from Claire Robinson, WEEKLY WATCH editor
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Dear all:
Don't miss a disturbing report by Jeffrey Smith, based on existing science, on how eating GM crops may result in herbicide being produced in our intestines (FOOD SAFETY).
Has the Indian government finally seen sense in its decision to delay approval of field trials of Bt aubergines (also known as eggplants or brinjal) following reports of deaths in sheep that grazed on Bt cotton? Or is it just waiting for the fuss to die down so that it can wave the wretched crop through? India is the Centre of Origin for aubergine, where it has been cultivated for the last 4000 years or so. (ASIA)
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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FOOD SAFETY
LOBBYWATCH
ASIA
THE AMERICAS
EUROPE
BIOFUELS
CORPORATE CRIMES
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FOOD SAFETY
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+ GM CROPS MAY PRODUCE HERBICIDE INSIDE OUR INTESTINES
Pioneer Hi-Bred's website boasts that their GM Liberty Link corn survives doses of Liberty herbicide, which would normally kill corn. The reason, they say, is that the herbicide becomes "inactive in the corn plant." They fail to reveal, however, that after you eat the GM corn, some inactive herbicide may become reactivated inside your gut and cause a toxic reaction.
Read on to find out how this happens [shortened]:
Liberty herbicide can kill a wide variety of plants. It can also kill bacteria, fungi, and insects, and has toxic effects on humans and animals. The herbicide is derived from a natural antibiotic, which is produced by two strains of a soil bacterium. In order that the bacteria are not killed by the antibiotic that they themselves create, the strains also produce specialized enzymes which transform the antibiotic to a non-toxic form called NAG (N-acetyl-L-glufosinate). The specialized enzymes are called the pat protein and the bar protein, which are produced by the pat gene and the bar gene, respectively. The two genes are inserted into the DNA of GM crops, where they produce the enzymes in every cell. When the plant is sprayed, Liberty's solvents and surfactants transport glufosinate ammonium throughout the plant, where the enzymes convert it primarily into NAG. Thus, the GM plant detoxifies the herbicide and lives, while the surrounding weeds die.
The problem is that the NAG, which is not naturally present in plants, remains there and accumulates with every subsequent spray. Thus, when we eat these GM crops, we consume NAG. Once the NAG is inside our digestive system, some of it may be re-transformed back into the toxic herbicide. In rats fed NAG, for example, 10% of it was converted back to glufosinate by the time it was excreted in the feces. Another rat study found a 1% conversion. And with goats, more than one-third of what was excreted had turned into glufosinate.
It is believed that gut bacteria, primarily found in the colon or rectum, are responsible for this re-toxification. Although these parts of the gut do not absorb as many nutrients as other sections, rats fed NAG did show toxic effects. This indicates that the herbicide had been regenerated, was biologically active, and had been assimilated by the rats. A goat study also confirmed that some of the herbicide regenerated from NAG ended up in the kidneys, liver, muscle, fat and milk.
More information about the impact of this conversion is presumably found in "Toxicology and Metabolism Studies" on NAG, submitted to European regulators by AgrEvo (now Bayer CropScience). These unpublished studies were part of the application seeking approval of herbicide-tolerant canola. When the UK government's Pesticide Safety Directorate attempted to provide some of this information to an independent researcher, they were blocked by the company's threats of legal action. The studies remained private.
- Jeffrey M. Smith, Spilling the Beans, May 2006
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LOBBYWATCH
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+ PR PUSH FOR SCIENCE ACADEMIES TO SUPPORT GM FOODS
The ardent supporter and lobbyist for GMOs Klaus Ammann is one of a group of twelve "researchers in the field of green genetic technology [i.e. GM crops]" who are working on a pro-GM manifesto, which they're going to try and get as many of the world's science academies to support as they can.
During a recent international meeting of the Science Academy in Berlin, these twelve scientists, from Germany, China, South Africa, India, France, Egypt, Switzerland and the USA, unanimously declared that GM food is at least as safe as other food. Prof Klaus Ammann of the University of Berne accused Greenpeace of spreading "lies" in this respect.
While Ammann denounces the likes of Greenpeace as campaigners, at least they are open about their campaigning. Ammann and his kind are something far more insidious - pro-GM activists who dress up their campaigning and PR promotions as the authoritative voice of science.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6586
More on Ammann: http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=8&
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ASIA
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+ NEW STUDY EXPOSES MONSANTO'S BT COTTON HYPE
A new study commissioned by the World Wildlife Fund into the growing of Bt cotton in India shows that there is no benefit to farmers. This finding is especially revealing, because the study was set up with the aim of getting away from the influence of Indian NGOs, who are referred to in the report in rather disparaging terms, and because it takes every opportunity to be positive about Bt cotton where it can.
The study was based on a cotton-growing area of India that was considered largely devoid of the "external influence by any NGO" and where the farmers were considered "progressive". Nonetheless, the study's findings seem to bear out exactly what the NGOs, as opposed to the industry and its supporters, have been saying about Bt cultivation.
Monsanto and its lobbyists claim that Indian farmers are growing Bt cotton on an ever-increasing area because it delivers "consistent benefits in terms of reduced pesticide use and increased income". They quote survey findings they've commissioned showing net profit increases for Bt cotton farmers of 60 per cent compared to those who grow conventional cotton.
Indian NGOs, on the other hand, say that the increased cultivation of Bt cotton has been the result of massive hype. And when it comes to issues of profit, the findings of this study largely confirm those of other independent studies. Farmers growing Bt cotton invested relatively more, got less yield and got far less income than non-Bt cotton growers. This despite the fact that the study found that those farmers growing both Bt and non-Bt cotton tended to reserve their best land for the Bt.
The report: C S Pawar, "Bt Versus Non-Bt Cotton: A Critical Analysis of On-farm data, Impressions and Opinions: Study in Khammam district, Andhra Pradesh, India, 2005-2006
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6598
+ CHIEF MINISTER MISLEADS PUBLIC ABOUT FARMER SUICIDES TO PROTECT BIOTECHS
Chief minister in the Maharashtra government, Vilasrao Deshmukh, has told the press that farmers in the Vidharba cotton belt have committed suicide in an attempt to get government aid (the state government had announced that it would pay each suicide victim's family 100,000 rupees if the reason for the suicide was "wrongful government policies or the forcible recovery of loans").
But farmers' group VJAS says that the suicides have nothing to do with government aid and everything to do with Bt cotton, which most of the farmers who killed themselves grew. The crop failed and left farmers with insurmountable debts.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6588
+ BT COTTON - MAIN KILLER OF FARMERS - HYPED AGAIN IN VIDARBHA
The cultivation of Monsanto's Bt cotton in Vidarbha - the main cotton growing belt of Maharashtra, India, last year resulted in disaster. Hundreds of farmers took their lives as a result of the failure of the Bt cotton crop and their resulting debts.
One of the most disturbing aspects of what occurred is that Bt cotton was promoted to these farmers via a massive campaign of hype by Monsanto, which even brought a Bollywood star into Maharashtra to push its expensive and problem-prone seed. Equally disturbingly, the campaign of hype was backed up by the government of Maharashtra.
According to VJAS - the pressure group for Vidarbha cotton farmers - the hyping of Bt cotton to local farmers took place despite the demonstrable failure of the crop at the trial stage in Maharashtra and an admission from Maharashtra's agriculture minister that Bt cotton did not seem suitable for cultivation in the area. The vice chancellor of Vidarbha's only agricultural university has also urged farmers to avoid Bt cotton.
Despite this, not only has Monsanto been again promoting Bt cotton with advertisements in Maharashtra's newspapers and TV channels, but the government of Maharashtra is again supporting the campaign of hype.
As VJAS says, the state government should have tried to get Bt cotton - the main killer of farmers in Vidarbha - banned. Instead, the government says it's looking to see Bt cotton cultivation double this year. Also, the state's agriculture commissioner has recommended that farmers opt for Bt cotton this season.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6594
+ ALLERGY AMONG WORKERS IN BT COTTON FIELD
During the inception workshop of SAGE-Tamil Nadu (South Against Genetic Engineering-Tamil Nadu), an organic farmer told how he did an informal survey around his village. He found that no women came forward for harvesting the cotton bolls from a field of Bt cotton as they develop allergy when they enter the field .
The performance of the variety is also very poor and the crop had more sucking pest and white fly in huge numbers.
The workshop was well attended by more than 80 groups working with the farmers and about 30 farmer activists.
At the end of the deliberations all the participants agreed to prepare a status report on the performance of Bt cotton in Tamil Nadu.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6588
+ BT COTTON SHEEP DEATHS HIT THE NEWS
India's TV news is catching up on the sheep and goat deaths following consumption of Bt cotton.
Here's a report from NDTV (excerpts):
Earlier this year in February-March several villages in Warangal reported that sheep and goats were dying in unusually high numbers from a disease they did not recognise.
The only clue they had was that the animals grazed continuously on fields where Bt cotton had been grown.
"They were grazing on Bollgard cotton. In 4-5 days, they became dull, their stomach swelled up and they died," said Gantaiah, shepherd ...
"Animals that have been grazing on non-Bt cotton also, shepherds are reporting that on such fields even if they grazed for 15 days, there was no problem reported. Whereas on Bt cotton, with 3-4 successive days of grazing, they started showing symptoms," said Kavita Kurungati, researcher.
Monsanto ... said safety studies on goats, cows, buffaloes, chicken and fish have been conducted as part of the regulatory process to get Bollgard approved.
"We conducted goat-feeding stury with Bt cotton seed and found it to be safe," said Dr Vishwanathan, Industrial Toxicology Research Center, Lucknow.
Critics point out that there was no biosafety study on Bt cotton leaves, which is consumed by cattle during open grazing.
The state government has ordered an investigation by the animal husbandry department.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6590
+ BT BRINJAL TRIALS HAVE TO WAIT
The Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) has deferred its decision to allow large-scale field trials of four varieties of Bt brinjal hybrids, developed by Mahyco [Monsanto's corporate partner in India]. It has decided to post on its website details of biosafety studies conducted by the company on Bt brinjal.
It also intends to invite comments on these biosafety studies within 15 days. Thereafter, the GEAC will take up the issue of allowing field trials of Bt brinjal in its next meeting.
Civil society organisations, including the Centre for Sustainable Agriculture (CSA), Secunderabad and the country's largest farmers' body, Bharat Krishak Samaj (BKS), have objected to this move of the GEAC saying that 15 days is too short a period to comment on a scientific study on biosafety.
CSA has already presented before GEAC reports of deaths of about 1,800 sheep grazing on Bt cotton fields in four villages near Warangal in Andhra Pradesh. "The Shepherds' Union has placed the death toll of sheep in Warangal district around 10,000," said Kavitha Kuruganti of CSA. The GEAC has sought expert opinion on the report presented by CSA.
India is the Centre of Origin for brinjal or eggplant/aubergine, where it has been cultivated for the last 4000 years or so.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6595
Briefing paper on the threat of Bt brinjal from the Centre for Sustainable Development in Andhra Pradesh:
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6591
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THE AMERICAS
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+ SOUTH AMERICA: THE SOY REPUBLIC BURNS
Dr Ignacio Chapela reports that mostly unseen to American and European eyes, a massive transformation of the South American landscape is taking place. A new bread-basket for the world is being constructed in what used to be the wild and native lands of the Amazon basin. Monoculture of soybeans, and specifically herbicide resistant GM varieties of this crop, are the foundation for this massive geopolitical transformation.
The social costs of the establishment of the Soy Republic, comprising the eastern watersheds of Bolivia, Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay, are staggering, yet invisible to Northern media.
Below are translated extracts from a recent missive from Grupo de Reflexion Rural (GRR), one of the few organizations calling attention to the events in these lands. Similar cases of murder, mass evictions, land-grabbing and bloody confrontation have become regular news from the advancing front of the Soy Republic.
EXCERPTS:
Serapio Villasboa Cabrera was a member of the Paraguay Campesino Movement (MCP), and the brother of a prominent member of CONAMURI, an indigenous and campesino women's organization. He was brutally killed this month near his home by a death squad from the Citizens' Brigades. These brigades are reckoned to count more than 13,000 armed and trained operators who perform evictions, detentions, torture and murder upon those who do not accept a new, illegal order in the Paraguayan countryside. Just in Mr Villasboa's region of San Pedro, the brigades are responsible for the death of at least 10 campesinos.
Citizens' Brigades operate on behalf of large landowners and soya industrialists, who refer to them as "Garrote Commision". They work with the tacit approval of the interior ministry, and pretend to eliminate all indigenous and campesino organizations which continue to emerge as a response to growing unrest due to the rapid consolidation of land holdings by monopolic soya producers. It is estimated that soy plantations advance at a rate of a quarter million hectares per year (600,000 acres/yr), associated with some 90,000 campesino transfers to the urban poverty belt yearly.
Paraguay already devotes 64% of its arable land to soybean cultivation, and is the world's fourth exporter of this commodity. The government, under influence of international interests, is planning to expand this cultivation even further. There is no doubt that the promotion of soybean monoculture is at the root of the violence against and impoverishment of the rural communities throughout South America. Resistance against this monoculture has become a human rights struggle.
The Grupo de Reflexion Rural (GRR), in Argentina, is trying to bring to the attention of the Northern world the growing human rights disaster wrought upon rural populations throughout the region by soybean cultivation. This crop is exported mostly to feed cheap meat for European consumption, as well as for the production of industrial foods for Northern populations.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6584
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EUROPE
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+ KBBE: EUROPE'S NEW BIOTECH BUBBLE ECONOMY
The European Parliament Green Group recently invited Dr Maewan Ho to Brussels to contribute to their debate on biotech and bioethics. There, she came across KBBE - Knowledge-Based Bio-Economy - Europe's answer to climate change and energy crisis.
KBBE was launched in an "event" organised by the European Commission's Research Directorate General, "in close collaboration with the UK Presidency of the EU2005." Maewan warns that "KBBE is really a re-launch of biotechnology after decades of failures in both the agricultural and biomedical sectors; and it is riding on the new 'sustainability' ticket."
Janez Potocnik, EU Science and Research Commissioner, has claimed that KBBE is "estimated to be worth more than Û1.5 trillion per year" and "the life sciences and biotechnology are significant drivers of growth and competitiveness."
But Maewan points out the ludicrous and arbitrary nature of this estimate: "No one knows where the figure Û1.5 trillion comes from. Similar wild estimates were invented to promote biotechnology the first time round, and biotechnology has returned nothing but losses ever since.
"Accounting firm Ernst & Young said in its annual report that biotech firms worldwide lost $4.39 billion last year; compared with losses of $6.27 billion in 2004. However, the combined net losses of publicly traded European biotech companies more than doubled to $1.57 billion in 2005 from $680 million in 2004."
The PR people have come up with a novel idea to sell KBBE. The initiative portrays biotech as a colour spectrum, with each colour providing a solution to a problem facing mankind. Red is medical biotech; green is for agri-food applications; white is for industrial biotech; and grey is for environmental applications, such as using GM bacteria to clean up pollution.
Maewan comments that all of these applications are already strewn with failures and disasters. Even 'grey biotech' presents unnecessary risks, since non-GM bacteria can do any job that GM bacteria can do, with the only downside being that no one can patent the non-GM variety.
Read the whole of this fascinating article at http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6589
+ FRIENDS OF THE EARTH DEMANDS SACKING OF INDUSTRY SCIENTISTS IN EFSA SHAKE UP
Friends of the Earth Europe has warned the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) that it will only gain public trust if it frees itself from the biotech industry and employs neutral scientists. EFSA is expected to announce new members of its scientific panels this week.
Adrian Bebb of Friends of the Earth Europe said, "Europe's food safety agency needs to be cleaner than clean if it wants to build trust with the general public. In the past it has employed industry-friendly scientists who have dismissed all safety concerns and rubber-stamped virtually every application by the biotech industry."
"EFSA is now installing a new set of scientists and this time, public health and environmental safety must be put before the interests of big business," added Bebb.
Criticism of EFSA's work on GM foods has been growing over recent months with both national Environment Ministers and the European Commission calling for more transparency, and more investigation into the long-term effects of GM crops and foods.
Recent papers released by the European Commission to Friends of the Earth Europe were critical of EFSA's methods, describing one study that EFSA relied on as "scientifically flawed". The Commission papers also outline how cancer and allergies from eating GM foods cannot be ruled out and recommend that GM crops should not be grown until their long-term effects are known.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6585
+ SAINSBURY IN ROW OVER GM RESEARCH FUNDING
Lord Sainsbury, the billionaire science minister, is embroiled in a fresh controversy after it emerged that projects he set up to promote GM foods have been awarded more than GBP12m by his department.
The Sainsbury Laboratory, which researches GM crops, has received a 400% increase in government funding since Labour came to power in 1997, with grants of GBP8.7m. A further GBP4.2m has been given to Plant Bioscience in the past five years, a company set up by Sainsbury's charitable foundation, which markets spin-offs from the laboratory.
The disclosure of the large increases in funding has led to claims by Sainsbury's critics that the minister faces an "untenable conflict of interest".
The Sunday Times Rich List puts the wealth of Sainsbury and his family GBP1.6 billion. He has donated GBP6.5m to Labour since 2001 and has been science minister since 1998. Only Tony Blair and Gordon Brown have retained their positions in government for longer.
The row over funding of the Sainsbury Laboratory and Plant Bioscience comes after it emerged the peer initially failed to declare a GBP2m loan to Labour before the general election last year. Alan Duncan, the shadow trade secretary, said: "Lord Sainsbury is treating government funding like his private hobby."
Sainsbury helped found the Sainsbury Laboratory in 1987, and his charity, the Gatsby Charitable Foundation, gives it GBP2m a year. Since he became science minister grants to the laboratory from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council have risen from GBP281,905 to nearly GBP1.1m last year. The council is funded by the Office of Science and Innovation, which answers to Sainsbury.
The rise in funding comes as other institutions are under threat. For example, four wildlife research laboratories at the Dorset Centre for Ecology and Hydrology are being closed.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6583
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BIOFUELS
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+ GM ETHANOL MAIZE FOR SOUTH AFRICA RISKY AND INEFFICIENT
Gaia reports that Syngenta's recent application to import GM maize to South Africa for conversion into ethanol signals the beginning of a trend that many suspect is the next step in industry's strategy for GM acceptance.
Industry hopes to cast GM as the solution to climate change, by producing crops like Syngenta's maize event 3272, for conversion into ethanol, which can be used as a supposedly environmentally friendly biofuel alternative to petroleum oil.
But there are many reasons why the promotion of biofuels as an alternative fuel source may bring more harm than good. There is the likelihood that precious land in Africa will be used to produce car fuel for export instead of food. Forests in Malaysia are being cut down for palm oil plantations, even though the forests will absorb more carbon dioxide than the plantation trees. And patented GM crops will have a disastrous impact on African farmers and agriculture.
A new report from the Africa Centre for Biosafety (ACB) "South Africa, Bioethanol and GMOs: a heady mixture" looks at the new trends emerging for South Africa and the rest of the continent. ACB have also, with the Center for Food Safety (based in the US) submitted comments to the South African registrar for GM applications. (Syngenta are also applying for event 3272 acceptance in the US, EU, South Africa and China.)
Interestingly, Syngenta's applications for GM maize event 3272 in Europe and SA are different. The SA application claims that "extremely low levels" of contamination of the industrial GM maize may take place, but the EU application acknowledges that contamination may well take place into food and feed at much higher levels.
Furthermore, ACB point out in their report that ethanol for fuel production actually consumes more energy than it produces, due to the high energy costs of agricultural inputs, processing and transport of the fuel. Other studies in the US also demonstrate that much of the hype about ethanol being a green energy source are baseless.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6597
For the briefing document SOUTH AFRICA, BIOETHANOL AND GMOS: A HEADY MIXTURE http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6570
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CORPORATE CRIMES
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+ PESTICIDE INDUSTRY PLOTTED BUSH HUMAN TESTING POLICY
One month before the Bush administration proposed rules authorizing experiments on humans with pesticides and other chemicals, its key operatives met with agrochemical industry lobbyists to map out its provisions, according to meeting notes posted by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). The industry requests for exemptions allowing some chemical testing on children and other provisions were incorporated into the human testing rule ultimately adopted this January 26.
At the August 9, 2005 meeting held inside the President's Office of Management and Budget, representatives of the pesticide trade association, Crop Life America (which represents the likes of Monsanto, Dow Chemical, DuPont, Syngenta and so on), as well as Bayer Crop Life Science met with OMB and US Environmental Protection Agency officials. Also attending was a former top EPA official, James Aidala, who now acts a lobbyist at a law firm representing chemical companies.
The meeting notes detail industry concerns about the text of a proposed rule that the Bush administration first unveiled a month later on September 12. For example, the Crop Life America attendees urged:
***"Re kids - never say never";
***"Pesticides have benefits. Rule should say so. Testing, too, has benefits"; and ***"We want a rule quickly-[therefore] narrow [is] better. Don't like being singled out but, speed is most imp."
"These meeting notes make it clear that the pesticide industry's top objective is access to children for experiments. After reading these ghoulish notes one has the urge to take a shower," commented PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, whose organization works with EPA scientists who have been prevented from voicing ethical and scientific concerns about human subject testing. "For an administration which trumpets its concern for the 'value and dignity of life,' it is disconcerting that no ethicists, children advocates or scientists were invited to this meeting to counterbalance the pesticide pushers."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6596