from Claire Robinson, WEEKLY WATCH editor
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Dear all:
Reports are coming in from India about serious allergy problems among Bt cotton farmers and handlers that are reminiscent of the problems found with Bt maize in the Philippines. In addition, calls for compensation for Indian farmers who suffered from the failure of Bt cotton are escalating, and the Maharashtra Government has already announced special financial assistance for Bt cotton growers. (ASIA)
It can hardly be coincidence that a flurry of newspaper articles has just appeared claiming Bt cotton in India a great success! The articles turn out to be based on a highly suspect report by industry-friendly consultants commissioned by Monsanto! (ASIA)
We also have some interesting articles on the corporate-led corruption of science. (CORPORATE TAKEOVER OF SCIENCE).
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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WORLD COUNCIL OF CHURCHES
EUROPE
ASIA
AFRICA
THE AMERICAS
AUSTRALASIA
CORPORATE TAKEOVER OF SCIENCE
LOBBYWATCH
COMPANY NEWS
TERMINATOR
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WORLD COUNCIL OF CHURCHES
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+ WORLD COUNCIL OF CHURCHES STRONGLY AGAINST GM
A largely overlooked document released last year shows how the World Council of Churches - an international fellowship of Christian churches which represents virtually all Christian traditions - has come out strongly against GM. In a powerful statement, the World Council of Churches calls upon churches and individuals "to build partnerships with civil society, peoples movements, small scale farmer groups and Indigenous Peoples in opposing the science, philosophy and practice of genetic engineering in agriculture..."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6280
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EUROPE
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+ HUNDREDS PROTEST AGAINST GM SPUDS IN IRELAND
Hundreds of people mounted a demonstration outside the Dail on 22 February to protest against plans to plant GM potatoes in Co Meath. The German chemical firm BASF has applied for permission to plant a crop of blight-resistant GM potatoes as part of a five-year experiment at a Teagasc research centre in Summerhill.
Politicians from across the political divide were in attendance at the protest, along with farmers, consumers groups and green campaigners.
Eddie Punch from the Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers Association said he and his colleagues were taking part because they believed Ireland should be able to market its food as natural and GM-free. "If we go down the GM road, we will compromise irrevocably our ability to sell to premium European markets [and] to the maximum number of consumers," he said.
Canadian expert Prof Joe Cummins claims the GM experiment presents a clear risk of contaminating conventional and organic Irish potatoes. "The people and wildlife of Ireland should not be exposed to inadequately tested genetic constructions," said the Emeritus professor of genetics at the University of Western Ontario.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6277
Sign the petition against the GM potato trial at http://gmfreeireland.org/action/index.php
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ASIA
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+ INDIA: BT COTTON SEEDS CAUSE ALLERGY
A three-member investigation team has concluded that a large number of farmers of Nirmar region suffer from allergies after coming in contact with Bt cotton seed. The team, comprising Dr Ashish Gupta, Ashish Mandloi and Amulya Nidhi, carried out the survey in five villages and interviewed 23 labourers and farmers of Barwani and Dhar district between October and December 2005.
The team said the toxins inside the Bt cotton seed were the main reason behind the allergy. Dr Gupta said that all respondents had itching of skin, while 86% of them had eruptions on body and 56% had swelling of face where as in some cases, the itching was so severe that they had to discontinue their work, or take anti-allergy medicine in order to be able to work.
The use of the Bt cotton seed in the past two seasons has made cases of allergies in the region surge.
The following is from the conclusions of the report:
"All the evidence gathered during the investigation shows that Bt has been causing skin, upper respiratory tract and eye allergy among persons exposed to cotton. The symptoms vary from mild, moderate to very severe to the extent that one woman had to be admitted for 9 days as a result of allergy. The allergy is not restricted to farm labourers involved in picking cotton but has affected labour involved in loading and unloading Bt from villages to market, those involved in its weighing, labourers working in ginning factories, people who carried out other operations in the field of Bt cotton, or farmers who stored cotton in their homes etc. Thus the symptom is affecting people widely exposed at different places. The symptoms were not restricted to one particular farm but several farms in 6 villages... The doctor of this area also has reported a spurt of allergic cases in the last 2 seasons in the cotton season.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6268
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6278
Read the report in 2 parts:
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6265
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6266
Seeds of Deception author Jeffrey Smith comments on the health problems found thus far with Bt toxin:
"Mice exposed to Bt-toxin developed an immune response equal to that of cholera toxin, developed a greater susceptibility to allergies, and developed abnormal and excessive cell growth in their small intestines. Farm workers exposed to even the low dose Bt spray showed evidence of allergic sensitivity, and blood tests showed an immune response. Preliminary evidence found that thirty-nine Philippinos living next to a Bt maize field developed skin, intestinal, and respiratory reactions while the maize was pollinating."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6278
+ MAHARASHTRA GOVT ANNOUNCES AID TO BT COTTON FARMERS
The Maharashtra Government has announced special financial assistance to the farmers who had lost their Bt cotton crop due to disease and other reasons in 2005-06 in the state.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6263
+ BT COTTON SEEDS IN EYE OF POLITICAL STORM
At a time when Mahyco Monsanto is in the process of launching the new version of Bt cotton, cotton prices have crashed to Rs 2200-2700 per quintal, against Rs 4,300 to 4,500 per quintal. The issue rocked the State Assembly when members of opposition parties, including the Congress, staged a walkout in the Madhya Pradesh Assembly, alleging heavy losses suffered by farmers due to the low yield from Bt cotton. They also accused the ruling BJP of promoting multi-national companies.
Samajwadi Party leaders Suneelam, Govind Singh, and Arif Aqeel of Congress claimed that thousands of farmers in Malwa and Nimar region found that the average yield of cotton had been reduced from 15 quintals to only 4 quintals. Demanding compensation for the affected farmers, the opposition members claimed that Bt cotton had proved to be a failure in terms of cost effectiveness, germination, productivity and quality.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6272
+ NEW HYPE OUT OF OLD BOTTLES IN INDIA
Bt cotton in India has had an appalling press of late, with scores of articles reporting everything from failed germination to disappointing yields, from disease outbreaks to farmer suicides.
But then suddenly in the last few days there's been a very different crop of headlines:
"India: Biotech cotton enhances farm income" - Fibre2fashion.com, India
"Biotech cotton raises farm income by Rs 558 cr" - Economic Times, India
"GM crops up farmers' income" - Financial Express, India
"Bt cotton helps India increase farm income" - Checkbiotech.org
These headlines all relate, as one of these articles notes, to a study by UK-based PG Economics" which "claimed that farmers' income has increased by $124.2 million (Rs 558 crore) on cumulative basis in India with the adoption of insect-resistant Bt cotton."
This claim is contradicted by other studies, as Ashok B. Sharma in the Financial Express notes. Sharma also identifies the PG Economics study that is the basis of the current claims about Indian Bt cotton production. It's "GM Crops: The Global Socio-economic and Environmental Impact & The First Nine Years 1996-2004".
What's interesting about this is that although this report is being used to hype GM crops in India at the moment, it was released back in October 2005. It also appears from the current spate of articles that whoever is hyping around this report from last year is failing to point out that it was commissioned by Monsanto!
The report proved controversial on publication, as have other pro-GM reports commissioned by the biotech industry from PG Economics. As GM Watch noted at the time, "The science in the new report is somewhat less than impressive. It's not even clear where half of their figures come from. Most of the references are presentations at biotech conferences and unpublished articles and very few appear to have been peer reviewed. Some of the cited papers are from PG Economics Ltd itself (whose biotech reports are mostly funded by the biotech industry), the National Center for Food and Agriculture Policy (described by an article in Science as 'a pro-GM industry group'), ISAAA (industry funded), etc."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6282
+ FARMER BODIES OPPOSE INDO-U.S. RESEARCH INITIATIVE
The proposed India-US Knowledge Initiative in Agri Research and Education has run into rough weather, with the farmers' organisations of the UPA coalition partners opposing the move. The farmers' organisations have criticised the move as "surrendering the interests of Indian peasants to the multinationals based in US". They have demanded that the government make the details of the programme public and initiate a debate in both the houses of the Parliament.
The farmer bodies are warning that the ruling coalition risks electoral defeat if it continues with its "anti-farmer policies". The Indo-US pact on ag research and education, farmers' leaders point out, will promote GMOs in India, extend a strong patent regime in Indian agriculture and give the US and its multinationals free access to India's remarkable genetic biodiversity. Both Wal-Mart and Monsanto are represented on the board overseeing the pact.
Among those raising concerns is Krishan Bir Chaudhary, the executive chairman of India's leading farmers' organisation, Bharat Krishak Samaj. The BKS is the farming organisation of India's ruling Congress party.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6262
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6264
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AFRICA
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+ ZIMBABWE NOT IMPORTING GM FOOD
Minister of state for land reform and resettlement Didymus Mutasa has denied press reports that Zimbabwe had started importing GM foods from Argentina. Mutasa said, "To be honest, I have never heard of that. They would have to consult with me but no one has done so. That policy [against unmilled GM maize] is steadfast, we continue to maintain it. It has not been reviewed and the cabinet has not changed its position."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6269
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THE AMERICAS
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+ GMOs AND VERMONT
Vermont organic grower Jack Lazor is struggling to understand why some farmers are speaking against the state's Farmer Protection Act, which protects farmers from the legal consequences of cross-pollinating his non-GMO neighbour's corn.
Bill S.18 would put the liability on the owner and creator of the technology - not the farmer. Lazor says, "Apparently, the seed companies [like Monsanto] are worried about this. Local dealers have pulled out all the stops to convince their farmer customers that, 'we don't want the protection - thank you!' One seed company hinted during the last legislative session that they might pull out of Vermont. Several Vermont seed dealers have brought busloads of farmers to the Legislature to speak against the Farmer Protection Act."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6258
+ GENETICALLY MODIFIED HUBRIS
A good article by Tom Philpott for Gristmill comments on NY Times writer Andrew Pollack's recent attempt to address the failure of biotech companies to "improve" fruits and vegetable crops - that is, to bring a GM fruit or vegetable strain from seed to supermarket.
EXCERPT:
Unwittingly, the article illustrates the industry's hubris and the mainstream press's gullibility in covering the topic. Pollack opens thusly:
"At the dawn of the era of genetically engineered crops, scientists were envisioning all sorts of healthier and tastier foods, including cancer-fighting tomatoes, rot-resistant fruits, potatoes that would produce healthier French fries and even beans that would not cause flatulence."
The only response to that statement is a horselaugh. Tomatoes already fight cancer; fruits like apples and oranges resist rot just fine (does anyone seriously want, say, raspberries that last weeks? When we harvest them on my farm, they tend to disappear rapidly anyway); french fries can be plenty healthy, so long as you (like those skinny French people) fry them in good-quality fat and don't eat them in excess; and the answer to beans' flatulence problem lies not in the lab, but in the garden: Just add a bit of the hardy herb epazote to the pot. I've seen epazote thrive everywhere from a full-sun garden in Texas to a community garden in Brooklyn to a shady herb patch in North Carolina's mountains.
In other words, low-tech solutions already exist for most of the "problems" the biotech industry has set out to "solve." It's no coincidence that biotech ag companies are the mutant child of the pharmaceutical industry, which peddles a pill for every malady, including many you didn't know you had.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6259
+ FARMERS, OTHERS SUE USDA OVER MONSANTO GM ALFALFA
A coalition of farmers, consumers and environmental activists have sued the US government over its approval of a GM alfalfa that critics say will spell havoc for farmers and the environment. The lawsuit contends that the US Dept of Agriculture improperly is allowing Monsanto to sell an herbicide-resistant alfalfa seed while failing to analyze the public health, environmental, and economic consequences of that action.
The suit asserts that the GM alfalfa will contaminate conventionally grown alfalfa, forcing farmers to pay for Monsanto's patented gene technology whether they want the technology or not. The group says biotech alfalfa would also hurt production of organic dairy and beef products as alfalfa is a key cattle feed. And the suit claims farmers could lose export business, valued at an estimated $480 million per year, because buyers in Japan and South Korea, major importers of US alfalfa, have indicated they would avoid buying US alfalfa once the GM variety is released.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6257
+ LATIN AMERICA: CALLS FOR LABELLING OF GM FOODS
Calls are increasing for GM foods in Latin American countries to be labeled. There is legislation on the books in Brazil, but companies aren't complying with the requirement. In Mexico the laws on the matter are imprecise, and in Chile a new law is expected soon.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6274
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AUSTRALASIA
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+ DEMOCRATS WILL MAINTAIN GM BAN
The South Australian Democrats have announced they will move to support the State's ban on GM crops when the Parliament resumes after the state election. Democrat Ian Gilfillan said one of the reasons behind the move is some markets are still extremely cautious about GM foods. "Recent premium prices paid by Japan for Kangaroo Island GM-free canola is clear evidence that markets still strongly prefer GM-free produce to produce that has been contaminated," he said.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6279
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CORPORATE TAKEOVER OF SCIENCE
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+ SCIENCE JOURNALS HARD TO TRUST
An article in the New York Times says reporters are finding science journals harder to trust, but no easier to verify. The admission comes in the wake of reports that Korean researcher Dr Hwang Woo Suk fabricated evidence that he had cloned human cells. The journal Science recently retracted two papers by Dr Hwang.
EXCERPT:
The Hwang case was not the first time journals had been duped: recently, editors at The New England Journal of Medicine said they suspected two cancer papers they published contained fabricated data. In December, the same journal said that the authors of a 2000 study on the painkiller Vioxx had omitted the fact that several patients had had heart attacks while taking the drug in a trial. A study on the painkiller Celebrex [originally a Monsanto product] that appeared in The Journal of the American Medical Association was discredited when it was discovered that the authors had submitted only six months of data, instead of the 12 months of data they had collected.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6273
+ THREE FACES OF SCIENCE FRAUD
In an article for the San Diego Union Tribune, Prof David Schubert argues that Dr Hwang's alleged fabrications are perhaps the least harmful among different types of scientific fraud currently taking place.
EXCERPT:
The reason for this is that in the world of academic science to which Hwang belongs, incorrect new claims are rapidly discovered and discarded because other laboratories cannot reproduce them. However, if fraud is defined as the creation or manipulation of data to achieve a specific end, then the type of scientific misconduct perpetrated by some industries and the Bush administration is much more serious and has led to extensive human suffering...
If there is opposition to the introduction of a product from a consensus of scientists, usually in the form of proposals for increased government oversight, then companies will employ their own scientists to publish manuscripts in an attempt to discredit the consensus. These manuscripts frequently contain experiments that only have an illusionary relevance to the problem, but are used in PR campaigns to create scientific uncertainty about the science in order to block the regulation.
There are several recent examples of the success of this approach. The chemical industry used it to persuade the Environmental Protection Agency to roll back regulations that require companies to notify neighborhoods that are being exposed to toxic waste that most scientists say is dangerous. The plant biotech industry has repeatedly made false claims about the safety of their genetically engineered food crops and has tried to discredit scientists who publish manuscripts showing that they are harmful.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6275
+ BUSH ADMINSTRATION GAGS SCIENTISTS
Evidence is mounting that US scientists have been prevented by the George W. Bush administration from telling the truth about global warming and other environmental and health issues. In January, one of the US's leading scientists, James Hansen, accused the administration of keeping scientific information about climate change from reaching the public.
Hansen, director of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said scientists researching climate change at NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are being gagged. "It seems more like Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union than the United States," Hansen was reported as saying at a public panel about science and the environment in New York City.
Last fall, administration officials ordered Hansen to remove data from the Internet that suggested 2005 could be the warmest year on record ... The US is entering into an era where faith is more important than fact and dissent is considered betrayal, he said.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6261
+ BIG PHARMA, BAD SCIENCE
From The Nation, July 25, 2002:
In June, the New England Journal of Medicine... made a startling announcement. The editors declared that they were dropping their policy stipulating that authors of review articles of medical studies could not have financial ties to drug companies whose medicines were being analyzed.
The reason? The journal could no longer find enough independent experts. Drug company gifts and "consulting fees" are so pervasive that in any given field, you cannot find an expert who has not been paid off in some way by the industry. So the journal settled for a new standard: Their reviewers can have received no more than $10,000 from companies whose work they judge. Isn't that comforting?
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6273
+ HOW THE GM INDUSTRY KILLS OFF "UNCOMFORTABLE" RESEARCH
GM Free Cymru reports:
Fact: Two years ago, when Prof Bela Darvas and his colleagues in the Hungarian Academy of Sciences revealed a massive buildup of toxins associated with plantings of a GM maize called MON810, and indicated that they wanted to repeat and extend their research, Monsanto shut off supplies of seeds and effectively killed off the research project.
Fact: In 2005, when Dr Judy Carman asked Bayer CropScience for a small amount of GM InVigor canola seeds to help assess the accuracy of some field tests in Australia. The request was ignored, making the research impossible...
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6271
These cases are by no means unique... the GM industry routinely refuses to supply GM seed and other GM "reference material" to bona fide scientists who ask for it, citing as justification patent protection and "commercial in confidence" rules. In the case of the Bt10 fiasco, Syngenta even refused to send to the EC reference materials needed by research laboratories for the development of a testing and monitoring programme.
"This means that one of the fundamental principles of science has now been abandoned, with the apparent connivance of certain governments," says Dr Brian John of GM Free Cymru. "Science has always operated on the assumption that experiments must be replicable in order that results may be verified or falsified. But if the GM multinationals refuse to allow their GM seeds and reference materials to be examined by anybody other than their own scientists, there is no way that anybody should trust their results, whether or not they have been through a peer review process."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6267
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LOBBYWATCH
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+ EASING FEARS OF BIOTECH FOOD WITH BULLSH*T
New Biotechnology Industry Organisation (BIO) man Sean Darragh is a former US defence, national security and trade official. The "new public face of the global agricultural biotechnology industry" is also a bullsh*t specialist par excellence, as a newspaper interview gave to the Sacramento Bee shows:
EXCERPT:
Q: "Have you done studies over a long period of time to say whether people who eat more genetically modified foods get more cancers or get more of other diseases than people who eat more organically grown food? Have those sorts of studies been done?"
Darragh: Ten years have gone by without one documented case of any problem associated with the technology. ... I've never met anybody with a science degree, who has a PhD in biology, ever, who was not comfortable with the safety of biotechnology... If I had a conversation with anybody with a PhD in biology and they could articulate why they were concerned about it and why this technology is any different than the stuff that's been happening for years - like Mendel's peas - then I could understand. But there's nobody out there."
Nobody out there? Darragh really needs to get out more. He could try these for starters - none of them short of a PhD or two and some of them even to be found in America!
Dr Suzanne Wuerthele, US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) toxicologist: "This technology is being promoted, in the face of concerns by respectable scientists and in the face of data to the contrary, by the very agencies which are supposed to be protecting human health and the environment. The bottom line in my view is that we are confronted with the most powerful technology the world has ever known, and it is being rapidly deployed with almost no thought whatsoever to its consequences."
Professor Norman Ellstrand, ecological geneticist at the University of California: "within 10 years we will have a moderate to large-scale ecological or economic catastrophe, because there will be so many products being released."
Dr Harash Narang, microbiologist and senior research associate at the University of Leeds, who originally pointed to the possible link between mad cow disease (BSE) and CJD in humans: "If you look at the simple principle of genetic modification it spells ecological disaster. There are no ways of quantifying the risks... The solution is simply to ban the use of genetic modification in food."
Many more scientists' quotes at: http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6281
+ KREBS: OCCUPYING THE MIDDLE GROUND?
In an article in The (UK) Guardian, former head of the Food Standards Agency and GM zealot Sir John Krebs claims to be unbiased when it comes to GM foods: "'I have been portrayed in the media as being pro-GM, which is actually quite untrue. I'm neither pro, nor anti,' says Krebs. He says he occupies a middle ground in favour of assessing the potential risks of GM scientifically."
In the article, Krebs tries to cast doubt even on the hard-to-dispute evidence that organic farming is better for the environment: "He is an advocate of sustainable agriculture, but does not necessarily think organic farming is the way to achieve it."
Twice in the article, Krebs says that fresh organic food is an expensive "luxury". This in spite of the fact that anyone buying organic fruit and veg via box schemes or at farmers' markets (avoiding greedy supermarkets and middle men) cannot help but notice how cheap it is compared with buying the same produce at supermarkets - or with buying 'convenience' food anywhere.
Sir John's claim to be open-minded on GM and organic food, and to hold the middle ground, is laughable, as is evidenced by the complete failure of the FSA under Krebs to re-examine the safety of GM foods, despite the high level of consumer concern. Indeed, he declared all existing approved GM foods safe on his first day in the job, before he had even had time to look at the evidence.
Instead, he quickly ordered a safety enquiry into organic food, which has a high level of consumer confidence. Krebs then made a high profile attack on organic food, in the words of The Times, as "an image-led fad". Dr Patrick Wall, the chief executive of the Food Safety Authority of Ireland has described Krebs' views on organic food as "extreme".
The FSA's pro-GM agenda under Krebs is reflected in the key role the FSA played in producing weak international guidelines on GM food allergenicity testing.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6270
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COMPANY NEWS
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+ MONSANTO ASSERTS RIGHTS OVER PROCESSED FOOD
Last year, Monsanto wrote a letter to all exporters and importers explaining its intention to charge a fee of between $15 (GBP8.60) and $18.75 on every tonne of Argentinian soy produced with its Roundup Ready technology.
"[Monsanto] reserves the right to begin legal actions, on the assumption of uncovering imports from Latin America of unlicensed Roundup Ready soy, in countries where the said technology is protected by intellectual property rights," a statement by the company reads.
In keeping with the strategy, a ship carrying 5,900 tonnes of GM soy grain, worth an estimated $1m, was detained in Liverpool earlier this month. Monsanto tested the shipment for Roundup Ready technology in the prelude to a lawsuit. Over the past six months, Monsanto has also filed cases for patent infringement in Denmark, the Netherlands and Spain.
If Monsanto is successful, the company could claim part-ownership rights on any product containing the Roundup Ready gene. Given that most highly processed foods contain an element of soy, such a list could potentially include everything from European margarine to Chinese soy sauce.
"In the case of Argentina, Monsanto is really challenging its rights over processed food, not just over the seeds. This is something new. It's never happened before," warns Juan Lopez of Friends of the Earth.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6276
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TERMINATOR
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+ MONSANTO BREAKS ITS WORD ON TERMINATOR
Monsanto made a public promise in 1999 not to commercialize 'Terminator Technology' - plants genetically engineered to produce sterile seeds. Now Monsanto says it may develop or use the so-called 'suicide seeds' after all. The revised pledge from Monsanto now suggests that it would use Terminator seeds in non-food crops and does not rule out other uses of Terminator in the future. Monsanto's modified stance comes to light as the biotech and seed industry confront peasant and farmer movements, indigenous peoples and their allies in an escalating battle at the United Nations over the future of Terminator.
In 2000 the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) adopted a de facto moratorium on sterile seed technologies, also known as Genetic Use Restriction Technologies (GURTs). But at next month's high-level meeting of the CBD in Curitiba, Brazil (20-31 March 2006) the biotech industry will intensify its push to undermine the six-year old de facto moratorium.
In response, over 300 organizations have declared their support for a global ban on Terminator Technology, asserting that sterile seeds threaten biodiversity and will destroy the livelihoods and cultures of the 1.4 billion people who depend on farm-saved seed.http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6276