to 80% of funds channelled through US Food Aid Programme... are spent, not in developing countries, but in the US. US food aid shipments correlate with times of surplus and silo emptying - not with times of food shortages."

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'REGULATION' FDA STYLE
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+ FDA GAGS OWN SCIENTIST OVER KILLER DRUGS
David Graham, a senior drug safety reviewer at America's Food and Drug Administration, the body that is supposed to regulate GM foods, has been banned from presenting new information about a controversial type of painkiller at a three-day summit on their safety.

The latest example of the silencing of an FDA scientist should not come as a surprise. It's yet another clear illustration as to whose side the FDA is on. The FDA's record has led the The Lancet to write of "lethal weaknesses in the US Food and Drug Administration's regulatory oversight".

Dr Graham, who works in the FDA's office of drug safety, has said that he was "threatened with being called insubordinate" by the FDA when he said he wanted to include the findings of an unpublished study he has completed as part of his testimony on Cox-2 inhibitors.

Those scientists within the FDA who raised safety concerns about GMOs never stood a chance. The FDA's own records reveal it declared GM foods to be safe in the face of broad disagreement from its own experts while the FDA claimed scientific consensus. The FDA has even acknowledged it has been operating under a government policy "to foster" the US biotech industry.

The attempted gagging and denigration of Dr David Graham is not an isolated instance even in the drug safety sector. The Graham incident was almost exactly paralleled with the case of GlaxoSmithKline's Paxil and the class of anti-depressants called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). In that case, the FDA refused to let Dr Andrew Mosholder, of the FDA Office of Drug Safety, present to an advisory panel the findings of increased risk of suicidal tendencies in children taking the drugs. Indeed, according to an investigation by Sen. Charles Grassley, the FDA actually tried to get Mosholder to present data that deceptively underrepresented that risk.

What has emerged about the FDA gives added significance to the notorious comment made by Phil Angell, when Monsanto's director of corporate communications: "Monsanto should not have to vouchsafe the safety of biotech food. Our interest is in selling as much of it as possible. Assuring its safety is the FDA's job." - New York Times, October 25, 1998
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4910

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LOBBYWATCH
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+ CORE MAKES PRO-GM VIDEO
African-American civil-rights-turned-corporate-rights group CORE has made a video, "Voices from Africa", said to show the results of its fact-finding trip to Africa. The video was premiered at CORE's "UN World Conference-2005" on "Biotechnology" (New York, January 17-18, 2005). For a preview:
http://www.core-online.org/features/voices_video.htm

Its main presenter is CORE chairman Roy Innis, who says, "Because of my concern [about hunger in Africa], I came to Africa to see for myself... and to see the potential for biotechnology." Roy's philanthropic mission is totally unconnected, of course, with Monsanto becoming CORE's "Corporate Partner".

Veteran black American journalists Glen Ford and Peter Gamble describe CORE as "a tin cup outstretched to every Hard Right political campaign or cause that finds it convenient - or a sick joke - to hire Black cheerleaders".
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4905

+ MONBIOT ON FUREDI: CONSPIRACY THEORY OR ENTRYISM?
Excerpt from a letter from journalist George Monbiot to the Times Higher Education Supplement:

Your article "What's a nice Trot doing in a place like this?" accuses me of peddling conspiracy theories about Frank Furedi and other former members of the Revolutionary Communist Party. But I don't have a theory. I've reported a number of phenomena and then asked what is happening and why. This, if I'm not mistaken, is what journalists are supposed to do.

...Former RCP members control much of the formal infrastructure of public communication used by the science and medical establishment. They hold key positions in Sense About Science, the Science Media Centre, the Genetic Interest Group, the Progress Educational Trust, Genepool and the British Pregnancy Advisory Service. They have used these positions to promote the interests of pharmaceutical and biotech companies and to dismiss the concerns of the public and non-governmental organisations.

Given that the RCP was a tiny splinter of a Trotskyist subgroup, with just a handful of disciples, given that most of the people who have taken these posts do not have a background in science, and given that the movement has a long history of entryism, its former members' colonisation of these bodies is unlikely to have happened by chance.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4894

+ DOUG POWELL PART OF "ORGANISATION WHICH DISTORTS SCIENCE REPORTING"
Recently we ran a profile of GM promoter Doug Powell. Powell turns up again in an article at http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4896 about CanStats, an organisation that "seems to be in the employ of industry, particularly industry that pollutes the environment or exposes people to health or safety risks".

EXCERPT:
Stats [US parent organization of CanStats] and its parent organization, the Center for Media and Public Affairs (CMPA), have been spectacularly successful in pushing American television networks and newspapers rightward during 20 years of effort. ... Now the project has come to Canada. CanStats was launched with a grant from the Donner Canadian Foundation, a key organization in the project to change the ideological fabric of Canadian society.

CanStats is an American-inspired organization with an American director, an American agenda, advisors from the American Enterprise Institute and a Canadian target audience. Canadian advisors include Doug Powell from the University of Guelph, who is a well-known advocate for genetically modified foods. Powell's food safety network receives funding from dozens of corporations including Maple Leaf Foods, McCain's Foods, McDonalds, Meat and Livestock Australia and Monsanto Canada, to name just the companies beginning with M.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4896

+ BBC HYPES GM IN UK SCHOOLS
Recently I was sent a tape on GM which forms part of the BBC's AS Guru General Studies course in UK schools. The woman who sent it to me is a biochemist and has a daughter on this course. She felt it was biased in favour of GM. Having watched the tape, I agree. I'm concerned that:

1. No substantial arguments are given by the anti-GM side. All the 'science' (faith masquerading as fact, e.g. GM will benefit the third world with pest-/drought-resistant crops) is presented by the pro-GMers. The anti-GM side is represented by members of the public and activists, and no scientists. The activists, though well-informed, are not allowed to present facts, but confined to expressing vague "fears".

2. Vitamin A precursor-enriched GM 'Golden Rice' is promoted by its inventor, Ingo Potrykus, with no critical comment in spite of findings that malnourished people would have to buy and eat huge quantities of the stuff, with suitable fats, to make any difference to vitamin A intake.

3. No sources are quoted for the pro-GM view.

I wrote to the BBC with these complaints and asked them to list their sources. They wrote back denying that the programme was biased and refusing to name any sources!

If you're familiar with this programme, and/or have children who have been exposed to it, please let me have your views: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. You can ask your child's school for a tape.

+ ISAAA MAN FAILS TO BUY GM PRODUCT IN WALES
Dr Clive James, chair of bioindustry body ISAAA, has begun a European tour promoting GM crops with a visit to his home country, Wales. Excerpt from an article in the Western Mail:

He [James] points out that 1,000 people die every single hour from malnutrition, and says the goal of the biotech industry is to help the 1.3 billion people who make less than 50p a day.

..."People say it's being used to rip off farmers, but you'll never be able to rip off farmers," said the former Carmarthen grammar schoolboy who was born in Llansaint. "In Carmarthen I can't buy a GM product so choice has been taken away."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4902

+ DR BRIAN JOHN EXPOSES ISAAA HYPE
GM Free Cymru's Dr Brian John answers ISAAA's Dr Clive James (see above) in a Western Mail article:

Dr Brian John... says ISAAA calls itself a "not-for-profit organisation" backed by charitable foundations. But its real purpose is to promote the commercial interests of Monsanto, Syngenta, Bayer CropScience and the other GM multinationals that provide its funding.

Dr John said, "GM crops will not save lives, reduce poverty or counteract malnutrition, but they will - if they are adopted more widely in the Third World - extend the economic colonialism of the GM multinationals, increase poverty and pull small farmers into a chemical-intensive cash crop economy when their governments are seeking to expand the production of basic and indigenous foods."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4902

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MIDDLE EAST
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+ WHAT ORDER 81 MEANS FOR IRAQ: FARMERS COULD LOSE EVERYTHING
A useful article explains the implications for Iraqi farmers of Order 81, imposed by the US on Iraq.

EXCERPT:
Order 81 not only prohibits the practice of saving patented seeds brought into the country, but allows the patenting of new varieties developed from existing seeds through scientific plant breeding or genetic modification... only corporate-owned seed strains can be patented. And these are being widely distributed through US aid channels.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4898

In this context it may be worth revisiting the prediction of John Vidal, The Guardian's environment correpondent, who in July 2003 wrote,
"What's the betting that Iraq turns to GM crops within a year? Dan Amstutz, the American charged with running the country's agriculture, has been
widely criticised by Oxfam - not least because he drafted the World Trade Organisation's Uruguay round, which has ruined so many developing
countries. Amstutz plays down his corporate connections (he used to work for giant grain company Cargill), but it seems he's chairman of the
board of directors of a new company set up by some of the biggest agribusiness and GM companies in the world - including Cargill and DuPont.
http://society.guardian.co.uk/societyguardian/story/0,7843,988744,00.html

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THE AMERICAS
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+ MONSANTO LAW STYMIED IN MEXICO
A law allowing the introduction of GM corn in Mexico was temporarily stalled by the country's Senate. The decision on whether to ratify the revised Biosecurity Law, which has been widely denounced by environmentalists, was due to take place on 15 February. The legislation is now in its final phase, following its successful passage through Mexico's lower house last December.

Environmental groups argue that the proposed Bill, dubbed the "Monsanto Law", would pass control of food production into the hands of large corporations and destroy corn diversity in Mexico.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4901

+ MONARCH BUTTERFLIES ON DECLINE IN MEXICO
The population of Monarch butterflies has suffered a drastic decline. Mexico's Environment Department says that 75 percent fewer Monarch butterflies have appeared in 2004 compared to previous years.
It blames cold weather and intensive farming - including GM crops - in areas of the US and Canada where the butterflies spend the summer and reproduce... Monarch butterfly larvae have been found to die after eating milkweed coated with GM corn pollen.
http://www.newsday.com/news/science/wire/sns-ap-mexico-monarch-butterflies,0,2034485.story?coll=sns-ap-science-headlines
See: Dively, G.P., R. Rose, M.K. Sears, R.L. Hellmich, D.E. Stanley-Horn, D.D. Calvin, J.M. Russo and P.L. Anderson. 2004. Effects on
monarch butterfly larvae (Lepidoptera: Danaidae) after continuous exposure to Cry1Ab expressing corn during anthesis.
Environmental Entomology 33: 1116-1125.

+ US MAY LEAD WORLD IN HERBICIDE-RESISTANT WEEDS
While newly-arrived Asian soybean rust hogs the media spotlight, a home-grown monster patiently awaits its turn. If weed scientists are correct, the monster won't have long to wait. "Very shortly, I think, the impact of herbicide resistance is going to be huge," says Ford Baldwin, veteran Arkansas weed scientist.

As the list of herbicide options shrinks, Stephen Powles, director of the Western Australian Herbicide Resistance Initiative (WAHRI), points to his native Australia as a lesson to US agriculture. Powles - "the international expert on herbicide resistance," says Baldwin - warns there's too little diversity in US fields, there's too much reliance on Roundup Ready crops and hence glyphosate and the pipeline for new herbicide chemistries is "nearly dry... My prediction is you [the US] will be crowned king of herbicide resistance within the next few years."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4892

+ CHAPELA NAMES NAMES
Biotech critic Dr Ignacio Chapela, who was recently denied tenure by UC Berkeley in spite of massive support from his colleagues and students, has begun to name his persecutors:

EXCERPTS:
Chapela says he has been pressured and threatened by many, including officials of the Mexican government under President Vicente Fox...

"Normally the evaluation that I requested in order to be granted a tenured professorship would take six months, but in my case it has taken years, and it is possible that they'll fire me. All because of pressure from the transnational corporations and from Mexican researchers who are in favour of genetic modification, like Luis Herrera..."

Chapela says the biotech transnationals that are leading the campaign to discredit him are the same ones that are lobbying for the weak bill on biosafety that Mexico's lower house of Congress approved last year, and which could become law in the next few weeks if it makes it through the Senate.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4897

+ CLONES TO HIT FOOD CHAIN IN 6-8 MONTHS
An article on cattle ranchers getting impatient with delays in approving the sale of cloned cattle for food consumption includes this startling section:

EXCERPT:
The [cloned] calves will be sold to youngsters, who will raise them for a year and enter them in county fairs and farm competitions, collectively known as the club calf circuit. The circuit has come to occupy an odd spot in the clone conflict. Everyone knows the club calves will be sold for slaughter after their last turn in the show ring. But no one likes to dwell on it.

Don Coover, a vet and semen broker in Galesburg, Kan., has promised two clone offspring to kids to raise for the circuit. The FDA has no way to track them. "They will go into the food chain, no question, in six or eight months," he said. And that's just the beginning. "I'm selling hundreds - maybe thousands - of units of semen from bulls that were cloned," he said. "They're going to be slaughtered, and the FDA can't do anything about it." '
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4904

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ASIA
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+ INDIAN BT GENE MONOCULTURE A TIMEBOMB
The increasingly widespread cultivation of Bt cotton in India could lead to the development of insect resistance within a few years, according to a model developed by Keshav Kranthi, a senior scientist at India's Central Institute for Cotton Research. Kranthi has published his research in Nature Biotechnology.

In a scenario in which two to three generations of insects are exposed each year to Bt cotton, Kranthi says, "If the area under Bt cotton gets to 70-80% in a 100-200 kilometer radius, our model estimates resistance development [in] 3-4 years." Based on this finding, Kranthi says, "it wouldn't be surprising to find Bt-cotton crop failures in some parts of India, starting with [in the province of] Gujarat in a couple of years from now."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4899

+ NOW, BT CABBAGE FOR INDIA
Just as Keshav Kranthi predicts (see above) that resistance will speed up in India if more Bt crops are introduced, along comes a team of scientists from India, Canada and France claiming to have developed a GM cabbage for India. http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4899

+ INDIA: AG MINISTER WANTS DOUGH TO DEVELOP GM CROPS
India's agriculture minister Sharad Pawar has demanded more budgetary support for developing GM crops in the public sector research institutes.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4899

+ INDIA: ORISSA RELEASES DRAFT BIOTECH POLICY
The Indian State of Orissa government has released the Draft Biotechnology Policy 2005 promising incentives to the biotech industry and simplifying new product approval procedures.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4899

+ BANGLADESH GETS BAD-IDEA VIRUS
***"This notion that you lure biotech to your community to save its economy is laughable," said Joseph Cortright, a Portland, Ore. economist who co-wrote a report on the subject. "This is a bad-idea virus that has swept through governors, mayors and economic development officials."***

Bangladesh's Agriculture Minister MK Anwar has said biotechnology will improve sustainable agricultural productivity to meet additional food and nutrition demands and protect decreasing land and water resources. Anwar also thinks Bangladesh is lagging behind the rest of Asia. He stated that China has started production of GM rice, and Japan, Thailand, the Philippines, India and Indonesia are making huge investments in biotech research.

In fact, the gap between Anwar's biotech fantasies and the reality on the ground could not be greater. Commercial production of GM rice has not started in China. Thailand still has its moratorium. In the case of India, in the words of pro-GM lobbyist Shantu Shantharam, "all we have is one stupid Bt cotton to talk about". GM cotton is also the only GM crop to have been commercialised in Indonesia, where it proved such a disaster that it had to be withdrawn, leaving a bribery scandal in its wake. Japanese consumers have been so hostile to GM that they helped trigger Monsanto's global abandonment of GM wheat.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4913

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AUSTRALASIA
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+ MAORI PARTY APPALLED AT NZ SUPPORT FOR TERMINATOR
Maori Party co-leader, Tariana Turia, said that she was horrified to learn that at the meeting last week on the UN Convention on Biological diversity taking place in Bangkok, New Zealand supported the proposal from Canada to overturn the international moratorium on the use of Terminator Technology. New Zealand's environment minister Marian Hobbs said Terminator should proceed "case by case"!

GE FREE NZ commented, "It's like New Zealand supporting nuclear testing in the atmosphere on a case by case basis and forcing it on the rest of the world. If the Minister is so blinded by her obsession with forcing this particular scientific experiment on the international community, she must step down."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4907
See also TERMINATOR ACTION SUCCESS! below.

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EUROPE
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+ EC EXPOSES MEMBER STATES TO GM RISKS
While the European Commission claims that Monsanto's GE maize MON810 has been monitored for environmental risks, Greenpeace investigations show that no comprehensive monitoring plan exists. Greenpeace calls for the EU Member States to stop the commercialisation of Monsanto's GE maize.

"The first time a GE variety is listed to the Common Catalogue and thus can be sold to farmers and can potentially be grown in many parts of Europe, the European Commission is misleading Member States," says Christoph Then of Greenpeace International. "Simple investigations reveal that the only monitoring plan the EU refers to is nothing more than Monsanto's own monitoring from 1995."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4908

+ GMO TRADE WAR: EUROPE ACCUSED OF SECRECY
The European Commission is accused of hiding key facts and documents from the public about GMOs in a complaint filed with the European Ombudsman by Friends of the Earth. The complaint was made after the Commission refused to release key documents in the GM trade dispute at the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4909

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PATENTS ON LIFE
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+ BORLAUG OPPOSED PATENTS
Vandana Shiva reports how Norman Borlaug, a rabid GM supporter and the scientist behind the Green Revolution, was originally a vociferous opponent of patents on plant resources. In his statement at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi on 8 February 1996, he expressed concern about private companies gaining control of plant genetic resources and seeds and patenting plants.

Prof. Borlaug said, "We battled against patenting. I and late Glen Anderson (of International Wheat an Maize Research Institute) went on record in India as well as other for a against patenting and always stood for free exchange of germplasm."

Commenting on the US demand for patents Borlaug said: "God help us if that were to happen, we would all starve."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4903

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GM VACCINES
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+ SCIENTISTS NO LONGER USING (HUMAN) FOOD CROPS FOR VACCINES
According to an article in New Scientist, GM potatoes containing a hepatitis B vaccine have successfully boosted immunity in their first human trials. But the New Scientist piece says the newly-published study missed a moving target - drug developers are now abandoning their quest for vaccines contained in staple foods like bananas, tomatoes or potatoes.

New Scientist claims vaccine developers have changed tack to avoid vaccine-laden food straying into shops or markets... Instead, developers are now focusing on making vaccines in the edible leaves of plants not on sale as food.

"We've not worked with potatoes for two years now," says Charles Arntzen at Arizona State University in Tempe, US, who led the potato study and is a veteran of the decade-long bid to produce GM vaccines in foods. "We don't say 'edible' vaccine any more - we say 'heat-stable oral vaccines'."

According to Martin Friede at the World Health Organization's Initiative for Vaccine Research, "We are still far from knowing if this approach will eventually produce safe and efficacious vaccines for humans... the number of non-responders is much higher than that observed with the conventional vaccine".
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4906

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QUOTES OF THE WEEK
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"The [biotech industry body] ISAAA stated that the global market for biotech crop [stood] at $5 billion by 2005. This is much less in size as compared to the market for organic food which is estimated at $37 billion. This raises a moot question: Should farmers go for biotech crops or organic farming?"
- Indian journalist Ashok Sharma, "GM crops: scientific analysis needed, not hype", Financial Express of India, 14 Feb 2005

"God help us if that were to happen, we would all starve." - Norman Borlaug, commenting on the US's support for patents on life.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4903

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CAMPAIGN - RALLY AND MASS LOBBY
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+ JOIN RALLY AND MASS LOBBY OF PARLIAMENT

FIVE YEAR FREEZE SAYS:

Don't forget to join us on Wednesday 23rd February at the 'Say No to GM Contamination' mass lobby of Parliament in Westminster, with a rally from 12 - 1p.m. and lobbying MPs from 1.30p.m. onwards.

Hundreds of people have already signed up and we are expecting it to be a fun day as well as being the most effective action you can take to help prevent the routine contamination of our food with GM material.

You can find more information about how to register, as well as a lobby pack with the details of the day, including help with all the information you need to get across to your MP at www.gmfreescarecrows.org

We look forward to seeing you there!

Speakers at the rally include Michael Meacher, MP

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TERMINATOR ACTION SUCCESS!
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An international moratorium on the use of Terminator technology in GM crops survived Canadian government-led efforts to overturn it at a United Nations meeting in Bangkok.

ETC Group reports that after being swamped by protest emails and letters, the Canadian government was forced to soften its position on Terminator. "Canada's proposal could easily have been mistaken for one written by Monsanto," Jim Thomas of ETC Group said.

Thankfully, disaster was averted due to key interventions by the governments of Norway, Sweden, Austria, the European Community, Cuba, Peru and Liberia, on behalf of the African Group.

The good news is that these governments managed to delete the most offensive wording. The final text and recommendations reaffirm earlier decisions, amounting to a continuing, but fragile, de facto moratorium on Terminator. The issue now bounces to another CBD advisory body (the Working Group on 8(j)) in March 2006.

The bad news is that decisions made in Bangkok will allow the issue of Terminator to be re-examined interminably.

Terminator seeds have been genetically modified to produce crops that are sterile. Not only will they create total dependency on GM companies, but they can spread sterility to local crops and wild relatives, and pose a huge threat to food security and farmers' rights.

"Nothing short of an all-out ban on Terminator will stop it from being unleashed in farmer's fields," says Hope Shand of ETC Group.

ETC Group reports that Canada hasn't been working alone in Bangkok. The UN meeting was crawling with representatives from the biotech industry and related trade groups - including Monsanto, Delta & Pine Land, Crop Life International, PHARMA (pharmaceutical manufacturers), and the International Seed Federation - who lobbied against current restrictions on suicide seeds. New Zealand and Australia also backed the position of industry and Canada, while a fleet of US government representatives observed from the sidelines. (The US government is not a party to the Biodiversity Convention.) - see also AUSTRALASIA above
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4895
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4898