GMWatch News Review archive

GMWATCH MONTHLY REVIEW No. 86

From 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:
* NATIONWIDE MOBILIZATION IN INDIA
* LOBBYWATCH
* GM SOY
* CLONING
* CORPORATE TAKEOVER

REST OF THE MONTH'S NEW IN BRIEF:
* rbGH
* GM FAILURES
* RESISTANCE
* COMPANY NEWS
* LIABILITY
* FILM
* FEEDING THE WORLD
* RESEARCH
* LOBBYWATCH
* GM SOY REPORT

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LATEST NEWS
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NATIONWIDE MOBILIZATION IN INDIA
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The Kisan Swaraj Yatra is a nation-wide mobilization drawing fresh attention to the continuing agricultural crisis in India, and calling for a comprehensive new path for Indian agriculture providing livelihood and food security for small farmers, preserving soils, and keeping food and water poison-free. The bus-Yatra started at the Sabarmati Gandhi Ashram on Oct 2, and will pass through 20 states to reach Rajghat, New Delhi on Dec 11.
More details and pictures: http://www.kisanswaraj.in/
Bonfire of GM seeds: http://bit.ly/9kaUbl

TAKE ACTION: Sign the petition in support of India's farmers and their rights and resources, and tell the Indian government to stop its anti-farmer, pro-corporate policies:
http://www.kisanswaraj.in/petition/

+ FARMER GROUPS CALL FOR END TO BT BRINJAL EXPERIMENTS
Dharwad: Organisations including the Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha (KRRS) demanded an end to experiments on GM brinjal (eggplant/aubergine) carried out by the University of Agricultural Sciences (UAS) in Dharwad. The protesters accused the university of biopiracy and undermining the rights of the farming community by taking up the development of Bt brinjal.
http://www.gmwatch.org/latest-listing/1-news-items/12592

+ FARMERS RESIST APPROPRIATION OF NATIVE VARIETIES BY SEED CORPORATIONS
Dharwad: Kisan Swaraj Yatra protested against the appropriation of farmers' varieties by seed corporations. The occasion was also used to strike a dialogue with the University, represented by the Registrar and other senior officials/scientists. Hundreds of farmers who assembled at the University of Agricultural Sciences said that the University should stop using toxic technologies, stop siding with big corporations like Monsanto and Mahyco, and protect farmers' varieties.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12594

+ FARMERS, ACTIVISTS OPPOSE INDIA'S GREEN REVOLUTION
Mumbai: Appealing to farmers and policy-makers to not emulate the Punjab model of the Green Revolution, some farmers from Punjab said that the revolution had ruined the State. "Punjab is now called the cancer capital of India. The Green Revolution has given farmers only three things: debt, serious illnesses and polluted and scanty water sources," said Balwinder Singh, a farmer. "The Chief Minister now says that the government will fit RO [reverse osmosis water-filtering process] in every village. But what will happen to the cattle and other animals that drink from the contaminated water source? They are all going to end up in our stomachs. Jo barbaadi ki hai, wo wapas hamare paas ayegi hi ayegi [whatever we have ruined will come back to us]," he said.

The activists appealed to the urban consumers to act in enlightened self-interest to promote non-toxic food. The rally for "food, farmers and freedom" was supported by famous Bollywood personalities and freedom fighters.

With reference to more than 200,000 farmer suicides in the country in the past 15 years, Kavitha Kuruganti, an activist of the Kheti Virasat Mission, said that there were also many farmers who had shown there was hope. "The community-managed sustainable agriculture project being run on 2.8 million acres in Andhra Pradesh is the best example in this case. This NPM [Non-Pesticidal Management of crops] is the world's largest State-supported project and is mainly run by women farmers. Their yields have improved tremendously. It is not true that organic farming brings down the yield."
http://www.gmwatch.org/latest-listing/1-news-items/12592

+ GANDHI OF NATURAL FARMING ADDRESSES KISAN SWARAJ YATRA
Mumbai: Renowned organic farmer Bhaskar Save, who flagged off the Kisan Swaraj Yatra from Ahmedabad on October 2, was there to welcome it in Mumbai. Acclaimed as the 'Living Gandhi of natural farming', the 88-year-old uses no fertilisers, pesticides, weeding or unnecessary tilling in his orchard in Gujarat. Yet, he makes a nearly 400% profit.
http://www.gmwatch.org/latest-listing/1-news-items/12592

+ STOP MONSANTO'S "PROJECT SUNSHINE"
Ahmedabad/Dahod: Mounting an attack on the state government of Gujarat, the farm activist movement Kisan Swaraj Yatra, joined by hundreds of tribal women farmers, demanded that the Chief Minister Narendra Modi scrap the tribal welfare department's joint project with Monsanto in the tribal districts of the state called "Project Sunshine". Kisan Swaraj Yatra says the project is only leading farmers down an unsustainable path and providing ready markets for Monsanto, which is known for its anti-farmer activities. The project has been supplying farmers with hybrid maize, which Kisan Swaraj Yatra says require high inputs of water and subsidized fertilizer.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12550

+ ANTI-MONSANTO PROTEST
Jalna: On eve of World Food Day (and anti-Monsanto day!) hundreds of farmers and activists made a bonfire of GM seeds in Jalna. The protesters said the bonfire was intended to send a message to corporations like Monsanto - "They need to quit Indian farming since it is obvious that their profiteering agendas are against farmers."
Find out more and see some great pictures from the event:
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12569

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LOBBYWATCH
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+ MACHINES OF WAR: BLACKWATER AND MONSANTO
A report by Jeremy Scahill in The Nation revealed that Monsanto bought the services of the largest mercenary army in the world, Blackwater (now called Xe Services) to spy on and infiltrate organizations of anti-GM and animal rights activists. Blackwater was renamed in 2009 after becoming famous in the world with numerous reports of abuses in Iraq, including massacres of civilians. It remains the largest private contractor of the US Department of State security services, carrying out operations for the government that carry the option of "deniability". Comment on the Blackwater/Monsanto tie-in by Silvia Ribeiro of ETC Group in an article for Pravda Russia:
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12581

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GM SOY
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+ SPANISH TRANSLATION OF "GM SOYA 'A DEATH SENTENCE' FOR ARGENTINA AVAILABLE
A Spanish translation of the article for the Latin America Bureau, "GM soya 'a death sentence' for Argentina", has been kindly provided by Chile sin Transgenicos (Chile without GMOs). Please forward to all your Spanish-speaking contacts. Access it here, with the English original:
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12590

+ VIDEO REPORT FROM ARGENTINA ON GM SOY/GLYPHOSATE SPRAYING PROBLEMS
Here's a video of an excellent news report in Spanish on the human consequences of glyphosate spraying on GM soy. You can get the gist even without speaking Spanish.
http://www.gmwatch.eu/gm-videosb/26-gm-in-latin-america/12580-the-poison-of-the-pampas

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CLONING
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+ EU'S TEMPORARY BAN ON CLONING HYPOCRITICAL
The EU has issued a half-hearted ban on cloning in the EU that failed to extend the ban to imported products from clones, and food from clone offspring. Wenonah Hauter, Executive Director, Food & Water Europe, said, "The Commission has completely dodged the real issues and placed the EU in a completely hypocritical situation. They acknowledged the ethical minefield posed by cloning, yet apparently feel it is OK to profit from it as long as it happens outside the EU. It is an ethically indefensible policy... We ask the Commission again: When will the food from clones and their offspring carry a proper label?"
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12588

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CORPORATE TAKEOVER
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+ URGENT: YOUR SUPPORT NEEDED FOR FRENCH SCIENTISTS UNDER ATTACK -- PLEASE SIGN PETITION
GMWatch is joining French activists in appealing for your support for Professor G-E Seralini and his research colleagues, who are based at Criigen, la Fondation Sciences Citoyennes (FSC) and ENSSER (European Network of Scientists for Social and Environmental Responsibility). The public interest research of Seralini and colleagues on GMOs and pesticide/glyphosate toxicity has international significance, especially in India, where it helped achieve the moratorium on Bt brinjal, but also in Canada, Europe and the USA. Now, Seralini and colleagues find themselves under concerted attack from GM promoters, who have resorted to defamation and flawed logic in an attempt to discredit the scientists. Seralini and colleagues have decided that the only way forward is to go to court to defend their professional reputations and their ability to continue to do public interest research. The court case is set for 23 November 2010 in Paris. Please voice your support for Seralini and colleagues and for
the cause of open scientific discourse by signing this on-line petition:
http://sciencescitoyennes.org/spip.php?article1807

+ MONSANTO'S LOSING BET ON GM SUGAR BEETS HAS BITTER REPERCUSSIONS
In 2008, the USDA approved planting of Monsanto's Roundup Ready sugar beet. By this year's spring planting, Monsanto's patented GM seeds covered 95 percent of sugar beet fields. But this August, a federal judge nixed the USDA's approval of GM sugar beets because the agency had failed to adequately assess the environmental impact. Now a USDA economist has estimated that the ban on GM sugar beet seeds will cut US total sugar production by 20 percent in 2011, due to the the "limited availability of conventional seed". Tom Philpott of GRIST commented, "As recently as 2008, sugar beet farmers relied exclusively on conventional seeds; the GM ones weren't commercially available. Two years later, GM seeds dominate the market, and the conventional market has been essentially wiped out... The issue is a shortage of real diversity in the seed supply... the last decade has seen massive consolidation in the seed industry. And now a single company peddling a patent-protected, ecologically dodgy product can effectively wipe out non-GM alternatives in just two years."
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12586

+ TROUBLED WATERS AT UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA OVER CENSORED FILM ON BIG AG
The University of Minnesota has released more than 2,500 pages of documents regarding the film Troubled Waters.  The film, a critique of agribusiness, originally was pulled from its premiere by U of M Vice President for University Relations Karen Himle on September 7 but was later rescheduled after the University took a serious hit from the press and the community for what was viewed as censorship and a threat to academic freedom. Some University staff appear to have been concerned that the film would upset donors involved in agribusiness.  
http://bit.ly/do4HIr

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GM CONFERENCES
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Upcoming conferences - Poland and UK
http://gmwatch.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12589

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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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rbGH
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+ rbGH MILK RULED "COMPOSITIONALLY DIFFERENT" IN OHIO
Several years ago, several US states tried to ban "rbGH-free" claims on dairy products produced without the GM hormone rbGH. Monsanto, who owned rbGH at the time, helped found a group of rbGH-loving dairy farmers called AFACT. AFACT then pushed to ban any label claims telling consumers which milk came from cows that had not been treated with rbGH. AFACT was unsuccessful in most states where they tried this, except for Ohio. Ohio was the one state where it looked as if they might win. But now an Ohio court has ruled that dairies can still say that milk is "rbGH-free". What's more, the court struck down the FDA's claim (which has proved a major block to good regulation on rbGH) that there is "no measurable compositional difference" between milk from rbGH-treated cows and milk from untreated cows.

The court cited three reasons why the milk differs:
* Increased levels of the hormone IGF-1 (linked in studies to cancer);
* A period of milk with lower nutritional quality during each lactation; and
* Increased somatic cell counts (i.e. more pus in the milk).
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12566

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GM FAILURES
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+ BRAZIL BATTLES "MAD SOY DISEASE"
Approximately 50% of the soy fields in the Northern Region of Mato Grosso, Brazil are cultivated with GM varieties. Previously, Asian rust disease has proved a problem in Brazilian soy. Now another disease, "mad soy disease", is devastating soy crops. There are two prime suspects:
(i) Glyphosate herbicide: GM soy is sprayed with glyphosate. There is a well-documented link between glyphosate and increased plant diseases.
(ii) No-till farming: GM soy is usually grown in a farming system called no-till, in which farmers avoid ploughing and control weeds through glyphosate herbicide. Studies have found that no-till encourages plant pests and diseases, which thrive in the crop residue left on the soil.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12554

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RESISTANCE
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+ CHINA: PUBLIC DISQUIET OVER GM CROPS
The Chinese public is pushing back against the GM promoters.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12573

+ INDIA: GM BRINJAL BRINGS SHAME TO INDUSTRY SCIENCE
Six science academies, which unanimously recommended lifting of the moratorium on Bt brinjal imposed by environment minister Jairam Ramesh in February, have been found guilty of plagiarism, according to a report in India Today. Scientists who drafted the report did not examine data submitted by developers of Bt brinjal to the regulator. Instead, they relied on the views of an individual scientist - P. Anand Kumar - expressed in a newsletter. Kumar, in his article published in Biotech News, drew liberally from the report of the Monsanto-funded outfit - International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA). So, in effect, the academies based their so-called recommendations on industry claims.

On the same day when the dubious report of academies was being circulated, another report on Bt brinjal, "The Scope and Adequacy of the GEAC Environment Risk Assessment (ERA)", by Dr David A Andow of the University of Minnesota, was released. Andow concludes that the scope of ERA set by GEAC was too narrow and that it did not perform an adequate ERA. Because of resistance, he predicts, Bt brinjal is projected to fail in 4-12 years.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12543
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12571

+ EUROPE: STATES RIP APART EU BID TO SPEED UP GM CROP APPROVALS
European states accused by the European Commission of flouting WTO rules by banning GM crops have rejected commission moves aimed at speeding new authorisations. "Let me be very clear, in France we refuse even to enter into this discussion," said France's Chantal Jouanno during talks between European Union environment ministers in Luxembourg. She said a commission proposal failed to deliver adequate assessments of the impact of GM agriculture on the environment, on human health, or on other socioeconomic needs. Until then, "it's off-limits," she snapped. Only the Netherlands backed the commission.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12568

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COMPANY NEWS
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+ MONSANTO'S FORTUNES TURN SOUR
As recently as late December, Monsanto was named "company of the year" by Forbes magazine. But now the company has earned a different accolade from Jim Cramer, the television stock market commentator. "This may be the worst stock of 2010," he said. Monsanto has been buffeted by setbacks this year that have prompted analysts to question whether its winning streak from creating ever more expensive GM crops is coming to an end.

The company's stock, which rose steadily over several years to peak at around $145 a share in mid-2008, closed on October 4 at $47.77, having fallen about 42 percent since the beginning of the year. Its earnings for the fiscal year that ended in August are expected to be well below projections made at the beginning of the year, and the company has abandoned its profit goal for 2012. Early returns from this year's harvest showed that Monsanto's newest product, SmartStax corn, which contains eight inserted genes, was providing yields no higher than the company's less expensive corn that contains only three foreign genes.

Monsanto has already been forced to sharply cut prices on SmartStax and on its newest soybean seeds, Roundup Ready 2 Yield, as sales fell below projections. John Gilbert, an Iowa farmer, said about GM crop uptake: "A lot of it, to be perfectly honest, is herd mentality. They believe Monsanto when they say it's going to yield more." But scepticism has begun to set in. A common criticism now being leveled at GM firms like Monsanto is that crop yield increases have largely been the result of advances in conventional breeding, but that those features are only being made available in strains sold with GM traits as well.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12541

+ WHAT'S DRIVING MONSANTO'S FALL FROM GRACE
Incisive commentary by Tom Philpott of Grist:
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12563

+ U.S. FARMERS MAY SWITCH FROM GM SEED
Seed farmers throughout the US are complaining that GM seeds are becoming much too expensive and too resistant to weedkiller, and that they contaminate conventional seed crops. However, they still use the seeds. But with biotech seed companies being investigated for anticompetitive practices, seed farmers may change their minds. "The technology has really been hyped up a lot," said Doug Gurian-Sherman, author of a 2009 study for the Union of Concerned Scientists, which concluded that yield increases have come mainly from conventional plant breeding. "Even on a shoestring, conventional breeding outperforms genetic engineering."
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12549

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LIABILITY
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+ GMOs: HISTORIC AGREEMENT BUT SMALL STEP FOR LIABILITY
After over 6 years of negotiations, the international community finally agreed in Japan to put in place a liability and redress regime in case of contamination caused by GMOs. This agreement, which will be known as the Nagoya Kuala Lumpur Supplemental Protocol on Liability and Redress to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, is not a strict international liability instrument with a backup fund. However, this agreement will enable countries to adopt and implement their own liability provisions and redress legislation and financial security while offering them some protection against WTO legal challenges about obstacles to trade. The agreement will apply to damages caused directly by GMOs like genetic contamination. By keeping open the causality chain link between the damage and the GMO in question, it also includes products of GMOs, which is a good element for an effective and meaningful liability regime.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12564

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FILM
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+ SCIENTISTS UNDER ATTACK - FILM REVIEW
Billed as "a political thriller on GMOs and freedom of speech", a powerful film by the German film-maker Bertram Verhaag tells the stories of two scientists, Dr Arpad Pusztai and Dr Ignacio Chapela, whose research showed negative findings on GM foods and crops. Review:
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12567

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FEEDING THE WORLD
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+ ENDING AFRICA'S HUNGER MEANS LISTENING TO FARMERS
Africa is hungry - 240 million people are undernourished. Now, for the first-time, Africa's small farmers have been properly consulted on how to solve the problem of feeding sub-Saharan Africa. Their answers seem to repudiate the massive effort to launch an African Green Revolution, funded in large part by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=53186
Related IIED Press Release
http://www.iied.org/natural-resources/media/world-food-day-marked-call-democratise-agricultural-research-and-ensure-food
New Website: Excluded Voices - Democratising Agrcultural Research
http://www.excludedvoices.org/democratising-agricultural-research-food-sovereignty-west-africa      
Download Multimedia publication:
http://www.iied.org/pubs/display.php?o=14603IIED (Webpage from which to download 10.6Mb PDF)

+ TELL GATES FOUNDATION TO SUPPORT REAL SOLUTIONS FOR HUNGER
The Gates Foundation is increasingly being forced to deal with criticism of its more dubious activities and programmes. With Via Campesina, the AGRA Watch campaign group (AGRA = The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, an initiative of the the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and its the biggest grantee) has initiated both a letter for sign-on and an electronic petition to the Gates Foundation. The petition asks the Foundation to support real solutions for hunger. Please sign on and circulate to others.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12565

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RESEARCH
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+ IT PAYS NOT TO CULTIVATE GM CROPS
The first economic analysis of growing GM crops on a wide scale has found that the biggest winners were the farmers who decided not to grow them. The study found that farmers who continued to grow conventional maize earned more money over a 14-year period than those who cultivated GM varieties. The study said all farmers benefited from the lower level of corn borer pests that came about after the introduction of GM maize to the US in 1996, but the conventional farmers who continued to cultivate non-GM varieties also benefited financially from not having to pay the extra costs of purchasing GM seeds.

GMWatch comment: Even if we accept that the study's analysis is correct, any decrease in corn borer populations in neighbouring non-GM crops will only last until resistance develops in corn borers. And what about the deficits neighbouring non-GM growers can suffer as a result of GM crops? For example, what about the explosion in secondary pests found with Bt cotton in China that has affected a range of neighbouring crops (not just cotton)? And what about the huge costs arising from the GM contamination of non-GM crops, as with US rice and Canadian flax, to take just two recent examples?
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12556

In addition, Doug Gurian-Sherman points out how minor any benefit is in the context of the huge size and value of the corn crop and the much bigger gains from conventional breeding and improved agronomy - something that the authors of the study do not consider.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12576

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LOBBYWATCH
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+ U.S. EVANGELICAL PURSH FOR GM FOODS
The BBC World Service's One Planet programme on the environment on 7 October interviewed genetic engineer Dr Roger Beachy. Beachy's interview appears to be part of a new evangelical push on the part of the US government hyping GM crops as the solution to world hunger. In the BBC interview, Beachy claims GM is being demonized but then proceeds to demonize organic production, as he has done before (even suggesting organic food may be dangerous to eat!). Beachy characterizes people who oppose GM crops as anti-science or just plain ignorant. He also uses straw man arguments, dismissing scientifically valid concerns about the uncontrollability of GM contamination with a story about a man who (according to Beachy) had an irrational concern about potatoes being contaminated by GM corn or cotton. Another interviewee in this BBC programme is a genetic engineer working in the field of medical biotechnology, Dr Michael Antoniou, who does not share Beachy's confidence about the safety of GM when
applied to agriculture.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/gd/episode/p00b2rgn/One_Planet_The_father_of_GM_foods_bolivian_seeds_and_wildebeest/
GMWatch transcript and comment:
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12558

+ UK SCIENCE MEDIA DIRECTOR MADE FAKE CALL
Fiona Fox, the director of Britain's pro-GM Science Media Centre, is in the news. It's as a result of the disgraced former Labour politician Jim Devine being ordered to pay his former office manager GBP35,000 in damages after she won an employment tribunal claim against him that centred on a hoax that Fox helped Devine to perpetrate. Fox's involvement in the Devine hoax has not gone unnoticed in science communication circles. Ian Sample, the science correspondent of The Guardian, wrote: "Though appalling from the off, it was not the top line [of the employment tribunal story] that shocked many of my colleagues most. What came as a surprise was the revelation far down the story that the fake call in question was made by Fiona Fox, head of the Science Media Centre in London, a prominent venue for press conferences on all matters scientific and medical. Otherwise articulate people who read the story struggled to say more than three letters: WTF?"

Doing a bizarre favour for an allegedly corrupt politician has to be seen in the context of Fox's dark history which includes even more shameful "lapses of judgement" made in pursuit of her ideological agenda.
http://bit.ly/arFlkw
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12584

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GM SOY REPORT
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Here's a summary of spin-off news from the publication of the report, GM Soy: Sustainable? Responsible?, by nine international scientists, which collects research showing that GM soy and glyphosate spraying are unsustainable. The report highlights Argentine government scientist Prof Andres Carrasco's research linking glyphosate spraying on GM soy to birth defects.
http://www.gmwatch.eu/component/content/article/12479-reports-reports

+ LAB STUDY ESTABLISHES GLYPHOSATE LINK TO BIRTH DEFECTS
Article summarizing Carrasco's research, for Institute of Science in Society:
http://www.gmwatch.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12542

+ ROUNDUP: ARGENTINA'S HUMAN TRAGEDY
Article on the events in Argentina around Carrasco's study on glyphosate/birth defects:
http://www.gmwatch.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12548

+ GM SOY "A DEATH SENTENCE" FOR ARGENTINA
Article for Latin America Bureau by Claire Robinson on efforts to silence Carrasco:
http://www.gmwatch.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12553
http://www.lab.org.uk/index.php/news/57-focus/653-gm-soya-qa-death-sentenceq-for-argentina

+ GREECE RAISES QUESTION ABOUT GLYPHOSATE SAFETY IN EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT
A Green MP from Greece asked a question in the European Parliament drawing the attention of the European Commission to Carrasco's findings. He asked, "What action does the Commission intend to take regarding the pending application from Monsanto for the cultivation of NK603 glyphosate-resistant maize, concerning which the EFSA has already given its approval?"
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+WQ+E-2010-7874+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN

+ GM SOY LINKED TO BIRTH DEFECTS - AND IT'S IN BABY FORMULA
From article on the report, GM Soy: Sustainable? Responsible?, by Australian Food News: "Monsanto's herbicide Roundup used on genetically manipulated (GM) Roundup Ready crops is linked to human cell death, birth defects, cancer and miscarriages, says a report released at the European Parliament by an international group of scientists. The report comes at a crucial time for Australia, where a popular infant soy formula has tested positive for unlabelled GM soy and corn, and Roundup Ready canola and cotton are grown."
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12546

+ PROTEST AT MONSANTO'S AUSTRALIAN HQ
Mothers and consumers dumped rogue GM-canola weeds and GM soy-contaminated infant formula at Monsanto's Melbourne office to mark World Food Day.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12570

+ SHANE MORRIS WADES IN ON GM SOY REPORT
We'd assumed that (former?) Canadian government employee and GM food propagandist Shane Morris had dropped off the face of the earth after he was internationally condemned for co-authoring a paper that's been described as a "flagrant fraud", and for actions that led to the shutting down of the GMWatch website after we reported on the scandal. But Morris has re-surfaced in Ireland in the wake of the publication of the report, GM Soy: Sustainable? Responsible? The Irish Green Party had cited the report in the Irish Times. Morris replied in a letter to the editor, calling the report "flawed" and accusing it of "scaremongering". Green Party agriculture spokesman Trevor Sargent replied to Morris in another letter published in the Irish Times. Read it here:
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12537