GMWatch News Review archive

WEEKLY WATCH number 291
from Claire Robinson, WEEKLY WATCH editor

Dear all:

A new study shows big pest surges in China in and around Bt cotton fields (ASIA). In the US, there are severe problems with glyphosate resistant weeds, caused by Roundup Ready crop use, choking crop fields (THE AMERICAS).

And don't forget the Avaaz petition calling for a moratorium on the introduction of GM crops into Europe. It has now been signed by 770,000 people. Please tell all your friends and family to sign it too to help take it past 1 million: http://bit.ly/ahQNrh

Claire <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Website: http//www.gmwatch.org
Profiles: http://bit.ly/12UAI2
Twitter: http://twitter.com/GMWatch
Facebook: http://bit.ly/c6OnaX

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CONTENTS
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LOBBYWATCH
EUROPE
CORPORATE TAKEOVER
AFRICA
ASIA
AUSTRALASIA
GM TREES
AFRICA
THE AMERICAS
COMPANY NEWS

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LOBBYWATCH
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+ FRENCH PROFESSOR UNDER SEVERE ATTACK - YOUR SUPPORT NEEDED
Prof. Gilles-Eric Seralini has recently published seven peer-reviewed scientific papers on potential side effects of the herbicide glyphosate and GM maize on human and mammalian health. He and his colleagues - Joel Spiroux de Vendomois, and Dominique Cellier - have become the targets of a campaign aimed at discrediting them which threatens not only their livelihood as scientists, but also their funding to continue research for the public good. Please sign a petition to support them - two petitions are available, one for researchers and the other for members of civil society, at:
http://www.sciencescitoyennes.org/spip.php?article1801
Background information and statements of support from scientists are at
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12204

+ SPINWATCH UNDER ATTACK FROM PRO-CORPORATE NETWORK
Spinwatch, the organization that hosts GMWatch profiles of GM pushers on its SpinProfiles site (http://www.spinprofiles.org/index.php?title=GM_Watch:_Portal), is under attack from a non-transparent group of people who aggressively push a pro-corporate line. They have been spreading lies and misinformation.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12194

+ U.S. STATE DEPT TO AGGRESSIVELY CONFRONT GM CRITICS
Jose Fernandez, US Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Economic, Energy and Business Affairs said at the industry's big BIO conference in Chicago that the State Department would be aggressively confronting critics of GM crops. He said the State Department would build alliances (presumably with the biotech industry and foreign governments), anticipating roadblocks to acceptance and highlighting the scien"e. The trouble is, as a Jim Goodman article for CounterPunch points out, the "science” on GM crops does not back up the hype that GM will help feed the world or even back up the notion that it is safe.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12213

+ AFACT CONTINUES TO HIDE ITS MONSANTO CONNECTION
Monsanto had a founding role in American Farmers for the Advancement of and Conservation of Technology, or AFACT, as the New York Times previously exposed. But AFACT's spokespeople continue to omit that in their presentations.
http://bit.ly/bFzBIk

+ NEW DEFINITION OF SUSTAINABLE
A group called the Keystone Center - whose board includes execs from Monsanto, DuPont, and Dow - has organized an effort by Monsanto, the Fertilizer Institute, and other groups to "write a technical definition for sustainable," the Commercial Appeal reports. Evidently, after rigorous study and soul-searching, the coalition settled upon a definition of "sustainable" cotton production that ... blesses the current methods of producing industrial chemical-intensive cotton. And the future on offer, says agriculture and food commentator Tom Philpott, is "a kind of treadmill of new chemical-intensive solutions: for example, using herbicides developed by Syngenta to clean up messes caused by Monsanto's herbicide."
http://bit.ly/aHOy9r

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EUROPE    
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+ UK'S NEW ENVIRONMENT MINISTER IS FORMER BIOTECH LOBBYIST
The new UK prime minister, David Cameron, has chosen as his environment minister the former director of a food and biotech lobbying firm. Caroline Spelman is the co-founder and former director of Spelman, Cormack and Associates. The firm remains in the hands of her husband.
http://bit.ly/cxN0FX
http://bit.ly/du0Thn

+ PAPER REVEALS EU PLAN TO BOOST GM CROP CULTIVATION
The EU executive appears to have stopped opposing GM free areas in the EU because it now wants to let national governments decide whether or not to grow GM crops without a long drawn-out review of the bloc's current GM legislation. Details of the plan, which might open the door to widespread GM cultivation in Europe, provoked a furious reaction from environmentalists. The EU executive is hoping to unblock the paralysis in GM crop approvals by giving any countries that want to grow them the freedom to do so, in exchange for sanctioning the current "GM-free" stance of several member states. Rather than revise the legislation, which would require the agreement of the European Parliament, which strongly opposes GM crops, the Commission will try to make the change "within the existing legislative framework, if possible," the paper said. "The Commission appears intent on avoiding any democratic debate with the parliament in order to please the biotech industry and get GM crops into Europe," said Friends of the Earth's Adrian Bebb.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12190

+ EUROPE'S BIOTECH INDUSTRY MODIFYING THE TRUTH
Industry claims that Europe's laws on GM crops harm the animal feed industry are false, shows new research. Analysis of official EU data by Friends of the Earth Europe proves that current laws function well. Only minute amounts of trade in animal feeds were directly disrupted by contamination incidents in the last five years. Europe's legal safeguards cannot be blamed for any problems in the farming sector. Adrian Bebb of Friends of the Earth Europe said: "There is not a shred of evidence to support the case that Europe should weaken its GMO safety laws. Claims from the biotech and feed industries that farmers can't feed or would even have to slaughter their animals are simply not true. Our research shows that industry is trying to scare-monger politicians to change the law." The biotech and feed industries are lobbying for the EU to allow contamination of foods and feeds by GM crops not approved for sale in Europe.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12192

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CORPORATE TAKEOVER
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+ COMPANIES STILL RESTRICTING GM RESEARCH
A battle is quietly being waged between the industry that produces GM seeds and scientists trying to investigate the environmental impacts of engineered crops. In February 2009, two dozen scientists from public research institutions told the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that biotech companies inhibit public scientists from pursuing their mandated role on behalf of the public good" and warned that industry influence had made independent analyses of GM crops impossible. "I have talked to dozens of scientists who have gone through incredible machinations to do their research," says Charles Benbrook, the chief executive director of the National Academy of Sciences Board on Agriculture. And when their data presents a challenge to the companies, he says, these scientists "have found themselves under personal and professional threats”¦. The companies, in their paranoia, have created a vacuum of expertise and it's the farmers who will ultimately be the victims." "Scientists are
clearly intimidated," says Doug Gurian-Sherman, senior scientist for the Union of Concerned Scientists' Food and Environment Program.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12209

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AFRICA
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+ SOUTH AFRICA FORCING GM MAIZE INTO AFRICA
In the last four months, South Africa has dumped almost 300,000 metric tons of GM maize onto Kenya, Mozambique and Swaziland. According to the African Centre for Biosafety (ACB), these are the first documented cases of commodity exports of GMOs from South Africa to the rest of the African continent, and set a worrying precedent. Even Kenya, which is of vital strategic importance to the biotech industry in Africa, and where the vast majority of the GM maize ended up, severely lacks the capacity to ensure the safe handling and monitoring of such a huge volume. According to Mariam Mayet, ACB, Director, "As much as 80% of the grain trade in East Africa is informal and undocumented; the arrival of 280,000 tons of GM maize into Kenya presents the potential for genetic contamination on an unimaginable scale."
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12214

+ GMOS, FOOD SECURITY AND MISPLACED AID IN KENYA
The Gates Foundation’s plans to flood Africa with GM seed in the name of aid is misguided, said Jos Ngonyo of Kenya's Biodiversity Coalition. He said of the Gates- and Rockefeller Foundation-backed Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa: "AGRA didn't involve the people in Africa. This was an idea pushed to Africa and that does not work. It’s not about us without us." In early April, protestors led by Kenya's Biodiversity Coalition rejected 40,000 tons of GM maize grown in South Africa. The maize remains blocked at the port city of Mombassa. Protesters say the maize is a springboard to contaminate non-GMO crops.
http://www.gmwatch.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12207

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ASIA
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+ SCIENTISTS CALL FOR GM REVIEW AFTER PEST SURGE IN CHINA'S COTTON FARMS
Scientists are calling for the long-term risks of GM crops to be reassessed after field studies revealed an explosion in pest numbers around farms growing GM cotton that have begun to infest not just cotton but a range of other crops. The unexpected surge of infestations "highlights a critical need" for better ways of predicting the impact of GM crops and spotting potentially damaging knock-on effects arising from their cultivation, researchers said. Millions of hectares of farmland in northern China have been struck by infestations of bugs following the widespread adoption of Bt cotton. Outbreaks of mirid bugs, which can devastate around 200 varieties of fruit, vegetable and corn crops, have risen dramatically in the past decade, as cotton farmers have shifted from traditional cotton crops to GM varieties. A 10-year study across six major cotton-growing regions of China found that mirid bugs were thriving and spreading to neighbouring farms. The research, led by Kongming Wu at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences in Beijing, is published in the US journal, Science.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12208
The new study is not the first showing Bt cotton in trouble in China.
http://bit.ly/9BGMMd
And there is clear evidence Bt cotton is facing rising pest problems in other countries too.
http://bit.ly/bdzuQK
http://bit.ly/dzKwa7
http://bit.ly/9P7Wih

+ GM COMPANIES WREAKING HAVOC IN INDIA - CHIEF MINISTER
Prof. Prem Kumar Dhumal, Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh in India has said that some multinational companies were wreaking havoc in India by spreading the "obsolete technology" of GM food and that the companies should be curbed by adequate restrictions. He proposed a 15-year moratorium on GM foods.
http://bit.ly/c8QYMK

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AUSTRALASIA
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+ CRUEL EXPERIMENTS JUST THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG
New revelations of cruel outcomes on experimental GM calves at AgResearch's GM facility are likely to be just the tip of the iceberg, according to the Soil & Health Association of NZ. "AgResearch already has a bad track record with its Annual Reports to ERMA for GM cattle showing a less than 9 % live birth rate, deformed foetuses and calves, gangrenous udders and animals suffering from respiratory conditions," said Soil & Health spokesperson Steffan Browning. The Environmental Risk Management Authority (ERMA) last year also granted AgResearch permission to experiment on cats, dogs, pigs, guinea pigs, sheep, mice, rats, rabbits, possums, cattle, goats, and chickens using genetic material from almost any form of life. "How many cats and dogs, rabbits and guinea pigs, mice, cattle, and other animals are to suffer for AgResearch's unnecessary experiments? AgResearch's media tour last year showed off apparently healthy cattle but they were just the lucky survivors. It is now evident that
some calves ovaries were growing to the point of rupture, causing death, but the scientist in charge, Dr Jimmy Suttie, has been quoted as saying the deaths are not a big deal."
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12189
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12185

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GM TREES
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+ NEW STUDIES EXPOSE RISKS OF GM TREES
Alarms are sounding over the proposed planting of more than a quarter of a million GM eucalyptus trees in the US. The USDA's Animal Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) is considering approving a request by ArborGen to plant 260,000 GM trees across seven states even though researchers admit some of these trees produce viable pollen and some seedlings are assured to escape. In April, Reuters released a report exposing the fact that US regulators have "dropped the ball" when it comes to evaluating the potential risks of GMOs. Reuters highlighted concerns that "the US government conducts no independent testing of these biotech crops before they are approved, and does little to track their consequences after."    The report went so far as to state, "Indeed, many experts say the US government does more to promote global acceptance of biotech crops than to protect the public from possible harmful consequences."
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12195
Listen to Jim Hightower on GM trees.
http://bit.ly/bB3v6Z#biofuels
GM trees approval will "bring shame" on New Zealand.
http://bit.ly/cPhMw8

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THE AMERICAS
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+ SUPERWEEDS: GM TECHNOLOGY SETS FARMING BACK DECADES
Roundup Ready GM technology has caused such severe glyphosate-resistant weed problems that US farmers are being forced to abandon no-till methods and return to ploughing, more toxic herbicides, and even hand weeding, says a report in the New York Times. Bill Freese, a science policy analyst for the Center for Food Safety in Washington, said, "The biotech industry is taking us into a more pesticide-dependent agriculture when they've always promised, and we need to be going in, the opposite direction.”
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12193

+ SUPERWEEDS PROBLEM ANOTHER REASON TO GO ORGANIC - MARION NESTLE
Professor of nutrition Marion Nestle responds to the NYT report on superweeds (above) in an article in The Atlantic. She points out that when, in 1996, scientists predicted there would be problems with Roundup resistant weeds, their concerns were dismissed by Monsanto as absurd, and that since then the company has tried to maintain that the problem is largely "hypothetical". The NYT's report notes that this "hypothetical" problem now involves "10 resistant [weed] species in at least 22 states infesting millions of acres, predominantly soybeans, cotton and corn." Nestle concludes: "The Times article makes it sound like Roundup resistance is the end of the world. It's bad news for GM crops, but sure seems like another good reason why we need more acres planted in sustainable, organic agriculture."
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12197

+ VIDEOS SHOWING U.S. FARMERS STRUGGLING WITH SUPERWEEDS
Arkansas Farm Bureau - Pigweed Problem
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVxqOK7J7Ak
(There’s a problem with the sound on this video half way through but you can get the gist.)
ABC News: Super Weed Can't Be Killed
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-cka5s4AqE&NR=1
Farmer says he hasn't seen such a bad weed problem in 30 years. Monsanto blames farmers for "overuse" of Roundup Ready GM technology!

+ SCIENTIST WARNS OF DIRE CONSEQUENCES FROM WIDESPREAD USE OF GLYPHOSATE
Don Huber, a scientist who recently retired from Purdue University, talks about his research findings that the widespread use of glyphosate is causing negative impacts on soil and plants as well as possibly animal and human health. He found a consistent increase in "take-all" (a fungal disease in wheat) where glyphosate had been applied. He also found that glyphosate reduces manganese in plants, which is essential to many plant defense reactions that protect plants from disease and environmental stress. Huber said: “Glyphosate can immobilize plant nutrients such as manganese, copper, potassium, iron, magnesium, calcium, and zinc so they are no longer nutritionally functional. Glyphosate kills weeds by tying up essential nutrients needed to keep plant defenses active. Glyphosate doesn’t kill weeds directly but shuts down their defense mechanisms so pathogens in the soil can mobilize and kill the weeds. Glyphosate completely weakens the plant, making it susceptible to soil borne
fungal pathogens.”
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12196

+ U.S. URGED TO BACK GM LABELING AGREEMENT
Consumers Union is asking the Obama Administration to get behind a compromise on GM food labeling that is widely supported in the international community. The US is lobbying the Codex Committee on Food Labeling, an arm of Codex Alimentarius, the United Nations food standards agency, to introduce a guideline that Codex would not "suggest or imply that GM/GE foods are in any way different from other foods," and refused to agree to language stating that Codex "recognizes that each country can adopt different approaches regarding labeling" of GM/GE foods. Only Mexico, Costa Rica, and Argentina support the US position. Consumers Union was one of 80 groups who sent a letter last month to Michael Taylor, deputy commissioner for food at the US Food and Drug Administration, and Kathleen Merrigan, deputy secretary at the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), expressing serious concerns that the US position on labeling could create "major problems" for domestic and foreign producers who want to label their products as GM-free.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12206

+ DANGERS FACED BY BIOTECH WORKERS
Scientist and whistleblower Becky McClain says biotech workers are in extreme danger from GM infectious agents in research labs. McClain acquired an illness after a work-related exposure to a GM virus at Pfizer and is currently engaged in a legal battle to gain redress. McClain is not alone, and cites the case of Dr. Malcolm Casadaban, a Professor of Molecular Genetics from the Univ. of Chicago who died after a work-acquired infection to Yersinia pestis, the bacteria linked to the plague, a bacterium that had been laboratory-attenuated, disabling its ability to cause disease. Unfortunately, says McClain, “that latter fact turned out to be unknowingly wrong. Dr Casadaban’s death brings to light the unprecedented dangers which biotech workers face and which the public should be made aware.”
GMWatch comment: Attenuated viruses are commonly used in vaccines.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12205

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COMPANY NEWS
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+ MONSANTO GETS HAMMERED BY ANALYSTS
Monsanto continues to get hammered by analysts. Citigroup is the latest company to come down hard on them, as they've cut their price target on the seed company from $76 to $60. Morgan Stanley also downgraded Monsanto.
http://bit.ly/cdJNvs