GMWatch News Review archive

from Claire Robinson, WEEKLY WATCH editor
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Dear all:

The highlight this week is a fascinating and very readable new report on how USAID sneaks 'Trojan Horse' GM crops into developing countries in order to open the doors to the big money US-grown GM crops (NEW REPORT: USAID'S TROJAN HORSE GM CROPS). It's well worth reading in full, as we only have space here for a taster.

We also have reports on new Japanese research that has put human genes in rice (HUMAN GENES IN RICE), some utterly disgusting stories from America about cruelty and recklessness involving GM animals (THE AMERICAS), and news of the latest attempt by idiots savants scientists to resurrect smallpox, this time in a GM incarnation (GM VIRUSES). As if we don't have enough bizarre new illnesses to worry about!

Don't miss an important CAMPAIGN OF THE WEEK, guaranteed to make your blood boil.

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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NEW REPORT: USAID'S TROJAN HORSE GM CROPS
LOBBYWATCH
ASIA
THE AMERICAS
EUROPE
AFRICA
HUMAN GENES IN RICE
NEW POPE
GM VIRUSES
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
CAMPAIGN OF THE WEEK

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NEW REPORT: USAID'S TROJAN HORSE GM CROPS
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+ USAID: MAKING THE WORLD HUNGRY FOR GM CROPS
An excellent new report from GRAIN shows how the biotech industry uses taxpayers' money to develop 'Trojan Horse' GM crops, ostensibly to promote sustainable agriculture in the developing world but really to open the doors to US-originated GM crops.

The method seems to be roughly as follows.

STEP 1: The industry gets a public research body to develop the Trojan Horse crop with public funding. (Often, this body is USAID via its Agricultural Biotechnology for Sustainable Productivity project, later renamed as the Agricultural Biotechnology Support Project (ABSP))

STEP 2: The industry and its public research body/USAID/ABSP allies use field test requirements for that crop as an excuse to go into the targeted developing nation, develop biotech research institutes there, put puppet scientists in place, and draft 'biosafety' legislation.

STEP 3: The infrastructure put in place during STEP 2 now allows the big-money US GM crops and seeds to be imported.

STEP 4: The Trojan Horse crop in question almost invariably disappears without trace, because it is a dud product or because there is no market for it (often both). But the biotech industry doesn't care, because that crop was never the point in the first place.

EXCERPT from GRAIN report on Trojan Horse crop no 1, GM sweet potato for Kenya, developed by Monsanto with public research body KARI (Kenyan Agricultural Research Institute):

Here was a company "donating" its technology to African scientists in order to improve a subsistence crop in which it clearly had no financial interest. Most important, though, was getting the relevant regulations on GM implemented. Before you can commercialise GM sweet potatoes, you have to field-test them, and for this you need regulations, or so the argument goes.

The project thereby provides a way to side-step the larger question of whether there should be any introduction of GM crops, and the critical questions about the merits and risks of the GM crop in question, and of proceeding to the technical matter of how to "manage risk" in field tests. Who cares if the GM sweet potatoes actually work; what matters is that Kenya and other countries become places where Monsanto can sell its GM seeds and have its patents enforced.

Whatever the fate of GM sweet potato, what is certain is that Monsanto now has the green light to start field trials of its Bt cotton in Kenya.

EXCERPT from GRAIN report on Trojan Horse crop no 2, Bt potato for Egypt, developed by USAID's ABSP:

Despite the failure to develop a feasible GM crop for Egypt, ABSP saw its work in the country as a success. According to one ABSP official: "Having policy decisions driven by technologies of national importance and practical experience results in development of regulatory frameworks that are more implementable and permissive towards technology development and deployment. The [Bt potato] project was successful in building capacity in policy and regulatory issues surrounding the use of this technology that will facilitate entry of other agricultural biotechnology products into Egypt."

In reality, these "other biotechnology products" boil down to GM varieties from US corporations. The GM crop with the best chance of making it to Egyptian farms is Monsanto's Bt cotton, and, if it does, Monsanto will have ABSP to thank. On top of its Trojan horse GM projects, ABSP intervened directly to keep Egypt's GM regulations "permissive".

GRAIN report, "Making the world hungry for GM crops", is well worth reading in full at
http://www.grain.org/briefings/?id=191 (version with tables) or
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5157
Press release at http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5158
THIS IS A MUST-READ REPORT.

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LOBBYWATCH
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+ SYNGENTA'S PATENTS ON 'HUMANITARIAN' GOLDEN RICE
Sygenta has spent the last five years trying to develop a magic rice seed that they claim will cure blindness and eradicate malnutrition across the world. While claiming that the development of Golden Rice was not a commercial but a humanitarian venture, they quietly applied to patent it in over 100 countries! Syngenta's patents would apply even in developing countries, although it has claimed the seed will be provided for free. So why patent it?

"Anyone applying for patents wants to make money from them," says Greenpeace's Christoph Then. "Syngenta seems to have problems with the truth in general. The company also kept secret the recent scandal involving unauthorised varieties of genetically manipulated corn [see EUROPE]. The patent claims now discovered show the true face of a company that wants to ensure it has monopolistic rights over plant-breeding, agriculture and food production, without concern for the dangers to people and the environment."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5164

+ MONSANTO'S BLACK-WASHERS TAKE EXXONMOBIL'S GOLD
Anyone who read Jonathan Matthews' recent article - "The Uncle Tom Award" - about Monsanto's black-washing activities will be familiar with the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and their policy advisor Paul Driessen.

But it's not just Monsanto who fund CORE and find a bit of black-washing desirable. ExxonMobil also would like to counter the perception that its products and policies are an assault on poor people of colour.

In fact, CORE and Driessen are as active in denying global warming as they are in promoting GM crops. On global warming their stance is to hell with the scientific consensus. On the GM issue, by contrast, they claim the critics should bow down and accept the views of the biotech establishment.

Also notable among the spin-studded cast in two articles from Mother Jones (www.motherjones.com) on global warming are the Competitive Enterprise Institute (who co-founded CS Prakash's pro-GM AgBioWorld campaign), Tech CentralStation, the "Junkman" Steve Milloy, and the American Enterprise Institute. All GM enthusiasts to a man - and ALL PROFILED at http://www.lobbywatch.org
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5156

+ SCHMEISER EXPOSES INDUSTRY SPIN
According to the Canadian biologist Robert Wager, the biotechnology industry must continue to communicate accurate information to the public if it wants to lead in the agricultural biotech field.

At least that's what Wager claimed in an opinion piece in the StarPhoenix newspaper about Percy Schmeiser, the farmer sued by Monsanto ("Convicted Farmer Makes Unlikely Hero for Rural Lifestyle", April 15, 2005).

In reality, as Percy Schmeiser indicates in his response, Wager's article is stuffed full of misleading industry spin. Even the headline is misleading - Schmeiser was never "convicted" of anything. Schmeiser's response to Wager's claims (at URL below) provides a very useful guide to the misinformation frequently spread about the Schmeiser case by pro-GM lobbyists.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5150

+ NEW LM WATCH BLOG
LM WATCH is a collaborative effort aimed at tracking the LM network - former members and supporters of Frank Furedi's Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP), plus more recent acolytes. Although originally a tiny splinter of a Trotskyist subgroup, Furedi and his followers now promote an extreme libertarian ideology and eulogise technologies like nuclear power, genetic engineering and human cloning.

Members of the LM network have managed to gain a remarkable degree of control over the infrastructure of public communication used by the science and medical establishment. They hold key positions in Sense About Science, the Science Media Centre, the Genetic Interest Group, the Progress Educational Trust, Genepool, the British Pregnancy Advisory Service and even the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA).
http://spinwatch.server101.com/plog/index.php?op=Default&postCategoryId=8&blogId=8

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ASIA
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+ BITTER HARVEST - LISTEN ONLINE
You can listen online to the BBC's recently broadcast Bitter Harvest series. Bitter Harvest looks at the plight of farmers in India through issues such as seed-saving, patents, farmer suicides, depopulation of rural areas, subsidies, free trade and the debt trap.

The corporate take-over of farming, the green revolution and biotechnology are an almost constant point of reference. There's also lots of interesting detail on how the public system in the Punjab is used to promote Monsanto's seeds, and how Monsanto makes use of religion in its advertising to farmers in order to project its seeds as miraculous.

Listen to the series here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/asiannetwork/features/vaisakhi.shtml
Click on the daily 'Bitter Harvest' links in the top right 'Listen Again' panel. You will sometimes get a short burst of the Drive programme before Bitter Harvest begins.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5152

+ FIGHTING BACK IN THE PUNJAB
Greenpeace and the Punjab-based NGO, Media Artists, are distributing a legal kit to educate farmers on how they can sue a multinational company in case they feel cheated by it.

Thangamma Monnappa of Greenpeace said, "The kit has been prepared keeping in mind the experiences of farmers who have already gone through the bitter experience of growing Bt cotton. The promises made by the company regarding high yield or low pest attack, etc. have fallen flat. And with no safety net provided by state governments, the farmers need to be aware how they can fight for compensations in consumer court."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5161

+ USDA HYPE ON BT COTTON IN INDIA EXPOSED
The Indian trade policy analyst, Devinder Sharma, exposes in an article at
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5148
the nonsense perpetuated in a recent USDA Foreign Agricultural Service report which has attracted a flurry of excited headlines - "India set to overtake US in cotton farming", "Biotech Cotton May Drive India Ahead Of US - USDA" - etc.

The USDA report claims cotton crop yields have steadily increased in India since 2002 due largely to the adoption of Bt cotton. But this, as Devinder points out, just doesn't make sense: "Bt cotton occupies only 1.3 million acres in India in 2004. This is only a fraction of the over 22.5 million acres being planted with cotton."

In other words, for Bt cotton to be the key factor lifting Indian cotton production, the yield increases with Bt cotton would have to be absolutely astronomical - many times greater than anything even Monsanto has claimed. Instead of which, of course, there have been a deluge of complaints over the last 3 years about the performance of Bt cotton!

+ CONCERN GROWS OVER NEW BT COTTON APPROVALS
Environmentalists are alarmed that the Indian government has given approval for more areas to be planted with new varieties of GM Bt cotton, despite farmers suffering huge losses from growing the transgenic crop.

Since the middle of April, the Genetic Engineering Approval Authority (GEAC), of the Ministry of Environment, has approved a total of six new Bt cotton hybrids for commercial cultivation in northern India, with more varieties in the pipeline.

But the GEAC is still undecided about granting extensions for several varieties already under cultivation because of crop failures that have destroyed the livelihoods of thousands of farmers across the country -- most particularly in southern Andhra Pradesh.

Studies point out that Bt cotton crops have failed in three states - Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. Ironically, the GEAC has chosen to ignore these findings and have gone ahead with approvals for large swathes of farmland to be planted with new varieties of Bt cotton - angering environmental activists as well as farmers' groups.

Krishan Bir Chaudhury leader of the Bharat Krisha Samaj (Indian Farmers' Association) said he could not understand how the government could give fresh approvals without getting seed companies to compensate farmers for the huge losses they have suffered.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5147

+ WHEN IS PUBLIC CONSULTATION NOT PUBLIC CONSULTATION?
The NGOs, Centre for Sustainable Agriculture and Gene Campaign have complained to India's GM approvals body, GEAC, about its pretence of inviting consultation with civil society. In response to the NGOs' request on 24 Feb for a discussion about how decisions are made on GM, GEAC waited until 3 March to issue an invitation for the very next day. Despite the short notice, the NGOs did turn up, but their promised 10-minute slot was cut to 5 minutes and there was no discussion. One of the GEAC members even refused to reveal her name on the grounds that it was confidential!
READ THE OPEN LETTER TO THE GEAC.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5169

+ FARM BODIES CRY FOUL OVER GEAC "HOAX" OF CONSULTATION - PRESS COVERAGE
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5170

+ ENCOURAGEMENT FOR "SOCIETAL TRANSFORMERS"
How ironic is this? At exactly the same time that Indian NGOs are complaining that GEAC, the Indian government's GM approvals body, has sidelined them (see above 2 items), the Indian President, APJ Abdul Kalam, has been explaining why he reposes so much faith in NGOs, calling them "societal transformers" and urging them to work in rural areas (exactly what the NGOs, Centre for Sustainable Agriculture and Gene Campaign, do!)
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5172

+ ECO-SAVVY VILLAGE SHOWS THE WAY
Punukula, a small, predominantly tribal village in the state of Andhra Pradesh (AP), India, declared itself pesticide-free in 2003 (and it's GM free too), even for crops which are notorious for their high pesticide consumption. Village farmers claim that their ecological approach to pest management is saving them Rs 3 million (GBP36,500) a year.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5172

+ RESPONSE TO LATEST QAIM AND ZILBERMAN FAIRYTALE
One of the industry's principal doctrinal myths is the overwhelming success of GM crops in the Third World. Imagine the embarrassment, therefore, when farmers in the first country to approve Monsanto's Bt cotton in Asia - Indonesia - experienced such bad results that the company was forced to abandon selling GM seeds in Indonesia.

It became essential that Bt cotton prove beneficial in India. Unfortunately for Monsanto, Bt cotton commercialisation was dogged by bad reports from farmers, NGOs, independent scientists and even state governments.

Monsanto, via its own surveys and via industry-friendly scientists, has done its best to paint an entirely different picture. One of the most notorious pieces of research was a paper by Martin Qaim (University of Bonn) and David Zilberman (University of California, Berkeley) published in Science. Qaim and Zilberman's paper claimed outstanding (80%!) yield increases from Monsanto's GM cotton - results they projected as relevant to farmers throughout the developing world. Qaim and Zilberman's paper derived all of its data from Monsanto and its findings were so at odds with the reports coming from Indian farmers that its publication caused a storm of protest. Devinder Sharma called Qaim and Zilberman's paper a 'scientific fairytale".

Qaim and Zilberman are now trying to critique the studies showing problems with GM cotton, in an article published in India's Economic & Political Weekly, titled, "Bt Cotton Controversy: Some Paradoxes Explained".

This article attempted to question all the studies that have shown problems with Monsanto's Bollgard (Bt) cotton in India and to explain the problems with the Bt plants as arising from "susceptible germplasm" rather than locally adapted cultivars. In other words, Qaim and Zilberman attempt to argue that there are no problems arising from genetic modification per se, it's all down to unsuitable varities.

Here's an EXCERPT from PV Satheesh's telling response to the article:

In our conversation in Bangalore, I recounted a revealing experience of mine to Dr Qaim. In Haveri District of Karnataka, a farmer who was also a dealer of Monsanto Bollgard [Bt] cotton, took me to his four acre farm to show me the performance of the Bollgard cotton. The farm was sliced into four parts with three parts being planted with non-Bt hybrids. One acre was sporting Bollgard cotton. It was a dramatic sight. The entire non-Bt was fresh, green and heavy with cotton bolls. The Bt field had completely wilted with no cotton, no bolls and dried twigs. One could have dismissed that with the argument of the learned authors that the susceptible germplasm had failed whereas the locally adapted cultivar had triumphed. But this conclusion evaporated when I went close to the Bt field. The rows of Refugia [the lines of the same germplasm as Bt but without having been injected Bt genes into them] which were planted all along the Bt field, were fresh, and with bolls. It was only the Bt plants which had withered away. There was no better dramatic proof than the total failure of the Bollgard than this.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5176

Another response to Qaim and Zilberman is at
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5171

+ BANGLADESH: U.S. FIRMS WANTS TO CONTROL LOCAL AG
An environmental group has said that some American multinational companies want to control Bangladesh's agriculture production through supplying seed that is sterile and harmful to the environment. The environmental group, Ubinig, said that the American government is promoting those companies and the United States Dept of Agriculture (USDA) has already started work to make Bangladesh its seed colony.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5166

+ JAPAN FINDS OUT THAT US FDA DOESN'T KNOW IF BT10 IS SAFE
Japan is seeking further assurance from the US that an unapproved biotech corn strain accidentally mixed with US grain shipments was not a risk to people, animals or plants. Japanese corn buyers have slowed purchases due to fears they could face millions of dollars in losses if their cargoes contain Bt10 - an unauthorized strain of GM corn made by Syngenta.

National Corn Growers Association CEO Rick Tolman said Japan wanted assurances from the US Food and Drug Administration about the safety of the Bt10 corn strain in food and feed. "Japan is looking for a strong statement from the FDA on this being approved," Tolman said in an interview after meeting with top Bush administration officials. But Tolman said the FDA does not have oversight in the Syngenta case.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5167

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THE AMERICAS
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+ FARMERS PROTEST GM RICE
Opposition to the proposed production of Ventria Bioscience's GM rice near Chaffee was expressed by Southeast Missouri rice farmers to state legislators during a rally at Curtis Worley's farm southeast of Poplar Bluff. "We want to stop it for fear of contamination to our rice," said Worley.

Ventria Bioscience, which is moving from California to Missouri, has agreed to not grow GM rice in Southeast Missouri.

Riceland Foods, the world's largest rice miller and marketer, is concerned its customers don't want to risk buying GM rice. Anheuser-Busch, the nation's No. 1 buyer of rice and the largest brewer, said it would not buy Missouri rice if GM drug-making crops are allowed to be grown in the state.

US Rep. Jo Ann Emerson of Cape Girardeau, who has been a strong supporter of new technologies for value-added agricultural products[!], said, "... the market realities that have been presented to me by Riceland Foods, Anheuser-Busch, my rice producers, lenders and suppliers dictate that I must oppose the production of genetically modified rice in Southeast Missouri in crop year 2005."

US Rice Producers Association president Chris Williams, a Poplar Bluff rice farmer, said, "We wonder why rice producers weren't involved in the discussions or negotiations. Nobody included us in any of this, and that was disappointing."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5159
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5165

+ PHARMA-RICE FIRM RACING CLOCK IN MISSOURI
Even in the Monsanto-state of Missouri, and with the local university and local politcal representatives busy selling their souls to the industry, Ventria - the pharama-rice firm which fled California - is still facing a nightmare of setbacks and resistance, and time's fast running out for sowing the crop.

Here are some quotes:

"We're pleased that they're moving 120 miles from us. We'd have been more pleased if it was 1,000 miles." - Sonny Martin, a Bernie rice farmer and chairman of the Missouri Rice Research and Merchandising Council.

" the market realities that have been presented to me by Riceland Foods, Anheuser-Busch, my rice producers, lenders and suppliers dictate that I must oppose the production of genetically modified rice in Southeast Missouri in crop year 2005." - U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson of Cape Girardeau, who has previously been a strong supporter of such projects.

"We are trying to get legislation together to keep genetically modified rice out of Missouri." - Riceland Vice President Bill Reed

"We wonder why rice producers weren't involved in the discussions or negotiations. Nobody included us in any of this, and that was disappointing."- U.S. Rice Producers Association President Chris Williams.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5159
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5165

+ CARCASSES OF GM ANIMALS THREATEN WATER SOURCES
Reacting to charges of animal abuse at the University of Nevada, Reno, lawmakers voted 38-3 to allow local health officials to inspect agricultural programs run by the state universities. Employees of the project have been accused of allowing carcasses of dead, genetically altered animals to rot in areas where water sources could be contaminated.

Newspaper reports revealed in December that 38 pregnant ewes died in 2002 at UNR's farm on McCarran Boulevard in Reno after being locked in a paddock without food or water.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5155

+ OF MICE, MEN AND IN-BETWEEN
EXCERPT from fascinating Washington Post article:
In Minnesota, pigs are being born with human blood in their veins. In Nevada (SEE ITEM ABOVE), there are sheep whose livers and hearts are largely human. In California, mice peer from their cages with human brain cells firing inside their skulls.

These are not outcasts from "The Island of Dr. Moreau," the 1896 novel by H.G. Wells in which a rogue doctor develops creatures that are part animal and part human. They are real creations of real scientists, stretching the boundaries of stem cell research.

Biologists call these hybrid animals chimeras, after the mythical Greek creature with a lion's head, a goat's body and a serpent's tail. They are the products of experiments in which human stem cells were added to developing animal fetuses.
Read on at: http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5155

+ MONSANTO VERSUS FARMERS
EXCERPT from excellent ISIS report:
Feudalism has returned to farming in the US and Canada, according to the US Center for Food Safety's report detailing the domination over American staple crops by the corporations and their ruthless prosecution of farmers.

One Mississippi farmer who runs a farm shop from his farmhouse was subjected to constant surveillance by Monsanto investigators who watched the family coming and going, warned off customers, and even rented an empty lot across the street from where to position their cameras.

Monsanto used entrapment to file a lawsuit against another farmer, when one of their investigators begged seeds from him to help solve an erosion problem too late in the season to plant crops. If personal intimidation fails, Monsanto resorts to another violation of privacy by sending a registered letter threatening to "tie the farmer up in court for years" if he refuses to settle out of court for patent infringement. One farmer who challenged this intimidation had his name blacklisted on thousands of seed dealers' lists. He concedes, "It is easier to give in to them than it is to fight them."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5179

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EUROPE
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+ EU LAB OK's TESTING METHOD FOR ILLEGAL CORN
The European Union has announced it has approved a testing method for Syngenta's unauthorized Bt10 GM corn, a move which should end an EU ban on suspect corn gluten imports from the US.

The approval by the EU's Joint Research Centre means the biotech grain can now be detected by labs in US ports, allowing the flow of millions of dollars of US corn gluten and brewer's grain to Europe to resume, said EU spokesman Philip Tod. "All imports of brewer's grain and corn gluten imports must have a certificate that they do not contain Bt10," he said.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5160

Useful summary of the Bt10 scandal by Jeffrey Smith, author of Seeds of Deception:
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5177

+ EU MINISTERS REJECT GM INGREDIENT
European ministers have thrown out a European Commission proposal to allow a GM ingredient to flow into the food chain. Meeting this week, ministers from the 25 member states failed to reach a majority to authorise into Europe imports of Monsanto's GM maize GA21
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5180

+ EU COMMISSION BULLIES MEMBER STATES TO END BANS ON GMOs
The European Commission on 26 April adopted a proposal for the Council of Ministers asking five Member states to lift their bans on certain authorised GMOs. The draft decisions concern the GM maize varieties T25 and MON810 banned in Austria, GM maize Bt176 banned in Austria, Germany and Luxembourg, the oilseed rape varieties MS1xRF1 banned in France and Topas 19/2 banned in France and Greece.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5162

+ NO GM FIELD TRIALS IN UK
GeneWatch has been told by UK farm ministry DEFRA that not a single GM field trial is taking place in the UK.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5162

+ ORGANIC FARM BODY'S ANGER OVER GM'S "UNDUE INFLUENCE"
The organic farming organisation, the Soil Association, has accused a government-backed advisory body of being overly influenced by biotech companies in supporting more taxpayer funded research into GMOs.

The Soil Association says that about GBP100 million of public funds are spent annually on agricultural biotechnology research in the UK against only about GBP2m into organic farming, in spite of sales now topping GBP1 billion a year.

It says this will be compounded by a new report to be published 28 April by the Agriculture and Environment Biotechnology Commission (AEBC), an independent body set up by the government. It dismisses the commission's report as failing to examine concerns about environmental, health and socio-economic impacts of GM.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5175

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AFRICA
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+ TANZANIA IS GROWING GM TOBACCO, SUSPENDS GM COTTON PLANS
Tanzania's agriculture minister has said that GM tobacco is being grown in the country for research purposes. Yet Tanzania's planned regulatory framework for GM crops has still to be debated by parliament.

Charles Keenja said that field trials of tobacco that has been genetically modified to be nicotine-free were underway in Moshi District in the Kilimanjaro region. In 2003, field trials of GM tobacco seed produced by US-based Vector Tobacco were conducted in Tanzania, although there is widespread belief that such experiments were stopped at the end of the year.

Keenja also said that the government has suspended plans, announced in February, to introduce GM cotton in the southern highlands.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5149

+ GM COLONIZATION OF AFRICA
An interesting article from Nigeria on the above subject is at
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5174

+ KENYA PUTS CART BEFORE HORSE
The utilization of GMOs and their research in Kenya is very far ahead of the country's regulatory framework - a case of putting the cart before the horse. Although a draft biosafety bill has been ready for presentation to the country's parliament for some time now, it is still doubtful this will be made into law any time soon. Despite the absence of a regulatory mechanism, Kenya with the help of American multinationals promoting the use of GMOs has gone ahead to put up infrastructure to develop and test GMOs.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5151

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HUMAN GENES IN RICE
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+ JAPANESE SCIENTISTS PUT HUMAN GENE INTO RICE
Scientists have begun putting genes from human beings into food crops. The move, which is causing revulsion among critics, will strengthen accusations that GM technology is creating "Frankenstein foods".

In the first modification of its kind, Japanese researchers have inserted a gene from the human liver into rice to enable it to digest pesticides and industrial chemicals. The gene makes an enzyme, code-named CPY2B6, which is particularly good at breaking down harmful chemicals in the body.

But the researchers at the National Institute of Agrobiological Sciences in Tsukuba, north of Tokyo, have found that adding the human touch gave the rice immunity to 13 different herbicides. This would mean that weeds could be kept down by constantly changing the chemicals used. Supporting scientists say that the gene could also help to beat pollution.

Pete Riley, director of the anti-GM pressure group Five Year Freeze, said: "I am not surprised by this. The industry is capable of anything and this development certainly smacks of Frankenstein."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5153

+ WHY PUT HUMAN GENES INTO RICE?
Why not? A gene is a gene is a gene, says Christopher Leaver, Sibthorpian professor of plant sciences at Oxford, and a former consultant to Syngenta, in an article with the above title in The Guardian.

** But Prof Joe Cummins comments:

The article brings to attention the use of human Cytochrome p450 genes to produce resistance to most herbicides. A numberer of such cytochrome p450 genes have been released for field testing in Japan. The article swallows the biotech industry public relations that there is nothing really wrong about putting human genes into rice.

The first thing that comes to mind is that the human enzymes put into rice are responsible for causing most kinds of human cancer by activating certain pollutants into forms that attack the genes causing mutation. The common products of automobiles, incinerators and forest fires called PAHs are activated to cause cancer by the P450 enzymes. The fact that the humanized rice is likely to be loaded with active genotoxins (carcinogens) is not discussed by the academic journal editors who provide public relations for corporations.

Furthermore, the human genes are alerted in DNA sequence to be more active in plants. The digestive fragments of altered human DNA may be very destructive to the human liver by disrupting the liver cytochromoe p450 genes as people eat the humanized rice. I am pointing out that the DNA is different from the human DNA swallowed by cannibals.

We have entered a dangerous era where public relations are favored over scientific truth by those claiming to be the "real" scientists.

** And here's professor of materials at Oxford University, GDW Smith, FRS, addressing a piece of humbug of the same ilk as Leaver's:

The argument advanced by Charles Pasternak for the safety of GM food is false [article entitled "GM food could be good for you"]. Yes, the DNA of all living organisms is made up of just four nucleosides, and yes, virtually all proteins are made up from just 20 amino acids. But this does not imply that everything containing these basic building blocks is without risk to human beings.

The same units, arranged in different ways, are contained in the smallpox virus, bubonic plague and influenza, deadly nightshade and other poisonous plants, creatures such as poisonous jellyfish, scorpions, deadly snakes, sharks - and people who talk absolute nonsense.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5181

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NEW POPE
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+ NEW POPE CAUTIOUS ON BIOTECH
According to an article in The Times of Malta, the new Pope, Cardinal Ratzinger, has spelt out what everybody should know: the development of [bio]technology has far outstripped the development of the ethical structure required to harness the new knowledge.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5146

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GM VIRUSES
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+ GM RESURRRECTION OF DEADLY SCOURGE
A WHO committee wants permission to allow genetic modification of the smallpox virus. Some scientists and physicians are gravely concerned. Next month, if the World Health Assembly (WHA) says yes - to the recommendations of its scientific committee - the world may see the resurrection of the deadly scourge of the past - smallpox.

WHA's Variola Advisory Committee (VAC) is seeking permission to allow the genetic modification of the smallpox virus. WHA, the decision-making body to the World Health Organisation (WHO), will decide on these recommendations at its 55th meeting in Geneva, starting on May 13. According to the committee, genetic modification would aid and accelerate the development of new vaccines against the Variola virus - the cause of smallpox.

Officially, smallpox had been declared eradicated on May 9, 1980, after a successful global vaccination campaign led by WHO.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5154

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QUOTE OF THE WEEK
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+ GM LOBBY "UNBELIEVABLY STUPID OR DELIBERATELY LYING" - GENETICIST
"Anyone that says 'Oh, we know that this is perfectly safe,' I say is either unbelievably stupid or deliberately lying. The reality is we don't know. The experiments simply haven't been done and we now have become the guinea pigs." - geneticist Dr David Suzuki
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5163

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CAMPAIGN OF THE WEEK
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+ FREE THAILAND'S PAPAYA ACTIVISTS!
In July of 2004, Greenpeace exposed illegal contamination of Thailand's papaya crop GM seeds from an agricultural research station. Today, instead of prosecuting the scientists responsible for the crime, the Thai Department of Agriculture is persecuting two Greenpeace activists, threatening jail terms of up to five years.

Write to the Prime Minister of Thailand and ask that the government go after the real criminals, and set free Patwajee Srisuwan and Dr Jiragorn Gajaseni, who have protected Thailand's environment and agriculture from the spread of GMO contamination.
Complete the form here: http://act.greenpeace.org/ams/e?a=1756&s=gen2