GMWatch News Review archive

from Claire Robinson, WEEKLY WATCH editor
------------------------------------------------------------

Staggerring news this week from Hawaii where independent laboratory testing is showing massive levels of GM contamination from the world's first commercially planted GM tree - the papaya.

Nearly 20,000 papaya seeds from across the Big Island, 80% of which came from organic farms and the rest from backyard gardens or wild trees, showed **a GM contamination level of 50%**. (see FOCUS ON THE AMERICAS)

GM-contaminated papaya are also reported to have turned up recently in Thailand, with Thailand losing huge export orders as a result. Thailand also seems to have managed to effectively give away its papaya strains, which have been genetically engineered and patented by American corporations including Monsanto. (see THAILAND LATEST)

Meanwhile, the unelected European Commission has forced through approvals of 17 GM seeds against the wishes of many member states, even though many of these states do not have rules on coexistence to deal with the contamination issues already besetting Hawaii and Thailand. As a spokesperson for GMO-Free Hawaii has pointed out, "coexistence of traditional and GMO crops is impossible."

The Commission's action surely makes it a candidate for regime change, although even this discredited body couldn't manage to agree on allowable GM contamination levels. This is great news as many EU countries have zero tolerance policies on GM contamination which will continue to operate.

Interestingly, regardless of whatever the Commission tries to do to appease the industry and its US backers, a report this week from the Commission itself shows that GM research in member countries has gone into "steep decline" and that EU rules are doing nothing to halt that. (New EU rules fail to halt fall in GM research)
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4319

The other good news is that GM pharma crops appear to be on the run in the US although this will doubtless mean more industry projects decamping for the Third World. The joke is that while such crops raise the spectre of nightmarish food contamination, experts are saying there's very little evidence that theyare actually likely to work (see GM MEDICINES).

Claire This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
www.lobbywatch.org / www.gmwatch.org

------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS
------------------------------------------------------------
FOCUS ON EUROPE
FOCUS ON THE AMERICAS
THAILAND LATEST
OTHER NEWS FROM ASIA
GM MEDICINES
LOBBYWATCH
FOOD SAFETY
QUOTES OF THE WEEK
DONATIONS

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
FOCUS ON EUROPE
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

+ FRENCH POLICE TEAR-GAS ANTI-GM DEMONSTRATORS
Tear gas and batons were used against anti-GM protestors in Auch, France on 5 September. The protestors (600 according to the protestors, 400 according to police), led by women and children, were trying to get into a field of GM maize in the village of Solomiac in the Gers region, but were stopped by large numbers of gendarmes and soldiers who barricaded the field. Ten people were briefly detained including the French farmer Jose Bove.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4300

+ SWISS EXPERTS SAY BETTER ANSWERS THAN GM
A Swiss government advisory committee has said not enough research had been carried out into the impact of genetic engineering. The Ethics Committee on Non-Human Technology called for closer coordination of state-funded research programmes to help improve the provision of food for people in developing countries but warned against giving any special preference to GM, saying better solutions were available.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4318

+ UK: SHOPPERS WANT GM-FREE ANIMAL FEED
Shoppers are not only concerned about GM ingredients in food; the recent Consumers Association survey shows that the vast majority - 68 per cent - want manufacturers to go one step further and make sure meat and dairy products have no links with the GM process, ie that their production has involved only non-GM animal feed.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4307

+ EU PUTS 17 GM VARIETIES ON SEED LIST BUT STALLS ON CONTAMINATION TOLERANCES
The EU added the first GM strains to its common seed catalogue on 8 September, opening the way - theoretically at least - for farmers across the continent to plant them. At the same time, the European Commission put off a decision on new labelling rules for seeds amid bitter differences over how much stray GM material could be tolerated in packages of conventional strains before it must be labeled.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4314

+ FOE URGES EU GOVTS TO BAN GM SEEDS
Friends of the Earth has called on governments to use EU law to ban the seed varieties, which are in any case a type designed for pest problems that don't affect all member states. Spokesperson Geert Ritsema said, "The European member states must step in where the Commission has failed and ban these GM seeds."

Commenting on the decision not to discuss seed contamination, Ritsema continued: "Friends of the Earth welcomes this decision and believes that the Commission now has a golden opportunity to bring out better proposals that will protect people and the environment. Public safety must come before the financial interests of the biotechnology industry."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4312

+ 'CO-EXISTENCE' RULES NOT IN PLACE
Most countries have no proper rules on how farmers should separate organic, conventional and GMO crops to minimise cross-contamination. "Allowing widespread growing of GM crops before countries have had the chance to put in measures to protect consumers and the environment is a reckless move that could lead to the widespread contamination of Europe's food, farming and environment," said Geert Ritsema, GMO campaigner at Friends of the Earth.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4301

------------------------------------------------------------
FOCUS ON THE AMERICAS
------------------------------------------------------------

+ OUTRAGED FARMERS DUMP GM-CONTAMINATED PAPAYAS AT UNIV OF HAWAII
Independent laboratory testing results reveal widespread contamination from the world's first commercially planted GM tree, the papaya, on Oahu, the Big Island, and Kauai. Contamination was also found in the stock of non-GM seeds being sold commercially by the University of Hawaii.

Farmers, health professionals, concerned citizens, and University of Hawaii scientists joined GMO-Free Hawaii in announcing the shocking results of their research at the University of Hawaii, which created and released the GMO papaya. Dozens of outraged farmers, consumers and backyard growers brought their contaminated papayas back to the university to underscore their demand that UH provide a plan for cleaning up papaya contamination. The campaign also called for liability protection for local growers and the prevention of GMO contamination of other Hawaiian commodity crops.

Nearly 20,000 papaya seeds from across the Big Island, 80% of which came from organic farms and the rest from backyard gardens or wild trees, showed a GM contamination level of 50%.

A spokesperson from GMO-Free Hawaii said, "Papaya contamination is a case study in the threat that GMO contamination presents to local agriculture. It is now obvious that coexistence of traditional and GMO crops is impossible."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4315

+ FRIO WON'T SEE GM PHARMA CORN
ProdiGene has abandoned its efforts to plant GM pharmaceutical corn in Frio County, Texas. The company was seeking permits to plant several hundred acres of corn that have been altered to produce animal proteins used in medicine. The US Dept of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service website has listed the two Frio County permit applications as withdrawn, and a third that was approved will not be executed.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4313
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4296

It is looking increasingly likely that the US pharma industry will soon be forced to follow the example of the European pharma network and decamp for the developing world to test out its dangerous wares. The Europeans have selected laxly-regulated South Africa as an easy testing ground but they're running into increasing resistance. Peter Lowins, a South African farmer who represents the local grain growers, understands the game plan: "And that's why they try using Third World countries to do these experiments. If it's wrong or if it's a failure in the future, it doesn't affect them."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4285

+ MORE GLYPHOSATE-RESISTANT WEEDS IN US
An article from Delta Farm Press reports on the latest glyphosate resistant weed to emerge in the US. Indeed, the problem is so widespread that it's turned into a marketing opportunity for Monsanto's rivals. Amongst the rotating adverts above this article on the Delta Farm Press website is one for a non-glyphosate herbicide. It reads:
"The list of glyphosate resistant weeds is getting longer and longer". The ad then lists: "Waterhemp, Rigid Rye Grass, Mare's Tail, Italian Rye Grass, Velvetleaf."

The article below the ad reports how there are now signs of resistance emerging in yet another weed - ragweed. The larger issue, according to the agronomist quoted in the article, is "the path agriculture is traveling": "Two years ago, on the front page of Delta Farm Press was a headline saying 'Horseweed is resistant.' Now, two years later, all indications are we've got resistant ragweed. What's going to be next?"

He goes on, "I'll go on the record: it's a matter of when, not if, pigweed becomes resistant. Tall waterhemp or lambsquarter would also be bad news... If that scenario plays out, we'd be knocked back at least 20 years as far as herbicides."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4297

More glyphosate-resistant weeds:
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4263

+ CARELESSNESS AND COVER-UP: GM CORN CONTAMINATION IN MEXICO
An excellent article on the Mexican maize contamination scandal, bringing the issue bang up to date, is at
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4299

The article reports that small-scale Mexican farmers are expected to abandon corn growing, "due to the near-complete loss of farm subsidies combined with the opening of the Mexican market to heavily subsidized US corn. Subsidies for Mexican farmers have dropped, at the behest of US 'free market' proselytizers, from 33% of farm income to less than 13%, while during the same period subsidies for US farmers have grown and now make up 40% of US farm income. Cheap corn from the US is flooding the Mexican market and competing with the locally grown corn."

This is a serious development, not only for the small farmers, but for the world, since Mexico is the ancient centre of biodiversity for corn.

More on Mexican contamination and farmer resistance at the meeting of the North American Free Trade Agreement's (NAFTA's) Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC).
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4317

+ LULA RUSHES TO APPROVE GMOS TO SAVE HIS IMAGE AND PLEASE INDUSTRY
Brazil's leaders are "frantically debating a proposal called the Law of Biosecurity" which will introduce an approval process for GMOs and an inspection system even though none of the manpower or equipment are in place to make such a law effective.

Why the rush? According to an article in Brazzil [sic] magazine:

"President Lula does not want to sign another provisionary measure [allowing the growing of GMOs even though it is currently illegal], because every time he does so, his image among the Left suffers; secondly, the agro-industrial lobby is exerting great pressure for approval of the use of GMO."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4303

+ MONSANTO GM ROOTWORM RESISTANT CORN IS FAILING
Prof Joe Cummins writes that Monsanto GM anti-rootworm corn (MON 863) seems to be failing: "The University of Illinois recently reported on this problem and the results of their field tests. A corn farmers' discussion group commented on Monsanto GM root worm corn noting that seed company demonstration plots never failed but farm plantings were a disaster. One farmer commented that only his refuge planting survived rootworm because he was allowed to spray it with insecticide! The press does not yet seem to have picked up on the problem."

A farmer said: "I had two different fields that were a total disaster. About the only thing left was the stalks. Monsanto has tried to come up with all kinds of excuses, but not any good ones."

An extension specialist and professor of agricultural entomology in the department of crop sciences at the University of Illinois confirmed the problems and Monsanto's denial of them, saying, "It's bothersome when the excuse of too many insects is made. We have trials with a lot of pressure, so to tell the grower the product didn't work because of too much insect pressure isn't right. The label doesn't say this product will work unless there is heavy insect pressure."

Monsanto said, "In a recent survey, Monsanto found that 90 percent of farmers reported they were happy with YieldGuard Rootworm in 2004". The rest must be just down to pest pressure or bad weather... or whatever other excuse Monsantocan come up with!
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4310

------------------------------------------------------------
THAILAND UPDATE
------------------------------------------------------------

+ NON-GM SUPER RICE UNDER WAY
Thai scientists hope to produce a Super Rice strain by conventional breeding, embracing almost all the good characteristics of other rice strains, in the next five years to increase crop yields.

The new strain would have nothing to do with GM, said Theerayut Toojinda, a molecular plant breeder at the National Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (Biotec). ''We can do without GMO and still develop [a desirable strain],'' Mr Theerayut said during a four-day international conference on future rice breeding that ended 3 Sept.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4298

See Soil Association statement in support of (non-GM) marker assisted plant breeding:
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4298

+ THAI PM DENIES US PRESSURE OVER GM
The Thai prime minister has dismissed suggestions that his recent backing for open-field GM trials (a U-turn from Thailand's previous ban) was linked to US pressure.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4289

Curious then that his own Environment Minister should have complained back in June that the US was insisting Thailand grow GM crops as a condition of a much desired bilateral free trade agreement (FTA).
http://www.gmwatch.org/asia.asp

Another country which has signed a framework agreement on trade and investment paving the way for an FTA with the United States is Malaysia. By another curious coincidence Malaysia's Prime Minister has also been talking about a change of direction to embrace GM of late. He's even been telling poor Malay farmers that GM will turn them into millionaires!
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4277

+ GM IN THAILAND WILL NOT HELP THE POOR AND HUNGRY - THAI NEWS EDITOR
"Thailand is recognised worldwide as a major producer of quality organic foods. Any move that creates doubt about this hard-earned reputation would shake international confidence and lead to market losses. Farmers would be the ones who suffer...

"GMO supporters assert that the technology will be key to eradicating world hunger and farmers' poverty. Analysis of the first Green Revolution, which made the same claim, has shown that, after 40 years, farmers remain just as poor and world hunger just as rampant. The only ones who have reaped actual benefits are big agrobusinesses.

"The second Green Revolution that GMOs promise to usher in will be no different. The only difference is that the true beneficiaries will be a few mega-transnational corporations which control this high technology and want to make it the dominant means of production for the world's farmers."
- Wasant Techawongtham, Deputy News Editor, Bangkok Post, 3 Sep 2004
http://www.biothai.org/cgi-bin/content/news/show.pl?0301

+ MARKET REACTION TO GM CONTAMINATION WORSE THAN BIRD FLU IMPACT
Several EU importers have stopped importing canned fruit products containing papaya from Thailand fearing possible contamination from GM papaya, a Thai exporter said. The "stop" order was received by a major Thai manufacturer, from one of its main customers in a European country, Germany according to one source. The company has been importing canned fruit salad and fruit cocktail products from the Thai company for years.

Another Thai company received a similar notice from a customer in France, said another source. But this case has yet to be officially confirmed. "The reason is clear: It is the fear of GM papaya contamination," he said about the first case. "The reaction has been a lot faster than we would have imagined, faster than the bird flu impact."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4289

The bans and delays of canned papaya orders from European importers have resulted in about one billion baht loss for the industry so far, said an executive of Sun Sweet Co, a leading fruit and vegetable exporter based in Chiang Mai.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4295

+ US PATENTS ON THAI GM PAPAYA
As public concern increases over the illegal release of GE papaya from a Thai government research station, new questions are emerging concerning the truth behind the US patents on the processes and methods used in creating Thai GE papaya, including GE Khak Dam and Khak Nuan varieties.

In the case of GE "SunUp" papaya in Hawaii - the only commercially grown GE papaya in the world - at least eleven US patents are in force. This includes patents held by Monsanto, as well as the Cornell Research Foundation Inc.

In Thailand, the Dept of Agriculture (DOA) has negotiated a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Cornell regarding its intellectual property rights over Thai GE papaya, but the details of this agreement remain hidden from the public. The DOA is on record as stating that under the MoU between Cornell University and Ministry of Agriculture, when GE papaya is commercialized in Thailand, "a royalty fee will be charged."

On June 15, 2004, the US Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) granted a new patent on GE papaya. This new patent is more far-reaching than existing patents on GE papaya, covering the broad range of DNA constructs and methods used to create ringspot virus resistance in any kind of GE papaya. This patent was assigned to Cornell Research Foundation Inc. as the owner of these intellectual property rights.

Far more important are two new patent applications now pending at the USPTO. Dr Dennis Gonsalves (who led the original GE papaya project at Cornell and promoted GE papaya in Thailand) filed these applications on April 11, 2002.

The first application is an all-embracing "umbrella" patent on all ringspot virus genes used in any variety of ringspot virus-resistant GE papaya in Hawaii, Brazil, Jamaica, Mexico, Venezuela, and Thailand. This patent involves 113 claims on every aspect of ringspot virus genes and their use in creating virus resistance in papaya, including ownership of papaya cells, plants and seeds. There are 21 claims on GE papaya seeds.

The second application makes another 20 claims on a wide range of methods and procedures to create disease resistance in papaya plants through GE, including all papaya cells, plants and seeds produced as a result of those methods.

Both patent applications make specific claims on the isolation and identification of the coat protein of specific papaya ringspot virus strains from Brazil, Jamaica, Mexico, Venezuela, and Thailand. These patent applications describe the genetic "map" of the coat protein of Thai ringspot virus as an "invention", making it the intellectual property of Dennis Gonsalves and collaborators. It is expected that these two new patents will be assigned to Cornell Research Foundation Inc. as the owner of these property rights.

What are the implications? One outcome is that patent rights extend to all papaya fruits, plants and seeds containing the genes of GE papaya. This poses potentially serious problems for farmers whose conventional papaya is contaminated by GE papaya. Once these patented genes become part of a seed, the resulting plants, fruit and seed are owned by the patent-holders.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4316

------------------------------------------------------------
OTHER NEWS FROM ASIA
------------------------------------------------------------

+ MALAYSIA: PEOPLE'S CARAVAN CALLS FOR FOOD SOVEREIGNTY
As Malaysia reels from the stunning release of jailed ex-deputy premier Anwar Ibrahim after six years' imprisonment, food security campaigners and political activists in the region are hoping to extend 'reformasi' or democratic reforms to the agricultural sector as well.

A fresh attempt at grassroots mobilisation across Asia, dubbed the 'People's Caravan 2004 for Food Sovereignty', kicked off last week in Anwar's semi-rural hometown of Permatang Pauh on mainland Penang. His wife, Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, the district's member of parliament and icon of the pro-reform movement sparked by Anwar's ouster in 1998, officially launched the 'Caravan'.

The Caravan has drawn great encouragement from the success of farmers and campaigners resisting GM in Thailand.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4306

------------------------------------------------------------
GM MEDICINES
------------------------------------------------------------

+ GM EDIBLE VACCINES PROBLEMATICAL, SAY SCIENTISTS
An interesting article in Nature Medicine says that in spite of the EU's promise of 12 million Euros to European and South African scientists developing GM plant-based vaccines against HIV/AIDS, rabies and tuberculosis, this technology faces massive scientific and regulatory hurdles.

Problem number one is that the immune responses generated by GM edible plant-based vaccines are not consistently strong.

The article does not mention the problem of variable expression of transgenic elements that has been observed in GM crops. But at a time when the EU is legislating natural herbal medicines out of existence in favour of synthetic patented versions on the pretext that natural medicines contain variable amounts of the 'active ingredient', this appears to be an insurmountable obstacle - assuming that the regulators choose to judge GM plant vaccines by the same strict criteria.

Vaccinologist Stanley Plotkin, who advises Aventis Pasteur, points out another problem: that of confusing the immune response with the digestive process. "If vaccines are intimately presented together with food, the gut's immune system faces a conundrum," he notes. The gut is designed not to react to antigens in food, but must produce a useful response against the vaccine. Instead of being immunized, patients could even end up being 'tolerized,' meaning an immune response against future invaders would be weakened, not intensified.

An equally likely scenario not mentioned in the article is that GM edible vaccines will sensitise the gut so that it reacts to foods as antigens - adding to the current explosion in food allergies in 'developed' countries (America boasts increasing numbers of babies who produce severe allergic reactions to their mother's milk).

Investor confidence in GM edible vaccines is fatally low. Hilary Koprowski, a vaccine researcher at Thomas Jefferson University, says in developed countries, finding manufacturers willing to finance larger trials to demonstrate efficacy has been a formidable challenge. "I've talked to all of the [big companies]," says Koprowski, "and so far I regard it a waste of time."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4304

------------------------------------------------------------
LOBBYWATCH
------------------------------------------------------------

+ MONSANTO PROPAGANDA SUCCESS IN INDIA?
Monsanto-India's PR person Ranjana Smetacek - a name strikingly similar to that of Monsanto's fake e-mail front for its Internet poison pen campaign, Andura Smetacek - claims in an interview with Associated Press that the company has achieved an almost five-fold increase over 2003 in sales of its packets of GM (Bt) cotton seeds.

If the latest claims turn out to be true - and very few of Monsanto's previous claims have! - then it is a remarkable tribute to Monsanto PR propaganda campaign in India and the power of hype.

According to Smetacek, the increased sales "demonstrate that the Indian farmer is willing to adopt a technology that delivers consistent benefits from reduced pesticide use and increased income".

Consistent benefits? Increased income? Ranjana's claims may not be as overtly poisonous as her Monsanto counterpart Andura's, but they are certainly as deceptive.

In the first year of GM cotton production in India, a whole series of studies showed that Bt cotton had proven a failure and had contributed to farmer debt. Yet even in the face of such evidence, and with angry farmers demanding compensation for their losses, Monsanto claimed GM cotton growing in India had been a big success and that any indications otherwise were down to the very dry weather. http://www.mindfully.org/GE/2003/India-Bt-Cotton-Failure8feb03.htm

In the second year of production, despite the weather being exceptionally favourable for cotton cultivation, a detailed study by agricultural scientists of GM cotton farming in Andhra Pradesh showed that, even in those circumstances, the benefit/cost ratio was clearly in favour of Non-Bt hybrids.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=3405

Needless to say, Monsanto produced its own study claiming big increases in yield, huge reductions in pesticide use, and big profits for Bt farmers. However, this study was conducted by a marketing agency, which contacted farmers through questionnaires just once! To give a sense of the gap between the two studies, the Monsanto study claimed farmers' profits were *100 times higher* than those found in the detailed study.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=3405

Yet the Indian Government, far from offering redress to farmers who had suffered losses or punishing the company which has used such misleading hype to promote this technology, actually bowed to industry pressure and reinforced the false claims of success with GM seeds by signalling it wanted to see fast track approval of GM crops.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4217

With such poor leadership in the face of industry's onslaught, India remains in danger, as Devinder Sharma has warned, of becoming the industry's GM dustbin!
[for more on Ranjana Smetacek's poisonous namesake, see Andura's profile:
http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=153]
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4309

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
FOOD SAFETY
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

+ GM CORN THAT CAUSED RAT ABNORMALITIES APPROVED FOR NZ FOOD USE
In New Zealand, the Greens have revealed that a GM corn variety approved for human food in New Zealand was refused approval by a French scientific committee because of a study showing rats fed with it developed severe abnormalities.

Le Monde reported in April that France's Commission du Genie Biomoleculaire (CGB) raised serious concerns last year about Monsanto's MON863 corn after it read the company's own three-month rat-feeding study. Its decision to turn down approval was subsequently overturned by the European Food Safety Authority.

In light of the serious implications of the study's contents and how it has been handled in Europe, the Green Party has now asked Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) to reassess its approval for this GE corn and is calling for importation to be suspended until safety can be guaranteed. The Greens have also launched a website and postcard campaign to encourage people to tell FSANZ to reconsider its approval of MON863.

"On checking FSANZ's report, prepared last October when it approved MON863 for New Zealanders to eat, we found no mention at all of the Monsanto rat study," said Jeanette Fitzsimons, the Green Party's Genetic Engineering Spokesperson.

"This makes us wonder whether they never saw the study or whether they just chose to ignore it. Either way there is something seriously wrong with the quality of the assessment process.

"The Greens are now asking FSANZ to state whether it had the rat-feeding study when it gave its approval to MON863. We are calling on it to make the study available to the public, to commission an independent review of its significance and review its approval decision in light of the new information," said Ms Fitzsimons.

Sue Kedgley, the Green Party's Safe Food Spokesperson, says the MON863 process calls into question the robustness of FSANZ's safety assessments of all GE food. "We have long suspected that the FSANZ assessment process is essentially a rubber stamp and its approval of MON 863 seems to confirm this. If abnormal effects such as the ones that were reported here were encountered in pharmaceutical trials they would have triggered an intensive and rigorous assessment. Why did they not trigger a similarly robust response for food destined for the whole population to eat?

"How can consumers have confidence in the safety of data provided by biotech corporations when they refuse to submit it to independent assessment and peer review?" said Ms Kedgley.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4290

For the Le Monde article about the rat abnormalities:
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=3308

+ FOOD WATCHDOG TO RECHECK GM CORN
Food regulator Food Standards Australia New Zealand says it is checking the original data from a trial conducted on the MON 863 GM corn it approved last year.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4290

+ WHY MONSANTO'S GM SOY FEEDING TRIALS WERE WORTHLESS
Jeffrey Smith, author of Seeds of Deception, explains why Monsanto's feeding trials on its GM soy were rigged to avoid finding problems.

Excerpts from an article worth reading in full:

Although one of their trials was a side-by-side comparison between GM and non-GM soy, for some reason the results were left out of the paper altogether. Years later, a medical writer found the missing data in the archives of the Journal of Nutrition and made them public. No wonder the scientists left them out. The GM soy showed significantly lower levels of protein, a fatty acid, and phenylalanine, an essential amino acid. Also, toasted GM soy meal contained nearly twice the amount of a lectin that may block the body's ability to assimilate other nutrients. Furthermore, the toasted GM soy contained as much as seven times the amount of trypsin inhibitor, indicating that the allergen may survive cooking more in the GM variety. (This might explain the 50 percent jump in soy allergies in the UK, just after GM soy was introduced.)
...
Differences in GM food will likely have a much larger impact on children. They are three to four times more susceptible to allergies. Also, they convert more of the food into body-building material. Altered nutrients or added toxins can result in developmental problems. For this reason, animal nutrition studies are typically conducted on young, developing animals. After the feeding trial, organs are weighed and often studied under magnification. If scientists used mature animals instead of young ones, even severe nutritional problems might not be detected. The Monsanto study used mature animals instead of young ones.

They also diluted their GM soy with non-GM protein 10- or 12-fold before feeding the animals. And they never weighed the organs or examined them under a microscope. The study, which is the only major animal feeding study on GM soy ever published, is dismissed by critics as rigged to avoid finding problems.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4294

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUOTES OF THE WEEK
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

"There could be toxic problems. But I hadn't thought about them. Shouldn't we think about the potential problems before they become problems?"
- Nanotechnologist Dame Julia Higgins, president of the British Association, warning that public concern about the direction of research should be taken seriously
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4305

"When you sow maize, throw four seeds at a time: one for the wild animals, another for people with a taste for what's not theirs, another for festival days and another for the family. Maize is not a business but food for survival, our sustenance and our happiness. When we plant it we bless it to ask for a good harvest for all. But we have recently found out that native maize varieties have been contaminated with transgenic seeds. This means that what our indigenous peoples took thousands of years to develop can be destroyed in no time at all by companies that trade in life."
- Aldo Gonz”¡lez Rojas, Zapoteco, Oaxaca, Mexico