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WEEKLY WATCH number 295
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from Claire Robinson, WEEKLY WATCH editor
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Dear all:
This week’s big news is the European Commission’s attempt to fast-track GM approvals at EU level in return for offering member states an opportunity to ban GM crops. This seeming gift is actually a Trojan horse, warn NGOs who have looked at the legal aspects (EUROPE).
Bayer has been hit with damages in yet another lawsuit brought by a farmer for contamination of rice with its illegal GM variety (THE AMERICAS).
In the UK, it’s goodbye to the much-despised Food Standards Agency but the closure is happening for all the wrong reasons (EUROPE).
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
EUROPE
GM TREES
CORPORATE CRIMES
ASIA
THE AMERICAS
AUSTRALASIA
NEW BOOK
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LOBBYWATCH
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+ BBC BROADCASTS OPINIONS OF MONSANTO COLLABORATOR
In an article for the BBC, Prof Jonathan Jones promoted GM crops as a solution to most of the world’s problems and characterized those who avoid GM foods as fussy eaters.
The BBC described Jones in his more publicly-oriented role as "senior scientist for The Sainsbury Laboratory, based at the John Innes Centre, a research centre in plant and microbial science".
The BBC did not mention that Jones is co-founder and advisory board member of biotech firm Mendel Biotechnology. Mendel names Monsanto as its “most important customer and collaborator for our technology business". Commentators who pointed out the links between Jones and Mendel/Monsanto found that their comments were not posted on the BBC website.
Update 19 July 2010: following storm of criticism of Jones's failure to declare his conflicts of interest, the BBC updated its website with this information at Jones's request.
More about Jones and Mendel Biotechnology:
http://www.powerbase.info/index.php?title=Jonathan_Jones
http://www.powerbase.info/index.php?title=Mendel_Biotechnology
+ OBSERVER ARTICLE REVEALS JONES’S CONFLICTS OF INTEREST
Following the BBC article, Observer journalist Jamie Doward revealed Jonathan Jones’s links to Mendel Biotechnology and thereby to Monsanto in an article, “Scientist leading GM crop test defends links to US biotech giant Monsanto”.
The article reported, “The scientist in charge of a taxpayer-funded trial that may determine whether genetically modified crops will be grown in the UK has been attacked for his close links to the US biotech giant Monsanto. Professor Jonathan Jones, head of the Sainsbury Laboratory at the John Innes Centre, the UK's leading plant research centre, has shrugged off the controversy, insisting he has never tried to hide his business relationship with Monsanto or the GM industry.”
Jonathan Matthews of GMWatch is quoted in the article as saying: "The frontman for the latest GM push in the UK is being portrayed as a dedicated public servant doing science in the public interest, but it now appears he not only has vested interests in the success of GM but even commercial connections to Monsanto."
In a comment posted at the foot of the Observer article, Jones defends himself by saying he referred [indirectly] to Mendel in an article he wrote three years earlier.
As public comments on the Observer article point out, the more reputable scientific journals have started asking authors of articles and papers to declare all possible conflicts of interest. The authors have to fill in the conflict of interest form each time they submit an article.
http://bit.ly/bmhRhY
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EUROPE
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+ EUROPEAN COMMISSION’S DODGY GM DEAL
The European Commission's recent offer to allow national bans on GM crops is dangerous and hollow, warns a group of NGOs.
The scheme offers member states a deal approve all new GM crops at EU level without fuss, in return for the right to ban them at a local level if you do not like them.
But lawyers have advised that member states are being offered no additional powers to issue bans for health, environment and contamination reasons, despite these being the most serious and legally reliable grounds. Instead, only ethical grounds are offered, which are legally intangible, subjective and easily overturned in court.
"Governments should study the fine print because [the] proposal is not worth the paper it is written on," Jorgo Riss from the EU unit of Greenpeace said.
http://www.gmwatch.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12341
http://www.gmwatch.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12351
+ EU PROPOSALS NOT ACCEPTABLE GM FREEZE
Commenting on the European Commission proposals (see above), Pete Riley of GM Freeze said:
"Member states should approach the Commission’s proposals claiming to facilitate bans on GM crops with extreme caution. They need to ensure that in the short and long term that they will be able to ban a GM crop without ending up in court or with a WTO dispute. This could have implications for the UK because Wales and Scotland have GM-free policies.
"Allowing Member States the right to make the final decision whether or not a GM crop is grown is the right thing to do, but what is currently on the table needs careful evaluation, especially as it appears to be subject to last minute changes. The current version is still silent on serious questions about protection of health and environment like full protection from contamination for conventional and organic farms throughout the EU, laws to prevent seed contamination, and legal certainty for those who wish to keep GM crops out of their territory. Unless all these issues are tackled, this hastily redrafted proposal should be rejected."
http://gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12353
+ JOSE BOVE: "THE LOBBIES ARE TRYING TO FORCE GMOS ON EUROPE"
In a chat on LeMonde.fr, the Green MEP José Bové warned that the European Commission proposals will weaken the risk assessment unit of EFSA (the European Food Safety Authority) and promote substantial equivalence, “the Trojan horse that was used when GMOs were launched in the USA”.
Bové commented on the power of the GM lobby in Brussels: “The lobbies are all based in Brussels, and they try to impose their aims, including GMOs, on the Commission, and also on the Parliament. That said, one senses more and more resistance within the European Parliament in relation to questions that impinge on food and health. And the last vote of the Parliament to ban cloned meat and nanoparticles is proof of this.”
http://gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12357
+ BRITISH PRESSURE FOR GM CROPS UNWELCOME IN EUROPE
The UK government has actively supported the European Commission’s proposal to allow national bans on GM crops in return for allowing large-scale commercial planting in other pro-GM countries, said Green MP and former European MEP Caroline Lucas.
Lucas said that while opposition to GM was hardening in many EU countries, Britain regularly resists attempts in the European Parliament to better regulate the GM industry: "Britain has consistently voted in favour of lifting GM bans, despite the safety concerns raised by other member states. It tried to end the EU moratorium on growing GM; it was the only EU state to oppose a plan to label food containing minute traces of GM material and last year it battled to prevent Germany banning a Monsanto maize crop.”
http://gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12354
Lucas on the EU Commission’s proposals:
http://gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12358
+ MONSANTO LOSES EU BID TO HALT ARGENTINIAN SOY IMPORTS
The European Court of Justice has slapped down Monsanto over its attempt to bar the import of Argentinian soymeal. Monsanto had failed to get a patent on its GM soybeans in Argentina and dealt with it by blocking the import of such soybeans to other countries. Argentinian producers figured that if they couldn't sell soybeans directly, they could process it into soymeal and sell that.
Monsanto claimed that because the soymeal came from soybeans that would be patented in Europe, the soymeal also infringed the patent. The court disagreed, ruling that the European patent for the trait that makes soybeans resistant to the company's Roundup herbicide doesn’t extend to soymeal made from the patented seeds.
http://www.gmwatch.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12338
+ ANGER AT EU’S DECISION TO KEEP CONSUMERS IN THE DARK OVER GM FEED
Consumers will continue to be none the wiser about whether they are eating food from animals raised on GM feed after MEPs voted against introducing a compulsory labelling rule.
A poll commissioned by Friends of the Earth found that less than 40 per cent of the public was aware that GM was creeping onto their plates via imported GM crops fed to livestock in the UK. Almost 90 per cent of those surveyed wanted these products to be clearly labelled.
Genewatch director Dr Helen Wallace said consumers should be “given a choice” and blamed the vote against labeling on lobbying from the food industry.
http://www.gmwatch.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12339
+ UK: CAMERON’S MEPs UNDERMINE HIM ON GM LABELLING
UK Conservative MEPs are partly to blame for the vote against compulsory labeling of GM-raised animal products.
On 7 July, UK prime minister David Cameron said, “it is vital that we have accurate labeling” with regard to GMOs.
On the same day the European Parliament voted on legislation that would have required GM labels on meat, dairy products, fish and eggs from GM-fed animals.
The amendment to the Novel Food Regulations failed to gain the required overall majority vote because, in part, 23 Conservative MEPs voted against. The Conservative Party Manifesto strongly supported labeling of GM-derived products.
http://www.gmwatch.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12343
+ UK: SAINSBURY’S AFFIRMS REJECTION OF GM POTATOES
The UK’s Sainsbury’s supermarket chain has confirmed that it will not be stocking the GM blight resistant potatoes currently being trialed by the Sainsbury Laboratory of the John Innes Centre, based in Norwich.
The GM blight resistant potato project has already consumed nearly two million pounds of public funding despite the absence of a market or a public mandate. To make matters worse, there are also non-GM blight resistant potatoes already available.
There isn't even a market for GM potatoes in the US, where Monsanto's NewLeaf GM potatoes had to be withdrawn because of the lack of market acceptance.
http://www.gmwatch.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12336
+ UK: FOOD STANDARDS AGENCY TO BE ABOLISHED
The UK Food Standards Agency (FSA) is to be abolished by Andrew Lansley, the health secretary. The move has sparked accusations that the government has "caved in to big business".
Critics noted that the end of the FSA was floated days after the health secretary offered a pact with the food industry. Lansley publicly asked big business to fund the government's advertising campaign to persuade people to switch to a healthier lifestyle and in return it would not face legislation outlawing excessively fatty, sugary and salty food.
GMWatch comment: While seeing the back of the notoriously pro-GM, anti-organic FSA might be a cause for joy in GM Watch subscribers, the closure is happening for the wrong reasons. The move came after the FSA fought a running battle with the food industry over the introduction of colour-coded "traffic light" warnings for food.
Supporting the simple traffic light system, which required companies to label their products with red, amber or green symbols to denote the amounts of fat, saturated fat, salt and sugar contained per serving, was one of the FSA’s few acts in the public interest.
The British Medical Association, British Dietetic Association and British Heart Foundation supported the traffic light scheme, which enjoyed a level of popularity with consumers because it was easy to understand.
In contrast, most of the food industry advocated "guideline daily amounts", a system that lists percentages of recommended daily allowances included in each serving. Arguably it requires a PhD in nutrition to understand. The food industry spent an estimated £830m on lobbying to stop the traffic lights scheme.
http://www.gmwatch.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12350
+ UK: BLAIR TOLD PRINCE TO STOP CRITICIZING GM
Former UK prime minister Tony Blair asked Peter Mandelson to tell the Prince of Wales to stop his "unhelpful" attempts to influence government policy on GM crops. Mandelson accuses the Prince of being "anti-scientific and irresponsible", in his memoirs.
"Interested as he was in issues from architecture to agriculture, after Diana's death Charles would write me notes about areas of public policy which he believed to be misguided," Mandelson writes. "I would always answer and of course pass on his views to Tony. At times I would be the carrier of messages in the other direction, for example when Charles began publicly to speak out against genetically modified crops ...
"Like Tony, I felt his remarks were becoming unhelpful. I thought they were anti-scientific and irresponsible in the light of food shortages in the developing world."
He adds: "I am sure Charles did not change his mind as a result of our conversation, but he did tone down his public interventions on the subject."
GMWatch comment: Peter Mandelson, widely known as the "Prince of Darkness", twice had to resign in disgrace as a Blair Minister, before being appointed an unelected EU trade commissioner and then a Lord on Blair's recommendation. As trade commissioner, Mandelson attracted further controversy because of his close personal ties to wealthy businessmen whose interests were directly affected by EU trade policy.
http://gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12359
+ UK: GM POTATOES NOT PROVEN SAFE FOR RELEASE
The John Innes Centre’s trial of GM late blight-resistant potatoes could promote the evolution of more virulent strains of blight, writes Prof Joe Cummins in an article for Science in Society. He warns, “It is highly unwise to expose a microbial pathogen to low level of any control agent whether it is a chemical or a biological agent. Such low levels promote the selection of resistant pathogen mutants.”
http://gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12360
+ GM FIELD TRIALS SABOTAGED IN SPAIN
A group of anonymous activists have sabotaged two experimental GM maize trials belonging to Syngenta, in Torroella de MontgrÃ, Catalonia.
In a press release, the activists said they destroyed Syngenta's open-air genetic experiment because direct action is the best way to respond to the ‘fait accompli’ policy through which the state and the biotech multinationals have been unilaterally imposing GMOs in agriculture and food.
http://gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12355
+ FRANCE: GM CROP REAPERS BACK IN ACTION
The volunteer reapers of GMOs have paid a visit to the De Ruiter Seeds company in Saint Andiol, France. De Ruiter was bought by Monsanto in 2008.
Since then, the GM-free collective 13-84 has been demanding assurances that Monsanto will not produce GMOs at the Saint-Andiol site. "Like 80% of French citizens, we don't want GMOs in France. But despite letters, public discussions and meetings, we have never received an answer. On the contrary, the director informed us that if he received sales orders, he would honour them!", said Olivier Florens, one of the leaders of the group, which carried out a "citizens' inspection" of the site.
http://gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12352
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GM TREES
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+ LAWSUIT FILED TO HALT GM TREES
An alliance of conservation organizations has sued the US Dept of Agriculture over its approval of open-air field tests of a GM eucalyptus tree across the southern United States. The permit, issued to a company called ArborGen, was approved May 12 with minimal environmental review. It authorizes the experimental planting and flowering of a new GM hybrid on 28 secret sites across seven southern states Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Texas.
"In refusing to prepare a detailed environmental review, the Department of Agriculture ignored serious risks before permitting this action," said Marc Fink, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity. "Federal agencies can't be allowed to neglect their duty to the public trust. Once this genie is out of the bottle and escapes to neighboring lands, it's irreversible."
http://www.gmwatch.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12330
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CORPORATE CRIMES
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+ BP, GEOENGINEERING AND GM
BP won't stop at dangerous deep water drilling: the company is investing in even more dangerous projects, including the field of genetic engineering known as synthetic biology and geoengineering the planet's atmosphere, says Jim Thomas in The Ecologist. Thomas concludes: “A growing group of citizens are calling for a halt to such experimentation on planet Earth (see www.handsoffmotherearth.org) and the expanding thick black muck in the Gulf should remind us all to listen to them. It is too late to prevent this disaster; not too late to prevent others.”
http://www.gmwatch.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12329
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ASIA
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+ GM GENES FOUND IN WILD PLANT IN JAPAN
A type of wild brassica, a vegetable of the mustard or cabbage family, containing genes of a GM rapeseed has been found growing near a highway in Mie Prefecture in Japan. The plant is possibly a result of crossing between the wild plants and imported rapeseeds that had fallen during transportation. Thirteen of 14 samples of cruciferous plants found along the road had genes and proteins of herbicide-resistant rapeseeds developed by companies such as Monsanto and Bayer CropScience.
http://www.gmwatch.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12337
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THE AMERICAS
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+ BAYER LOSES FIFTH STRAIGHT TRIAL OVER GM RICE CONTAMINATION
Bayer AG lost its fifth straight court case over contaminated US long-grain rice to a Louisiana farmer who claimed the company's carelessness with its GM seed caused exports to plunge.
A jury in St. Louis said the company should pay damages of $500,248. The company previously lost two trials in state court and two in federal, for a total of more than $52 million in jury awards.
Bayer faces about 500 additional lawsuits in federal and state courts with claims by 6,600 plaintiffs. It hasn't won any rice trials so far. The Louisiana grower, Danny Deshotels, claimed the company was negligent in testing its GM LibertyLink seed, causing a dive in exports to Europe.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12362
+ ROUNDUP RESISTANT WEEDS AND VOLUNTEERS HIT U.S. FARMING
US farmers are having to dig out Roundup-resistant corn volunteers that seeded themselves last year into this year’s soya. According to a British agricultural journalist who is touring the US, one farmer “dug so many corn plants out of his fields that his soya yields were decimated. For some reason it's worse this year than it's ever been before.”
And in Georgia, Roundup-resistant pigweed is threatening the cotton industry, according to an article by Brad Haire, a University of Georgia weed expert, for the South East Farm Press.
http://www.gmwatch.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12342
Here are Syngenta’s solutions chemicals, and more chemicals:
http://www.resistancefighter.com/
+ THE COMPLEX LEGALITIES OF VOLUNTEER CANOLA
You didn’t plant it, but if you harvest it, you owe Monsanto.
http://bit.ly/cgoITe
+ BAYER RETREATS FROM GM RICE RELEASE IN BRAZIL
In Brazil, Bayer has withdrawn its application for commercial release of its GM LL62 rice. Bayer said that it needed more time to reach an agreement with leading rice producers, who are opposed to the product’s release.
http://www.gmwatch.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12340
+ CHILE: NAMES AND LOCATIONS OF GM GROWERS MUST BE MADE PUBLIC
Chile's Transparency Council has unanimously ruled that the Agriculture and Livestock Service (SAG) must publicize the names and locations of transgenic seed growers in Chile. The companies had argued that releasing the information infringed on their commercial and economic freedoms.
http://www.gmwatch.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12340
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AUSTRALASIA
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+ FSANZ’S SECRET SMARTSTAX APPROVAL
The Australia/New Zealand food regulator FSANZ approved the multi-trait GM corn “Smartstax” in secret, says campaign group MADGE. FSANZ did not put the crop through a safety assessment or notify the public of the crop's approval. The crop, jointly owned by Monsanto and Dow, has eight pesticide-related GM genes:
**Six genes generate insecticidal toxins within the plant to kill insects, five of these in every cell of the plant, including the corn cob
**Two genes prevent the plant from dying from being sprayed with two different types of weedkillers.
http://www.madge.org.au/Docs/MR-100715-Smartstax.pdf
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NON-GM SUCCESSES
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***US scientists have released heat-, drought- and disease-tolerant beans. They yield and adapt well too.
http://bit.ly/9RIS2Y
***Blight-resistant potatoes resist fungus that caused Irish potato famine
http://bit.ly/cgrCte
***Wild potato germplasm holds key to disease resistance
http://bit.ly/a9QiYF
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NEW BOOK
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+ WORLD ACCORDING TO MONSANTO: NEW BOOK OUT
The book of Marie-Monique Robin’s documentary film, The World According to Monsanto, is out. An excerpt about the GM contamination of Mexican maize, which has caused deformed plants to sprout around the countryside, is here:
http://www.gmwatch.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12331
News and comment on genetically modified foods and their associated pesticides 
