from Claire Robinson, WEEKLY WATCH editor
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Dear all:
This week we have some interesting food safety stories from the Americas. A report points to growth hormones such as Monsanto's GM cattle drug rBGH as a possible culprit for a dangerous increase in multiple births to American women who consume dairy products. Fortunately, thanks to growing 'people pressure', America is finally waking up to the dangers of this drug in a big way, with major dairy processors attempting to source milk from rBGH-free cows. (THE AMERICAS)
Let's hope similar pressure is brought to bear on what's possibly the most hated small company in America, Ventria BioScience. Ventria was previously driven out of California and Missouri when it tried to conduct GM pharma rice field trials there. And now the Peruvian Medical Association is up in arms because Ventria's begun testing the product of its GM pharma rice on babies and children in Peru. (THE AMERICAS)
The company that's doing the experiments for Ventria claims they comply with national and international laws on drug testing. But anyone who's seen the recent reports on the appalling abuses perpetrated by drug companies on third world people in the name of clinical trials will not be reassured.
Normal practices in some of these trials -- which are quite legal -- include giving experimental drugs to people who are uneducated, mentally impaired, and not sufficiently literate to read the consent forms. Frequently, they do not understand what they are agreeing to, or they wrongly believe that they are receiving a proven new treatment for their condition.
It's not unreasonable to wonder how Ventria managed to get test subjects in Peru for its pharma rice drug and whether it would have found those subjects so easily back in the US. That said, of course, there's a long history of people of colour being the victims of unethical medical experimentation in the States. And recently the Bush administration, after listening to the lobbyists of Crop Life America and Bayer Crop Life Science, gave the go ahead for the testing of chemicals on children.
But when domestic opposition gets too hot, it's time to look at outsourcing the risk. That's why the European based Pharma-Planta Consortium plans to do its field testing in South Africa. And why when Ventria was getting run out of Missouri, the company's president began talking about moving his pharma field trials to Puerto Rico and South America. Now they're treading the same path South with testing their pharma drug.
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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GM WATCH PODCASTS
THE AMERICAS
ASIA
AUSTRALASIA
EUROPE
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GM WATCH PODCASTS
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The latest GM Watch podcast (no. 3) is now available for free at http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=158600210
In this podcast, producer Peter Brown interviews Jonathan Matthews about the nuts and bolts of biotech PR hype, while Claire Robinson reports on the latest controversy involving a GM medicine.
More information about downloading and listening to the GM Watch podcasts, and about how to install iTunes if you need to, is available at:
http://www.gmwatch.org/p1temp.asp?pid=80&page=1
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THE AMERICAS
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+ MULTIPLE BIRTHS MAY BE LINKED TO MONSANTO'S rBGH
Multiple births bring increased complications for both mothers and offspring. And according to a leadingresearcher in the field, "The continuing increase in the twinning rate into the 1990's... may also be a consequence of the introduction of growth-hormone treatment of cows to enhance their milk and beef production."
Gary Steinman, MD, PhD, an attending physician at Long Island Jewish (LIJ) Medical Center in New Hyde Park, NY, found that the women who consume animal products, specifically dairy, are five times more likely to have twins. The study is published in the May 2006 issue of the Journal of Reproductive Medicine, available May 20.
Steinman says, "Because multiple gestations are more prone to complications such as premature delivery, congenital defects and pregnancy-induced hypertension in the mother than singleton pregnancies, the findings of this study suggest that women contemplating pregnancy might consider substituting meat and dairy products with other protein sources, **especially in countries that allow growth hormone administration to cattle**." [emphasis added]
Monsanto's GM cattle drug, a bovine growth hormone (rBGH, also known as BST), is widely used for milk production in the US and is already known to increase production of the insulin-like growth factor (IGF) in mily. This GM drug is banned in both the European Union and Canada.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6638
+ SPECIAL REPORT: rBGH ON THE RUN
We've received an interesting update from Rick North of Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) on the escalating problems for Monsanto's GM cattle drug - rBGH, which is banned in Europe and Canada.
EXCERPT:
The last two weeks have seen an incredible explosion of news on rBGH...:
June 9 - The Dairy & Food Market Analyst, edited by Jerry Dryer, reports that Dean Foods, Wal-Mart and Kroger, and possibly others, are on a nationwide search for rBGH-free milk. In response to this and a series of actions in the past year of dairies going rBGH-free, Monsanto is now lowering the price of rBGH to try to cling to its dwindling market.
These are all huge players - Dean is the largest milk processor in the country and Wal-Mart the largest retailer. This is the first time we've seen Kroger mentioned in the rBGH-free market. Kroger owns Fred Meyer, a large supermarket chain in the Pacific Northwest. In our campaign, we've educated thousands of consumers on rBGH and hundreds of them have sent Oregon PSR postcards to Kroger's headquarters in Cincinnati urging them to go rBGH-free.
Because of increased consumer demand, there is a shortage of organic milk, which is rBGH-free by definition. These additional moves reflect another very large market, dairy consumers who want to go rBGH-free but don't feel they need or can afford organic.
June 4 - An Associated Press article in the Montana Independent Record reports that the state's two largest milk processors, Darigold Farms and Meadow Gold, are now requiring farmers to sign affidavits saying they're rBGH-free. (Darigold Farms is a not connected to Darigold, Inc., based in Seattle.)
Darigold's CEO Mike Monforton said the "decision was guided by the farmers themselves" and 'derived from consumer demand.'"
June 1 - The Garelick processing plant in Florence, New Jersey, declares itself rBGH-free. This is a major plant, producing 45 million lbs. of milk per month, and represents a growing desire of consumers in the mid-Atlantic states to get this drug out of their lives.
Garelick's plant supplying milk for Maine had already gone rBGH-free a few years ago because consumers there had already "voted with their dollars" and were buying competitors' rBGH-free milk, causing Garelick to lose market share.
These latest moves come on the heels of a stunning string of positive actions in Oregon in the past year...
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6635
+ U.S. SCIENTISTS SEE SPIKE IN KIDS' FOOD ALLERGIES
EXCERPT from an article in the Chicago Tribune which points to possible problems with soy, most of which is now GM in the US:
Medical personnel, from school nurses to chiefs of hospital pediatric departments say such near fatal allergic reactions are becoming more common in children. So three Chicago medical institutions said on Wednesday they will collaborate on an extensive study to determine the cause of the increase and will plead for more federal research funding.
"I've been treating children in the field of allergy immunology for 15 years, and in recent years I've really seen the rates of food allergy skyrocket," said Dr Jacqueline Pongracic, head of the allergy department at Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago. "Where in the past it only represented a small proportion of my practice, now more than half of the children I care for have a food allergy."
... parents continue to discover that their child is allergic to certain foods much the way Kellee Konieczny did about five years ago. About two hours after feeding her 9-month-old son Zachary soy milk in a bottle, he went limp in his father's arms, began vomiting profusely and turned blue.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6629
+ VENTRIA EXPERIMENTS WITH GM PHARM RICE ON INFANTS IN PERU
Ventria, the controversial GM pharma rice firm that has had to abandon its field trial plans in both California and Missouri, is now at the centre of a new storm over its activities in Peru.
The Peruvian Medical Association has announced that Ventria is experimenting with lactating infants to evaluate the effectiveness of their pharmaceutical rice for use in acute diarrhea.
This GM rice is modified to produce the protein lactoferrin. According to Herbert Cuba Garcia, spokesman for the Association, "these genetic changes are not allowed in Peru".
Cuba Garcia announced that Ventria Biosciences is performing a test on 140 children in public hospitals in the Peruvian capital, Lima, and in the locality of Trujillo, with the approval of the ministry of health.
In turn, lawyers mounting a defence of children's rights have considered this case as a violation of the laws and the Codes for Children and Adolescents.
"Children, as any other human being, have rights and have the right of freedom in their development and health, which should not be a matter of experimentation, especially when the possible outcomes of the experiments are not known", said Norma Rojas, attorney for Accion por los Ninos (Action on Behalf of Children).
Norma Rojas said that when it comes to children's rights there must be a primacy of the Superior Interest Principle, which states that one must do what is most beneficial for the child, and that this principle cannot be overruled by experimentation or legislation.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6641
+ FDA SUED OVER GM FOODS
An article about the Center for Food Safety's lawsuit against the Food and Drug Administration to force the government to establish mandatory reviews and label GM foods is at
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6642
+ CONTAMINATING THE WILD? - NEW REPORT
A new report on gene flow from experimental GM field trials in the US to sexually compatible wild plants, has just been released by the Center for Food Safety in Washington, DC.
The report's author is Doug Gurian-Sherman, CFS's Senior Scientist, who was formerly with the US Environmental Protection Agency, where he was responsible for assessing human health and environmental risks from transgenic plants and microorganisms, and for developing biotechnology policy.
His report concludes that given the large number of field trials, some of which are on a massive scale and many of which contain genes that may spread in wild relatives, permanent escape of largely untested experimental genes is virtually inevitable. The problem is made worse by USDA's current leaky confinement requirements and inadequate safety testing.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6634
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ASIA
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+ INDIA: STOP BT BRINJAL!
Hundreds of people from all over India have signed a letter asking India's regulatory body, GEAC, to refrain from approving the planned field trials of Bt brinjal (aubergine/eggplant). They ask the following pertinent questions:
***Is India starved of brinjal?
***Did any citizen/ consumer ever complain of a short supply of brinjal?
***Why should anybody consume Bt brinjal when conventional and hybrid brinjal is plentifully available in every season?
In addition, Dr Krishan Bir Chaudhary, leader of the farmers' organization, Bharat Krishak Samaj, has written a letter to GEAC questioning its plan to trial Bt brinjal. BKS demands that before releasing Bt brinjal, GEAC:
***publishes full details of safety studies
***proves it has tightened up biosafety practices since numerous biosafety violations were exposed in existing GM trials
***investigates and reports on the reported allergies among workers exposed to Bt, and the deaths in sheep and goats that grazed on Bt cotton.
Dr Chaudhary said, "Bt cotton has failed in this country. It hasn't reduced dependence on pesticides. How can they think of introducing Bt brinjal when farmers in Andhra are afraid to take their cattle through Bt cotton crop as they claim it leads to deaths?"
A civil society delegation comprising of people from more than ten brinjal-growing states met Dr Anbumani Ramadoss, the minister for health, on 14 June to impress upon him that "India is not a guinea pig for Bt brinjal". The delegation, drawn from a network called Coalition for GM-Free India, consists of representatives from leading farmers' organisations, consumer organisations, organic farming groups, unions, NGOs working on sustainable agriculture, and representatives from the medical fraternity.
And more than 500 organic farmers have declared that they will not allow GM food crops in India. The declaration came at a convention organized by the Tamilnadu Organic Agriculturist Federation, India's biggest organic body, formed under the presidency of Sri G Nammalvar, a farmer-scientist.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6633
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6637
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6639
+ BT COTTON - "NO MAJOR FALL IN PESTICIDE CONSUMPTION"
India's pesticide industry says it is pretty relaxed about Bt cotton because it is not causing any significant drop in pesticide use. What drop there is has been offset by an increase in herbicide use with Bt cotton, says an article for Iris News Digest. The article says,
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6628
+ TOP OFFICIALS FINED IN INDIA IN BT COTTON CASE
There's been an important development in relation to the Public Interest Litigation (PIL) that's currently before the Nagpur Bench of the Bombay High Court in India. The PIL relates to the plight of the 540 poor cotton farmers in the state of Maharashtra who took their lives during the last cotton-growing season, the vast majority of whom were growers of GM (Bt) cotton.
The court has now come down heavily on the state government and its bureaucrats for their negligence and failure to comply with the orders of the court to file a reply to the PIL.
The Divisional Bench of the High Court has imposed costs and fines on the chief secretary and twelve other leading state officials to be paid out of their salaries. If they fail to pay the fines, they'll face proceedings for contempt of court.
The raft of issues the PIL probes includes:
***the role of state officers in promoting Bt cotton which resulted in the failure of [the] crop
***the involvement of state officials in inducing poor farmers to cultivate Bt cotton.
The PIL also asks for the state to be directed to take appropriate action against the Bt cotton seeds companies to force them to compensate the families of poor farmers who took their lives.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6636
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AUSTRALASIA
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+ GM CORN MAY CAUSE DIABETES
DiabeticNews.com reports that a GM corn meant for animal feed in New Zealand may cause diabetes and other health problems. New Zealand's government food standards board is planning to approve the corn, Monsanto's High-Lysine Corn LY038.
The corn is genetically engineered to contain higher levels of the amino acid lysine than is found in other corn varieties. While lysine itself isn't a health risk, if the LY038 variety is cooked with sugars also found in the corn, compounds called AGE's are produced which are implicated in causing Alzheimer's disease, diabetes, and several other health conditions.
Even though Monsanto states that LY038 is intended only for animal feed, they made application for approval as a human food so they do not have to keep the altered corn separate from edible corn.
The government's food agency made no effort to test for potential health impacts if the LY038 were to enter the human food supply.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6640
+ PROPOSED CHANGE TO FOOD CODE NOT GROUNDED ON GOOD SCIENCE
The Centre for Research in Biosafety (INBI) is urging New Zealand's food standards agency to reconsider its draft recommendation to approve Monsanto's GM high-lysine LY038 corn. INBI recommends that safety studies be conducted using GM corn that has been cooked and processed as it is in human food.
"The key difference between the use of corn as an animal feed and a human food is cooking and processing, and FSANZ has made no attempt to assess food hazards resulting from cooking or processing of LY038," said INBI Director and University of Canterbury associate professor Jack Heinemann.
He said LY038 corn was substantially different to conventional corn in that it has high concentrations of compounds that are known to produce food hazards when heated with the sugars found in corn.
"We've carefully examined the risk assessment done by FSANZ and its supporting materials, and we can't understand why FSANZ does not ask for the obvious scientific studies that would establish the safety of this product when it is cooked and processed, the way people - and not chickens - eat it," Heinemann said.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6640
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EUROPE
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+ FRANCE CONDEMNED FOR GM PHARM TEST SITES
GM Freeze has condemned the French government for licensing two sites for crops genetically engineered to produce pharmaceuticals ahead of legislation to deal with crop contamination and liability.
Two out of 17 new GM test sites announced by the French Minister of agriculture, Mr Dominique Bussereau, include maize and tobacco genetically engineered to produce pharmaceuticals.
Pharm crops have already been grown experimentally in the USA where problems of contamination have already occurred. In 2003, GM maize containing genes to produce a vaccine for transmissible gastroenteritis vaccine in pigs developed by Prodigene contaminated soya destined for human and animal food.
Locations of GM test sites in France are kept secret, meaning that neighbouring farmers are unable to take action to prevent the risk of contamination. France exports maize products to the UK including seed and grain for animal feed.
Pete Riley of GM Freeze said: "The decision of the French government to license pharm crops for field testing is madness. A serious debate is needed about whether such crops should be grown in open fields at all. The use of maize, a food crop, increases the risk of accidental exposure of people and animals to biologically active chemicals produced by these plants."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6632
+ THAT WTO RULING AND WHAT IT REALLY MEANS
Activist and author Brian Tokar deserves our thanks for making crystal clear the recent ruling of the WTO on Europe's moratorium on GMOs. Here's the rundown, excerpted from an article on the website Towards Freedom:
On one hand, the WTO panel ruled against the European Union (EU) in each of the three substantive areas addressed by the US complaint. First, the unnamed trade judges declared that Europe had indeed imposed a sweeping moratorium on new genetically engineered crop varieties, in violation of the international trade agreement on "Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures." Second, they ruled that approvals of 24 specific GMO crop varieties had been illegally delayed. Third, the judges declared that additional prohibitions imposed by six countries-Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, and Luxemburg-are inconsistent with these countries' obligations as members of the global trade body.
But on the other hand, the WTO officials were careful to point out that they had dismissed most aspects of the US complaint. This is clear from the concluding 22 pages of the 1050 page decision, the only portion that has been publicly released. The decision, for example, explicitly does not address the safety of biotech products, their similarity (or not) to conventional crop varieties, countries' right to require pre-market approval of GE varieties, nor even the European Union's specific regulatory procedures. The WTO panel affirmed that member countries have the right to consider all possible hazards of GMOs in their risk assessments, even those that are perceived to be "highly unlikely to occur."
The defending countries' principal violation was a "failure to complete individual approval procedures without undue delay," no more, no less. Other aspects of the US, Canada and Argentina's complaints were largely rejected. The EU was found to have acted inconsistently with only one clause of the international sanitary measures agreement, having to do with the timeliness of GMO approvals. In six other areas, including the scientific validity of Europe's regulations, the decision refutes US assertions that Europeans acted inconsistently with their WTO obligations. The claim that European regulations discriminated against US imports in a protectionist manner was rejected, and the panel upheld European regulators' non-approval of three GMO varieties developed by Aventis Crop Science, now part of Bayer.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6630