Monthly Review No. 109

Part 1 of this Monthly Review focused on the recently published Seralini paper and the ferocious backlash from the GM lobby. You can find it here: http://bit.ly/Xt1lgw. Here's Part 2, which looks at the rest of the month's news.

From Claire Robinson, Monthly Review editor

Profiles: http://bit.ly/12UAI2

Twitter: http://twitter.com/GMWatch

Facebook: http://bit.ly/c6OnaX

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CONTENTS

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SERALINI LATEST

GM EXPANSIONS/APPROVALS

MARKET REJECTION OF GM

CONTAMINATION

LABELLING

CORPORATE TAKEOVER

GM ANIMALS

GM FAILURES

RESISTANCE

NEW BOOK

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SERALINI LATEST

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+ THE GM MAIZE RATS

This informative article includes some interesting comments about the attempts at rapid rebuttal of Prof. Gilles-Eric Seralini's paper. Prof. Jack Heinemann says, "The reactions appeared shockingly quick and this is a cause for concern because I find it takes time to thoroughly read a scientific paper of this complexity." Prof. Seralini himself says, "We are surprised by the violent and rapid reactions by scientists within 24 hours. Was it because of their financial interests? Or, were they involved in the insufficient assessment of agricultural GMOs on health? The first reactions have come essentially from people who have not published any peer-reviewed scientific papers on mammalian or human physiological and toxicological studies."

http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=14325

+ HEALTH IMPLICATIONS FOR HUMANS

In an interview, Dr Michael Antoniou, a specialist in Molecular Genetics at King's College London School of Medicine, discusses Seralini's research and explains why it has major implications for human health.

http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=14324

+ SERALINI's STATISTICS STAND UP

Over and over again the claim has been made that Seralini's recently published study, which found high levels of tumours in rats given GM feed and tiny amounts of Roundup, can be safely ignored because he didn't use sufficient numbers of experimental animals. But mathematics professor Peter Saunders, like the renowned French statistician Paul Deheuvels, points out that the smaller numbers actually make Seralini's findings MORE - not less - significant.

http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=14319

RESOURCES

+ GMWATCH RESPONDS TO CRITICISMS OF STUDY

Brief answers some of the main criticisms:

http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=14305

+ SCIENTISTS' RESPONSE TO SERALINI CRITICS SLAMS DOUBLE STANDARDS

Very useful detailed response to the criticisms:

http://gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=14288

+ SCIENTISTS SIGN OPEN LETTER IN SUPPORT OF SERALINI

If you're a scientist or academic, please consider signing:

http://independentsciencenews.org/health/seralini-and-science-nk603-rat-study-roundup/

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GM EXPANSIONS/APPROVALS

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+ MONSANTO ATTACK ON PARAGUAY'S SOVEREIGNTY

In a controversial move seen by many as proof that Monsanto meddled in Paraguay's domestic affairs, the country's government has approved the cultivation of GM corn and cotton. Peasant organizations oppose the decision as "a direct attack against peasant culture and food sovereignty".

http://gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=14297

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MARKET REJECTION OF GM

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+ GM CANOLA TAKES A CUT

Australian farmers selling GM canola are facing discounts of $14-$30 a tonne for their grain. AgFarm broking manager Brad Knight said non-GM canola was attracting a premium because "it speaks all languages and can go anywhere."

"Non-GM has more flexibility because it can go into any domestic market, it can go into containers or it can go overseas." Knight said there were only a couple of traders bidding for GM canola, while there were a dozen bidding for conventional grains.

http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=14311

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CONTAMINATION

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+ CANADA'S FLAXSEED MARKET RUINED BY GM CONTAMINATION

Canadian flax was shut out of its largest market in 2010 after traces of Triffid — a GM flax that had been ordered to be destroyed 10 years earlier — started showing up in shipments. Although Canadian flax is being exported to Europe again, contamination problems continue to dog the industry, despite strenuous efforts to eliminate it. Before the contamination was discovered, Europe accounted for some 80% of Canadian flax seed exports. In 2011-12 Canada exported less than 7% to Europe. And despite increasing demand internationally for the healthy attributes of flax, Canadian farmers only grew just over half the tonnage of flaxseed in 2012 that they grew prior to 2010.

http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=14303

The man who's arguably responsible for destroying Canada's flaxseed market is genetic engineer Alan McHughen, who developed and reportedly deliberately spread Triffid:

http://www.powerbase.info/index.php/Alan_McHughen

+ INDIANA FARMER TAKES MONSANTO TO SUPREME COURT

A 74-year-old Indiana soy farmer will take Monsanto to the US Supreme Court next year. Vernon Hugh Bowman was originally sued by Monsanto for alleged patent infringement for the use of a GM soybean crop. Under the company's licensing contract, farmers can only use the product to harvest one round of crops. However, Monsanto sued Bowman because they say he is at fault for planting a second harvest, even though these seeds were legally sold to the grain elevator and then from the elevator to Bowman without restrictions. The US federal court of appeals upheld an $84,456 damages ruling awarded to Monsanto in 2011. But now Bowman is appealing to the Supreme Court.

http://gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=14287

+ ILLEGAL GENE FLOW FROM GM GRASS: THE SAGA CONTINUES

Back in 2002 Scotts Company planted Roundup resistant creeping bentgrass in a trial field in Oregon. The genes moved in pollen carried by the wind to wild grass plants up to 21 km away. Scotts failed to kill all the GM plants found outside the field boundaries and populations of GM plants were found in 2006. Now scientists have found a wild creeping bentgrass plant hybridized with pollen contribution from a different type of grass, to create a GM hybrid grass.

A published study concludes that the finding "raises a host of new questions about the prevalence and fitness of intergeneric hybrids, as well as how to evaluate the full extent of gene flow from transgenic crops".

http://gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=14302

+ SCIENTIST FIRED AFTER GM PLANT MISHAP

A senior scientist dismissed from the Grasslands research institute in New Zealand for serious misconduct is fighting his former employers, who say his actions could have caused a risk to biosecurity, the environment, and people's health and safety.

In July Dr Igor Kardailsky was sacked from the research institute, which comes under AgResearch's umbrella. Kardailsky was conducting experiments with GM ryegrass. He was on leave when a colleague warned him that the GM grass was flowering and asked him to approve the cutting and bagging of the flowers to prevent contamination. Kardailsky asked the colleague not to cut any of the flowers. Luckily, the colleague went ahead and removed them, potentially preventing Kardailsky from "doing a McHughen" (see above item).

AgResearch's investigation concluded that Kardailsky had breached the Crown Research Institute's policies and had failed to follow Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) best practice. Worryingly, Kardailsky responded that there were "issues of systemic non-compliance [with EPA rules] in the way the Grasslands facility was managed".

http://gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=14301

+ MOST COTTON WE WEAR IS GM

Three quarters of the cotton clothes bought in Britain today are made from GM cotton, according to an article in The Telegraph. The article says such clothes "will not harm the health" of people who wear them, though in fact there is no research on this topic and the research that has addressed the general toxicity of GM Bt insecticidal crops is worrying. A scientist has reminded us that women's sanitary products and the bandages used in hospitals are likely to contain GM insecticidal cotton and these are in contact with our skin, internal and external mucous membranes, and blood.

http://earthopensource.org/index.php/3-health-hazards-of-gm-foods/3-6-myth-gm-bt-insecticidal-crops-only-harm-insects-and-are-harmless-to-animals-and-people

http://gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=14300

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LABELLING

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+ TV AD FEATURING GM LOBBYIST PULLED

A television ad opposing Proposition 37, the GM food labelling initiative, was pulled after a complaint that the man fronting the ad was not properly identified. The ad featured an academic, identified on screen as "Dr Henry I. Miller MD, Stanford University, founding dir. FDA Office of Technology". He was standing in an ornately vaulted campus walkway.

Miller contended that the ballot measure "makes no sense at all" because it mandates that some foods be labeled while others are exempted by the proposed law. Lawyers for the Proposition 37 campaign complained to Stanford's general counsel, noting that the Stanford ID on the screen appeared to violate the university's policy against use of the Stanford name by consultants.

What's more, Miller is not a Stanford professor, but a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, a conservative think tank housed on the Stanford campus, the letter said. Stanford agreed. The university, spokeswoman Lisa Lapin said, "doesn't take any positions on candidates or ballot measures, and we do not allow political filming on campus."

http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=14271

+ DID MONSANTO WRITE UC DAVIS PROF'S OP-EDS?

Kent Bradford has had three op-eds published in newspapers opposing Proposition 37 - the labelling of GM foods. In each he parrots, almost verbatim, Monsanto's tired talking points designed to convince voters they don't have the right to know what's in their food.

Why does Bradford sound like he's on the payroll of the same agrichemical giant that's bankrolling the No on 37 campaign ($7.1 million)?

Easy, for all intents and purposes he is! Bradford is director of the Seed Biotechnology Center at the University of California and a leader of Seed Central, a university-led initiative to attract the seed industry to the Davis area.

In a Sept 6 Sacramento Bee story detailing Monsanto's massive $31 million expansion of its Woodland vegetable seed research headquarters and its partnership with UC Davis, he states, "It's an important signal that this is a great place to be ... It capitalizes on UC Davis and the research capacity of the companies."

http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=14313

+ GM DEBATE HEATS UP AS CALIFORNIA LABELLING VOTE NEARS

A good overview by Carey Gillam for Reuters puts California's Prop 37 into wider context, as the industry's "No on 37" multimillion dollar TV advertising campaign kicks in with "10 days of incessant pounding lies":

http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=14314

Consumers win GM labelling victory

African Centre for Biosafety, 10 October 2012

+ SOUTH AFRICA: CONSUMERS WIN LABELLING VICTORY

Consumers in South Africa have won a hard-earned victory with regard to GM labelling. The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) has published draft amendments to GMO regulations stipulating that all food containing 5% or more GM ingredients must be labelled. Mariam Mayet, director of the African Centre for Biosafety (ACB), congratulated the DTI and praised the huge role played by consumers in demanding their right to know. However, Mayet expressed disappointment that labelling will only be triggered when there is 5% or more GM content. The 5% threshold is not based on science but purely on commercial considerations.

http://gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=14299

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CORPORATE TAKEOVER

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+ U.S.: A FARM BILL ONLY MONSANTO COULD LOVE

Three provisions in the US's proposed 2012 farm bill would make it more difficult to regulate the safety of GM crops. The bill contains three industry-friendly provisions. Collectively, they have come to be known as the "Monsanto Rider". These three provisions would grant regulatory powers solely to the United States Department of Agriculture, preventing other agencies from reviewing GMO applications and preventing the USDA from accepting outside money for further study. The bill would also shorten the deadline for approval to one year, with an optional 180-day extension. And here's the kicker: if the USDA misses the truncated review deadline, the GMO in question is granted automatic approval.

http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=14285

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GM ANIMALS

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+ GM COWS LIKELY TO MAKE ALLERGIES WORSE

News of the GM cow "breakthrough", in terms of "hypo-allergenic" or "anti-allergy" milk for allergy sufferers, is being hyped uncritically in the media. Yet it turns out that this milk, while having a reduced level of one allergy causing protein, has nearly double the level of another. This makes it, in the view of a leading specialist in children's allergies, "probably the worst-case scenario for most of our patients".

http://gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=14256

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GM FAILURES

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+ HOW GMOs UNLEASHED A PESTICIDE GUSHER

A new peer-reviewed study by Dr Charles Benbrook shows that GM herbicide-tolerant (HT) crops have increased herbicide use by 527 million pounds over the first 16 years of use (1996-2011). The incremental increase per year has grown steadily from 1.5 million pounds in 1999, to 18 million five years later in 2003, and 79 million pounds in 2009. In 2011, about 90 million more pounds of herbicides were applied than would have been the case in the absence of HT seeds, or about 24% of total herbicide use on the three crops in 2011.

Today's major GM crops have increased overall pesticide use by 404 million pounds from 1996 through 2011 (527 million pound increase in herbicides, minus the 123 million pound decrease in chemical insecticides due to GM Bt crops). Overall pesticide use in 2011 was about 20% higher on each acre planted to a GM crop, compared to pesticide use on acres not planted to GM crops.

There are now two-dozen weeds resistant to glyphosate, the major herbicide used on HT crops, and many of these are spreading rapidly. Millions of acres are infested with more than one glyphosate-resistant weed. The presence of resistant weeds drives up herbicide use by 25% to 50%, and increases farmer-weed control costs by at least as much.

The biotechnology-seed-pesticide industry's primary response to the spread of glyphosate-resistant weeds is development of new HT varieties resistant to multiple herbicides, including the highly toxic 2,4-D and dicamba. Approval of corn tolerant of 2,4-D is pending and could lead to an additional 50% increase in herbicide use per acre on 2,4-D HT corn.

Substantial volumes of Bt toxins are produced per acre planted to Bt corn and cotton. The volumes of these toxins produced by the plants on an acre exceed in nearly all cases the volume of insecticides displaced by the planting of a Bt cultivar. For example, Bt corn targeting the corn rootworm and related soil insects expresses one to two pounds of Bt toxins per acre, while displacing about 0.19 pound of insecticide per acre. The first GM crop expressing eight traits, so-called SmartStax corn, produces 3.7 pounds of Bt toxins per acre and displaces around 0.3 pounds of insecticides.

http://cahnrsnews.wsu.edu/2012/10/01/summary-of-major-findings-and-definitions-of-important-terms/

http://gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=14259:how-gmos-unleashed-a-pesticide-gusher

http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=14253

+ GM CASSAVA STUDY RETRACTED OVER "MISSING" DATA

A study that claimed to have found a way to boost the protein content of cassava through genetic modification has been retracted after researchers failed to find any supporting data to back up its claims. The study, published in PLoS ONE in January 2011, has been cited at least five times.

http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=14251

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RESISTANCE

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+ MONSANTO ORDERED TO SUSPEND SEED ROYALTIES IN BRAZIL

A court in Brazil's top soy growing state said it ordered Monsanto to stop charging royalties on its Roundup Ready soybean and Bollgard cotton seeds. The court, in the agricultural state of Mato Grosso, sided with the state's farming and ranching federation, finding that Monsanto's patent on the seeds had expired in 2010 and had not been renewed in Brazil.

http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=14291

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NEW BOOK

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+ PLANETARY PIRATES

Earth Grab: Geopiracy, the New Biomassters and Capturing Climate Genes

by ETC Group

How a few technocrats are hijacking the functioning of our entire planet – by polluting the skies, changing the chemistry of the oceans or appropriating the fields, forests and algal blooms that regulate the biosphere. Review by Leo Hickman:

http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=14312

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REST OF THE MONTH'S NEWS IN BRIEF

For those who do not receive our GMWatch Review newsletter

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+ SCIENTISTS WARN OF GM WHEAT HEALTH DANGERS

http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=14181

+ DOUBLE BLOW TO GM CROPS IN INDIA

http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=14183

+ INDIA PARLIAMENTARY COMMITTEE'S SCATHING REPORT ON GM CROPS

http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=14173

Download full report: http://www.gmwatch.org/files/India_GM_Report.pdf