GMWatch News Review archive

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from Claire Robinson, WEEKLY WATCH editor
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In an attempt to head off public hostility to GM in Europe, the industry has shifted its focus from food to pharming. The European Union has handed over 12 million in taxpayer Euros to research the production of drugs in plants - and the UK's John Innes Centre is among the first in line to trouser its share of the cash. Of course, the European public won't tolerate pharmacrops growing amongst its food crops, so the dirty side of the business will be done in Africa! (see PHARMING)

Don't miss a brilliant ARTICLE OF THE WEEK at the end of this bulletin by biologist David Schubert on how the US now has the worst ever censorship of scientists through Bush's espousal of industry-dictated 'sound science'.

Talking of which, the news has just broken that Sir John Krebs is quitting as head of the UK's Food Standards Agency and Tony Blair is quoted as saying, "[Krebs] has been robust in ensuring that the Agency bases its advice on sound science and in ensuring that it promotes the interests of consumers".
http://www.foodstandards.gov.uk/news/newsarchive/2004/jul/krebsdown

Which is a classic piece of Blairite spin about a scientist who put the CON into consumer protection. GM WATCH gave Sir John a PANTS ON FIRE award, for not just emasculating the Food Standards Agency but turning it into a public platform for his extreme support for GM and his antipathy to organic food.
http://www.gmwatch.org/p2temp2.asp?aid=6&page=1&op=1

Apart from Krebs quitting, some more good news this week came from chemical giant BASF which is making noises about moving its GM work out of Europe (see GM MELTDOWN CONTINUES). The bad news for our friends in America is that the firm may follow Syngenta there. But on the plus side for the US, Monsanto's GM cattle drug Posilac, which failed to win approval in any major industrial country other than the States, seems to have bit the dust (see US) after just 10 years on the market.

Claire This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
www.lobbywatch.org / www.gmwatch.org

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CONTENTS
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PHARMING
LOBBYWATCH
GM MELTDOWN CONTINUES
EURO-NEWS
UK-NEWS
US-NEWS
OTHER GLOBAL NEWS
ARTICLE OF THE WEEK - BUSH'S 'SOUND SCIENCE': TURNING A DEAF EAR TO REALITY
DONATIONS

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PHARMING
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+ GM 'PHARMING' PROJECT FOR EUROPE
Scientists across Europe, including Britain, are to explore the possibilities of producing pharmaceuticals grown in genetically modified plants. The European Union has awarded 12 million euros (GBP8 million) to a network of experts in 11 European countries and South Africa and they aim to begin human trials of the drugs within the next five years.

The aim of the "pharming" project is advertised as being to use plants to produce vaccines and treatments against major diseases including Aids, rabies, diabetes and TB. Which sounds very noble, but GM WATCH has already discovered that one of the two projects planned for the UK involves developing cheap pig vacccines, presumably to assist industrial agriculture.

The consortium, called Pharma-Planta, will develop the concept from plant modification through to clinical trials. The scientists involved will be all too familiar to GM WATCH readers: Phil Dale who worked so hard to bring us GM food plants, Paul Christou who was at the forefront of the attacks on Ignacio Chapela over his maize contamination research, and Julian Ma who has been at Peter Lachmann's shoulder in his attacks on the BMA and others.

The John Innes Centre will also be involved in "exploring biosafety issues" associated with pharma plants.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4118

+ FROM NATURE BIOTECHNOLOGY EDITORIAL ON PHARMING:
The Pharma-Planta publicity makes it clear that they are going to be making use of food crops like maize in their erffort to grow cheap drugs, but as even the normally vigorously pro-GM science journal Nature Biotechnology has warned:

"The problem is - as anti-GM lobbyists have argued already - that the production of drugs or drug intermediates in food or feed crop species bears the potential danger that pharmaceutical substances could find their way into the food chain... This position is not anti-GM (something industry should appreciate) - we should be concerned about the presence of a potentially toxic substance in food plants. After all, is this really so different from a conventional pharmaceutical or biopharmaceutical manufacturer packaging its pills in candy wrappers or flour bags or storing its compounds or production batches untended outside the perimeter fence?"
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4132

+ US SOY DESTROYED AFTER PHARMA CONTAMINATION
In 2002, crops worth millions of dollars were destroyed in the US after soya contaminated by GM maize plants used to produce a pharmaceutical or industrial chemical was discovered in a US grain elevator.
http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=13&page=A

+ SOUTH AFRICA TO BECOME PHARMA TESTING GROUND
Recently we've noted the weak biosafety system in South Africa and how, starting back in the apartheid era, South Africa's regulatory system has been shaped by industry-backed lobbyists.

A recent court case has also highlighted the extraordinary secrecy surrounding GM crops releases in South Africa, with officials accused of repeatedly failing to release information to which the public has a statutory right.

'Pharma-Planta' is an EU-funded project which is entirely European except for one partner - the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in Pretoria, South Africa.

It is becoming clear that the Europeans plan to use South Africa as the testing ground for their GM pharma crops.

Excerpts from an article from the Cape Times:

"... concerns about direct action by environmentalists opposed to GM crops has led to the scientists behind the project collaborating with a South African research institute that has offered to grow the first crop."

"Philip Dale, a plant technologist at the John Innes Centre in Norwich and the project's biosafety co-ordinator, said the cost of 24-hour surveillance of GM fields in the UK has made it expensive to conduct similar trials in Britain."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4131

Check out GeneWatch UK's report on pharma crops: http://www.genewatch.org/CropsAndFood/Reports/Producing_Drugs_in_GM_Crops.pdf

A revealing profile of pharma godfather, Charles Arntzen, is at
http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=13&page=A

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LOBBYWATCH
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+ SUBVERTING THE CARTAGENA PROTOCOL - WILLY DE GREEF
An article in Nature Biotechnology by one Willy De Greef blames the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety (which demands labeling of GM imports and gives countries the right to refuse them on safety grounds) for stalling "significant ... contributions of biotech to public health improvement in the developing world" like Golden Rice. He demands more public sector input - a trend we've increasingly noted as private investment for biotech dries up.

Nature Biotech bills De Greef only as "at the Plant Biotechnology Institute for Developing Countries (IPBO), Department of Molecular Genetics, Ghent University". However "public sector" that may sound, until the end of 2002 Willy De Greef was the Global Head of Regulatory Affairs - Biotechnology for gene giant Syngenta.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4130

+ LOBBYIST E-MAIL TEARS INTO SENATORS
A lobbying strategy memo from the Competitive Enterprise Institute that describes targeted senators in disparaging terms was inadvertently sent to news reporters by an industry-supported think tank opposed to legislation to combat global warming.

The memo describes Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., as "our leading internationalist (who) wants to send even more manufacturing jobs in Indiana overseas so that important diplomats at UN receptions will be nice to him."

Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., "hates Bush" and "is increasingly frail," the memo said. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., another targeted senator, probably will not change his vote, the memo says, "but it's fun to see him squirm back home." Other senators are described in similarly negative fashion.

Myron Ebell, head of the climate section at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, acknowledged that he inadvertently sent "three or four reporters" a memo outlining the lobbying strategy of opponents to the bipartisan global-warming bill.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4113

GM WATCH comment: The Competitive Enterprise Institute takes money from Monsanto. It has a staffer (Greg Conko) as Vice President of Prakash's AgBioWorld, which it claims as part of its wider campaign against "Death by regulation".

The CEI has also received nearly $1.5 million in donations from ExxonMobil, the world's largest oil company, and lobbies accordingly. Among many other statements denying the seriousness of global warming, CEI has argued that climate change would create a "milder, greener, more prosperous world" (http://www.exxonsecrets.org).
For more on CEI: http://www.lobbywatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=30

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GM MELTDOWN CONTINUES
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+ BASF'S GM DIVISION MAY QUIT EUROPE
An article in the Financial Times says BASF, the world's largest chemical company, may move its GM crop research to the US unless Europe becomes more receptive to new technologies. JŸrgen Hambrecht, chief executive, said the German chemicals giant could not afford to keep investing in research if there was no market for its products. The Anglo-Swiss agrochemicals company said it would close its laboratories because of the poor business outlook for the technology.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4116

+ BIOTECH INVESTMENT BUSY GOING NOWHERE
In an article for ISIS, GM Watch editor Claire Robinson takes a look at the biotech industry's track record and prospects. This article can be found on the I-SIS website at
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/BIBGN.php and also at
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4134

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EURO-NEWS
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+ UNDERSTANDING PUBLIC RESENTMENT TOWARDS BIOTECH
It is too easy to blame the media, and its tendency to dumb down and sensationalise scientific discoveries, for public hostility towards biotech, says a report by Italian researchers Massimiano Bucchi and Federico Neresini ("Why are people hostile to biotechnologies?", Science, Vol 304, Issue 5678, 1749) http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/304/5678/1749

The picture the research discloses in relation to public concerns over GM crops gives the lie to GM proponents who argue that such concerns are prejudices due to ignorance and media (or NGO) 'anti-science' misinformation.

The researchers found that being better informed about biotech is not a precursor to being more accepting of it. Italians were also capable of making a distinction between "the sciences" in general and different biotech applications. They conclude that the negative attitudes of Italians towards biotech "are not part of a more general public prejudice against science".

Elements of the Italian findings are confirmed in other studies, including the EU's Eurobarometer survey of public opinion on science.

The authors note that scientific research appears to have lost its air of impartiality, with 69% of respondents concurring that it is "loaded with interests", and has developed a split personality over certain issues.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4133

+ WINE GROWERS DECLARE WAR ON GM GRAPES
French vintners are up in arms about a threat to their centuries-old winegrowing traditions - GM grapes. Earth and Wine of the World, an association that includes nearly 400 French winegrowers, is worried about a government research project to tinker with grape genes.

"It is of utmost importance that the future of our profession is not determined solely under the influence of scientists, industrialists and technocrats," the group said.

The National Institute of Agricultural Research is seeking ways to make grapes resistant to disease, and it plans to replant a batch of GM vines after a five-year pause.

A small crop of GM grapes was planted in 1996 in eastern France by the champagne manufacturer Moet et Chandon in partnership with the agricultural institute. But consumer pressure forced the company to dig up the plants in 1999.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4110

+ EUROPEANS SCOFF AT GM BEER
Spurned across the continent by food-fastidious Europeans, the biotech industry has turned in its quest for converts to GM beer. A consortium of the world's largest biotech companies led by Monsanto helped fund a Swedish brewer's new lager that's produced with the usual hops and barley - and GM corn.

Kenth beer is hardly a barroom hit. The brewer won't say how many bottles have been sold since the beer was unveiled earlier this year in Denmark and Sweden. But he says 4,000 bottles are on their way to stores and pubs in Germany and he's in talks with stores in the UK.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4110

+ GM FOODS HEAD FINN FOOD WORRIES
A study conducted earlier this year by Finland's National Consumer Research Center showed that of all the concerns about manufactured food that Finns have, GM foods topped the list. Some 60 percent of the population expressed "strong concern".
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4110

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UK
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+ ARCHBISHOP ATTACKS TECHNO-UTOPIANISM
The leading UK Anglican cleric and Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, has given an interesting lecture on the guiding myths that make environmental remediation so difficult. The lecture contains a clear attack on GM techno-utopianism.

Full text of his speech is at
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4075

Excerpts:
"[Mary Midgley's recent book on 'the myths we live by'] offers some startling examples of the naked presupposition that what 'really' exists is sets of function-patterns which can be reshuffled at will to produce results yet more malleable to manipulation - including the designing and redesigning of humans as well as of other organisms.

"...And the news for humanity is both joyful and sobering: there is a possible human future - but it will be costly for us. The question is whether we have the energy and imagination to say no to the non-future, the paralysing dream of endless manipulation, that currently has us captive."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4075

+ NO RESPITE FOR SAINSBURY'S
Supermarket actions in Sherborne, Plymouth and Swansea hammered the "no GM in the food chain" and "fair price for farmers" messages home ahead of Sainsbury's AGM in London, on Monday.

In Swansea, Greenpeace activists dressed as pantomime cows chained themselves to the dairy aisle of a Welsh supermarket in their latest protest against imports of GM crops, following their blockade of a ship outside Bristol (those who were arrested were in court in Barry, South Wales 12 July).
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4114

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US
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+ MONSANTO LIKELY PHASING OUT BOVINE GROWTH HORMONE
While Monsanto remains quiet about the fate of its GM cow hormone, Posilac, signs are that more rats are jumping off the ship. In late January 2004, Monsanto announced a 50% reduction in sales of Posilac to regular customers.

According to the publication Milkweed, at a Posilac sales force meeting in March, numerous sales persons were terminated by Monsanto.

In early May, Brian Robert Lowry, Monsanto's dairy mouthpiece, departed dairy responsibilities at the company. Lowry had issued a media statement on April 28, claiming that the March 29, 2004 FDA warning letter to Monsanto's Austrian-based Posilac supplier was merely business as usual. That warning letter blistered the Austrian manufacturer for bad manufacturing practices and failed quality control oversight.

The latest "rat" to jump Monsanto's ship is the "Milk is Milk" website maintained by the Hudson Institute. "Milk is Milk" was hatched in recent years to attack critics of milk from Posilac-injected dairy cows. The Hudson Institute uses Dennis Avery and his son Alex as a "hit squad" attacking persons opposing food biotech.

Monsanto has been both a member and a major contributor to the Hudson Institute. Since Monsanto is the only corporation selling recombinant bovine growth hormone (Posilac), it's presumed Monsanto has been the source of money for the "milk is milk" website. No More.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4114

+ FBI HARASSMENT CONTINUES - ARTIST FACES 20-YEAR CHARGES
Dr Steven Kurtz, Associate Professor of Art at the University of Buffalo, was arraigned and charged in Federal District Court in Buffalo on 8 July on four counts of mail and wire fraud, which each carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.

Kurtz was arrested and harassed by the FBI after art materials consisting of (perfectly legal) harmless bacteria and a GM testing kit were found in his home.

The arraignment of Dr Robert Ferrell, Professor of Genetics at the University of Pittsburgh, who was indicted along with Kurtz, has been postponed for a week for health reasons. Ferrell sent the bacteria to Kurtz.

The defendants were charged not with bioterrorism, as listed on the Joint Terrorism Task Force's original search warrant and subpoenas, but with a glorified version of "petty larceny". The laws under which the indictments were obtained are normally used against those defrauding others of money or property, as in telemarketing schemes. Historically, these laws have been used when the government could not prove other criminal charges. (See http://www.caedefensefund.org/ for background and full text of indictment.

Under the arraignment conditions, Kurtz is subject to travel restrictions, random and scheduled visits from a probation officer, and periodic drug tests.

A number of people are wondering why this seemingly absurd case is still being pursued.

"I am absolutely astonished," said Donald A. Henderson, Dean Emeritus of the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health and resident scholar at the Center for Biosecurity of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. Henderson was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Bush for his work in heading up the World Health Organization smallpox eradication program and was appointed by the Bush administration to chair the National Advisory Council on Public Preparedness.

"Based on what I have read and understand, Professor Kurtz has been working with totally innocuous organisms... to discuss something of the risks and threats of biological weapons - more power to him, as those of us in this field are likewise concerned about their potential use and the threat of bio-terrorism." Henderson noted that the organisms involved in this case - Serratia marcescens and Bacillus atrophaeus - do not appear on lists of substances that could be used in biological terrorism (http://newstandardnews.net/content/?action=show_item&itemid=646).

University of California at San Diego Professor of Design Engineering Natalie Jeremijenko noted that scientists ship materials to each other all the time. "I do it, my lab students do it. It's a basis of academic collaboration.... They're going to have to indict the entire scientific community."

Kurtz's activist art group had intended to use the bacteria concerned in a project critiquing the history of US involvement in germ warfare experiments, including the Bush administration's earmarking of hundreds of millions of dollars to erect high-security laboratories around the country. Many eminent scientists likewise view these plans as a recipe for catastrophe.

"I'm concerned about them from the standpoint of science, safety, security, public health and economics," writes Dr Richard Ebright, lab director at Rutgers University's Waksman Institute of Microbiology and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. "They lose on all counts."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4115

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OTHER GLOBAL NEWS
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+ PROTEST AT GM CONTAMINATION OF MEXICAN MAIZE
Scientists from Mexico, Canada and the US met on March 11 this year in the Hotel Victoria in Oaxaca for a symposium on the effects and possible risks of the presence of GM maize in Mexico. This seems to have been a "two-tier" event, with the organizing pro-GM scientists and technocrats pursuing one agenda and groups representing indigenous people, environmentalists and progressive intellectuals arguing for an alternative vision.

An excellent article on this topic is at
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4112

Excerpt:
..groups representing indigenous people, environmentalists and progressive intellectuals ... rejected ... the "intolerable corruption" of officials who promote genetically modified organisms like-it-or-not style. "We are not interested in confirming whether or not they receive money from the corporations, whether they behave out of mercenary self-interest, ignorance or recklessness. We are not the police. But nor do we need more investigation to be able to affirm unreservedly that they do not represent us and that they are incapable of understanding our reality and aspirations, much less defend them.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4112

+ ARGENTINA: MONSANTO GETS OK TO SELL BIOTECH CORN
Monsanto has received approval to sell in Argentina its NK603 corn genetically modified to survive applications of the company's Roundup weedkiller. Roundup Ready soybeans and cotton - as well as corn and cotton varieties genetically modified to resist insects - already were approved for planting in Argentina.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4136

For more on how Monsanto has bullied Argentina into such approvals and how Monsanto's Roundup Ready crops are destroying Argentina's agriculture, ecology, and economy:
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4136

+ INDONESIA: GM COTTON NOT PRODUCTIVE
Farmers in South Sulawesi had to destroy five hectares of cotton plantations in September 2001 after discovering that the GM cotton was not as productive as scientists and businesspeople had claimed.

PT Monsanto, supplier of the transgenic cottonseeds, had assured the farmers that each hectare would produce about four tons of cotton per hectare at every harvest. But farmers reported that they reaped less than half a ton. "We were duped," said a farmer, Muhammad Amir.

The company's claim that the seeds were highly resistant to pests and diseases also fell short of farmers' expectations.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4117

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ARTICLE OF THE WEEK
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+ BUSH'S 'SOUND SCIENCE': TURNING A DEAF EAR TO REALITY
By David Schubert
San Diego Union-Tribune, 9-7-04

The foundation of our modern society and its continued existence is dependent upon our scientific understanding of the world around us.

During the last three years, we have witnessed an unprecedented assault by the executive branch of our government upon the ability of US scientists to freely share their data and insights about our world with the public. Much of the justification for this repression of scientific communication falls under the Orwellian concept of "sound science," which is clearly understood by the scientific community to mean the misrepresentation of scientific data to reflect the administration's political and social agendas.

This political manipulation of US science began well below the level of public awareness within days after the current administration took office. Highly respected scientists on dozens of advisory committees were replaced with individuals who promote the sound science defined by industry and the religious right.

The concept of sound science, not to be confused with good science, was coined by Newt Gingrich and the incoming 1994 Republican Congress as part of an effort to bypass regulatory hurdles. Sound science required endless analysis and an extreme burden of proof of harm before anything could be regulated by federal agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency. However, the legislation proposed by this group was never made into law.

Now that the Republicans are in total control of the government, the promises of sound science are coming to fruition. The egregious censorship and interference with independent scientific inquiry by the Bush administration were explicitly documented on a case-by-case basis in a recent report published by the Union of Concerned Scientists. The report was endorsed by over 60 Nobel prize winners and leading scientists.

During the last few weeks, the administration has added to this list an unprecedented series of declarations that have the potential to even more seriously affect public health and safety.

First, they have demanded the power to approve all US scientists who sit on World Health Organization committees. The WHO is the public health arm of the United Nations responsible for coordinating responses to epidemics like SARS and eradicating diseases such as smallpox. It also makes recommendations on environmental and industrial threats. The WHO's expert panels have historically been made up of the very best scientists chosen on the basis of expertise and merit, not political ideology.

Second, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services blocked the travel of over 150 US scientists to the International AIDS Conference to be held in Bangkok next week. Many believe that this is because the organizer of the conference refused a request by US officials to invite the Rev. Franklin Graham, the evangelist Billy Graham's son, as the keynote speaker to promote faith-based approaches to the global AIDS epidemic.

Third, in the name of sound science, the US Department of Agriculture denied the Creekstone Farms slaughterhouse in Kansas a request to test all of its cattle for mad cow disease. The testing was an effort by Creekstone to promote the sale of its beef to Japan, where all cattle are routinely tested.

The most likely reason for the denial of this increased safety precaution is that the government fears additional cases of the disease will be found, for only a tiny fraction of the 35 million cattle slaughtered each year are examined. Indeed, another case of the disease was recently identified, but the USDA rapidly proclaimed the test to be a false positive without giving any details.

This incident brings me to the most frightening administration policy of all, which is an attempt by the White House Office of Management and Budget to gain complete control over the release of all public declarations from federal agencies responsible for public safety, health and the environment. OMB's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs uses the excuse of sound science to justify stripping scientists of their traditional authority and adding an additional layer of political review for such life-threatening scenarios as epidemics, nuclear accidents and cases of mad cow disease?

Although this policy has been criticized by every scientific organization in the country, the OMB has already silenced EPA statements regarding public health threats due to arsenic, lead and mercury in our environment, rewritten the EPA science on global warming and prevented the EPA from declaring a public health emergency due to a case of asbestos contamination in Montana.

Just as the Bush administration manipulated the intelligence on Iraq, it is now trying to change the facts of nature to meet their political and ideological goals. This distortion of reality is going to have long-term consequences for our health, safety and the environment.

If you believe that Big Brother is taking care of you, you can rest assured that he is doing it in the name of sound science.

Schubert is a professor and laboratory head of the Cellular Neurobiology Laboratory at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4135

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