GMWatch News Review archive

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

Welcome to WW45 bringing you all the latest news in brief on the GM issue.

The GM industry is on the ropes and they know it. A hundred corporate-friendly gene-bashers, and associates, have written to Tony Blair complaining about the public debate results, which they blame on the government's failure to correct "misleading" reports on GM in the media (see TOPIC OF THE WEEK). Be certain that the government will keep an eye on the BBC's opinion poll on whether the public debate was misleading, so go to
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/3230489.stm
and make your views known.

Claire    This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
www.ngin.org.uk

------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS
------------------------------------------------------------
TOPIC OF THE WEEK: SCIENTISTS ATTACK BLAIR OVER GM
SETBACKS TO THE GM LOBBY
OTHER HIGHLIGHTS OF THE WEEK
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
HEADLINES OF THE WEEK
SUBSCRIPTIONS

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
TOPIC OF THE WEEK
------------------------------------------------------------------------
SCIENTISTS ATTACK BLAIR OVER GM
More than a hundred scientists have written to Tony Blair, complaining about the handling of the public debate on GM crops. The group criticised ministers for not correcting "misleading" reports about GM technology in the media. They say they have been "demoralised" by the hostility to their work, and said public meetings had been hijacked.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3229685.stm
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=1672

The scientists' letter is at
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=1674

Added to the letter is a GMWATCH breakdown of the signatories' corporate affiliations, telling you all you need to know about why these people are so put out by the results of the public debate. To give a taster, one of the signatories, and the scientist quoted in BBC coverage of the story, is Prof Derek Burke. He's described in the letter as:

Professor Derek C. Burke Professor and Vice-Chancellor of the University of East Anglia (1987-1995) Chairman ACNFP (1987-1997)

What isn't disclosed is: until 1998 Burke was director of Genome Research Ltd. While Vice Chancellor of UEA, he was also a member of the governing council of the John Innes Centre (JIC). Both UEA and the JIC have benefitted from investment in GM research, with the JIC enjoying multi-million pound investments from biotechnology corporations like Syngenta and Dupont.

Here's our take on another signatory. This one is described as:

Dr Martin Livermore Plant Scientist; Independent Consultant

This 'plant scientist' is surely not 'Dr' but 'Mr' Martin Livermore. If we're right, rather than earning his living as a plant scientist, Livermore is a former PR flack for DuPont, who now has his own agri-food PR consultancy Ascham Associates. He is also part of the anti-environmental Scientific Alliance.

Are there 2 Martin Livermores? We think we should be told.

For the rest of the signatories:
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=1674

Has the debate on GM crops been misleading? Go to this BBC web address to have your say...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/3230489.stm

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
SETBACKS TO THE GM LOBBY
------------------------------------------------------------------------

EU DELAYS VOTE ON GM SEED RULES
The European Union has delayed until next spring a vote on the limits on the amount of GMOs allowed in cereal and vegetable seeds. The European Commission had proposed labelling seeds that contained between 0.3% and 0.7% GM material, depending on the crop. The biotech industry complained that the low level was too restrictive, while environmental groups felt the level was too generous.

Industry body EuropaBio has issued a press release saying it "strongly protests this decision which will further delay the implementation of much needed rules in this area.  There have already been several years of inaction on this issue, despite the Commission's duty to ensure fair and open markets for approved products in the European Union."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=1668

BRAZIL LANDLESS PEASANTS' MOVEMENT FIGHTS GM APPROVAL
A leader of Brazil's Landless Peasants' Movement has said that the group hopes to overturn the Brazilian government's recent decision to accept GM soya after a long-term ban. Joao Pedro Stedile of the Movimento Sem Terra (MST), which represents over three million people, said that the group is trying to stop the bill being passed in Congress. If that failed, it would use biosecurity legislation to prevent plantings. Alternatively, a law restricting the use of glyphosate (applied to GM soya) after the crop has grown to a certain height on health grounds could make the planting of GM soya uneconomic.

Stedile revealed that the government agreed to permit GM soy to be planted in return for votes on legislative matters. The government made a deal with the governor of the state of Rio Grande do Sul and his conservative party, the Partido de Movimento Democratico de Brazil (PMDB), that the PMDB would join the government's electoral coalition. The PMDB agreed on condition that the government must accept GM soya plantings. According to Stedile, the agreement was a coalition of the unwilling: "even the Vice President of Brazil didn't want to sign. Half of the ministers, the majority of the PT (Partido dos Trabalhadores - Workers' Party), were against, and the government suffered a great deal in public opinion."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=1658
Read the full article, by Naomi Klein and Justin Podur, from which this information is taken, at
http://www.rabble.ca/rabble_interview.shtml?x=27562

BRAZILIAN STATE REJECTS GM SOY
As the Brazilian government bickers over a long-awaited bill on GM, the populist anti-GM governor of No. 2 soy growing state Parana, Roberto Requiao, has effectively shut off Brazil's main soy port by declaring Parana GM-free. Over 1,000 trucks carrying soybeans from other states on their way to the port and the state's massive crushing industry have backed up at Parana's borders because the state is testing cargoes and turning back trucks that test positive for GM soy.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=1659

MONSANTO PUTS ARGENTINE INVESTMENT ON HOLD
Monsanto said it would hold off on a $40m Argentine investment due to a "lack of a clear midterm strategy in the country and lack of adequate intellectual property protection policy." A spokesperson said the company hopes to resume investing in Argentina, but to do so it "needs fair conditions to compete on an equal footing with the other players." As a result of the Argentine economic crisis, Monsanto's revenues in Argentina fell by nearly 30% last year. Monsanto has said that the number of farmers buying certified seeds has declined significantly in recent years, reducing royalties paid to Monsanto. For soy alone, the sale of certified seeds has declined from 50% of soy seeds to 20%. Around 60% of GM soy planted in Argentina is said to be "brown-bagged", illegally saved seed for which Monsanto receives no royalties.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=1660

MONSANTO THREATENS ARGENTINA
Monsanto has made it clear that any attempt on Argentina's part to regulate GMO commercialisation will be met with corporate intimidation. The company warned it "may close some operations in Argentina if the government does not loosen restrictions on genetically modified food production". Argentina's policy of authorizing new GM products only if they have been approved in the EU endangers Monsanto's projects including an $8 million cottonseed processing plant joint venture, said Miguel Potocnik, Monsanto's agriculture director for southern Latin America.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=1660

Monsanto's threats as to what may happen in Argentina if it doesn't get its way is reminiscent of the way Monsanto and Novartis threatened the Republic of Ireland over its resistance to speeding up GM beet approval. The companies threatened a withdrawal of all non-GM beet seed to Irish farmers by Novartis, commenting, "Given the importance of Novartis on the Irish market, this would have serious implications for the Irish sugar beet industry" - a major ag industry in Ireland.
http://www.xs4all.nl/~ceo/observer1/blackmail.html

Argentina is constantly portrayed by biotech boosters as hot for this
technology. Yet Monsanto's agriculture director for southern Latin America says of Argentina: "The risk that we're running is that as a country we could be left behind in a technology that we had the opportunity to latch onto first, and now it seems like we want to give it up".
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=1660

NEW ZEALAND: PROTESTORS ARRESTED, RESISTANCE CONTINUES
In New Zealand, where the government has just passed legislation lifting its moratorium on GM crops in the face of massive protest, five anti-GM protesters were arrested after refusing to take down tents pitched on Parliament's front lawn. The protesters warned there would be direct action against GM projects: "We will be using whatever means necessary within the non-violent toolbox." In parliament, the two members of the Labour-led government's junior coalition member, Progressive, invoked their right to vote against their senior partner and sided with the legislation's opponents.

Just after the legislation was passed, a petition with 55,000 signatures, calling for a five-year extension to the moratorium, was presented to Green MPs, the most staunch parliamentary opponents of GM. A recent opinion poll showed that 53% of those polled did not have confidence in the regulatory body ERMA.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=1664

HATE MAIL FORCES CUTS IN GM WORK
Prof Anthony Trewavas has been complaining to the press that antagonism and harassment from anti-GM campaigners pressured him to reduce his involvement in the public debate on GM foods. He complained about unpleasant emails from "a very vociferous group" which say things like "we don't want you"!

This is small beer in contrast to the professor's own track record.

Trewavas publicly circulated an email attack on the UC Berkeley scientist Dr Ignacio Chapela, calling for him to be forced to hand over his samples of Mexican maize for independent checking or be sacked! In the same email Trewavas accused Dr Arpad Pusztai of acting out of a political rather than a scientific motivation, claiming incorrectly that he had specific political affiliations.

Trewavas also circulated material written by a Monsanto PR operative attacking the integrity of Peter Melchett and Greenpeace, which was published in a Scottish newspaper as a letter from Trewavas. Trewavas failed to publicly disclaim authorship until there was adverse publicity after the newspaper had to apologise in the High Court and make a financial settlement because of the misleading nature of the allegations.

For the full press article see
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=1654

Trewavas' complaints look like part of an orchestrated campaign by Sense About Science. Other scientists making such claims (including unsupported allegations of bomb threats) are both close allies of Trewavas and both connect to the controversial GM lobby group Sense About Science.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=1646

BRITISH BIOTECH IN CRISIS
The industry view of the GM meltdown in the UK is given in an AgBiotech Reporter article, http://www.bioreporter.com, November 2003, which is guaranteed to warm the cockles of every campaigner's heart. Here's the beginning: "Biotechnology in Great Britain, both in research and in agriculture, is facing a crisis. The country no longer has field trials, since the government insists on revealing the location of field trials to the activists who routinely destroy them. Its top scientists [read genetic engineers] are leaving for greener pastures, seeing their efforts publicly denounced even as investment in research dwindles. Its largest agricultural cooperative has promised never to plant GM crops or sell food made from them through its retail arm, continuing a theme that has for years disrupted transatlantic trade. Activists have pledged in advance to attack the fields of any British farmer using GM seed, recalling that no jury has ever convicted any one of them on criminal charges stemming from prior attacks."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=1666

------------------------------------------------------------
OTHER HIGHLIGHTS OF THE WEEK
------------------------------------------------------------
UC BERKELEY KILLING OFF SUSTIANABLE AG IN FAVOUR OF GM
Dr Miguel Altieri, a researcher in sustainable agriculture at Gill Tract, UC Berkeley, has seen his research  plot shrink from its original six acres to 0.8 acres, to make way for researchers testing GM corn. The university has told professors to discontinue their research on organic farming by 1 November on the remaining plot, which has been earmarked for a development including a supermarket, dormitory, and sports fields.

Altieri said, "There's been a huge shift in the last 10 years where corporations skim off the value of research," adding that while tax dollars pay for professor salaries and facilities, corporate money drives the scope of the research. "The public needs to tell the university if they want their tax dollars to go to sustainable urban agriculture or genetically modified crops," he said. "They can't fire me or make me retire, so they decrease my facilities."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=1662

BERKELEY TRIED TO BURY DATA ON ATRAZINE, SAYS SCIENTIST
A UC Berkeley scientist says a corporate sponsor tried to bury his unwelcome findings on Syngenta's atrazine herbicide and then buy his silence. While not directly a GM story, this article provides a fascinating insight into the corporate corruption of research. Here's the beginning of the article:

"Tyrone Hayes wasn't all that concerned about who was signing the checks when he agreed to do some consulting on one of the most widely used pesticides in the country. And when the early studies from his laboratory at the University of California at Berkeley began producing hints that the product, the herbicide atrazine, might be inhibiting the sexual development of male frogs, he was excited. Maybe, he thought, his research would lead to some breakthrough findings. He never imagined just how unenthusiastic his research sponsors -- and others with a financial stake in atrazine - would be about his discovery.

"Six frustrating years later, Mr. Hayes and his defenders say they know only too well the lengths to which those companies will go to undermine his findings that atrazine may be harmful..." Read on at
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=1673

MONSANTO WANTS GOLDEN BEANS TO REVIVE ITS FORTUNES
Monsanto is working on genetically engineering a soybean that will produce an oil free from transfats, a type of fat common in processed foods that has been linked to heart disease, diabetes, obesity and strokes. The soybean, bred from Roundup Ready beans, will contain less linoleic acid. This means it will be shelf-stable without needing to be hydrogenated, the process that creates the harmful transfats.

There are two problems with this approach. The first is that health-conscious consumers, the target market for this product, are rather fond of linoleic acid, because there is evidence that it confers protection against ... heart disease, cancer, obesity and diabetes. So why would they want a soybean low in this wonder-substance? I'm not a nutritionist, so I'd be pleased to hear from any nutritionist or biochemist who would like to comment on whether this Monsanto strategy makes any sense to them.

The second problem, as Marion Nestle, nutrition professor at New York University and author of Food Politics, says, "Surely the population of people who care about trans fat also care about (the dangers of genetically modified food). This looks like another desperate move by ag-biotech companies to find something useful to genetically engineer."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=1663

BLAIR MAY IGNORE PUBLIC OPPOSITION TO GM
According to an article in The Independent, UK prime minister Tony Blair has signalled that he is ready to ignore the public campaign against GM crops and to proceed with the technology. In language reminiscent of his pronouncements in the run-up to the Iraq war he said that his only interest was in trying "to do the right thing". The Prime Minister's reaction, in the week after the results of the Government's own trials proved that growing at least two GM crops damaged wildlife, has amazed and angered senior officials. They are bewildered that his views seem to have remained unchanged even though a series of reports from his own advisers has progressively demolished the case for the technology.

The article goes on, "Mr Blair's comments appear directly to contradict a report in July by his own Cabinet Office which concluded that it could find no economic benefit to Britain or its people from current modified crops. Exasperated officials also point out that Mr Blair seems unable to distinguish between the biotechnology industry as a whole... and the relatively tiny proportion of it devoted to GM agriculture, which employs only about 1,150 people in Britain."
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/environment/story.jsp?story=457297
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=1656

NEW REPORT PUTS CROP TRIALS IN WIDER PERSPECTIVE
An article by Peter Rosset, biologist and co-director of the Institute for Food and Development Policy, puts the recent UK crop trial findings in a wider context of existing research on the agronomic and environmental impacts of GM crops. Rosset cites research showing that GM plants are more susceptible to disease, endanger soil, yield less, and harm wildlife including beneficial insects that eat pests.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=1661

FIXING THE POPE
If you wondered how His (pro-GM) Eminence, Renato R. Martino, could claim the Vatican was going to arrive at a pro-GM position ahead of even studying the matter, the list of speakers for Martino's forthcoming 'Study Seminar' on 10 November at the Vatican should clarify the matter. It is stuffed with extreme supporters of this technology, including one, Peter Raven, described even by a friend as "in a certain sense a paid traveling salesman for Monsanto".

See the list of speakers and Raven's Monsanto-ist credentials, at
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=1657

------------------------------------------------------------
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
------------------------------------------------------------
DR PUSHPA BHARGAVA ON GOLDEN RICE
"When I pointed out to the inventor of golden rice [that only a miniscule fraction of the daily requirement of vitamin A will be taken care of by the amount of rice one normally consumes in our country in one day] at a meeting in Chennai on 30th October 2002 organized by National Academy of Agriculture, I was told that the daily requirement of vitamin A prescribed by WHO was unrealistic - that is, far too high! Should WHO standards set up after stringent analysis cease to be a benchmark when they are inconvenient? Besides, for meeting even the prescribed WHO requirement of vitamin A, there are other cheaper and better sources already available."
- Dr Pushpa Bhargava, described by the magazine Biospectrum India as "one of India's most brilliant scientists". He is also viewed as one of the leaders of the biotechnology movement in India. Read the rest of his excellent article on Golden Rice and other GM scams at
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=1670

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
HEADLINES OF THE WEEK:  from the GMWATCH archive
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

23/10/2003 Government commitment to Zero Threshold for GE contamination welcomed
23/10/2003 Monsanto Pull-Out May Help Indian Farmers/Who needs GM crops?
24/10/2003 Brazilian state impounds cargos of transgenic soy
24/10/2003 GM release a gamble not worth the candle
24/10/2003 Hate mail forces cuts on GM work
24/10/2003 THE WEEKLY WATCH number 44
26/10/2003 Blair vs public opposition
26/10/2003 Fixing the Pope - Martino's Fake Debate
27/10/2003 Brazil battle over biotech soy threatens top export
27/10/2003 Brazil's Landless Peasants' Movement on Lula and GMOs
28/10/2003 Berkeley killing off sustainable ag for GM crops
28/10/2003 Leading Indian scientist attacks hyping of golden rice, Bt cotton, etc.
28/10/2003 Monsanto strong-arming Argentina - again!
28/10/2003 Monsanto's golden beans
28/10/2003 New risks in genetically engineered crops
28/10/2003 Protesters arrested after struggle
29/10/2003 British Biotech in Crisis
29/10/2003 US ecologists on GM crops
30/10/2003 Industry protests EU vote on GM seed rules
30/10/2003 Spain's GM controls attacked
30/10/2003 Tough Green line on NZ
31/10/2003 Burke attacks Blair over GM
31/10/2003 The Price of Research
31/10/2003 These are the scientists who wrote to Blair/Have your say...

FOR THE COMPLETE GMWATCH ARCHIVE: http://www.gmwatch.org/archive.asp

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
SUBSCRIPTIONS
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
To subscribe to any of our lists
http://www.gmwatch.org/sub.asp