GMWatch News Review archive

from Claire Robinson, WEEKLY WATCH editor
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Dear all:

The Center for Science in the Public Interest, since taking money from the pro-biotech Rockefeller Foundation, has generally adopted a position supportive to GM foods. So we have to take notice when even this group recognises biotech industry stagnation and that GM is "withering on the vine". This conclusion is backed by GeneEthics, which has totally demolished industry body ISAAA's recent claims of growing GM uptake (INDUSTRY NEWS).

Don't miss a startling new profile of pro-GM lobbyist Doug Powell, who attracts extensive biotech industry funding and is allowed to roam the world promoting GM and acting as a biotech 'attack dog', despite accusations of biasing research, of abusing his role as a faculty advisor, of being responsible for Orwellian-style disinformation, and of "aggressive if not vicious attacks on other scientists". Even criminal behaviour appears to have been glossed over. (LOBBYWATCH).

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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LOBBYWATCH
INDUSTRY NEWS
EUROPE
THE AMERICAS
ASIA
AUSTRALASIA
FOOD SAFETY
REGULATION
MIDDLE EAST

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LOBBYWATCH
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+ GM WATCH "ANNOYING LIKE HELL" SAYS EX-SYNGENTA LOBBYIST
Pro-GM lobbyist and former Syngenta man Shanthu Shantharam has told AgBioView's readers, "I subscribe to GM Watch. It is annoying like hell to see all the nonsensical, diabolical and scheming spin put on every story."

He also says that these days he only reads the first sentence of anything we put out, which is fortunate because otherwise he'd have to read the truly "nonsensical, diabolical and scheming spin" reported at
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4861
- his own!

Dr Shantharam told India's science and environment magazine, Down to Earth, that "gene contamination is a bogus issue" and that it is irrelevant to the case of the Canadian farmer, Percy Schmeiser, because, "Court records clearly establish that Schmeiser had planted GM canola which he had purchased illegally."

Court records, in fact, establish the exact opposite!
Even Monsanto's principal investigator stated under oath that they had no evidence Schmeiser had ever illegally purchased GM canola.

Perhaps Dr Shantharam sees "nonsensical, diabolical and scheming spin" in our bulletins because we're holding up a mirror.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4861

+ GM ATTACK DOG: DOUG POWELL
Dr Doug Powell has been called the "darling of the pro-biotech lobby and its chief attack dog" in Canada. From his Food Safety Network base at the University of Guelph, Powell's pro-GM communication activities attract funding from around the globe, not least from the biotech industry.

In an article entitled Rude Science in the Manitoba Cooperator (58(46):4 21 June 2001), editor John Morriss reviews Powell's performance as a science communicator, describing him as a 'tenured Assistant Professor at a Canadian university' who at some point 'morphed into a full-blown apologist for biotechnology, while still operating under his "food safety" umbrella'. For Morriss, even more serious than Powell's role as a biotech apologist, is his 'aggressive if not vicious attacks on other scientists who dare to challenge his views' .

Morriss takes as an example Powell's attacks on the Royal Society of Canada, after they raised quesions about the safety of GM foods and called for mandatory labelling. Powell dismissed their report as "a document that more resembled a Greenpeace hatchet job than a reasoned analysis of the science surrounding GM issues".

Powell's notoriety for "aggressive if not vicious attacks" extends beyond his "attack dog" defence of GMOs. In autumn 2004 he made the front page of Guelph's local paper when he pleaded guilty to assault. He was ordered by the judge to take counselling for domestic violence. It also emerged in court that Powell had two prior convictions for serious criminal offences, for which he had been sentenced to 17 months in jail.

A curious aspect of the case was that the judge was asked to give Powell a discharge - something normally only granted to first offenders - despite the fact Powell already had a criminal record. However, the judge was advised that Powell - "an expert in his field of food science who travels extensively" - had a travel waiver that allowed him to enter the United States despite his previous convictions. A criminal conviction for domestic violence might, however, prevent Powell from crossing the border. The judge indicated that he was only agreeing to the discharge reluctantly as "every abusive man needs to get the message" that they would not just get a slap on the wrist from the court.

Powell has run research on consumer responses to GM (Bt) sweet corn and non-GM (conventional) sweet corn and has repeatedly claimed the research shows 'consumers voting with their wallets' for the GM produce. But photographic evidence shows that the label on non-GM sweetcorn refers to its contents as 'Wormy Sweet Corn', while the wording on the Bt-sweet corn bin refers to 'Quality Sweet Corn', with the fact that it is Bt-corn only shown on a separate sign. What's amazing is that despite such clear experimental bias many consumers were still keen to buy the non-Bt corn.

As well as biasing research, Powell also stands accused of abusing his role as a faculty advisor.
Read on at: http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4851

+ IRRI AND CIMMYT ALLIANCE TO SUPPORT GM RESEARCH
An alliance, which has amongst its aims providing information to support researchers developing GM maize, wheat and rice, has been formed between the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT). Both institutes are part of the CGIAR network of agricultural institutes.

For more on IIRI, its corporate backers and its disturbing agenda, including details of the Monsanto executive running its Golden Rice network: http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=296&page=I
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4846

+ OUTFOXED: MOVIE WORTH WATCHING
In December 2004, we reported on a new film, The Corporation, which features alleged attempts by Fox TV to suppress a report by journalists Jane Akre and Steve Wilson exposing unsavory facts about Monsanto's GM bovine growth hormone, rbGH.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4715

If you're interested in this film, you might also want to see another film along similar lines. The film, Outfoxed, uses Fox clips and interviews with former Fox journalists to show how Rupert Murdoch's Fox TV network (motto: "Fair and Balanced") allegedly distorts and invents the facts in pursuit of a far-right corporatist and pro-Bush agenda. It also shows how such 'news' first appears on Fox, to be blindly repeated by other networks without any awareness or mention of the source.

A few startling snippets from the movie:

***Today Murdoch owns: 175 newspapers, 40 TV stations, 100 cable channels, 9 satellite TV networks, 40 book imprints and 1 movie studio.

***Fox's US TV network reaches 280 million people; its Asian satellite network reaches 300 million; its cable channels reach 300 million homes; its magazines reach 28 million people. Fox's total audience is 4.7 billion people, or three-quarters of the population.

***Far more people who watch Fox TV than people who watch other channels believe blatant untruths such as: Weapons of Mass Destruction were found in Iraq; Iraq was responsible for 9/11, etc.
www.outfoxed.org
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4715

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INDUSTRY NEWS
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+ GM CROPS INDUSTRY HAS STALLED
The Australian organisation, GeneEthics has refuted claims by the industry-backed International Service for the Acquisition of Agro-biotechnology Applications (ISAAA) that the global area of GM crops increased rapidly from 2003 to 2004, pointing out that the evidence in fact suggests that the GM crop industry remains stalled.

"GM crops are only 1.4% of global agricultural area and are not taking the world by storm," GeneEthics Network Director, Bob Phelps notes. "GM crops are also less productive than the best conventional varieties and cannot feed the world as industry constantly claims."

Phelps points out that, "The ISAAA's own figures show commercial GM crops are not a global industry, as 98% of GM crops are grown in just six countries - USA 59%; Argentina 20%; Canada 6%; Brazil 6%, China 5%, and Paraguay 2%. 93% is in the Americas.

"The GM industry's crop product range has also stalled, with only four broadacre commercial crops - soy, corn, canola and cotton," he says. "And these GM crop plants have only two commercial traits - tolerance to being oversprayed with toxic weedicides, and producing insecticide toxins. Both traits add more chemicals to our environment and foods.

"The ISAAA report offers no evidence that the GM industry can keep its promises of more nutritious foods, longer shelf life products, drought and salt tolerant crops," he says. "Other crops with new traits being field tested in many places are at least ten years away from commercial reality, and most will fail."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4845

+ AG BIOTECH FIRMS FAIL TO DELIVER ON PROMISES - ASSOCIATED PRESS REPORT
A new report by the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) says that the biotechnology industry has failed to deliver on promises to revolutionize agriculture with plants genetically engineered to be healthier, drought resistant and tastier. CSPI reached the conclusion after analyzing publicly available data provided by the US Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration.

"Despite glowing pronouncements from the agricultural biotechnology industry, the regulatory data suggests that the industry is stagnating, not thriving," CSPI report author Greg Jaffe was quoted as saying in press reports.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4863

+ GM "WITHERING ON THE VINE", SAYS NEW REPORT
The number of GM crops going through the regulatory review process dropped sharply between the late 1990s and the early 2000s, according to the new CSPI report. CSPI report in full at:
http://cspinet.org/new/pdf/withering_on_the_vine.pdf

CSPI, by the way, is pro-GM, as is clear from its demands in the report for more public investment in GM crops and a loosening of regulation for some GM crops.

As Craig Winters of The Campaign has noted, "Some people have suggested that CSPI's objectivity about genetically engineered crops may have been weakened by the large amount of grant money they continue to receive from the pro-biotech leaning Rockefeller Foundation.

"Most recently, on May 18, 2004, CSPI received $250,000 from the Rockefeller Foundation. According to the Rockefeller Foundation web site, the CSPI grant money goes 'Toward the costs of a project to inform the international debate around scientific and regulatory issues related to biotechnology, and to put forward a middle ground on biotechnology in that debate.'"
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4862

+ CSPI "SIMPLY WRONG ON THE SCIENCE" SAYS ITS FORMER SCIENCE DIRECTOR

Dr Doug Gurian-Sherman takes CSPI to task for having "forgotten basic biology in its new report" and for being "simply wrong on the science" when it argues in its new report for shorter regulatory reviews of some GM crops. What makes Dr Gurian-Sherman's criticisms so embarrassing for CSPI is that he was previously their science director for their biotechnology project which he also co-founded.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4867

+ MONSANTO GETS GM VIRUS-RESISTANT CROPS FROM SEMINIS
Arguments continue over both Monsanto's motives in its acquisition of the seed company Seminis and the merits of the deal.

Prof Joe Cummins suggests that people have focused too heavily in their analysis of motives on the expansion of the GM giant into the fruit and vegetable seed market as a result of the acquisition, while ignoring or dismissing what Seminis has to offer Monsanto on the GM front.

Prof Cummins considers this a mistake, particularly in relation to Seminis work on GM virus resistant crops for which he has identified relevant patents. Prof Cummins points out, "Prior to the Seminis acquisition Monsanto did not have much activity in virus resistance and gains a major input in that area from Seminis."

Arguments over the wisdom of the deal also continue. Monsanto not only paid approximately $1.4 billion for Seminis but also assumed about $400 million in debt - for a company that has a record of substantial losses.

Monsanto's share price has fallen by 6% in response, apparently reflecting investor unease over the high purchase price, plus wariness at Monsanto's growing level of debt. Fitch Ratings has given Monsanto a high debt rating and warned of a negative financial outlook. This is based partly on the bankruptcy of Solutia, Monsanto's old chemical wing, which has left Monsanto with as yet undetermined liabilities.

The pro-GM Economist magazine has said that not rushing into GM may be the real advantage of the deal: "given the hassle that Monsanto's present GM crops have met, [a] slow approach may be wise."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4850

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EUROPE
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+ MAJORITY OF EU RETAILERS SAY NO TO GM
The EU market is worth over 1 thousand billion Euros in annual food and drink sales. It is effectively closed to GM-labelled ingredients according to the policies of leading retailers and food producers, as revealed in the Greenpeace EU Markets Report, published 3 February.
http://www.greenpeace.org/international_en/news/details?item_id=732640

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THE AMERICAS
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+ WORLD SOCIAL FORUM PROTESTS GM FOODS
A hundred environmental groups, including Brazil's Landless Peasant Movement, protested GM foods outside Monsanto offices in Porto Alegre, Brazil on 28 January. A female theater troupe, Loucas de Pedra Lilas, from Recife, Brazil, clowned in Uncle Sam outfits to protest US promotion of transgenic foods.

"The families of farmers are denouncing the devastation Monsanto is producing with transgenic soya," said Paul Nicholson, a member of international peasants organization Via Campesina.

The protest took place during the annual World Social Forum, billed as a counter to the World Economic Forum, of world leaders currently meeting in Davos, Switzerland. http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4849

+ GM CROPS THREATEN ORGANIC INDUSTRY
Contamination from GM crops threatens Vermont's growing organic farming industry, advocates say. The number of certified organic acres has more than doubled in the past five years, from 15,967 in 1999 to 35,826 in 2004, according to a report by the Vermont Public Interest Research Group. The number of organic farmers has more than tripled from 90 in 1994 to 332 in 2004, the report said. But the growing use of GMOs threatens to contaminate organic crops, potentially increasing costs for organic growers, the report said.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4847

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ASIA
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+ PHILIPPINES: CATHOLIC LEADERS VOW TO CONTINUE OPPOSING GM CORN
Despite claims made by pro-GM lobbyists that the Vatican has allegedly "endorsed" the propagation of transgenic crops, Catholic leaders here vowed to continue opposing Bt corn.

The lobbyists had sought to promote GM crops by using a quotation from the recently released Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church which says nature isn't sacred. But Fr. Romeo Catedral, director of the Social Action Center (SAC) in the Diocese of Marbel, said the Diocese would not waver in their anti-Bt corn stance and he accused the lobbyists of misleading people by selective quotation, pointing out that they had ignored the documents endorsement of the precautionary principle.

The Diocese of Marbel, headed by Bishop Dinualdo Gutierrez, has been a noted hotbed for Bt corn opposition in the country. In August 2001, anti-Bt corn advocates stormed and uprooted a Bt corn field trial of Monsanto in the diocesan territory of Tampakan, South Cotabato.

Guttierez, who is based in this city, has brought the battle against Bt corn in the national level. He is the chair of the National Secretariat for Social Action-Justice and Peace, the social action arm of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines.

Fr Catedral has said that Gutierrez "did not show any hint of reversing his position against Bt corn." http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4858

+ RICE UNDER THREAT
Rice, the principal source of sustenance of much of Asia, is under threat from multinational companies that are patenting GM varieties, reports India's Frontline magazine.

EXCERPTS from an excellent article:
.. Syngenta, in collaboration with Myriad Genetics Inc of the US, has beaten Monsanto in the game by sequencing more than 99.5 per cent of the rice genome. Syngenta has made it clear that it will restrict access to the genomic map and expects proprietary control over any research carried out with the information.

.. In this International Year of Rice, the UN has called upon different stakeholders to promote the sustainable future of rice. Says Sze Pang Cheung of Greenpeace China: "If we are to promote the sustainable future of rice farming, GE rice is simply not the answer." Despite what the biotech cheerleaders say, alleviating poverty and feeding the world requires more than a technological solution. GE rice does not solve these problems.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4865

+ INDIA: FARMERS LAUNCH MASSIVE AGITATION AGAINST NEW PATENT LAW
Several farmers' organisations and trade unions have announced February 26 as a day of countrywide agitation with a march to Parliament followed by a "Beej Satyagraha" [seed protest, or, more literally, the force born of truth about seeds] to oppose the new "anti-people" patent law.

Flaying the new law which came into effect from January 1, Dr Vandana Shiva, the Director of Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology said, ''it sneaked in through an ordinance dated December 26 last year and it totally introduces seed totalitarianism at the hands of the big multinationals.

"It jeopardises every farmer of this country who has for centuries used a part of his crop as seed and exchanged it as the new law does not differentiate that seed with a genetically modified one. In other words, the farmer will have no right to sow his own seed on his own land as some trait of his seed could be a patented one for which he can be sued," she said.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4860

+ INDIA: CLARIFICATION NEEDED
From an article in India's Financial Express newspaper reporting the above story: "Ram Kalspurkar of Vidharbha Organic Farmers' Association alleged that sterile seeds sold by companies have led to suicides by farmers. He also complained about proliferation of a virus called CaMV which has damaged the crops." The CaMV 'promoter', a construct genetically engineered from a plant virus, is used in most GM crops.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4860

+ DIRTY TRICKS AND BROKEN PROMISES - MONSANTO'S LEGACY IN INDONESIA
A GM WATCH summary on the topic is at
http://www.gmwatch.org/p1temp.asp?pid=58&page=1

EXCERPTS:
Monsanto achieved commercial approval of its GM cotton in Indonesia faster than in any other Asian country. The company was able to use this success, in commercialising its first GM crop in Asia, as a lever to promote GM crop commercialisation elsewhere in the continent.

By December 2003, however, the Indonesian Minister of Agriculture had announced that Monsanto had pulled its GM cotton out of the country. Monsanto has left behind it a legacy of broken promises and illegality.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4854

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AUSTRALASIA
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+ NEW ZEALAND: ARRESTS AT ROTORUA GM PROTEST
Four people were arrested at a protest in Rotorua over GM pine trees. Police say about 40 protesters marched to the Forest Research Institute, where two field trials of the trees are being carried out.

Two protestors have been charged with trespass and another with disorderly behaviour. A fourth person has been charged with obstructing police and resisting arrest. Felicity Perry of The People's Moratorium Enforcement Agency, the group responsible, says they want the trials ended because they are akin to starting a bushfire to find out how badly it burns.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4849

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FOOD SAFETY
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+ US PUSHES INTERNATIONALLY FOR LAX SAFETY TESTING OF GM FOODS
Gene Campaign, The German Church Development Service and the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy from the US have protested to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) about the new guidelines that are being proposed to test for the safety of GM foods.

In a letter sent to the Commissioner of the FDA, Dr Suman Sahai, Dr Rudolf Buntzel and Dr Steve Suppan have called the proposed guidelines irresponsible and with the potential to jeopardise the health of people across the world. The guidelines, which will be voluntary (not mandatory) in the US, are proposed as an international model to be implemented by other countries. Given the aggressive track record of the US in influencing regulatory systems in developing countries, if these guidelines are not opposed in the US, there is a strong chance of their being implemented worldwide.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4852

+ CONSEQUENCES OF MILK FROM GM HORMONE-TREATED COWS
Monsanto's GM cattle drug rBGH is banned in Canada and the EU but was pushed through in the US in extraordinary circumstances. Monsanto claims that milk from rBGH-treated cows is the same as that from untreated cows. But scientists, including some from the National Institutes of Health, disagree.

Here are some of their findings:
"Recombinant rbGH treatment produces an increase in the concentration of insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I) in cow's milk."

"Levels of IGF increase in milk after cows are treated with rbGH."
National Institutes of Health, Assessment of Bovine Somatotropin, December, 1990

"The insulin-like growth factor (IGF) system is widely involved in human carcinogenesis. A significant association between high circulating IGF-I concentrations and an increased risk of lung, colon, prostate and pre- menopausal breast cancer has recently been reported."
International Journal of Cancer, 2000 Aug, 87:4, 601-5
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4855

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REGULATION
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+ FORMER EPA SCIENTIST CRITICISES US REGULATORY SYSTEM
A scorching letter in India's Frontline magazine from Doug Gurian-Sherman, formerly a scientist with the US Environmental Protection Agency, explains why "The vaunted regulatory system in the United Stated that is often put forth as a model for assessing the safety of GE crops is seriously flawed."

EXCERPT:
.. the US Food and Drug Administration does not even approve the safety of GE foods, but instead has a voluntary system of review that is cursory at best, and where the food safety tests are designed and performed by the companies that stand to benefit from the commercialisation of GE crops.

Perhaps the biggest problem for both farmers and the environment is that GE crops are designed to be used in oversimplified industrial agriculture systems that do not promote sound agroecological principles.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4866

+ FAO CALLS FOR ALL-ROUND CONTROL OF GM CROPS
A group of agricultural experts herded together under the UN-backed FAO has recommended that control over GM crops needs to comprise the whole technology development process, from the pre-release risk assessment, to biosafety considerations and post release monitoring.

It's not clear if such a move would result in genuine safety testing or just another layer of 'bought bureaucracy' not least as the pro-GM lobby group ISAAA is said to be involved.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4859

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MIDDLE EAST
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+ IRAQ SEED SCANDAL
An interesting article by Jeremy Smith published in the Ecologist expands on recent reports that the US has enacted laws in occupied Iraq to make seed saving illegal if Iraqi farmers use proprietary seed from US corporations. This is especially worrying both because Iraq is the genetic birthplace of wheat and it is likely that the US will use Iraq as a dumping ground for its unwanted GM seed varieties.

EXCERPTS:
Under the guise of helping get Iraq back on its feet, the US is setting out to totally re-engineer the country's traditional farming systems into a US-style corporate agribusiness. They've even created a new law - Order 81 - to make sure it happens.
*
Worldwide, thousands of traditional varieties developed over millennia were forsaken in favour of a few new hybrids, all owned by even fewer giant multinationals. As a result, Mexico has lost 80 per cent of its corn varieties since 1930. At least 9,000 varieties of wheat grown in China have been lost since 1949. Then in 1970 in the US, genetic uniformity resulted in the loss of almost a billion dollars worth of maize because 80 per cent of the varieties grown were susceptible to a disease known as "southern leaf blight".
*
An article in the Land and Livestock Post reveals that thanks to a project undertaken by Texas A&M University's International Agriculture Office there are now 800 acres of demonstration plots all across Iraq, teaching Iraqi farmers how to grow 'high-yield seed varieties' of crops that include barley, chick peas, lentils - and wheat.

The leaders of the $107 million project have a stated goal of doubling the production of 30,000 Iraqi farms within the first year. After one year, farmers will see soaring production levels. Many will be only too willing to abandon their old ways in favour of the new technologies. Out will go traditional methods. In will come imported American seeds (more than likely GM, as Texas A&M's Agriculture Program considers itself 'a recognised world leader in using biotechnology'). And with the new seeds will come new chemicals - pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, all sold to the Iraqis by corporations such as Monsanto, Cargill and Dow.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4856