GM WATCH MONTHLY REVIEW No. 35
Claire Robinson, editor
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MONTHLY REVIEW CONTENTS
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LOBBYWATCH
GM FAILURES
GM BANS / RESTRICTIONS
FARMING
CONTAMINATION
PROTESTS AND RESISTANCE
FOOD SAFETY
RESEARCH
CORPORATE CRIMES
CORPORATE TAKEOVER OF GOVERNMENT
BIOFUELS
GM MEDICINES / GENE THERAPY
CLONING
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LOBBYWATCH
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+ WHAT THEY DON'T WANT YOU TO KNOW ABOUT "THE ANTI-ACTIVIST ACTIVIST"
Katherine Wilson went to a workshop in Melbourne, Australia, run by the Canadian biotech PR consultant Ross Irvine to learn about "the best strategies to win against activists". There, she learned how to create bogus community groups, false statistics, and, in Irvine's words, links with "far-right-wing nutso activists". She learned to conflate "activist" with "terrorist" and "security threat".
Filing in to see him, reports Wilson, was a "Who's Who of powerful industry and government flacks" - several linked to the agrochemical & biotech industries. Economist Clive Hamilton of the Australia Institute told Wilson, "Only an organisation that has wholly alienated itself from the public would even consider attending an event like this." http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6738
+ THE LAUNCH OF "ASK-FARCE"
A new pro-GM lobby group -"ASK-FORCE" - has just been launched by Prof Klaus Ammann, the former Director of the Botanic Garden at the University of Bern.
ASK-FORCE is intended to expose "hidden agendas" and "confront" the critics of GM crops over their misinformation, hoaxes and "scaremonger stories".
Given its supposed penchant for exposing "hidden agendas", we wonder why ASK-FORCE does not explain in its launch document that:
***EFB, which is providing the organisational base for 'ASK-FORCE', has an extensive corporate membership.
***the financial backers of PRRI - the Public Research and Regulation Initiative - with which ASK-FORCE intends to work closely, include the biotech industry's global federation - Croplife International - and the US Grains Council, which represents the interests of US producers and exporters of GM crops.
***the financial backers of Africa Harvest with which ASK-FORCE also intends to work closely, also include Croplife International. http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6720
+ GREENWASHING GM CLOTHING
At a fashion show at a recent Toronto biotech conference, designers showed dresses made from a new fibre called Ingeo, made largely from GM corn. The Biotechnology Industry Organization used the fashion statement to burnish its battered image as an environmental scourge. NB As far as we can see, there's absolutely no reason this fibre has to be made from GM rather than non-GM corn.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6767
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GM FAILURES
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+ CHINA: FARMERS USE AS MUCH PESTICIDE WITH GM CROPS, U.S. STUDY FINDS
The Independent newspaper reports that one of the major arguments in favour of growing GM crops has been undermined by a study showing that the benefits of cultivating Bt cotton are short-lived because farmers quickly resort to spraying their fields with harmful pesticides.
A detailed survey of 481 cotton growers in China found that, although they did use fewer pesticides in the first few years of adopting GM plants, after seven years farmers had to use just as much pesticide as they did with conventional crops and were spending far more because GM cotton seed is three times the price of non-GM seed. http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6811
For the full paper: http://www.grain.org/research/btcotton.cfm?links
+ GM WATCH COMMENT ON THE STUDY
The new study's findings directly contradict the heavy promotion of China as a big GM success story, as well as the use of China's Bt cotton farmers to bolster the frequently repeated claims that millions of resource-poor farmers are benefiting from GM crops. This study shows that millions of resource-poor farmers are actually losing money because of GM crops. http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6806
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6807
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6804
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6805
+ INDIA: THE KILLING COTTON
An article with this title looks at the appalling and destructive impact of Bt cotton on India's poor farmers.
EXCERPT:
Cotton in Vidarbha, once referred to as king cotton because of the high price it fetched, has now come to be known as killer cotton. ...
Indian film star Nana Patekar, the brand ambassador of Monsanto, toured this region to promote Bt cotton seeds. In 2004, up to 80 percent of cotton growers harvested Bt, genetically modified seeds produced by Monsanto. The seed, with prices ranging above Rs 1,600 ($34.88) a packet, compared to the normal hybrid variety of Rs 450 ($9.81) a packet, has demonstrated no sustainability in the parched environment of Vidarbha. Meanwhile, the cotton farmers have been destroyed and Monsanto and Nana Patekar have made a small fortune. http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6737
+ POD - CORPORATE MANSLAUGHTER IN INDIA
Far more people died, as a result of growing Bt cotton, in the state of Mahrashtra alone over the last year, than were killed in India's recent Mumbai bombings.
Listen to GM Watch's podcast on the Bt cotton disaster in India on your PC via indymedia, e.g. using QuickTime (not currently working with Windows Media Player) http://biotech.indymedia.org/or/2006/07/5193.shtml
Or on your computer or portable media player via iTunes http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=158600210
+ INDIA: DEVASTATION CAUSED BY BT COTTON IN VIDARBHA
Kisan Mehta has recently returned from visiting the Vidarbha cotton-growing area to view the problems caused by Bt cotton. He writes that, "Possibly the only other place to see such devastation is Vietnam after the US invasion."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6758
+ INDIA: FARMER SUICIDES HIT 10-YEAR HIGH
The suicide rate of farmers in Maharashtra's poverty-stricken cotton belt has hit a 10-year high. http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6791
+ INDIA: COTTON PEST CAME FROM AMERICA
The notorious pest of the Indian cotton crop, the American bollworm, found its way into India when American varieties of cotton began to be cultivated in the country, says a study conducted by the Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment (CSE).
American varieties have also led to frequent crop failures and brought in numerous diseases. They also require at least three times more water and other inputs, despite which their yields have not been sustained.
Now the same people and companies that promoted these varieties are promoting Bt cotton as the solution to the problems that they created. http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6735
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6770
+ NEW DISEASE SPREADS THROUGH BT COTTON IN INDIA
A new disease appears to be spreading through Bt cotton in the districts of Nalgonda and Rangareddy in India, according to a leading agriculture scientist.
Last year there were widespread complaints that Bt cotton triggered severe problems with Tobacco Streak Virus, a disease which had never before been seen on cotton plants in the region.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6771
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GM BANS / RESTRICTIONS
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+ CHINA: LID STAYS ON MODIFIED RICE
China, the world's top rice producer and consumer, is unlikely to give the nod for commercial production of GM rice for at least the near future with a government panel demanding more data to prove its safety.
Beijing has hit the brakes following reports of illegal sales of GMO rice in China. The reports also sounded alarm bells in China's top trading partners. http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6765
+ POLISH PARLIAMENT APPROVES BAN ON GM ANIMAL FEED
In recent years Cargill, Smithfield Foods, Danish Crown and other multinational companies have imported into Poland GM soy from the US, Brazil and Argentina. On July 22, the Polish Parliament appoved a total ban on GM animal feed within 2 years. http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6802
+ OZ CANOLA RECOVERY BECAUSE GM-FREE - LOBBYISTS' LIES EXPOSED
GM firms and pro-GM lobbyists have been putting Australia's states under intense pressure to abandon their support for a moratorium on GM canola (rapeseed).
One pro-GM lobbyist claimed that GM "is a technology that we have to have to be able to compete on the world stage." Another has been telling Australia's farmers that Australia is "being left behind in the GM gold rush."
All of which makes a comment by Richard Koch, managing director of the Profarmer newsletter, interesting. Koch was asked by ABC to make predictions about crops and prices for Australia's current winter crop. He was generally pessimistic but there was one exception. Koch said, "Where Australia has been benefited is that our rapeseed is GM-free, free of genetically modified organisms, so we have been their preferred supplier into that EU market for the past 18 months or so." http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6801
+ NO GATEWAY TO AFRICA'S SORGHUM
The African Centre for Biosafety, based in Johannesburg, South Africa, has applauded the decision by the South African GM regulatory body to turn down an application to conduct laboratory and greenhouse experiments with GM sorghum, because of fears it could lead to the destruction of the sorghum varieties prevalent throughout Africa.
This decision represents a severe blow to the African Biotechnology Sorghum Project (ABS), bankrolled by Bill and Melinda Gates to the tune of $450 million to bring GM sorghum to Africa's poor. The ABS is spearheaded by a consortium, which includes DuPont's Pioneer Hi-Bred International and Florence Wambugu's Africa Harvest Biotechnology International.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6732
+ INDIA: GEAC ADMITS NOT ENOUGH TOXICITY STUDIES
The Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) has decided to involve the state agriculture universities in biosafety studies and field trials of GM crops. It deferred the decision on the proposal submitted by Mahyco asking permission for large-scale field trials of Bt brinjal (eggplant/aubergine). http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6700
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FARMING
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+ U.S.: RESEARCHERS CONFIRM ANOTHER GLYPHOSATE-RESISTANT WEED
University of Missouri researchers have confirmed that tall waterhemp is the sixth glyphosate-resistant weed in the US and the ninth such weed in the world.
Glyphosate is the active ingredient in Monsanto's Roundup herbicide. The fields where resistant waterhemp was found had been in continuous (GM) Roundup Ready soybean production since 1996.
While all resistant weeds are worrisome, Bradley says resistant tall waterhemp is especially troubling. "Waterhemp is one of Missouri's toughest weed problems," he says. "It has developed resistance to a number of other soybean herbicides." That resistance has been known to spread quickly.
Another highly problematic weed - Roundup resistant pigweed - is spreading across Georgia due to GM cotton. http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6766
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CONTAMINATION
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+ UK GOVERNMENT GM CONSULTATION SLAMMED
A government consultation launched 20 July, on how GM and non-GM crops can "co-exist" in Britain, is a thinly disguised attempt to allow GM crops in through the back door, warns Friends of the Earth. http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6782
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6784
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6797
+ TELL BLAIR WHAT YOU THINK OF HIS GM PLANS
Don't let Blair's Government legalise GM contamination of conventional and organic crops. Tell the Government to keep our food and farming GM free at: http://www.stopgmcontamination.org
+ ACTION ALERT: KEEP PHARMACEUTICALS OUT OF FRENCH CHEESE
The French government has approved 17 new GM test sites - including maize and tobacco genetically engineered to produce pharmaceuticals. These would be grown outdoors at secret locations and could result in unidentified pharmaceuticals in food, feed and the produce of animals eating feed - that then gets sold throughout Europe. International protests could stop these trials. Take action: http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6713
+ FRENCH COMPANY GRANTED PERMIT TO GROW VACCINE MAIZE CROPS
The GM maize approved for open field trials in France (see above) produces monoclonal antbodies (mABs) to be used for clinical purposes, report Dr Maewan Ho, Prof Joe Cummins and Prof Peter Saunders. All mABs used for clinical purposes are associated with severe side effects. And the GM drug trial in London that went catastrophically wrong involved mABs. http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6812
Take action:
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6713
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PROTESTS AND RESISTANCE
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+ PHILIPPINES: ANTI-GM MAYOR SLAIN
Ilagan City Mayor Delfinito "Jojo" Albano, who supported peasant protests against the spread of GM crops, has been murdered. http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6701
+ UK: HOW THE FLOOD OF GM FOODS WAS DRIVEN OFF THE SHELVES
In The Independent on Sunday, Geoffrey Lean gives an uplifting summary of the success of British opposition to GM foods, describing how the public "achieved what parliament has repeatedly failed to do - stopping one of Tony Blair's dodgier crusades in its tracks." http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6730
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FOOD SAFETY
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+ EUROPEAN COMMISSION WRONGLY CONCEALED GM DOCUMENTS, SAYS OMBUDSMAN
The European Commission has been ruled guilty of "maladministration" by the ombudsman after hiding documents from Friends of the Earth Europe that reveal scientific concerns about the safety of GM foods.
Adrian Bebb of Friends of the Earth Europe said, "What we now know is that whilst the European Commission has been telling us for years that biotech foods are safe, they were arguing behind closed doors that there are legitimate scientific concerns that warrant a more precautionary approach."
Further papers, released to Friends of the Earth Europe earlier this year, outlined the concerns in more detail, warning that cancer and allergies caused by eating GM foods cannot be ruled out and recommending that GM crops should not be grown until their long-term effects are known.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6768
+ PROF JOE CUMMINS ON GM PROTEIN IN ICE CREAM
Prof Joe Cummins reports that the Unilever application for GM ice cream in the UK makes use of an allergy test that could never produce results relevant to the GM ice cream. http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6706
+ BEN & JERRY'S BREAKS RANKS WITH UNILEVER OVER GM ICE CREAM
Ben & Jerry's, the ice cream manufacturer, has broken ranks with food giant Unilever amid controversy about GM ice cream. The breach follows reports of concerns from scientists over the risk to health from an "anti-freeze" protein, made using a GM process, which Unilever is trying to get approved in the UK. A spokesperson for Ben & Jerry's said: "We would not dream of including anything like that in our products." http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6757
+ INDIA: GM EGGPLANT CONTAINS BT TOXIN LINKED TO ALLERGY CASES AND SHEEP DEATHS
Dr Mae-Wan Ho and Prof Joe Cummins report that Bt brinjal (eggplant/aubergine) contains the same Cry1Ac toxin from the soil bacterium Bt as the GM Bt cotton that has been implicated recently in major health controversies in India. Hundreds of farm workers and cotton handlers developed allergic reactions and thousands of sheep died from toxic reactions after grazing on GM cotton fields. At least 12 dairy cows died in Germany after feeding on GM maize containing a gene coding for a protein similar to Cry1Ac.
Cry1Ac is not the only Bt transgenic protein linked to serious health problems. Dozens of villagers fell ill in the south of the Philippines when a Bt maize with Cry1Ab came into flower in 2003, and five have died since.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6755
+ DOCUMENTS ON BT BRINJAL
We've posted on our website detailed documents sent by the Coalition for a GM-Free India, to India's GM regulatory body - the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) - on the biosafety data and the proposal by Monsanto Mahyco for field trials and seed production of Bt brinjal (eggplant/aubergine). http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6772
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RESEARCH
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+ BEYOND GM CROPS - RIFKIN
The Foundation on Economic Trends, headed by Jeremy Rifkin, has recently caused waves among pro-GMers by pointing out that the non-GM biotechnology breeding technique of marker assisted breeding (MAS) has eclipsed the crude and outdated technique of GM. In an article for the Washington Post, Rifkin writes that GM has become a serious impediment to scientific progress. This is because continued introduction of GM crops could contaminate existing plant varieties, making the new MAS technology more difficult to use. http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6707
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CORPORATE CRIMES
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+ U.S. MILITARY SUPPORTS FARMER REPRESSION IN PARAGUAY
An article in The Nation reports that the US military is supporting the violent repression of farmers opposing the massive expansion of GM soy cropland in Paraguay.
EXCERPT:
The most recent case of this violence is the death of Serapio Villasboa Cabrera, a member of the Paraguayan Campesino Movement, whose body was found full of knife wounds May 8. Cabrera was the brother of Petrona Villasboa, who was spearheading an investigation into the death of her son, who died from exposure to toxic chemicals used by transgenic soy producers. According to Serpaj, an international human rights group that has a chapter in Paraguay, one method used to force farmers off their land is to spray toxic pesticides around communities until sickness forces residents to leave.
GRR [farmers' rights group] said Cabrera was killed by paramilitaries connected to large landowners and soy producers, who are expanding their holdings. The paramilitaries pursue farm leaders who are organizing against the occupation of their land. Investigations by Serpaj demonstrate that the worst cases of repression against farmers have taken place in areas with the highest concentration of US troops. ...
"The US military is advising the Paraguayan police and military about how to deal with these farmer groups.... They are teaching theory as well as technical skills to Paraguayan police and military. These new forms of combat have been used internally," Orlando Castillo of Serpaj told me over the phone... A lot of repression has happened in the name of security and against 'terrorism.' " http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6742
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6794
+ ARGENTINA: SOYA-FICATION BRINGS ENVIRONMENTAL, ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL DEVASTATION
In a revealing article, agronomist and geneticist Alberto Lapolla explains how Roundup Ready GM soya makes possible the rapid expansion of soya farming into regions that have never been used for this type of agriculture before, leading to the takeover of enormous tracts of land, often by illegitimate and even violent means.
The results of this "soya-fication" have included:
***loss of food production and food security for Argentina;
***massive environmental contamination. The last crop season used at least 150 million litres of glyphosate, 20 million litres of 2-4-D and 6 million litres of endosulfan;
***escalating cancer rates;
***loss of labour : four of every five jobs disappear as an area is given over to soya monoculture;
***destruction of many small business that depend on growing plants or keeping bees, as the glyphosate spray kills everything;
***mass expulsion of people from the countryside. http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6793
+ THE DYING FOREST
An article in The Independent explains the catastrophic effect that the "soya-fication" of previously forested land is having on the Amazon rainforest, with imminent and potentially terrible consequences for the earth as a whole.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6795
+ UK RETAILERS PROMISE NON-AMAZON, NON-GM SOYA
Leading European supermarkets, food manufacturers and fast-food chains, including McDonald's, have pledged not to use soya illegally grown in the Amazon region for poultry feed and to use only non-GM soya.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6798
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CORPORATE TAKEOVER OF GOVERNMENT
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+ THE WORLD BANK AGAINST BIOSECURITY
A good article by Silvia Ribeiro shows how the World Bank's true role is not to act as a financial institution but to frame countries' policies so as to prepare the way for private corporations to act later on in those countries.
EXCERPT:
In Latin America's case, [World Bank] seek to "train" the governments of Mexico, Brazil, Peru, Colombia and Costa Rica to manage GM contamination resulting from the introduction of GM maize, potato, yucca, rice and cotton and on the other hand to manage public opinion critical of GM techonology by means of cost-benefit analysis and standardization of what they call "adequate" scientific means of contamination management. In no part of the project do they allow that the best biosecurity to prevent contamination is not to allow GM crops at all...
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6796
See also Sierra Club protests World Bank's promotion of GM in the third world: http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6785
+ FDA SCIENTISTS TELL OF OUTSIDE PRESSURES
The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) has released survey results that demonstrate pervasive and dangerous political influence of science at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Of the 997 FDA scientists who responded to the survey, nearly one-fifth (18.4 percent) said that they "have been asked, for non-scientific reasons, to inappropriately exclude or alter technical information or their conclusions in a FDA scientific document." This is the third survey UCS has conducted to examine inappropriate interference with science at federal agencies. http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6787
+ RUSSIA "BEING FORCED" AT WTO TALKS TO STOP GM LABELLING
A the Civil G8 conference in Moscow, President Putin said, "In negotiations about Russia's accession to the World Trade Organization, we are being forced to give up the right to inform people about" GM foods. Putin did not name the countries opposed to mandatory labelling, but he noted, "We insist on norms suggested by NGOs." http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6714
+ FRENCH COURT ORDERS GREENPEACE TO WITHDRAW GM MAP
A French court has ordered Greenpeace to withdraw from its website information pinpointing fields of GM maize, a move the environmental group called censorship.
Greenpeace said it would likely appeal the ruling. In the meantime, the maps may be moved to another Web site managed by Greenpeace International. Greenpeace pointed to an EU law dating from 2001, not yet adopted into French legislation, requiring the location of all GMO fields, including commercial growing, to be made public. http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6809
+ BANGLADESH PUSHES BIOTECH
Bangladesh newspaper New Age reports that prime minister Begum Khaleda Zia has recently presided over a government meeting to approve the National Biotechnology Policy. The report says there was total silence about the international concerns about GM and its agronomic failures. http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6803
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BIOFUELS
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+ PRODUCING ETHANOL AND BIODIESEL FROM MAIZE IS NOT WORTH THE EFFORT, NEW STUDY FINDS
A new study from the University of Cornell and the University of Berkeley, California has found that turning plants, such as maize and sunflowers, into fuel uses much more energy than the resulting ethanol or biodiesel generates. The study, published in Natural Resources Research (Vol.14, 65-76), found that:
* maize needs 29% more fossil energy than the fuel it produced
* switch grass needed 45% more fossil fuel than fuel produced
* wood biomass needed 57% more fossil fuel than fuel it produced
* soybean plants needed 27% more fossil fuel than the fuel produced
* sunflower plants needed 118% more fossil fuel than the fuel produced. http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6709
+ BIODIESEL: WORSE THAN FOSSIL FUEL
The last word on biofuels comes in a superb article from a few months back by George Monbiot. He says biodiesel enthusiasts have accidentally invented the most carbon-intensive fuel on earth. The whole article is a must-read. http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6709
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GM MEDICINES / GENE THERAPY
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+ INFANTS IN GM STUDY IN PERU DEVELOP SEVERE ALLERGIES
Two children have developed severe allergies after an experiment with Ventria Bioscience's transgenic serum extracted from GM rice that contains plant-human genes.
Said Diana Canessa Garay, mother of Fabrizio, "After they gave him the serum, my baby became sickly, delicate. Now he is allergic to everything, to chocolates, mandarins. I do not know what will happen to him later, the ministry of health must do a followup investigation of his health." Another young mother, Johana Sanchez Turreate, fears for the life of her 3-year-old son Jordano, who also developed allergies after receiving the serum.
Garay said that when a nurse offered the treatment she did not explain that the rehydrating salt was of transgenic origin and that its sale is prohibited because it is still in experimental phase. English translation: http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6792
Spanish original: http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6790
+ VICTIMS' AGONY AS DRUGS FIRM GOES BUST
The Daily Mail reports that the victims of the "Elephant Man" drug trials have been left in even more misery after the company that made the drug went bust. However, the article omits to mention that this drug - TGN1412 - with its disastrous and "unexpected biological effect" was genetically engineered.
Six men suffered multiple organ failure when they were the first humans to try the drugs in London in March - with the head of one victim swelling to three times its normal size. http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6716
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CLONING
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+ THE PERILS OF CLONING - TIME MAGAZINE
An article in TIME magazine explains the problems with cloning: "Dozens of animals have been cloned since that first little lamb [Dolly the cloned sheep] - mice, cats, cows, pigs, horses and, most recently, a dog - and it's becoming increasingly clear that they are all, in one way or another, defective. ... Not only are clones separated from the original template by time - in Dolly's case, six years - but they are also the product of an unnatural molecular mechanism that turns out not to be very good at making identical copies. In fact, the process can embed small flaws in the genomes of clones that scientists are only now discovering." http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6718