GMWatch News Review archive

from Claire Robinson, WEEKLY WATCH editor
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This week we are launching a special section on our website - *FOCUS ON ASIA* - dedicated to keeping you up to date with GM news, research and resistance on that continent.
http://www.gmwatch.org/p1temp.asp?pid=42&page=1
You'll also find a useful directory of GM pushers and shovers active in Asia, as well as links to the organisations leading the resistance. Please tell all your friends and contacts about it.

We've a fascinating 'compare and contrast' pair of stories. America's farmland, following the adoption of GM crops, is being strangled by herbicide resistant weeds (THE AMERICAS). Kenya, on the other hand, a country awash with GM lobbyists trying to take it down the GM route, has found a sustainable way of working with nature to simultaneously control the stemborer maize pest, keep down a noxious weed, and boost milk production - all without GM (FOCUS ON AFRICA). We can't help but be reminded that whereas fragmentary knowledge (such as GM) produces side-effects, holistic knowledge (sustainable ag) produces side-benefits.

Claire This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
www.lobbywatch.org / www.gmwatch.org

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CONTENTS
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FOCUS ON ASIA
FOCUS ON AFRICA
THE AMERICAS
AUSTRALIA
WTO
LOBBYWATCH
COMPANY NEWS
DONATIONS

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FOCUS ON ASIA
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+ INDIA'S GM GODFATHER KEY SPEAKER AT CONFERENCE
A profile of the Godfather of India's Green Revolution, M.S. Swaminathan, is at
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4179

Swaminathan is a key speaker at the 3-day International Conference which opened 6 August in New Delhi, India, called, "Agricultural Biotechnology: Ushering in the Second Green Revolution".

Swaminathan, India's premier Green Revolution scientist, has a talent for dressing up the industry lobby's agenda in the rhetoric of village India, women's empowerment, eco-tech etc., creating a facade of an unthreatening, ecologically and socially sensitive biotechnology 'domesticated' to local conditions.

But Swaminathan's promotion of a locally aware biotechnology remains open to question. His track record is hugely controversial. There are allegations of scientific fraud as well as scandals involving the suicide of scientists at the institute from which he launched the Green Revolution.

One eminent scientist wrote to us after reading our profile to say thay had concluded from personal experience that Swaminathan exemplified what is 'worst and most corrupt in science'. But, remarkably, all of this has been buried beneath a plethora of awards and honours that portray as a hero the man who presided over, and indiscriminately furthered, one of the ecologically most devastating technologies of modern times.

The real importance of Swaminathan's record is that it points to the errors India will repeat if it embarks on a Swaminathan-led "Second Green Revolution".
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4215

+ FAST-TRACK GM APPROVAL ARRIVES IN INDIA
India will put in place a single window regulatory body by January to consider permission for cultivation of GM crops in the country, according to the Minister of State for Science and Technology, Mr Kapil Sibal.

"We are evolving a simpler regulatory system to rapidly speed up the approval or rejection of technologies in order to bring in additional choices for farmers as soon as possible," he said, addressing the International Conference on "Agricultural biotechnology ushering in the second green revolution" in New Delhi.
(see item above).

He even suggested India might simply follow other countries' assessments of GM crops where they had already granted approvals.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4217
For more of the background to the conference see: India's GM godfather
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4215

+ NEW!! GM PROMOTERS IN ASIA
GM WATCH is launching its new resource, FOCUS ON ASIA: http://www.gmwatch.org/p1temp.asp?pid=42&page=1

FOCUS ON ASIA not only provides links to the latest news and to relevant reports, to country profiles and the groups resisting the promotion of GM. It also provides an A-Z directory to leading GM promoters in Asia.

Below is a selection from the directory. Links to detailed profiles can be found here:
http://www.gmwatch.org/p1temp.asp?pid=42&page=1
...
GM CROP PROMOTERS - AN A-Z [brief selection]

GM crop promoters in Asia, or claiming to speak for the people of Asia:

Asian Food Information Centre - AFIC
Singapore-registered body funded by 'food, beverage and agricultural industries' (includes biotechnology companies). Collaborates with ISAAA and CropLife Asia.

Asian Rice Biotechnology Network (ARBN)
Founded 1993 by International Rice Research Institute in Philippines to help develop and release GM rice across Asia.

Gerard Barry
Coordinator of GoldenRice Network at International Rice Research Institute (IRRI). Formerly with Monsanto where he helped exploit PR potential of Golden Rice and Monsanto's Rice Genome project.

CGIAR - Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research
Has 16 international agricultural research centers, including IRRI in the Philippines. Original remit was as a publicly funded research body but increasingly closely involved with private sector. In 2002 CGIAR appointed Syngenta Foundation to its board.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4213

Shetkari Sanghatana
Sharad Joshi's Shetkari Sanghtana is the remnant of a farmers' union from which the dominant group broke away to oppose GMOs and the WTO. Largely confined to the Indian state of Maharashtra. Like the Federation of Farmers Association in Andhra Pradesh, now represents large local landowners growing cash crops rather than India's many subsistence farmers.

+ FOCUS ON ASIA'S RESISTANCE: THE PHILIPPINES
(From GM WATCH's new *FOCUS on ASIA* resource:
http://www.gmwatch.org/p1temp.asp?pid=42&page=1 )

Excerpt:
Commercial approval for the cultivation of Monsanto's Bt corn was granted in December 2002 despite fierce opposition, including a protracted hunger strike, from farmers' organisations, environmentalists and sections of the Catholic Church. Subsequent concerns about a possible link of Bt-corn farming to outbreaks of illness in the Philippines have been the subject of scientific research.

Pressure to accept GM crop production has come not just from the biotech industry and its lobbyists, backed by the US, but also from the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) which is located in Los Banos, Laguna, about 60 kilometers south of the Philippine capital, Manila. Here Golden Rice is among the GM crops under development.

Find out more, including about those in the Philippines resisting GM.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4216

+ FOCUS ON ASIA'S RESISTANCE: JAPAN
(From GM WATCH's new *FOCUS on ASIA* resource:
http://www.gmwatch.org/p1temp.asp?pid=42&page=1)

Excerpts:
Since 1996 consumer resistance to GM has been growing in Japan, where millions of signatures have been gathered for petitions opposing GM food and crops. Following successful citizens' actions to halt GM rice trials, Japanese corporations have abandoned domestic GM rice research. Japanese resistance was also a critical element in Monsanto's decision to abandon plans to commercialise GM wheat worldwide. At the moment there is a focus on volunteer GM oilseed rape which is springing up around Japanese ports (see item below).

Find out more, including about those in Japan leading the resistance to GM.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4224

+ SERIOUS GM CANOLA POLLUTION AT JAPANESE PORT
Imported GM canola seeds have been spilled around Kashima port in Ibaraki prefecture, and GM canola pollution has been spreading. The Japan Wildlife Research Centre and others have established 13 checking points within a 5 kilometre radius of the port. The tests were conducted for 2 years at a total of 48 locations.

According to an investigation in February 2003, western oilseed rape was confirmed at 23 out of 48 locations. There was possible GM canola reseeding at 17 out of 23 confirmed locations.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4224

+ JAPANESE GENE BASHERS ATTACK PUBLIC NEGATIVITY OVER GM
In a letter to Nature Biotechnology, Japanese genetic engineers complain about "the impact of Japanese public resistance to plant genetic engineering on the actions of local and national government. We are concerned that negative public sentiment could translate into government actions that will compromise overall competitiveness and research and development capability in the plant sciences."

We have limited sympathy with scientists whose frame of reference is so narrow as to equate a single limited technology (GM) with the whole of plant science!
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4224

+ PAKISTAN WILL NOT ALLOW CULTIVATION OF MONSANTO BT COTTON
Pakistan will not allow the commercial cultivation of GM Bt cotton, developed in the US for resistance against bollworm. Instead, a source in the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock said, it will encourage the development of Bt cotton in the research institutions within Pakistan.

In Pakistan, the article says, the recently emerged Burewala strain of the cotton leaf curl virus (CLCV) is attributed to the unauthorized cultivation of imported Bt cotton by some growers, the source observed.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4219

+ THAI ACTIVISTS PROMPT GM PROBE
Greenpeace campaigners in Thailand recently revealed that GM papaya has been grown for at least 12 months on a farm in the province of Khon Kaen in a GM contamination scandal. It was grown from papaya seeds purchased from a Thai government research station in June 2003. Tests show the seeds they are selling have become contaminated - almost certainly by GM field trials carried out by the Thai government.

To see a map showing the spread of contamination in Thailand: http://weblog.greenpeace.org/ge/archives/Map-contamination.jpg

Now, Thailand's agriculture department has ordered a halt to the distribution of papaya seeds from its research station in Khon Kaen in an effort to disprove Greenpeace Southeast Asia's claims that GM papaya seeds slipped through to farmers. Chakan Saengraksawong, the director general of the department, said the halt would allow his department to investigate whether farmers possessed GM papaya seeds.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4211

+ NGOS THREATEN TO SUE THAI GOVT
A group of NGOs threatened to sue the Thai government if they failed to stop distribution of the contaminated seeds.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4211

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FOCUS ON AFRICA
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[see also LOBBYWATCH for "20,000 DEAD FROM GM FOOD AID REFUSAL"]

+ DON'T EMBRACE GM, GO FOR HOME-GROWN SOLUTIONS
An incisive article from Kenya contains an important truth - that governments and agencies who line up for GM crops are often not just in the business of appeasing the US and the biotech industry and their local supporters, they are also seeking cover for their chronic failure to deliver on vital food and agricultural issues.

Excerpt:
[President Mwai] Kibaki's contention that biotechnology "can help us increase food output" seems, on the surface, reasonable.

However, it is unclear how far the Kenya government had addressed other agricultural issues that have created food insecurity in the country.

Kenya's record of addressing the hunger problem through other means is, to say the least, poor. Past governments, and to some extent the current one, have shown little commitment to eradicating hunger in the country for good. Many are the instances when food has been used as political capital to buy off victims of hunger.

Kenya's budgetary allocations have always been highly tilted towards such non-productive ventures as administration and related services. Today, the Office of the President, with its multitude of departments, continues to get the lion's share of taxpayers' money. While there seems to be a rationale for this kind of expenditure, it leaves little for investment in ventures that could engender and promote agricultural production in real terms.

The government does not have a good record of investing in concrete projects in rural areas that would enhance food production, increase employment, raise household incomes and create sustainable food production.

And having adhered to the World Bank's push for structural adjustment programmes, the government kicked out a significant number of agricultural extension workers in a much-maligned retrenchment exercise it carried out two years ago. This has created a yawning gap in a country where extension services had influenced the pattern, scale and returns from agricultural activities.

Over the past couple of decades, grand corruption and sheer ineptitude have killed such irrigation schemes as Bura in the Coast province and Ahero in Nyanza, while the Mwea irrigation scheme in Central province has been plagued by serious conflict between the rice farmers and the National Irrigation Board over ownership of the irrigated land.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4220

+ BETTER SOLUTION THAN GM FOR KENYA
Resource-poor rural communities in Nyanza Province are using the "push-pull" programme to control the stemborer, which causes an estimated loss of 15 per cent of Kenya's maize and other cereals.

Push-pull is a repellent and attraction strategy that uses different plants for the management of cereal stemborers. The stemborers are repelled from the main plant (maize or sorghum) and are simultaneously attracted to a trap plant, usually napier or Sudan grass, where they go and lay their eggs.

But push-pull is not only about controlling stemborers only. It is also controlling Striga hermonthica - one of the most noxious weeds known in the world.

The programme was developed by the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (Icipe) at the University of Nairobi, which specializes in sustainable agriculture.

The push-pull system relies on a carefully selected combination of companion crops to be planted around and among the maize or sorghum plants for the manipulation of pests and their natural enemies. Icipe's Dr Zeyaur Khan says that both domestic and wild grasses, often ploughed under in modern single cropping practice, can help protect the cereals by attracting the stemborers.

The grasses are planted in a border round the maize or sorghum fields, where invading adult moths become attracted to chemicals emitted by the grasses themselves.

"Instead of landing on the maize plants, the insects head for what appears to be a tastier meal. The grasses thus provide the 'pull.' They also provide a haven for the borer's natural enemies, where they are devoured as they seek refuge," says Dr Khan. According to him, good trap crops include napier grass (Pennisetum purpureum) and Sudan grass (Sorghum vulgare sudanese), a type of wild sorghum.

The "push," which is the repellent effect, is provided by a nitrogen-fixing leguminous plant that also provides fodder for cattle, the desmodium (Desmodium uncinatum).

Dr Khan says that as they were working with "push-pull" to control stemborers, they noticed that where desmodium was planted, the maize fields had less striga germinating. Striga causes maize losses of between 50 and 80 per cent.

Dr Khan says that a ground cover of desmodium, interplanted among the maize, reduces striga growth by a factor of 40. The desmodium ground cover also reduces soil erosion, conserves water by acting as a mulch and provides fodder for cattle.

According to Dr Khan, more than 2,000 small-scale farmers covered by the Icipe programme have significantly increased their maize yields and milk production. "Fodder produced by the 'push-pull' farmers contributes to production of one million litres of milk annually," he says.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4226

GM WATCH NOTE: Dr Khan is collaborating in this project with Prof John Pickett of the UK's Rothamstead Research Station. It's nice to see Pickett doing something constructive - for more on his less constructive side, see
http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=102&page=P

+ AFRICANS WRESTLE WITH G(RI)M CHOICE
Monsanto-trained scientist Florence Wambugu hypes GM crops once more in an article for Scoop news service.

The article tells us: "Wambugu believes no Kenyan farmer - not even her own grandmother - would refuse GM seeds if they would bring higher yields." Wambugu neglects to mention that so far, as with her much hyped GM sweet potatoes that were supposed to more than double production, GM seeds have generally brought lower yields!

The article continues: "That doesn't mean GM is Africa's silver bullet. Providing loans to small farmers, fixing roads and creating regional markets for future surpluses are all vital to solving Kenya's food insecurity, she says. 'There is no one technology that will end hunger. I don't know why this argument is pushed in Africa.'"

Yet Wambugu has pushed that very argument - GM as the simplistic solution to all of Africa's woes -more than anyone.

She's claimed GM crops are 'the key to eradicating poverty and hunger in the Third World', saying that they 'could almost literally weed out poverty', and that they could take care of 'famine', and even that they could pull 'the African continent out of decades of economic and social despair'.

And now she tells us it's not a silver bullet and she doesn't know why people keep bringing that up!
For more on why Wambugu won her PANTS ON FIRE award:
http://www.gmwatch.org/p2temp2.asp?aid=59&page=1&op=2
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4218

+ LEARN HOW TO FARM - COURTESTY OF PIONEER HI-BRED AND AFRICA HARVEST
This summer two African agriculturalists are visiting Iowa for study experience to better understand corn production and modern agricultural practices. Upon their return they will share what they've learned to help subsistence farmers in some of the poorest nations in the world.

Rosa Seleke of Johannesburg, South Africa, and James Kamanga of Nairobi, Kenya, are spending two months in Iowa as part of an offer extended to them through biotech lobby group Africa Harvest, founded by Monsanto-trained Dr Florence Wambugu. Seleke and Kamanga are being hosted by Pioneer Hi-Bred International, Inc.

For more on Africa Harvest - "known globally as the voice of Africa in the debate surrounding biotechnology" - and its founder see:
http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=131&page=W
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4210

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THE AMERICAS
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+ ARGENTINA: SLASH AND BURN AG BREEDS HUNGER AND DEFORESTATION
A compelling article based on a Greenpeace report summarises the scandal of Argentina's disastrous experiment with GM soy, which has led to mass starvation and ecological devastation in spite of large exports.

Excerpt:
The rural poor lose an ecosystem which can provide them with numerous goods such as food, medicines, raw material for handicrafts or products that they can trade. Like the Green Revolution, Genetic Engineering has failed to feed the world. For the biotech industry, it has been always all about money.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4223

+ SURVEY REVEALS GM CONTAMINATION IN BRAZIL
Weaknesses in Brazilian soybean segregation were recently brought to light when the agriculture ministry released a report revealing that a high number of samples testing positive as biotech varieties came from farmers who were not supposed to be growing them. Survey findings were based on laboratory analyses of 7,374 samples taken in various growing regions of the country. Some 296 samples tested positive as biotech varieties, of which only 88 were from farms of registered biotech soybean growers. The remaining samples that tested positive were traced back to farmers who had not signed the biotech registry.

The report said farmer noncompliance with the biotech registry requirement makes it impossible to ensure that non-biotech soybean shipments will meet the strict transgenic content limitations of premium export markets such as the European Union.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4223

+ US PRODUCES BUMPER HARVEST OF HERBICIDE RESISTANT WEEDS
An interesting article from Delta Farm Press reports on how just a few years after its adoption of GM crops, North America has a serious problem with herbicide resistant weeds. A debate has sprung up about how to deal with them. Experts variously recommend mixtures of chemicals, or older, more toxic chemicals, or as yet undiscovered new chemicals. Some believe the weed plague may spell the end of so-called 'conservation tillage' or 'no-till'. This is a no-plough method which relies on burning off weeds with liberal amounts of herbicide, pushed by chemical/GM companies as a way of preventing soil erosion and, of course, selling more chemicals.

Note the Syngenta man's promise at the end that the company will deliver a chemical answer to the problem, at a not insignificant cost to the farmer!

Excerpt:
[Dan] Reynolds [professor of weed science at MSU] was not surprised the first cases of resistant horseweed were in Tennessee because of that area's wide spread adoption of conservation tillage. Glyphosate didn't kill it; producers weren't plowing; and at first, they weren't using a residual or herbicide combination that suppresses the horseweed.

"That started the resistance in the horseweed and from there it's gone through its own selection process," says Reynolds. "And, we are concerned other weeds will go through a similar selection process and our list of resistant weeds will grow."

Representatives of industry .. admitted research dollars were not heavily allocated for the development of new herbicides, but had shifted to other areas such as fungicides, insecticides and resistant variety development.
"Many of these concerns with resistant weeds are realistic," says Eric Palmer with Syngenta. "But with good product stewardship, we will have the products it takes to control these weeds. The question will be if the grower is willing to spend USD20 -25 an acre for that control."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4223

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AUSTRALIA
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+ WESTERN AUSTRALIAN GOVT BLOCKS GM COTTON
The Western Australian Government has blocked plans for a GM cotton industry in west Kimberley. New South Wales company Western Agricultural Industries has spent $7 million over the past six years developing plans to grow up to 200,000 hectares of commercial crops, using GM cotton as a base.

But following intense lobbying from Aboriginal and environmental groups, the State Government has decided not to extend its memorandum of understanding with the company.

The green group, Environs Kimberley, has led the fight to stop the development, arguing it would result in massive land clearing, excessive water use and the introduction of dangerous GMOs.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4225

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WTO
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+ GM AND FARM SUBSIDIES
The Saskatoon biotech community behind the ABIC2004 conference (12-15 Sept, Cologne, Germany) pushing GM for Europe argues that GM crops are a necessity for agricultural efficiency in Europe. They say now that the WTO has at last found its teeth and claims to be dismantling subsidies in developed countries, this move will result in "long-lasting implications for the future of AgBiotechnology".

That is because "AgBiotechnology... has been demonstrated in numerous studies to be the most efficient tool to streamline the efficiency of agricultural businesses", making it possible to remove subsidies from efficient farmers.

If this is so, we wonder why, since the introduction of GM crops into the US, farm subsidies have risen exponentially. These subsidies have, for instance, pushed down the price of cotton on the world market, leading to spiraling debt for farmers in West Africa and other developing countries who do not have the benefit of such subsidies. And all that for the sake of of America's "efficient" GM cotton farmers who apparently have no need of subsidies!
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4209

+ SUBSIDIES NOT BEING CUT
Trade analyst Devinder Sharma points out that claims by developed nations that the WTO is dismantling farm subsidies are untrue. "The devil is in the detail," he says. The 'reformed' framework is complicated (no doubt intentionally so) but appears to consist in redefining subsidies rather than removing them.

Devinder says, "The [new] framework actually provides a cushion to the US and the EU to raise farm subsidies. ... No wonder the so-called phase-out of subsidies has not snowballed into a political crisis in Europe."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4209

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LOBBYWATCH
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+ 20,000 DEAD FROM GM FOOD AID REFUSAL, CLAIMS CORPORATE LOBBYIST
Dr Roger Bate of the Institute of Economic Affairs has claimed in an article that perhaps as many as 20,000 Zambians have died from that country's refusal of GM food aid. He gives no evidence to support this claim, and neither have we seen any, despite our close coverage of this issue.

Bate in an article widely promoted on the internet (via Tech Central Station, the American Enterpise Institute, AgBioView, Agnet etc.) claims, "...aid workers were taking food away from the mouths of starving children. This was just one more example of the folly of the 'precautionary principle,' and how it is killing poor people in Africa."

Bate also claims - basing himself on, he says, GM proponent Per Pinstrup Andersen - that the US would have been equally happy to provide Zambia with non-GM grain in order to resolve the crisis. In reality, of course, the US insisted for a long time that it would only provide aid to Zambia if Zambia's decision not to accept GM food aid were reversed. In the words of a US state department official at the time, "Beggars can't be choosers". (http://ngin.tripod.com/forcefeed.htm)
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4214

Bate is a visiting fellow of the American Enterprise Institute and the former executive director of the European Science and Environment Forum (ESEF) which he co-founded in 1994 with undisclosed Big Tobacco money. ESEF has campaigned vigorously against restrictions on smoking. Bate also connects to Africa Fighting Malaria, amongst several other dubious lobby groups.
More on Bate: http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=18&page=B

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COMPANY NEWS
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+ TEFLON TROUBLE STICKING TO DUPONT
"Our story is not a good one" - John Bowman, DuPont's lawyer

The US Environmental Protection Agency filed a complaint last month charging chemical/biotech giant DuPont with withholding evidence of its own health and environmental concerns about an important chemical used to manufacture Teflon. That would be a violation of US federal environmental law, compounded by the possibility that DuPont covered up the evidence for two decades.

Teflon has been hugely successful for DuPont, which over the last half-century has made the material almost ubiquitous, putting it not just on frying pans but also on 'stain resistant' carpets, fast-food packaging, clothing, eyeglasses and electrical wires - even the fabric roofs covering football stadiums.

Now DuPont has to worry that Teflon and the materials used to make it have become too ubiquitous. Teflon constituents have found their way into rivers, soil, wild animals and humans, according to government environmental officials and others. Evidence suggests that some of the materials, known to cause cancer and other problems in animals, may be making people sick.

While it remains one of the company's most valuable assets, Teflon has also become a potentially huge liability for DuPont, the second-biggest US chemical maker, which operates in more than 70 countries and sells products from electronics to clothing.

The suspect chemical - which is more commonly known as PFOA, has turned up in the blood of more than 90 per cent of Americans...

The company acknowledges that fumes from Teflon pans subjected to high heat can release gases which can kill pet birds and cause a flu-like condition in humans known as polymer fume fever. PFOA is known to cause cancer in some animals, and has been linked to liver damage in animals. Effects on humans have been little studied.

A class-action lawsuit filed in Wood County, home of the Washington Works plant where DuPont has made Teflon for decades, has turned up a series of documents that DuPont had sought to shield as proprietary information. The latest came to light in May, when the West Virginia Supreme Court voted unanimously to unseal several DuPont memorandums from 2000 in which John Bowman, a company lawyer, warned two of his superiors - Thomas Sager, a vice-president and assistant general counsel, and Martha Rees, an associate general counsel - that the company would "spend millions to defend these lawsuits and have the additional threat of punitive damages hanging over our head."

He added that other companies that had polluted drinking water supplies near their factories had warned him that it was cheaper and easier to replace those supplies and settle claims than to try to fight them in court. And those companies, he noted, had spilled chemicals that did not persist in the environment the way that PFOA does.

"Our story is not a good one," he wrote in one memo. "We continue to increase our emissions into the river despite internal commitments to reduce or eliminate the release of this chemical into the community and environment because of our concern about the biopersistence of this chemical."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4212

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