from Claire Robinson, WEEKLY WATCH editor
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Dear all,
Prepare to be outraged, gratified and amused this week.
Outrage is justified by news that Monsanto is apparently threatening Mexican farmers with jail; and by the horrifying story of an American town poisoned by the company's toxic PCBs (OUTRAGE OF THE WEEK).
Gratification is provided by an article in, of all places, the journal Nature Biotechnology, which confirms what we GM-sceptics have been saying for years - that for many of the pro-GM brigade, biotech is not a science but a religion.
And an American economist has come up with a superb description of the idea (widely held by politicians) that attracting biotech into your backyard brings prosperity: "This notion that you lure biotech to your community to save its economy is laughable. This is a bad-idea virus that has swept through governors, mayors and economic development officials." (BIOTECH: BAD-IDEA VIRUS AND NEW RELIGION)
Amusement of the exasperated kind is to be had in our FOOD SAFETY section. Here, Dr Arpad Pusztai exposes, in his usual patient, reasoned and understated way, the mind-boggling "ignorance" of Dr Ian Gibson, chair of Britain's all-party Parliamentary Science and Technology Committee. Gibson told MPs in the House of Commons that epidemiological studies have been carried out that show GM food to be safe. Is he a liar, a biotech zealot or infected by the bad-idea virus? Which ever it is, like so many GM supporters, he cannot tell the difference between science and wishful thinking.
If you are depressed rather than amused at the spectacle of Gibson's gormlessness, a visit to our JOKE OF THE WEEK might lift your spirits.
Claire This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
www.ngin.org.uk / www.gmwatch.org
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CONTENTS
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OUTRAGE OF THE WEEK
BIOTECH: BAD-IDEA VIRUS AND NEW RELIGION
BIO CONFERENCE, SAN FRANCISCO
FOCUS ON AFRICA
FOOD SAFETY
CORPORATE TAKEOVER OF SCIENCE
NEW RESEARCH
JOKE OF THE WEEK
DONATIONS
HEADLINES OF THE WEEK
SUBSCRIPTIONS
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OUTRAGE OF THE WEEK
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+ MONSANTO THREATENS FARMERS WITH JAIL - YOUR HELP NEEDED
Monsanto is not hanging about in seeking to capitalise on the recent Canadian decision on the Percy Schmeiser case. (The court upheld Monsanto's patent on its GM canola, finding Percy guilty of infringing its patent when his canola crop was found to be contaminated with Monsanto's genes.) Monsanto is said to have moved aggressively to globalise the benefits of the decision they managed to expensively wring out of 5 of the 9 judges of the Canadian Supreme Court.
We've been hearing from the BIO-devastation gathering in San Francisco that a page-size ad has been doing the rounds which is said to have been placed by Monsanto in Chiapas, Mexico. It is said this ad was repeatedly run in local newspapers in Chiapas directly in the wake of the Canadian decision.
The ad is addressed to "Amigo Agricultor" (Dear Farmer Friend). In the accompanying message Monsanto reminds its friends, the farmers, that planting its seeds (or seeds carrying its patented genes) without its permission is a federal crime under the law of Mexico, and - they apparently say - can be punished by nine years in jail!
Assuming this information to be correct, we would like to know how widespread this campaign is. If you are in an agricultural area, anywhere in the world, and are aware of anything similar having appeared in the local press, we would be interested to hear from you.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=3711
+ SCHNEWS COMMENTS ON SCHMEISER RULING AND MONSANTO'S THREATENING AD
This strange twist of the law which persecutes people for having their own property polluted goes back to a Canadian Federal law passed in 1991 which ruled that patents have precedence over and above a farmer's rights. The ruling means that if a farmer has their crops contaminated with GM seeds then they could be potentially liable to pay Monsanto for "benefiting" from their technology. Terry Boehm, Vice-President of the Canadian National Farmers Union said "It moves us further along the path where corporations will control seed and farmers will lose the right to save seed."
...
This pleasant company are now turning its attention to weaker opponents, taking out newspaper ads in Mexico warning peasants that if they are found using GM seed illegally, they risk fines and even prison! Silvia Ribeiro of ETC Mexico says, "This will come as shocking news to indigenous farmers in Mexico, whose maize fields have been contaminated with DNA from genetically modified plants, and to farmers everywhere who are fighting to prevent genetically modified organisms from trespassing in their fields."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=3700
+ "BEYOND ALL DECENCY": HOW MONSANTO POISONED A TOWN
Even if you think you know the story of Anniston, the town in Alabama that Monsanto poisoned with its toxic PCBs, do read the CBS news report at http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=3698
Excerpts:
CBS host: Imagine a place so saturated with toxic, cancer-causing chemicals, that it's in the dirt people walk on, in the air that they breathe, even in the blood that pumps through their veins. The 24,000 people in Anniston, Alabama, don't have to imagine this; many of them are living it. In fact, they've been living it for decades; they just didn't know it. The company responsible didn't tell them, and neither did the US Environmental Protection Agency...
...
Today, parts of Anniston are so contaminated that residents have been told not to grow vegetables in the soil, kick up dirt, eat food, chew gum or smoke cigarettes while working in their own yards.
...
The people who live in west Anniston, the area closest to the plant, have some of the highest PCB levels in the world. Anything above one and a half parts per billion is considered unusual.... All of them have major health problems, from diabetes to cancer, and they're convinced it's because of the PCBs.
CBS host to Monsanto man: The jury in Alabama found you guilty, if that's the right word, of behaviour "so outrageous in character and extreme in degree as to go beyond all possible bounds of decency so as to be regarded as atrocious and utterly intolerable in civilized society." I've never heard a - a - a finding like that before.
...
CBS host: [Ex-Senator Donald] Stewart uncovered close to a million pages of company documents that show Monsanto knew PCBs were a problem as early as 1938, when scientists hired by the company reported that rats exposed to the chemicals developed liver damage. By the 1950s, Monsanto was urging its own workers to wear proper protective clothing and respiratory equipment when handling PCBs. Many of the documents were marked 'confidential: Read and destroy.' In one, from 1966, a scientist working for Monsanto found Snow Creek so polluted with chemicals that it was devoid of life. Healthy fish submerged in the creek turned belly-up and died within three minutes.
STEWART: They were warned by the people who did those tests that they should warn their neighbours because children and animals might be affected by what was being released from their plant. They knew PCBs were harmful to humans, said not one word about it.
CBS host: ...But the residents of Anniston aren't just angry with Monsanto, they're also angry with the EPA, which had been aware of the contamination since the 1970s and never warned the community, either. Stan Meiburg is the EPA's deputy regional administrator for the Southeast.
+ IS MONSANTO POISONING PHILIPPINES PEOPLE WITH ITS GM BT TOXIN
Excerpts from a good article from MASIPAG on Dr Terje Traavik's study of Philippines villagers who suffered ill health after being exposed to GM Bt pollen:
On February 22, 2004, Norwegian scientist Dr Terje Traavik disclosed in a conference in Kuala Lumpur the results of their ongoing research in the Norwegian Institute of Gene Ecology. Among three projects cited, the antibody analyses of blood sera from Philippine farmers generated the most reaction and interest among the audience. According to Dr Traavik, they detected the presence of antibodies in the blood samples of 38 persons residing near a Bt-corn plantation in Polomolok, South Cotabato. These IgA, IgG and IgM antibodies are "specifically binding to Bt-toxin Cry1Ab" which means that these antibodies are released as a natural mechanism by the body when it is infiltrated by the said toxin or antigens.
"The presence of the antibodies in the human blood show that these people have been exposed to the Bt-toxin during the last few months," said Dr Traavik.
Dr Traavik said that this result "might indicate a coincidence in time between the three observed events" - the first flowering season for Bt-corn, the outbreak of respiratory / intestinal disease among the residents near the Bt-corn field and the production of the antibodies. While the study cannot establish yet a relationship between the Bt-corn and the outbreak of illnesses, it does not also rule out the possibility that the exposure of the local residents to the Bt-corn caused their health problems. The production of antibodies specific to the Bt-toxin Cry1Ab simply indicate that the toxin has entered the farmers' and residents' body, hence the production of antibodies.
... For the NGOs and farmers groups, this is enough evidence to stop the commercialization of Bt-corn in the country.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=3699
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BIOTECH: BAD-IDEA VIRUS AND NEW RELIGION
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+ COURTING BIOTECH IS A "BAD-IDEA VIRUS", SAYS ECONOMIST
Governors and mayors from across the country were in full force at the biotech industry's annual BIO convention in San Francisco this week, offering tax breaks, government grants - even help with parking - to lure biotech companies.
San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom told biotechnology executives during a lunchtime speech: "You need parking requirement changes, we'll take care of it. You need tax incentives? You got it. Whatever you need."
Yet biotech remains a money-losing, niche industry firmly rooted in three small regions of the country.
"This notion that you lure biotech to your community to save its economy is laughable," said Joseph Cortright, a Portland, Ore. economist who co-wrote a report on the subject. "This is a bad-idea virus that has swept through governors, mayors and economic development officials."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=3772
+ BIOTECH AS RELIGION - NATURE BIOTECHNOLOGY
Imagine getting a spam mail offering you something with the "seemingly limitless potential to resolve health problems", not to mention the apparently limitless power to "increase crop yields, and treat diseases". Just how credulous would you have to be to fall for a "bad-idea virus" like that?
Yet the hucksters making that particular pitch about biotech are three of America's most eminent scientists: Vernon Cardwell (when ASA president), Ronald Phillips (when CSSA president), and Donald Sparks (when SSSA president).
It comes from a statement circulated among US scientists: "Many biotechnology detractors gain public support for their cause through the use of misinformation and emotional appeals... In short, biotechnology, this incredibly powerful and valuable tool with seemingly limitless potential to resolve health problems, increase crop yields, and treat diseases, is at risk of serious setbacks."
It is, therefore, encouraging to read an excellent article in the journal Nature Biotechnology which makes clear that religious fanaticism is chiefly the domain of the pro-GM brigade.
Excerpts from an article well worth reading in full at
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=3778 :
"Biotech, in a similar manner to many religious movements, has its charismatic prophets, enthusiastic evangelists and enrapt audiences. Like religions, it offers a comforting message of salvation. Instead of imagining a day of rapture when the dead rise from their graves to begin eternal life, biotech enthusiasts imagine the era when medical technologies provide a renewable, largely imperishable body.
"Many religious beliefs carry little threat of individual or social harm. However, religious cosmologies can have pernicious consequences. Belief in an afterlife can lead cult members to commit mass suicide. Notions of a glorious afterlife can lead believers to treat this-wordly existence with contempt. Similarly, biotech fantasies about immortality can have disturbing consequences. Trusting individuals can purchase costly 'anti-aging' products that have no discernable effect upon the prolongation of life. Enthusiasm for biotech can create unrealistic expectations about the capacity of biomedicine to control illness and aging. Belief in the imminent arrival of radically innovative biotech therapies can create unhelpful expectations when individuals or their loved ones show signs of illness or aging. An obsessive quest for the elixir of immortality can build a cult around the youthful, unwrinkled body.
"Biotech is not just an assemblage of research programs and techniques. In a scientific and technological era, biotech also offers a surrogate religious framework for many individuals. We might want to explore the dangers associated with turning biotech into a belief system. With little reason to think that the biotechnological rapture of post-human bodies is imminent, we might want to start paying more attention to how biotech enthusiasts prey upon deep-rooted fears and anxieties and offer familiar messages about how death shall be no more. The religion of biotech needs to be challenged by debunkers and sceptics as 'anti-aging' potions and nostrums become increasingly popular and profitable."
Among those who claim to be extreme sceptics and expert debunkers of the belief systems of others is Prof Philip Stott who claims to use the tools of post-modernism to expose the "religious" zeal underlying environmental concerns. But, typically, Prof Stott remains entirely clueless as to the character of his own 'techno-utopianism' let alone his 'sound science' myth making.
Here's Stott on the human genome project:
"Today, we shall truly ''eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil'' (Genesis 1.17), for two teams of scientists... have come together to announce the decoding of the alphabet of human life. And ''we shall be as gods'."
In another essay, Stott talks of "that Holy Grail of the human genome, our very own alphabet of life" and continues, "We are truly standing on a great peak and a new country lies at our feet."
http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=126&page=S
+ REPORT OFFERS ANTIDOTE TO BAD-IDEA VIRUS OF BIOTECH
GM crops have not delivered promised benefits of fighting world hunger and raising poor farmers' incomes, according to a report by an international coalition of anti-biotech groups.
The report, compiled by a team of scientists, research organizations and farmers from several countries, also claims that biotech companies may be contributing to global hunger by using patents and other property rights to restrict traditional farming practices that save seed from year to year. "This report details a sad and consistent history of corporate greed and scientific failure in agricultural biotechnology," Andrew Kimbrell, executive director of the Center for Food Safety in Washington D.C., said in a statement accompanying the report.
The 105-page report was issued by the Research Foundation on Science, Technology, and Ecology from India; the Tuscany government's Commission on Food and Agriculture from Italy; and the International Forum on Globalization in San Francisco.
"The commercial crops produced have done nothing to solve world hunger but instead have resulted in increased chemical use, lower yields and the destruction of family farms," Kimbrell said.
Release of the report, titled "Citizens Vote for GMO-Free Food," came as global biotech industry players gathered in San Francisco at the annual meeting of the Biotech Industry Organization.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=3743
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BIO CONFERENCE, SAN FRANCISCO
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+ ANTI-GM VIEWS GROWING IN US, CONFERENCE TOLD
Anti-GM food protesters demonstrating against the Biotechnology Industry Organisation conference - BIO 2004, the world's largest biotechnology convention, were faced with mass arrests on Tuesday as the conference met against a backdrop of declining acceptance for GM in the US, as Cynthia Schneider, director of a life science and society initiative at Washington's Georgetown University, and former US Ambassador to the Netherlands, pointed out in a speech at the conference.
The US refusal to label GM food, she said, was "under siege". "There is a real demand in the US for more information and transparency," she told the BIO delegates.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=3774
+ MAYOR HOSTS COCKTAIL PARTY FOR GM INDUSTRY WHILE PROTESTORS BLOCK STREETS
Anti-GM protesters took over a major San Francisco intersection for several hours Tuesday night, blocking traffic and throwing bottles as police made more than a hundred arrests.
At 6 pm, after a largely peaceful day of demonstrations, about 150 protesters walked into the street at Fifth and Market streets, bringing rush-hour traffic to a standstill.
Police in riot gear surrounded the protesters and after about an hour began arresting the demonstrators. By 10:30 p.m, 128 protesters had been arrested, almost all on charges of failing to disperse. Demonstrators complained that police made the arrests without any warning.
"The mass arrests happened without warning,'' said Becky Tarbotton, an organizer with Reclaim the Commons. "People were arrested and being beaten up. It was pretty astonishing.''
By Tuesday night, as protesters were blocking Fifth and Market, Mayor Gavin Newsom was hosting a cocktail party for 600 elite conference attendees at City Hall, where police manned barricades to protect the building from any trouble.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=3744
+ BIOTECH DEMONSTRATORS DENOUNCE POLICE BEHAVIOR
San Francisco Board of Supervisors president Matt Gonzalez joined demonstrators opposing GM food Wednesday to denounce their treatment at the hands of police. In all 161 people were arrested. Protestors maintain they were peaceful. Wednesday, demonstrators said they'd plant trees instead of confronting police and conference attendees. You can also find a link to a video news report here.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=3773
+ "INDIAN FIREBRAND" BATTLES BIOTECH
An interesting but patronising article about Indian physicist, farmer and activist Vandana Shiva, coinciding with the opening of the BIO industry conference in San Francisco, is at
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=3697
Also at this URL is Shiva's Reith Lecture for the BBC on Poverty and Globalisation, which, once read or heard, will change your perspective on food, farming and economics for ever.
Excerpt:
Who feeds the world? My answer is very different to that given by most people. It is women and small farmers working with biodiversity who are the primary food providers in the Third World, and contrary to the dominant assumption, their biodiversity based small farms are more productive than industrial monocultures.
The rich diversity and sustainable systems of food production are being destroyed in the name of increasing food production. However, with the destruction of diversity, rich sources of nutrition disappear. When measured in terms of nutrition per acre, and from the perspective biodiversity, the so called "high yields" of industrial agriculture or industrial fisheries do not imply more production of food and nutrition.
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FOCUS ON AFRICA
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+ AFRICA FORCED TO ADOPT GM
Recently we've seen how the biotech industry, together with USAID, is seeking to export South Africa's weak "biosafety" system to other parts of the continent. In southern Africa the charge is being led by the Southern Africa Regional Biosafety programme (SARB), a sub-unit of a much larger USAID-funded project which has private sector partners like Monsanto and Pioneer Hi-Bred.
Articles at
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=3709
give a sense of the intense pressure being brought to bear on African countries, including Tanzania and Botswana. It's articulated by one Minister saying, "whether we like [it] or not, in future we will be compelled to adopt this technology".
+ LOBBYWATCH PROFILES RELEVANT TO AFRICA
A list of people and organisations who are pushing GM for Africa is at
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=3777
+ GM FOOD AID CONTROVERSY ERUPTS AGAIN IN AFRICA
excellent article on this issue: "if the US has been hit by the rejection of GM foods in Europe, they have failed to recognise the deep unpopularity such food technology engenders. Instead, they have simply displaced the surplus and the problem - onto populations who, because they are not commercial consumers, are denied equivalent rights to choose what they eat."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=3701
+ BURKINA BIOTECH BASH
Burkina Faso is to host a US-sponsored three-day summit June 21-23 in Ouagadougou "to help the 15-member Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) understand the science and technology of OGMs to help improve African agricultural productivity."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=3775
+ LIBERIA: TAKE PRECAUTION AGAINST GMOS IN FOOD - CITIZENS CAUTION GOVT
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=3775
+ MALI'S PEOPLE REAP NO REWARD FROM BIOTECH
A troubling article that should be read by anyone who still believes that biotech companies want to help the third world is at
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=3702
The article tells how many people in Mali are poor and starving. The semi-nomadic Bela people eat a type of wild rice, a gene from which has been pirated by biotech companies of the West.
Excerpts:
There was talk of future health clinics and conservation programs, even using the gene to battle hunger and poverty in other corners of the world. Eight years later, no help whatsoever has arrived. The Genetic Resources Recognition Fund that UC Davis officials hoped would turn university patents and corporate profit into a model of social responsibility has a balance of zero.
When informed that university officials half a world away in California owned a part of their culture, a gene from their rice - and were licensing it to biotechnology corporations - the Bela were puzzled, even angry.
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FOOD SAFETY
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+ PUSZTAI ANSWERS DR IAN GIBSON
In a speech in the House of Commons, Dr Ian Gibson, who Chairs the all party Parliamentary Science and Technology Committee, authoritatively dismissed concerns over GM food safety and said that as a scientist he could wipe the floor with his opponents.
Unfortunately for Dr Gibson, Dr Arpad Pusztai has responded to his comments, exposing once again the extraordinary confection of spin, bravado and sheer nonsense with which this technology is promoted.
Arpad Pusztai's response, which is well worth reading in full, truly wipes the floor with Gibson (and is for that reason as amusing as it is informative):
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=3741
Excerpt:
In the House in reply to Joan Ruddock's question you said this: "The epidemiology studies carried out in every major centre, including in the universities in the States and elsewhere, into the effects of the food (in this context GM food!), ... have shown no effects whatever that correlate with the food - although I understand how difficult that is to prove."
I am afraid there have been no epidemiology studies, and certainly none published. This is by the way obvious from the fact that, apart from this generalization, you could not refer to a single such study. It is not surprising because in the absence of labeling of GM food in the USA such studies could not be carried out! However, it is known from official statistics that in less than ten years food-related illnesses have practically doubled in the USA since the introduction of GM food into the American diet. While the reason for this is unknown, it requires an almost foolhardy braveness to declare that everything is well in the USA and it flies in the face of the reported facts that none of these ill effects correlate with food, including GM food.
Then you go on: "I do not think that it is incumbent on me to prove that GM food is safe; the people who say it is unsafe have to prove that." Could you, please, let us know the law, an Act of Parliament, that places the burden of proof for deficiencies in any defective and potentially dangerous product on the purchaser and therefore absolves the manufacturer from carrying out safety checks and publishing the results of these?
...
[Gibson said:] "It seems to me that the evidence is piling up to say that the (GM) food is, indeed safe. ... Although I have not the time to do so now, I am quite prepared to take my right hon. and hon. Friends for a GM-free lunch to discuss the evidence that they (i.e. the other side) put forward. I think that I can make arguments against every single, little experiment that they put forward and give another explanation, although I agree that more work needs to be done".
[Pusztai replies:] These are truly confident words! However, in your reply to the specific questions in the e-mails that Dr Brian John and I sent you, in which we asked you to describe a little bit more fully this pile of evidence that shows the safety of GM food, your reply became less confident and was rather short and selective on the examples. You gave us precisely three examples that you thought supported your case: a Monsanto study on GM soya in 1996, a Chinese paper on studies with GM sweet peppers and tomatoes and Dr Richard Phipps' recent paper of a production study with GM maize-fed cattle. I expect, what constitutes a pile is a matter of definition. One can reverse this argument by saying that the evidence is in fact piling up to show the health problems of GM foods reported in the published science literature (see our review!). However, these you and other pro-GM supporters conveniently ignore.
Despite this, I am afraid I have to tell you that even though the pro-GM people shout loud as they are trying to make up for the deficiencies of their case, you and others like you are on the losing side because the evidence to show that some if not most of the GM foods do really present health risks is truly accumulating in the literature.
+ BABY MILK FULL OF GMOS IN RUSSIA
A report in Pravda says scientists testing samples of the most popular brands of baby foods sold in Russian supermarkets found that 70% of samples contained GMOs. Some of the dairy and vegetable mixes were wholly made of GMOs.
"According to the new resolution of the head sanitary inspector, any product containing more than 0.9% of GMO has to be labeled accordingly," says geneticist Alexander Baranov. "Some mixes were 100% genetically modified. We can simply cripple our kids." GM components were found in products manufactured by Nestle, Semper, Valio and others.
The report says that in 1997, driven by consumer hostility to GMOs in Europe, many companies proclaimed themselves GM-free. However, these same companies today appear on the list of manufacturers that use GMOs in baby foods. Some of them follow a double-standard system, exporting products of certain quality to some countries and other products of significantly lower quality to other countries. Pravda comments, "It isn't hard to guess that Russia is one of the 'other' countries."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=3776
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CORPORATE TAKEOVER OF SCIENCE
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+ BIOTECH INDUSTRY FUNDS BUMPER CROP OF UC DAVIS RESEARCH
A perceptive article about the biotech industry's takeover of research at UC Davis, California, has been published in the Sacramento Bee, the daily paper of the state capital.
Excerpts:
"The public is having a hard time figuring out where the corporate door ends and where the university door begins," said Bill Liebhardt, former director of the UC system's sustainable farming program, which promotes non-industrial farming methods.
Small farmers - the very people agricultural colleges like UC Davis were established to help - feel neglected. "The university is being led by industry," said Judith Redmond, co-owner of Full Belly Farm, an organic vegetable farm in Yolo County.
...
"The study of biology has really become unbalanced," said Arnold Bloom, a vegetable crops professor. "DNA is only part of the story."
...
More than 20 UC Davis professors have earned outside income providing advice to biotechnology companies, a practice known as consulting. In one instance, two UC Davis professors purchased shares of stock in a biotech startup company that funded their research. Often, those financial ties are not disclosed in academic articles and public forums.
...
In July 2002, UC Davis farm economics professor Julian Alston found a patron in the private sector: Monsanto, one of the world's five largest crop biotechnology firms.
The official announcement came in the form of a letter. "Dear Dr. Alston," it read. "Please find enclosed a check for $40,000 that represents an unrestricted gift in support of your research program."
As the company had prearranged with Alston, the money would fund a survey of farmers' attitudes about a new variety of biotech corn Monsanto was bringing to market. Alston would hire a polling firm, analyze the results and prepare a report. The polling firm selected - Doane Marketing Research Inc. - is based three miles from Monsanto's St. Louis headquarters.
... When Alston's report came out a year later in a biotech online journal, its findings were favorable to Monsanto. The new variety - Yieldguard Rootworm - could put an additional $231million in farmers' pockets, Alston reported, and could save them $58million through lower pesticide costs.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=3714
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NEW RESEARCH
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+ GM SALMON MUSCLE IN ON WILD FISH WHEN FOOD IS SCARCE
New laboratory research has found that wild salmon tend to experience reduced growth in the company of salmon engineered to attain a large body size. The presence of transgenic fish also increases the likelihood of population collapse when food is in short supply.
The study, on GM "growth hormone" (GH) salmon and wild salmon, was published online on 8 June 2004 by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Faced with food shortages, GH individuals in a mixed group of GH and wild fish out-competed their wild tankmates, growing larger than both those fish and the ones living in GH-only groups; and the wild salmon in the mixed group exhibited reduced growth as compared to members of the wild salmon-only group.
Further, survival rates were reduced in those tanks holding GH salmon - sometimes to the point of extinction. Some of the dead fish appeared to have died from attacks by other fish, and there were several instances of cannibalism. The fish that survived in these tanks were usually the most aggressive GH fish. Individuals in the wild salmon-only groups fared far better, experiencing a constant increase in population over the 14-week period of low rations.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=3710
+ CANADIAN STUDY CONFIRMS ALL PESTICIDES ARE HARMFUL
One of the biotech industry's favourite claims - that GM plants allow growers to use "safer" pesticides - is given the lie by new research from Canada.
The Ontario College of Family Physicians have released the most comprehensive study ever done in Canada on the chronic effects of pesticide exposure at home, in the garden and at work.
After examining 12,000 studies dated 1990-2003 and winnowing them down to the soundest 250, the researchers said there is no evidence that some pesticides are less dangerous than others. Instead, they have different effects on health that take different periods of time to show up. "The review found consistent evidence of the health risks to patients with exposure to pesticides," the study said, naming cancer of the brain, prostate, kidney and pancreas, as well as leukaemia, among many other acute illnesses.
As well, the college found consistent links between parents' exposure to agricultural pesticides at their jobs and effects on the growing foetus, ranging from damage to death. The risks can come from residues on food, ant spray and tick collars on pets. The college found that the link between pesticides and fetal defects, neurological damage and cancers was strong enough that it is now urging citizens to avoid the chemicals in any form. The researchers found that children are more vulnerable to the effects of pesticides than adults because they ingest more food for their size than adults and their de-tox mechanisms are less developed.
The massive review comes as many cities across Canada are trying to ban pesticides. Toronto's law came into effect in April, with posters showing a dandelion and the caption, "Relax, it's just a weed." Quebec province is banning the most common lawn and garden pesticides starting next year. The Canadian Cancer Society, the Learning Disabilities Assoc. of Canada, the Registered Nurses Assoc. of Canada and the Ontario Public Health Assoc. have also called for the bans.
(Source: The Globe and Mail, Toronto, 24 April 2004)
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20040424/PESTICIDES24/TPHealth/
See the complete paper at
http://www.ocfp.on.ca/local/files/Communications/Current%20Issues/Pesticides/Final%20Paper%2023APR2004.pdf
[GMWATCH comment: We have long predicted that inevitable bans on garden chemicals will be followed by bans on agrochemicals. Such bans will, of course, spell the end of the current generation of GM crops, most of which are either engineered to withstand spraying of toxic pesticides or have had pesticides engineered into them!
The above study also means that the GM industry claim that GM crops allow reduced levels of pesticides must finally bite the dust. Even if this claim were true, which the available evidence says it isn't, the study warns us to avoid even low levels of pesticide exposure such as residues in food. So clearly the message is to go for organic food, which has never allowed synthetic pesticides.]
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JOKE OF THE WEEK
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+ BUSH EMBRACES FAIR TRADE AT LAST
President Bush gets off the helicopter in front of the White House carrying a baby pig under each arm. The Marine guard snaps to attention, salutes, and says: "Nice pigs, sir."
The President replies: "These are not pigs, these are authentic Texan Razorback Hogs. I got one for Vice-President Cheney, and I got one for Defence Secretary Rumsfeld."
The Marine again snaps to attention, salutes, and says, "Nice trade, sir."
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HEADLINES OF THE WEEK: from the GMWATCH archive
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10/6/2004 Anti-GM views growing in US
10/6/2004 Biotechnology as religion
10/6/2004 US-sponsored summit on GMOS for west African leaders / Workshop in Liberia
9/6/2004 Anti-biotech coalition lashes out at GMO crops
9/6/2004 Baby milk full of GMOs in Russia
9/6/2004 Biotech Demonstrators Denounce Police Behavior
9/6/2004 Courting biotech "is a bad-idea virus", says economist
9/6/2004 Foes of biotech convention block downtown streets
9/6/2004 Gaping holes in US regulation - Seeds of Doubt part 4
8/6/2004 Biotech industry funds bumper crop of UC Davis research
8/6/2004 GM industry's "disastrous domino effect" / Anti-GM campaign pledged to continue at South Asian farmers' leaders meeting / Science, hype, lollipops at BIO
8/6/2004 GM Salmon Muscle In on Wild Fish When Food Is Scarce
8/6/2004 Monsanto threatening farmers with jail? YOUR HELP NEEDED
8/6/2004 Pusztai on Dr Ian Gibson
8/6/2004 U.S. bioterrorism research leaps past defensive
8/6/2004 Use Of Bt As A Microbial Agent More Effective Than Transgene
7/6/2004 Africa compelled to adopt GM
7/6/2004 Gene Traders - New book edited by Brian Tokar
7/6/2004 Globe-trotting genes
7/6/2004 Mali's people reap no reward from biotech
6/6/2004 "Indian firebrand" battles biotech
6/6/2004 A Backgrounder on Dr. Traavik's Study
6/6/2004 GM Food Aid Controversy Erupts Again in Africa
6/6/2004 Monsanto - the real story - beyond all decency
6/6/2004 Monsanto's viable corporate ownership strategy
4/6/2004 THE WEEKLY WATCH NUMBER 75 - and monthly review
FOR THE COMPLETE GMWATCH ARCHIVE: http://www.gmwatch.org/archive.asp