GMWatch News Review archive

GMWATCH MONTHLY REVIEW No. 81

Closing in on a thousand fans on Facebook: http://bit.ly/biie19

Please help get us there!  

Claire Robinson, Monthly Review editor
Website: http//www.gmwatch.org
Profiles: http://bit.ly/12UAI2
Twitter: http://twitter.com/GMWatch
Facebook: http://bit.ly/c6OnaX

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MONTHLY REVIEW CONTENTS  
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LATEST NEWS:
*NEW FROM GMWATCH
*LOBBYWATCH
*NON-GM BREAKTHROUGHS
*GM EXPANSION/APPROVALS
*GREENWASH
*CORPORATE TAKEOVER
*FEEDING THE WORLD
*GM ANIMALS
*"BIOFUELS"

REST OF THE MONTH'S NEWS IN BRIEF:
*LOBBYWATCH
*CORPORATE TAKEOVER
*GM FAILURES
*GM ANIMALS
*GM TREES
*SUPERWEEDS
*RESISTANCE
*LABELLING
*CORPORATE CRIMES
*GM EXPANSION/APPROVALS
*SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY

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LATEST NEWS
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NEW FROM GMWATCH
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+ THE GM VIDEOS COLLECTION
About 100 of the best videos on GM and related issues, indexed and sorted into categories to help you find exactly what you want. Let us know what we missed.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12211
http://bit.ly/ao3jWd

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LOBBYWATCH
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+ TAKE ACTION ON FSA'S PR ATTACK
If you're in the UK, please take action to express your concern at the Food Standards Agency's tax-payer funded PR work on behalf of GM industry (detailed below).  
http://www.gmwatch.org/latest-listing/1-news-items/12244

+ UK: FSA SET TO WASTE HALF A MILLION ON PR EXERCISE FOR GM INDUSTRY
On 26 May, GeneWatch UK's Director, Dr Helen Wallace, resigned from the Steering Group for the FSA's GM dialogue. The Steering Group met on 27 May to agree a GBP450,000 bid and GBP50,000 evaluation for its public dialogue on GM crops and food. Additional money will be spent on paying the civil servants and consultants who will be managing the exercise. The budget was approved by the former Government and is overseen by the FSA, which is chaired by former Labour agriculture minister Jeff Rooker.

Freedom of Information requests and internal documents show that the dialogue is an integral part of the GM industry's PR strategy. This involves claiming non-existent future benefits ('GM will feed the world') whilst portraying step-by-step contamination of GM-free shipments into Britain and Europe as inevitable and lobbying to weaken regulation. Dr Wallace said: "Taxpayers will be shocked that a former minister is blowing public money on a PR exercise on behalf of GM companies".
http://www.gmwatch.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12243
Helen Wallace’s resignation letter: http://www.genewatch.org/uploads/f03c6d66a9b354535738483c1c3d49e4/resignation.doc

+ PRO-GM BIAS IN FSA "DIALOGUE"
It has emerged that the Food Standards Agency's GM Public Dialogue could be conducted by a consultancy already working for a biotechnology company. GM Freeze described the Dialogue as a  "breathtaking, arrogant and cynical attempt to manipulate public opinion on GM crops". Documents released under the Freedom of Information Act from one of the companies bidding to run the GM Dialogue showed they have been working with a multi-national agrochemical and seed company "to develop concepts which link agri-business with important global issues (such as climate change, water scarcity, deforestation, etc) and position the company as a positive force". The same company's bid sets out how they will avoid engaging with anyone with strong views on GM and avoid publicity.
 
Former Labour Minister Lord Jeff Rooker now chairs the FSA and is well known for his outspoken remarks in favour of GM food and crops in recent years. Three of Labour's major funders in the 1990s and 2000s had substantial investments in biotechnology.
http://www.gmfreeze.org/page.asp?id=428&iType=

+ GM PROMOTER SHOWS WHY MONSANTO'S DATA UNTRUSTWORTHY
As GM scientists go, Pamela Ronald is a spin doctor's dream, with her marriage to an organic farmer with whom she's written a book, Tomorrow's Table, promoting GM as the way forward for sustainable agriculture. That's why her articles, talks and blog are heavily promoted by the biotech industry. But her book's guidance on how the public can distinguish dubious claims from high quality science in relation to GM is a major own goal, as it provides a highly revealing checklist when it comes to how GM crops get regulatory approval! Check out how very badly they do:
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12232
For more on Ronald see:
PAMELA RONALD'S "GENETICALLY ENGINEERED DISTORTIONS" in the LOBBYWATCH section of the REST OF THE MONTH'S NEWS IN BRIEF below.

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NON-GM BREAKTHROUGHS
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+ NON-GM CASSAVA RESEARCH OUTCLASSES GM
SciDev.net has reported on an ongoing story that scientists have produced a super-sized and highly nutritious non-GM cassava that they say is "less costly than genetic engineering and does not raise the safety concerns that make some people wary of genetically modified crops". Cassava is the world's third-largest source of calories.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12240

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GM EXPANSION/APPROVALS
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+ GM PAPAYAS TO HIT JAPAN BY SUMMER
The Japanese government has decided to apply its GM food labeling rules to papayas, opening the way for the import of GM papayas as early as this summer. The fruit would be the first GM food meant for consumption raw to be allowed distribution in Japan.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12235

+ SYNGENTA + CIMMYT = GM WHEAT
Syngenta and the International Center of Research for the Improvement of Corn and Wheat (CIMMYT) have announced that they will join forces to develop varieties of wheat, both conventional and GM.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12236

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GREENWASH
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+ "RESPONSIBLE" SOY IN TROUBLE
The Round Table on Responsible Soy (RTRS), an agro-industry initiative to legitimize (mostly GM) soy monocultures in South America, is on very shaky ground now that one of its key members has withdrawn and the Dutch government is reconsidering its support. The Round Table is a working group that claims to promote environmentally and socially responsible soy production but has been condemned by people in Latin America and many NGOs as a cynical greenwash exercise. Its members include Monsanto, Syngenta and WWF (World Wildlife Fund).
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12236

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CORPORATE TAKEOVER
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+ BRAZILIAN FARMERS COMPLAIN MONSANTO RESTRICTS ACCESS TO NON-GM SOY SEED
The Brazilian Association of Soy Producers (APROSOJA) and the Brazilian Association of Non Genetically Modified Grain Producers (ABRANGE) are considering engaging the Administrative Council for Economic Defense (Cade), of the Ministry of Justice, against Monsanto, which they say is restricting the access of farmers to non-GM soybean seeds. "They are imposing a sales ratio of 85% of GM seeds to 15% of conventional seeds. Seed production has to serve the market. You cannot monopolize or shape the market," complained the new president of APROSOJA, Glabuer Silveira.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12237

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FEEDING THE WORLD
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+ STANDING UP FOR FOOD SOVEREIGNTY: GATES, GMOs AND LUGAR-CASEY
AGRA Watch formed in 2008 to challenge the Gates Foundation's participation in the problematic Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, and to support sustainable, agro-ecological alternatives already practiced in Africa. AGRA Watch has produced a report critiquing the Lugar-Carey bill, which mandates that funding for GM research is built into foreign aid programmes. AGRA Watch says that in appeasing national security priorities and corporate interests, the Lugar-Casey bill overlooks key findings of the peer-reviewed International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD), which found that agroecological methods offer enormous potential for feeding the world.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12242

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GM ANIMALS
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+ TRAGEDY ON THE PHARM
Last year, in New Zealand, a state-owned company called AgResearch produced four GM calves. They were intended to generate human follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) that could be used in treating infertility. Three of them developed huge ovaries - "the size of tennis balls rather than the usual thumbnail-size." Two died unexpectedly at the age of six months; the third "was put down for scientists to study." The one survivor is still producing human proteins in its milk.

Pete Shanks of the Center for Genetics and Society comments in an incisive article: "There are many possible responses to this debacle, but we should start by noting the callous response of the scientists involved, who did not see the deaths as a 'big deal' and called them 'part of the learning process.' Moreover, AgResearch, which is "owned by the people of New Zealand, working for the benefit of New Zealand," kept it quiet until compelled to release veterinary reports through the local equivalent of a Freedom of Information Act request. AgResearch is supposed to improve agricultural productivity. ”¦ But it sees its prime directive as 'to develop and source biotechnologies to help keep New Zealand at the forefront of agriculture'."
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12241

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"BIOFUELS"
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+ BIOFUELS POLLUTE
Biofuels release toxic pollutants when they burn, says a review of several recent studies.
http://bit.ly/a4S0cw

+ INTRODUCTION TO BIOFUELS - VIDEOS
What's wrong with biofuelS? Check out these introductory videos - short and clear!
http://bit.ly/d8Oej9

+ TAKE ACTION ON BIOFUELS
Stop Lufthansa's Agrofuel ("Biofuels") Plans
http://bit.ly/aXY4hw

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REST OF THE MONTH'S NEWS IN BRIEF
For those who do not receive GMWatch's Weekly Watch
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LOBBYWATCH
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+ FRENCH PROFESSOR UNDER SEVERE ATTACK - YOUR SUPPORT NEEDED
Prof. Gilles-Eric Seralini 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 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. http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12213

+ 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

+ 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

+ BIOTECH COMPANIES GIVEN PRIVILEGED ACCESS TO EUROPE'S POLICY MAKERS
Leading biotech companies have been granted privileged access to the European Union's policy makers as part of their efforts to speed up the approval of new GM crops. With opposition to GM foods high across this continent, the biotech industry has long been frustrated with the obstacles it has encountered in placing its products on the market. In a confidential 2006 letter, the trade association EuropaBio warned Jose Manuel Barroso, the European Commission president, that the political situation "might greatly diminish" its ability to prove its theory that cultivating GM crops is in the public interest. Following that letter, EU officials agreed that a series of meetings should be held with EuropaBio on issues relating to new GM crops.

Known as "tripartite meetings", the process also includes the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), the body tasked with assessing whether releasing GM seeds into the environment poses a risk to human health. While Monsanto, Dow, DuPont and BASF have been represented at these talks, no comparable access to decision-makers has been granted to critics of the biotech industry.
http://www.gmwatch.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12220

+ 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.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12192

+ POLLUTED BY PROFIT - THE BIG ENVIRONMENTAL GROUPS
Groups such as Conservation International (CI) and the Nature Conservancy (TNC) are among the most trusted "brands" in the world, pledged to protect and defend nature. Yet as we confront the biggest ecological crisis in human history, many of the green organisations meant to be leading the fight are busy shovelling up cash from the world's worst polluters - and simultaneously burying science-based environmentalism, says an excellent article by Johann Hari in The Independent.
http://bit.ly/dj8mbj

+ BRUCE CHASSY COMMENTS ON BIOTECH CONTROVERSIES
Bruce Chassy is the pro-GM scientist who, with David Tribe, runs the Academics Review website. Academics Review poses as providing an objective and non-partisan assessment of the scientific evidence on GM food research, although its actual function appears to be to try to discredit Jeffrey Smith, the author of two books foregrounding science critical of GMOs. Chassy shows how non-partisan he really is in a recent interview where he claims GMOs "are probably safer than any [other products]. There is no scientific controversy or doubt about the real-world outcomes. They are ALL positive, good for consumers, farmers, the environment." [emphasis added] And as this raises the problem of why in that case GMOs are facing worldwide opposition, Chassy explains this away as the work of a tiny group of conspirators in the pay of the organic food industry!
http://www.gmwatch.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12218

+ PAMELA RONALD'S "GENETICALLY ENGINEERED DISTORTIONS"
Professor of plant pathology Pamela Ronald presents herself as a fresh voice in the GM debate, arguing that organic farming should embrace GMOs and that GM crops are needed by developing countries. But Phil Bereano, a long-time participant in the meetings relating to the Cartagena Biosafety Protocol, says poor countries (especially in Africa) have been the most critical of GM technology and the attempts of multinational corporations and governments (such as that of the US) to pressure them into adopting it. Isn't it time, asks Prof. Bereano in response to a New York Times Op-Ed co-authored by Ronald, that white people in wealthy countries stop telling people of color in poor nations how they should live their lives?
http://bit.ly/asjAvn

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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

+ 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, lacks the capacity to ensure the safe handling of such a huge volume.
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

+ CONTROVERSY OVER MONSANTO "GIFT" TO HAITI
Monsanto has donated $4 million in seeds to Haiti, sending 60 tons of conventional hybrid corn and vegetable seed, followed by 70 more tons of corn seed last week with an additional 345 tons of corn seed to come during the next year. Yet the number one recommendation of a recent report by Catholic Relief Services on post-earthquake Haiti is to focus on local seed fairs and not to introduce new or "improved" varieties at this time. The company says in a press release that its hybrid seeds will be distributed to Haitian farmers via the WINNER project. The director of this USAID backed project is Jean Robert Estime, formerly a key player in the infamous Duvalier dictatorship of Papa and Baby Doc, and at one time the subject of an international arrest warrant for grand larceny.
http://bit.ly/9Sqywz

+ SCIENTISTS REVEAL GLYPHOSATE POISONS CROPS AND SOIL
Great overview: http://bit.ly/avjveE

+ ROUNDUP SPRAYING HALTED BY RESIDENTS IN THE BRONX
In Riverdale, the Bronx, New York, citizen whistleblowers stopped the Department of Parks and Recreation from coating a park with a layer of Roundup herbicide. NB: A spokesperson from the Parks Dept said it will instead employ weed whacking, an alternative method to control the growth of weeds. So the alternatives are that simple.
http://bit.ly/d70AGt
GMWatch comment: In the UK, spraying of Roundup and other toxic herbicides is common on verges, city roads and pavements, schools, and parks. One trigger-happy Council sprayer of moss killer was hospitalized after he was found “wandering around Bollington Recreation Ground, after his wife reported him missing.”
http://bit.ly/9KcJVO

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GM FAILURES
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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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GM ANIMALS
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+ INDUSTRY WARY ABOUT ENVIROPIG
The Enviropig is now up for approval by Canadian and US safety agencies after more than a decade of development, but pig industry experts are still lukewarm at best about the creature, says a report for Canadian agriculture outlet Producer.com. Enviropig is a GM pig that expels lower amounts of phosphorus than traditional pigs and theoretically reduces phosphorus pollution from intensive pig operations. Laurie Connor, the head of animal science at the University of Manitoba, said, “There’s not a big push within the industry to embrace that particular direction.” Connor said supplements like phytase and research into balanced feed rations are allowing producers to increase phosphorus digestion and limit phosphorus extrusion.
http://www.producer.com/Livestock/Article.aspx?aid=22577

+ 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
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/stories/2010/05/20/1248045bb3a2

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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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SUPERWEEDS
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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

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RESISTANCE
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+ BLOCKADE OF MONSANTO IN THE NETHERLANDS
Forty members of the action group Roundup Monsanto blockaded the gates of the Monsanto seed company De Ruiter Seeds, near Rotterdam in the Netherlands, successfully shutting the plant down for the day. Roundup Monsanto wants Monsanto to back out of the seed market and an end to patents on seeds and living organisms. Monsanto and other agrochemical multinationals are lobbying the Dutch government and the EU for legislative changes that would make it easier for large companies to take control of the seed market and food production.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12217
Watch the video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tU7NFz7VEvE&feature=player_embedded

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LABELLING
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+ 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

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CORPORATE CRIMES
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+ 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

+ THE SUICIDE BELT: GM COTTON IN INDIA
A superb article on the Bt cotton and farmer suicide crisis in India has been published in the Columbia City Paper. The article, written by a journalist who actually traveled to affected areas, notes, “Monsanto has funded three studies attempting to prove the company isn’t responsible for the suicides. ”¦ Despite the Monsanto-funded studies, it's clear from the ground level that had India not moved its cotton industry to genetically modified seeds so quickly, and instead confined the technology to the larger, irrigated fields for which it was designed, the agrarian suicide crisis wouldn't exist at the level it does today. Critics of Monsanto in India allege this imprudent agrarian policy is the result of government corruption and the US company's gaming of the system.”
http://www.gmwatch.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12221

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GM EXPANSION/APPROVALS
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+ FRENCH WINE TO BE GENETICALLY MODIFIED
The French Ministry of Agriculture announced on May 18 that it would authorize a GM vineyard in Alsace for experimentation. European member of Parliament and sustainable development activist Jose Bove considered the decision to be heading in the wrong direction: "I think it is a bad decision. In the whole wine-growing industry no one wants the GM yards. It is therefore a very bad idea to authorize field-testing in Alsace.”
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/35781/

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SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY
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+ SYN-BIO ORGANISMS NEED PUBLIC SCRUTINY AND CONTROLS
The announcement from the Craig Venter Institute that it has successfully genetically engineered an entirely artificial organism that can replicate itself raises many ethical, scientific, economic and safety issues.  The new "breakthrough" in genetic engineering, published in the journal Science, is the creation of a simple bacterium with an entirely synthetic genome. Backers of synthetic biology claim that the technology will be able to create new organisms to produce synthetic fuels and chemicals by digesting plant materials. In other words, it was created for the “biofuels” industry. GM Freeze says the new technology has progressed to the point of creating a new life form without adequate regulation or public oversight and is highly irresponsible.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12229

+ SYN-BIO ORGANISMS NEED PUBLIC SCRUTINY AND CONTROLS
Craig Venter is not just a flamboyant US molecular biologist but an entrepreneur. It's worth remembering that while the Human Genome Project first brought Venter to public prominence, it was as the head of a private company - Celera Genomics. This initiative had a completely different raison d'etre to that behind the public project, which wanted the sequenced human genome to be made available free of charge to any researcher who wanted it. Celera Genomics, by contrast, was ready to begin patenting anything and everything of interest that looked like it had commercial potential. Venter's current company, Synthetic Genomics, has teamed up with pharma giant Novartis and oil giant Exxon Mobil, which has poured in hundreds of thousands of dollars. BP is also massively investing in synthetic biology (via UC Berkeley). The involvement of such companies is not exactly a good omen in terms of planetary care.
http://www.gmwatch.eu/latest-listing/1-news-items/12231

+ SUPERB ROUNDUP OF REACTIONS TO VENTER'S ANNOUNCEMENT
http://www.biopoliticaltimes.org/article.php?id=5220

+ NEW FACEBOOK PAGE LAUNCHED TO STOP SYNTHETIC LIFE
http://bit.ly/9AXY4L