from Claire Robinson, WEEKLY WATCH editor
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Dear all:
India is blessed in having a Supreme Court in which the legality of GM releases can be examined. The court is currently preventing the release of GM mustard while evidence is gathered on whether the mustard contains illegal Terminator-style technology and also whether the mustard will, as some scientists say, release toxins into the environment (ASIA).
Unfortunately, the Germans have no such recourse, and it seems that the government "regulator" has permitted GM wheat to be trialled, but a legal expert says the permission contradicts German, European and International Law (EUROPE).
Watch out for an EU-related CAMPAIGN OF THE WEEK and if there is any possibility you might be able to help translate some GM Watch material into another language, please see GM WATCH TRANSLATED.
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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THE AMERICAS
ASIA
AFRICA
EUROPE
LOBBYWATCH
CORPORATE TAKEOVER OF SCIENCE
CAMPAIGN OF THE WEEK - TAKE ACTION
GM WATCH TRANSLATED
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THE AMERICAS
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+ PATENT OFFICE FINDS "SUBSTANTIAL QUESTIONS" ON MONSANTO'S PATENTS
In response to requests filed earlier this year by the Public Patent Foundation (PUBPAT), the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) will undertake a review of four patents related to GM crops held by Monsanto that the agricultural giant is using to harass, intimidate, sue - and in some cases literally bankrupt - American farmers. In its Orders granting the four requested reexaminations, the USPTO found that PUBPAT had submitted new evidence that raised "substantial questions of patentability" for every single claim of each of the four patents.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7371
+ BRAZILIAN GOVERNOR MOVES TO EXPROPRIATE LAND FROM SYNGENTA - UPDATE
On November 9, Roberto Requiao, Governor of the state of Parana, dealt a blow to agribusiness when he signed a decree to expropriate an experimental test site owned by Syngenta. The decree was made in the public interest because Syngenta illegally planted 12 hectares of GM soybeans at the site. The decree is unprecedented in Brazil and Latin America (indeed, the world), as never before has any state or the federal government moved to expropriate land from an agribusiness corporation.
The action is representative of the growing sentiment among Latin American politicians to resist the increasing power of agribusiness corporations, and is evidence of the increasing organization and power of civil society in the region.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7379
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ASIA
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+ TAMIL NADU GOVT MAY BAN GM CROP TRIALS
"The government may issue a law banning GM crop trials. We hope the Centre [central Government of India] will support us," said Tamil Nadu agriculture minister Veerapandi Arumugam.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7388
+ SUPREME COURT CONCERNED OVER USE OF TERMINATOR IN GM MUSTARD
The Supreme Court has expressed concern over the possibility of the deployment of genetic use restrictive technologies (GURTs) by Delhi University in the development of its GM mustard crop.
The court asked the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) to assess and report as to whether GURTs had been deployed in the development of the GM mustard seeds and as to how they would manage the situation if GURTs were found to be deployed. The GEAC was told to report by mid-January, 2007, the date fixed for the next hearing.
India, being a signatory to the UN Convention of Biodiversity, is bound by the global treaty which discourages the use of terminator technology and GURTs. The country's Plant Varieties Protection & Farmers' Rights Act has also banned the registration and use of terminator seeds.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7394
+ GM MUSTARD COULD RELEASE TOXIC CHEMICALS
The Supreme Court has asked a committee to examine the impact of field trials being conducted by Delhi University on a GM mustard following expert opinion that such trials were toxic and harmful.
A three-judge bench has asked the GEAC to examine the matter after counsel Prashant Bhushan produced opinions given by three eminent professors saying the field trials on GM mustard would result in release of toxic elements in the environment. They said that even at low levels the release of these organisms could prove toxic to the environment and the main areas required fuller study prior to the exposure of millions of people and millions of animals to the toxins.
Bhushan questioned the credentials of the independent members appointed by the government to the GEAC (India's apex GM regulatory body) and alleged that one of them was a partner to the commercial interests of a GM seed firm.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7395
+ GM MILLET IN THE PIPELINE???
Rasi Seeds (RSPL) claims it is planning to launch a range of GM bajra or pearl millet hybrids in India for the 2007 season.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7393
+ MONOPOLIES COMMISSION ISSUES NOTICE TO MONSANTO
The Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Commission (MRTPC) has asked Monsanto to respond within four weeks to the Andhra Pradesh government's contention that it was liable to pay compensation to the farmers for selling Bt cottonseeds at exorbitant prices.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7382
+ COTTON GROWER KILLED BY POLICE IN MAHARASHTRA
The shooting dead of a cotton grower during protests in Maharashtra's Yavatmal district has only heightened tensions over the troubles of cotton farmers in India. It may, though, prompt government action says Shyam Pandharipande, who has reported extensively on the crisis afflicing cotton farmers in the Vidharbha region of Maharashtra.
What is the message? Shyam Pandharipande sais it is that "if you want the government to act, resort to violence!" The problem is that the government talks of the common man's welfare but plays into the hands of market forces... to the detriment of the same common man who gives them political power."
The latest example of this, says Pandharipande, is the government's policy and proclamations vis-a-vis Bt. Cotton. The Maharashtra government predicted a bumper cotton crop thanks to the wonders of Monsanto's Bt. Cotton but it turns out that the Bt crop produced barely half of what the government predicted. As cotton growing farmers continued to commit suicide, the Central Institute of Cotton Research - blamed it on spurious Bt. Cotton seeds, but actually there were no spurious seeds. It was Monsanto's Bt cotton the farmers were growing.
But that didn't stop the central agriculture ministry stoutly standing by its decision to promote Bt. Cottonseed and yo allow its commercial cultivation even as the agriculture commissioner of Maharashtra announced the results of a survey that said, in effect, that Bt. Cotton was uneconomical in rain-fed farming (typical of almost all the relevant farming in Maharashtra)!
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7382
+ GM SEED BUCCANEERS VS THE PEOPLE OF INDIA
The Indian government is firmly under control of buccaneers of biotech, says Arun Shrivastava in an article for The People's Voice. Despite rules to the contrary, GM experiments have been going on across India with the complicity of the Indian government. Most importantly, the attack is now on rice. Arun is preparing to launch a big petition to protest the situation.
EXCERPT:
India is a centre of origin for rice and the centre for diversity for rice genes, in the same way as Mexico is for corn. It is therefore much more than just a rice country. This makes the government's cavalier attitude to India's non-GM status for rice, one of irresponsible criminal negligence. In embarking on high-risk field trials of GM-rice, it exposes our rice farmers to contamination by GM including transgenic contamination of wild species and the rice seed stock. If we Indians lose control over local rice seeds we lose our right to food and nutrition. We lose our sovereignty.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7374
+ CANDLELIGHT VIGIL IN WASHINGTON DC ON FARMERS’ SUICIDES IN INDIA
Volunteers from the Maryland Chapter of the Association for India's Development and other groups gathered in front of the Indian Embassy in Washington DC to bring attention to the plight of Indian farmers on World Human Rights day. Suicide has been on the rise among Indian farmers over the last decade. For example, among cotton farmers in Maharashtra's Vidarbha region, the number of suicides hit an all-time high of over 710 since June last year. Vidarbha follows a pattern seen in Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Karnataka, and Punjab. However, many people remain unaware of the magnitude of the crisis due to lack of proper coverage in the media.
The volunteers organized a candlelight vigil in order to express solidarity with the affected families and other grassroots groups working on the same issue, as well as to remind the Indian government, at the state and central levels, that farmers are still being driven to desolation and committing suicide at an alarming rate.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7389
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AFRICA
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+ CAN BIOTECH FROM ST LOUIS SOLVE HUNGER IN AFRICA?
Monsanto's home town paper - the St Louis Post-Dispatch - launched a series of articles that claimed to explore "hunger in Africa and the role that biotech has in stemming it".
Its "Special Report: Feeding Africa" started by looking at the work of Monsanto's "non-profit" partner in St Louis, the Danforth Center.
According to the Post-Dispatch, "The center is trying to give away a genetically engineered cassava, one of the most important foods in Africa. A spreading virus is wiping out the crop. The St Louis scientists think they have the cure."
The "spreading virus" is the African cassava mosaic virus (CMVD), and the article speculates that the Danforth Center's GM virus-resistant cassava could be the first "nonprofit biotech product" to help "the developing world".
Only a few months ago, however, the Danforth Center quietly admitted that it had discovered that its GM cassava varieties had actually lost their resistance to CMVD.
According to the article, the cassava has now been re-engineered. What the article doesn't mention, though, is that the failure of the previous GM varieties actually took 7 years to show up, making it more than a little early to be talking up a cure for the virus.
Interestingly, the Post-Dispatch article does note that "traditional breeders already have had some success creating a resistant cassava". Although it repeats Danforth Center claims that the variety in question is not popular with local famers, it doesn't tell us why traditional breeding couldn't be used as successfully with more popular local varieties.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7381
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7384
Another Post-Dispatch article attributes Africa's cautious about GM crops to Europeans:
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7387
+ GM GRAPES UNCORK FEARS OF FRANKENWINE
Plans to field test GM grapes in South Africa have led buyers in the United Kingdom, one of South Africa's top export markets, and in Germany to cancel orders for South African wine, according to an article in the Chicago Tribune.
The article says the Institute for Wine Biotechnology has received stacks of letters from wine lovers objecting to the field tests. "Our whole research program is need-driven. We ask the industry what they want," Groenewald of the Institute said. South African winemakers have made clear they don't want to be the first to use the new technology, she admits, "but they say we'll be a close second [when someone else does]. So we'll be ready when the market's ready."
COMMENT from Andrew Taynton:
What the Institute for Wine Biotechnology at Stellenbosch University still doesn't realise is the more consumers find out about GM the less they want it. In addition, there are other modern biotechnologies such as Marker Assisted Selection that are possibly superior to genetic engineering, and acceptable to consumers at the same time.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7390
GM WATCH COMMENT:
Seems the STOP GM WINE campaign has had some impact, so let's keep up the pressure. Just click the link below to automatically send an e-mail.
http://www.gmwatch.org/p1temp.asp?pid=87&page=1
(or paste the full link into your browser)
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EUROPE
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+ EXPERIMENTAL GM WHEAT PLANTING CONTRADICTS GERMAN, EUROPEAN LAW
The experimental release of GM wheat at Gatersleben, Germany contradicts German, European and International Law, says environmental lawyer Dr Christoph Palme. The federal German Genetic Engineering Authority (Bundesamt für Verbraucherschutz und Lebensmittelsicherheit) has given permission to plant GM wheat at a very short distance from an important wheat gene-bank near Gatersleben.
This permission strikingly contradicts German, European and International Law as follows:
***The permission contradicts German federal constitutional state declaration aiming at protecting the environment laid down in Article 20;
***The permission also contradicts international law as it does not comply with the Convention of Biodiversity (CBD);
*** The permission also contradicts EU law as the CBD has been ratified by the EU.
Details at http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7383
+ FARMER QUITS GM POTATO EXPERIMENT
Plans to grow GM potatoes in Derbyshire have been abandoned because a farmer "fears for his own safety," according to a BBC report. The report says the farmer has pulled out "as he said he feared protests by environmental campaigners".
What basis, if any, there were for his fears is impossible to discern from this very vague article, but there is good reason for wanting to know the details. There have been repeated attempts to manipulate the media and public opinion through fabrication of such stories, and George Monbiot's 2001 article, "Manipulating the Facts in the GM Debate", exposes a classic example of this kind of fabrication involving a GM crop trial farmer. Read the article here...
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7392
+ IRISH MEPs MOVE TO PREVENT GM INVASION
Irish MEPs Liam Aylward (FF), Kathy Sinnott (Independent) and Marian Harkin (Independent) have strongly criticised a controversial draft resolution on GM crops to be voted on soon by the European Parliament.
The Resolution on Biotechnology: Prospects and Challenges for Agriculture in Europe (2006/2059 (INI) is based on a paper written by a UK consulting firm and is replete with biotech industry bias and misinformation.
The resolution seeks to downgrade the status of the Precautionary Principle in EU law, to discredit the scientific evidence that GM crops do not perform as expected, and to support giant agri-biotech corporations which want to seize control of European seeds through GMO crop patents. Whoever controls the seeds controls the food. According to EU and Irish patent law, farmers contaminated by GMOs no longer own their seeds and crops.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7377
+ MONSANTO AFFILIATE'S FORMER DIRECTORS FINED 30,000 EUROS BY FRENCH COURT
The high court of Carcassonne (Aude) has sentenced two ex-directors of Monsanto's former subsidiary Asgrow, Jean-Bernard Bonastre et Serge Reymond, to pay fines of 15,000 euros each. According to Michel Dupont, trade union organiser in charge of GMOs with the farm organisation Confederation Paysanne, the defendants were found guilty on four counts of
(a) having placed a GMO on the market without authorisation,
(b) sale and storage of a falsified, corrupt or toxic agricultural product,
(c ) fraudulent advertising, and
(e) deception on the nature and quality of merchandise in 1999 and 2000.
In April 2006, the General Directorate for Fair Trading, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DGCCRF) discovered low level but illegal traces of GMOs in soya during a routine inspection.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7396
+ AUSTRIA LIKELY TO ESCAPE EU ORDER TO LIFT GM BANS
Austria may escape another order to lift its two bans on GM maize varieties as EU ministers prepare to deliver a second rebuff to the European Commission.
Between 1997 and 2000, five EU countries banned specific GMOs on their territory, focusing on three maize and two rapeseed types that were approved shortly before the start of the EU's six-year moratorium on new biotech authorisations.
Last June the Commission, the EU's executive arm, tried to get all the bans scrapped. But EU environment ministers rejected proposals for the five states - Austria, France, Germany, Greece and Luxembourg - to remove their restrictions.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7391
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LOBBYWATCH
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+ NEW JENNIFER THOMSON BOOK ON GM FOR CSIRO
GM lobbyist Jennifer Thomson has a new book out called GM Crops: The Impact and the Potential. Its publisher - CSIRO - is advertising the book as, "A balanced, scientific perspective on the issues surrounding genetically modified crops." And they describe Thomson as an "international author who has much credibility" and who is "internationally respected".
These statements are seriously open to question. Thomson is a board member of AfricaBio, a biotech industry-backed body which lobbies aggressively for GM crops in Africa and beyond. According to an article in the science journal Nature, "AfricaBio, along with agribiotech companies and other pro-biotech campaigners, is now fighting tooth and nail, often by somewhat controversial methods, to spread the word about GM crops... the idea is to improve GM's image." The article says that, "the group's methods would be considered in some countries to be blatant media manipulation."
Thomson's lobbying doesn't stop there. She's also an advisor to the biotech industry-funded Council for Biotechnology Information in the US, a board member of the biotech-industry backed ISAAA, and Chair of the African Agricultural Technology Foundation, which receives backing from the industry and USAID to introduce GM crops into Africa.
And in her recent lobbying in Australia, Thomson has shown no scruples about honesty or accuracy.
More info and links at: http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7385
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CORPORATE TAKEOVER OF SCIENCE
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+ LUNG CANCER PIONEER "WAS ON CHEMICAL FIRMS' PAYROLL"
A renowned British scientist who established that smoking causes lung cancer was on the payroll of a chemical company while investigating cancer risks.
Sir Richard Doll, who died last year aged 92, was said to have received a consultancy fee of $1,500 a day during the mid 1980s from Monsanto.
Doll, an epidemiologist, also received payments from the Chemical Manufacturers Association and the companies Dow Chemicals and ICI. The three organisations paid him GBP15,000 to assess the potential dangers of vinyl chloride, used in plastics.
Doll largely cleared the chemical industry of having links with cancer, a conclusion which goes against the World Health Organisation's assessment. The association is said to have used the review to defend its members' use of vinyl chloride.
In 1985, Doll wrote to the judge of an Australian Royal Commission, investigating claims of veterans who had developed cancer following exposure to the herbicide Agent Orange in Vietnam, in strong support of the defence claims of its major manufacturer, Monsanto.
He stated that, "TCDD (dioxin), which has been postulated to be a dangerous contaminant of the herbicide, is at the most, only weakly and inconsistently carcinogenic in animal experiments".
In fact, dioxin is the most potent known tested carcinogen, quite apart from confirmatory epidemiological evidence. Doll's defence, resulting in denial of the veterans' claims, was publicized worldwide by Monsanto in full-page advertisements in major newspapers.
Injurywatch has established that payments of $1000 a day (increased to $1500 a day in 1986) were made by Monsanto to Doll for more than thirty years.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7376
Two case studies involving Doll’s conflicts of interest:
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7378
+ SCIENTISTS ARE ONLY HUMAN
EXCERPT from good article about conflicts of interest by the former editor of the British Medical Journal (BMJ):
Scientists used to like to think that they were above conflicts of interest. What mattered was the quality of the science, not any conflicts. They enjoyed a fantasy that science was an objective discipline based on evidence and data and so immune to human failings. This is, of course, nonsense. Science is a human activity and so prone to abuse, fraud, bias, misjudgements, incompetence, greed, and the full rainbow of human frailty”¦ The main determinant of whether scientific reviews find passive smoking to be harmful or safe is whether the authors have ties with the tobacco industry. (for lots more examples of the problem, read on)
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7380
+ INJURYWATCH COMMENT ON SOME OF DOLL'S SUSPECT STUDIES [shortened]
Injurywatch believes there were flaws in both the Doll-Peto study: "The Causes of Cancer: Quantitative Estimates of Avoidable Risks of Cancer in the United States Today".
Specifically we would like to know why the parameters of what purported to be a neutral study of environmental illness would be drawn to exclude African Americans and those aged over sixty when cancer is known to be a disease of the poor and the old.
Doll also produced a 1998 study into vinyl chloride, "Effects of exposure to vinyl chloride: An assessment of the evidence". The study was not declared at the time to have been funded by the Chemical Manufacturers' Association and Doll's contract with Monsanto, a major vinyl chloride manufacturer was again undeclared.
The study, which largely exonerated the vinyl chloride industry of any blame, seems to have obvious perversities. High risk/exposure individuals seem to have been deliberately excluded from the study while low risk/unexposed workers were drafted in.
Respected scientists have long called into question Sir Richard Doll's findings and motivation and yet 35 years after Doll Peto when its core figure of 6,000 annual environmental cancer deaths is demonstrably wrong, HSE [the UK's Health and Safety Executive] continues to promote the research as the best available.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7380
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CAMPAIGN OF THE WEEK - TAKE ACTION
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+ HOLD EUROPEAN AG COMMITTEE RESPONSIBLE FOR PROMOTING CORPORATE INTERESTS
This week's action aims to hold the European Parliament Agricultural Committee's members individually responsible for their shameless promotion of the GM corporate agenda. There's a letter ready to send and email addresses at:
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7386
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GM WATCH TRANSLATED
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GM WATCH MONTHLY REVIEWS AVAILABLE - IN GERMAN
http://www.gmwatch.org/p1temp.asp?pid=82&page=1
- IN DUTCH
http://www.gmwatch.org/p1temp.asp?pid=81&page=1
HELP NEEDED!
Please contact us to find out more about being part of a team to translate the Monthly Reviews into your language. E-mail Jonathan - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>