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A new peer-reviewed study shows widespread contamination of the Saudi Arabian food supply with GM ingredients, including the controversial StarLink maize, a variety of Bt corn patented by Aventis (acquired by Bayer in 2002). StarLink was approved for domestic animal feed and industrial use in the US in 1998, but was segregated from human consumption due to safety concerns related to its potential allergenicity. It was pulled from the market in 2000, but still hasn't gone away. Read more
ELLE magazine has published a remarkable article by Caitlin Shetterly (right), who successfully regained her health just by eliminating GM corn from her diet. The article makes good use of interviews with eminent medical professionals and scientists, and is well worth reading in full. Predictably, biotech apologist Jon Entine savaged the article in Slate magazine, but the editor of ELLE hit back to superb effect. Torturing animals with GM feed Iowa vet Dr Art Dunham thinks GM feed doused with glyphosate may be responsible for the modern epidemic of manganese deficiency in livestock, which in turn causes skeletal deformities. Glyphosate has been shown to tie up manganese and other vital elements in the soil, making them unavailable to plants and the animals and people that eat them. As more evidence emerges about the health effects of GM feed on animals, it's time to tell UK supermarkets to get GMOs out of animal feed. Here's a quick and easy action: http://gmoaction.org/petition Come and hear Prof Seralini talk about his research on UK speaking tour Prof Gilles-Eric Séralini, whose research showing GM maize had serious ill effects on rats was the subject of a massive coverup campaign in the UK, will visit the UK from September 2-8 on a rare speaking tour to discuss the health risks posed by GM foods. He’ll speak in London, Cardiff, and Edinburgh as part of an expert panel that will include the Danish farmer Ib Pedersen, who found that GM feed caused malformations, deaths and stomach disease in his pig herd. List of events is here: gmhealthriskweek.org/featured-events Seralini validated by new EFSA guidelines on long-term safety testing The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has issued guidelines for two-year whole food feeding studies to assess the risk of long-term toxicity from GM and other whole foods. The guidelines largely validate the methodology and choices of Prof Gilles-Eric Seralini in his 2012 study on GM maize - which EFSA and countless other critics previously attacked him for. Read more French court rejects GMO ban but president vows to uphold it France's top administrative court has ruled that the country's ban on MON810 maize cultivation is illegal, adding that it would be legal only if it were proven that the maize posed a "major risk". The ruling is a blow to the precautionary principle, as it seems unlikely that it will ever be possible to prove that to the satisfaction of a court. However, the French president Francois Hollande has confirmed that the country will find a way to keep its moratorium on cultivation of the maize. Read more
The Brazilian ministry of agricultural development is warning farmers that GM Bt crops, pesticides, and monocultures are responsible for the plague of Helicoverpa caterpillars that is devastating the country's crops. The ministry is advising family farmers whose farms are close to GM crops and monocultures to take preventive measures. The ministry adds that the areas best protected from the pest are those growing a mixture of non-GM and non-Bt crops and native vegetation. Read more Brazilian farmers have lost billions as a result of the pest attacks. In March this year the damage was forecast at 2 billion Brazilian Reai. By July it was clear that the losses to farmers were five times as high, reaching 10 billion Brazilian Reai so far (over 3 billion Euros). Read more All GMO approvals in Brazil are illegal and not science-based - regulator All approvals of GM crops in Brazil fail to conform with legal norms and twist science in the interests of GM companies. That's the view of Leonardo Melgarejo, a member of Brazil's GMO regulatory body CTNBio, in a report submitted to Consea, the food safety advisory body to the Brazilian president. Melgarejo describes unscientific tricks used by CTNBio that are also used by European Food Safety Authority in its evaluations of GM foods, such as dismissing significant differences in GM-fed animals as not biologically relevant without scientific justification. Read more Biotech ambassadors in Africa Pro-GM campaigner Mark Lynas has been touring Africa, promoting GM crops in a way that appears to be coordinated with Monsanto-linked lobbyists. Lynas insists he doesn't take biotech industry money, but just who is paying for his expensive GM promotionals? Jonathan Matthews of GMWatch lifts the lid on the US- and industry-backed lobbyists driving the latest wave of corporate colonialism in Africa. Read more African food sovereignty under attack by corporate interests A coalition of civil society organisations from 50 African countries is warning that Africa’s food sovereignty, diversity and knowledge systems are being threatened by corporate and GM seeds, agrochemicals, resource grabs, and laws that prevent farmers from freely using, sharing, or selling their seed. Read more India's Supreme Court committee says no to GM crops In India, a Supreme Court-appointed committee has recommended an indefinite moratorium on field trials of GM crops until the government fixes regulatory and safety aspects. The Technical Expert Committee (TEC) also recommended a ban on introduction of GM varieties in regions of their origin. The TEC's report also says herbicide-tolerant (HT) crops, targeted for introduction by the regulator, should not be open field-tested. The TEC found them "completely unsuitable in the Indian context as HT crops are likely to exert a highly adverse impact over time on sustainable agriculture, rural livelihoods, and environment.” Read more Monsanto told to quit India Following Monsanto's announcement that it would cease developing GMOs for Europe, thousands of Indian farmers and activists staged a protest against Monsanto and other global seed giants, GMOs, and the BRAI Bill, which would fast-track GM approvals. The protests stretched across 20 states as part of the "Quit India" movement. Read more India: Why GM field trials must be put on hold Plant breeding - not GM - to solve major pest problem Soybean aphids cost US farmers over $2 billion annually. Now scientists have identified resistance genes in the soybean plant, and it is conventional plant breeding, not GM, that is at the forefront of their development. The public sector has led the way, as biotech companies are not interested. Dr Doug Gurian-Sherman explains why. Read more There are many more examples of how non-GM approaches are massively outpacing GM, despite all the attention and resources that genetic engineering attracts. And plant breeders at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew in the UK are focusing on non-GM breeding with wild relatives for yield and resilience. Read more Philippines farmers uproot golden rice More than 400 farmers have stormed the ongoing field testing of GM golden rice in the Philippines and uprooted plants. “Golden rice is not an answer to the country’s problem on hunger and malnutrition,” said Bert Autor, a farmer and spokesperson of SIKWAL-GMO, an alliance of farmers, church people, students, academics, and consumers who are against GMOs and transnational corporate control of agriculture. Farmers and scientists in the Philippines have united to oppose golden rice, which they say is a “simplistic, techno-fix” and not a solution to hunger, poverty, and malnutrition. Dr Romeo Quijano, a toxicologist and president of Pesticide Action Network Philippines (PAN-Philippines), said there are sustainable measures to address malnutrition problems such as vitamin A deficiency that have no negative impact on human health and the environment. Read more Complete genes can pass from food to human blood - study A new study shows that, contrary to reassurances from industry and regulators, complete genes - and that will include GM genes - can avoid degradation in the digestive tract and pass from food into human blood. The stretches of plant DNA found in blood were complete enough to enable the researchers to identify the exact plants that the human subjects ate, such as soy and maize. The highest concentrations of plant DNA were found in people with inflammatory diseases. We await with interest the regulators' response to the study. Read more Grist's new food writer fails to see beyond industry spin The online environmental magazine Grist has a new food writer, Nathanael Johnson, who's been busy writing a series of articles about GM. The pro-GM lobby love him – and it's clear why. Johnson relies heavily on pro-GM scientists as his sources, leading him to make serious factual errors in his articles, as GMWatch's Claire Robinson points out. Read more Zero tolerance for a different perspective on GMOs An emeritus professor, Bruce Chassy, resorted to insults when his GMO “facts” were questioned at a GMO educational session. Chassy is a well known GM supporter, long associated with the pro-GM campaign group AgBioWorld. He was also the co-author of an article accusing Prof GE Seralini of fraud. Read the account of Chassy's tantrum here. Read more Glow-in-the-dark plants spark heated debate After a storm of protest, the crowdfunding site Kickstarter has backed away from future projects to fund GMOs that can be released from the lab. Read more 'GMO Answers' website launched by biotech industry The GM industry's latest PR drive includes a new website, "GMOAnswers.com", aimed at combatting mounting opposition to GM foods. Read more Neonicotinoids are the new DDT - and their defenders are also pushing GM The UK government, backed by its "chief scientist" Mark Walport, appears to be collaborating with the likes of Syngenta and Bayer in peddling the corporate line that neonicotinoid pesticides are safe to use, writes George Monbiot in The Guardian. Interestingly, these are exactly the same people who are promoting GM crops in the UK. In both cases, they turn a blind eye to scientific reality. Read more GM crops make weeds more uncontrollable The GM industry has always maintained that if genes spread from GM crops into wild relatives, it's nothing to worry about because there is no fitness advantage conferred, and that if anything, the opposite is the case. But a new open access study shows that a GM transgene used to make crops herbicide tolerant confers advantages on a wild, weedy form of rice, even in the absence of the herbicide. The finding shows that the transgene increases the fecundity (number of seeds produced per plant and germination rate of those seeds) and thus the "weediness" of the weedy rice. Read more Study links GM Bt crops to anaemia, leukaemia Bt insecticidal toxins are engineered into GM crops to make them into pesticide factories. A study released in May found that contrary to the prevailing myth, Bt insecticidal toxins are not specific to insect pests but are toxic to the blood of mice. An article for greenmedinfo.com clearly explains the implications of the research, including a potential link between Bt toxin exposure and the blood diseases, anaemia and leukaemia. Read more Russians to proudly poison themselves with their own GM foods? Russia is preparing to produce its own GM crops, according to an article in Pravda aptly titled, "Russians to proudly poison themselves with their own GM food". However, while a few Russian government officials are hyping the promise of GM, Russia has not approved a single GM crop for cultivation. Read more |
Harwood Schaffer, PhD, research assistant professor at the University of Tennessee’s Agricultural Policy Analysis Center, on the fact that GM seed companies either conduct or pay for the safety studies that are sent to the regulator, and choose which ones to submit: More articles African farmers and civil society coordinate resistance to the latest GM push in Africa Read more Investment advisor warns that the risk in Monsanto’s business is higher than ever Read more Resources on GM from the Alliance for Natural Health Read more Kosher certifier bans all GMO ingredients Read more University of Arkansas releases two non-GM high-yield soybeans Read more Other GMWatch links GM SongsVideos on GMNon-GM successesGM MythsGM MythmakersGM FirmsGM News |
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