from Claire Robinson, WEEKLY WATCH editor
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Dear all:
There's some dramatic evidence of the bursting of the biotech bubble this week. The supposed great success story of Bt cotton in China has been exposed as hype, by a Cornell study that shows the farmers are now using as much pesticide on Bt as they were on non-Bt cotton, as secondary pests take over. Yet the Bt seeds are three times more expensive... (ASIA)
Ventria Bioscience's experiments with its GM rice-derived medicine on Peruvian children are reported to have had a disastrous outcome, with at least two children developing severe allergies. And the rapid destruction of the South American rainforest for GM soy is having terrible environmental effects that could soon expand to involve the whole planet. And Ignacio Chapela notes how US military support for the GM soy expansion is adding deadly power to an already raging fire. (THE AMERICAS)
Claire This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
www.gmwatch.org / www.lobbywatch.org
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CONTENTS
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GM MEDICINES
THE AMERICAS
CAMPAIGNS
ASIA
EUROPE
AUSTRALASIA
WORLD BANK & TECH CHOICES
LOBBYWATCH
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GM MEDICINES
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+ INFANTS IN GM STUDY IN PERU DEVELOP SEVERE ALLERGIES
Two children have developed severe allergies after an experiment with Ventria Bioscience's transgenic serum intended to treat diarrhoea, according to an article in Peru's 'La Republica' . Fabrizio and Jordano are among 140 children in Peru who received a pharmaceutical extracted from GM rice that contains plant-human genes. The mothers are demanding that the ministry of health monitors the state of their children.
Said Diana Canessa Garay, mother of Fabrizio, "After they gave him the serum, my baby became sickly, delicate. Now he is allergic to everything, to chocolates, mandarins. I do not know what will happen to him later, the ministry of health must do a followup investigation of his health." Another young mother, Johana Sanchez Turreate, also fears for the life of her 3-year-old son Jordano, who also developed allergies after receiving the serum.
Garay said that when a nurse offered the treatment she did not explain that the rehydrating salt was of transgenic origin and that its sale is prohibited because it is still in experimental phase.
Flora Luna Gonzales, biologist, university professor and expert in transgenics, commented, "The long-term consequences can be many. The children who have consumed this serum can suffer diseases like Alzheimer's, because if the altered protein has a fault it can produce an amyloid [insoluble fibrous protein] substance that is deposited in the neurons and alters their function. The minister of Health lies when she assures us that these experiments with transgenic products will not bring future consequences to these defenceless children." English translation: http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6792
Spanish original: http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6790
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THE AMERICAS
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+ PARAGUAY: ROUNDUP READY MILITARY
The US military, under the excuse of fighting terrorism, is establishing bases and new collaborations with the Paraguayan military. Many are asking why.
EXCERPT from a commentary by Ignacio Chapela:
... internal military and paramilitary repression has found an immediate use in promoting the spread of GMO soy. Herbicide resistant transgenic soy has brought to this South American region a form of agriculture that is incompatible with campesino or indigenous ways of life. Instead of changing agriculture to fit people, the landscape is being cleansed through violence to make it fit mechanized, high-input, monoculture soybean production. National armies are now protecting GMO, export-oriented soybean plants against the diverse ecosystems of the region, but also against the citizens of those countries who insist on rejecting them. Infusing the CIA and the US military into this formula simply adds deadly power to an already raging fire. http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6794
A recent article in The Nation exposed how the US military is advising the Paraguayan police and military on how to deal with farmer groups who oppose the illegal take over of their lands for GM soya cultivation.
EXCERPTS: "The US troops talk with the farmers and get to know their leaders and which groups, organizations, are working there, then establish the plans and actions to control the farmer movement and advise the Paraguayan military and police on how to proceed...."
[US military instruction is being used to assist internal repression.]
"The most recent case of this violence is the death of Serapio Villasboa Cabrera, a member of the Paraguayan Campesino Movement, whose body was found full of knife wounds May 8. Cabrera was the brother of Petrona Villasboa, who was spearheading an investigation into the death of her son, who died from exposure to toxic chemicals used by transgenic soy producers. According to Servicio, Paz y Justicia (Serpaj), an international human rights group that has a chapter in Paraguay, one method used to force farmers off their land is to spray toxic pesticides around communities until sickness forces residents to leave." http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6794
+ ARGENTINA: SOYA-FICATION BRINGS ENVIRONMENTAL, ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL DEVASTATION
In a revealing article, agronomist and geneticist Alberto Lapolla explains how Roundup Ready GM soya makes possible the rapid expansion of soya farming into regions that have never been used for this type of agriculture before, leading to the takeover of enormous tracts of land, often by illegitimate and even violent means.
The results of this "soya-fication" have included:
***loss of food production and food security for Argentina; ***massive environmental contamination; ***escalating cancer rates; ***loss of labour : four of every five jobs disappear as an area is given over to soya monoculture; ***destruction of many small business that depend on growing plants or keeping bees, as the glyphosate spray kills everything; ***mass expulsion of people from the countryside. http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6793
+ KILLING THE FOREST
An article in The Independent explains the catastrophic effect that the "soya-fication" of previously forested land (see previous item) is having on the Amazon rainforest, with imminent and potentially terrible consequences for the earth as a whole.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6795
+ EUROPEAN RETAILERS PROMISE NON-AMAZON, NON-GM SOYA
Leading European supermarkets, food manufacturers and fast-food chains, including McDonald's, have pledged to ask their suppliers, including Cargill, to source non-GM, non-Amazon feed for poultry as from next harvest. http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6798
+ FDA SCIENTISTS TELL OF OUTSIDE PRESSURES
The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) has released survey results that demonstrate pervasive and dangerous political influence of science at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Of the 997 FDA scientists who responded to the survey, nearly one-fifth said that they "have been asked, for non-scientific reasons, to inappropriately exclude or alter technical information or their conclusions in a FDA scientific document." Forty percent of respondents fear retaliation for voicing safety concerns in public. This fear, scientists say, combines with other pressures to compromise the agency's ability to protect public health and safety. More than a third of the respondents did not feel they could express safety concerns even inside the agency.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6787
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CAMPAIGNS
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+ TELL BLAIR WHAT YOU THINK OF HIS GM PLANSThe big biotech companies still want to grow their crops in the UK. They are trying to sneak GM into our food and farming - by getting Blair's Government to legalise GM contamination of conventional and organic crops (see EUROPE for more on this)
The Government is now asking us what we think. Tell the Government to keep our food and farming GM free at: http://www.stopgmcontamination.org
+ DON'T FORGET PERU!
Ask President Toledo of Peru not to pass a "MONSANTO LAW" (legislation promoting GMOs) in Peru.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6780
+ MILLIONS AGAINST MONSANTO
The Organic Consumers Association (OCA) recently launched a grassroots campaign "to mobilize one million consumers to end Monsanto's global corporate terrorism." Sign the Millions Against Monsanto petition. http://www.organicconsumers.org/monlink.html
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ASIA
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+ CHINA: FARMERS USE AS MUCH PESTICIDE WITH GM CROPS, CORNELL STUDY FINDS
The Independent newspaper reports:
One of the major arguments in favour of growing GM crops has been undermined by a study showing that the benefits are short-lived because farmers quickly resort to spraying their fields with harmful pesticides.
... a detailed survey of 481 cotton growers in China found that, although they did use fewer pesticides in the first few years of adopting GM plants, after seven years they had to use just as much pesticide as they did with conventional crops.
The study found that after three years, the GM farmers had cut pesticide use by 70 per cent and were earning over a third more than conventional farmers.
But, by 2004, the GM cotton farmers were using just as much pesticide as their conventional counterparts and were spending far more because GM cotton seed is three times the price of conventional cotton seed.
The findings will undermine claims by the biotechnology industry that GM technology can boost food production without necessarily damaging the environment with pesticides. http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6811
+ GM WATCH COMMENTARY ON THE IMPLICATIONS OF THE CORNELL STUDY
China Hype - The "Miracle" That Died http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6806
+ CORNELL'S PRESS RELEASE ON THE STUDY
Chinese Farmers of Genetically Modified Cotton Are Losing Money
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6804
+ THE FULL CORNELL PAPER
Tarnishing Silver Bullets... http://www.grain.org/research/btcotton.cfm?links
+ INDIA: MORE ON BT COTTON INFESTED WITH UNUSUAL PEST
Recently we reported an agricultural scientist's finding that a new pest was devastating Bt cotton in Warangal, Adilabad and Nalgonda. Now the scientist, Abdul Qayum, formerly joint director of agriculture of the government of Andhra Pradesh, has written to the minister for agriculture of the government of Andhra Pradesh, asking him to investigate. http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6781
+ INDIA: FARMER SUICIDES HIT 10-YEAR HIGH
The suicide rate of farmers in India's poverty-stricken cotton belt in Maharashtra has hit a 10-year high, apparently prompted by disappointment at an aid package from prime minister Manmohan Singh.
More than 600 farmers in the area have killed themselves in the last 12 months, said Kishor Tiwari, of the Vidarbha People's Protest Forum. The majority of those who have died have been Bt cotton farmers. The high cost of the much-hyped Bt seed is seen as a critical factor in exacerbating cotton farmers' indebtedness.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6791
+ INDIA: WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE PM'S AID PACKAGE TO FARMERS
Indian journalist P. Sainath analyses the Indian central government's response to the appalling situation in the Vidharba region, and points out that amongst other things the package offers a bonanza for seed companies in its "seed replacement programme" - presumably the same seed companies that supplied the problematic Bt cottonseed in thefirst place! http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6791
+ BANGLADESH PUNTING BIOTECH
Bangladesh's daily newspaper New Age reports that prime minister Begum Khaleda Zia has recently presided over a meeting to approve the National Biotechnology Policy. But the drafting of the policy document was done secretively, the paper says, and without any consultation with people with concerns and expertise in the area, but only with the lobbyists and promoters of GM crops, from both transnational corporations and their local beneficiaries. http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6803
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EUROPE
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+ POLISH PARLIAMENT APPROVES BAN ON GM ANIMAL FEED
In recent years Cargill, Smithfield Foods, Danish Crown and other multinational companies operating in Poland have imported large quantities of GM soybeans from the US, Brazil and Argentina. On July 22, the Polish Parliament gave the companies two years to prove that use of GM animal feed is safe for humans, animals and the environment or face a total ban on further imports of GM feed into Poland.
This action, coming two months after passage of a bill that outlawed planting GM seeds in Poland, gives evidence that the governing party intends to carry out its campaign promise to make Poland GM-free. http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6802
+ GREENS URGE FINNIE TO PROTECT SCOTTISH FARMING AND CONSUMERS
Following the launch of the consultation on GM crops and "coexistence" in England and Wales (see CAMPAIGNS above), Green Members of the Scottish Parliament have reiterated their call for a robust and effective strategy in Scotland, including making GM companies liable for economic damage as a result of contamination caused by GM crop trials and any commercialisation. http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6797
+ IRISH FARMERS FEAR GM CROP CONTAMINATION
Irish farmers have urged the Irish government not to back Blair's "coexistence" plans, as they could end up contaminating Irish crops across the border. http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6797
+ WALES MUST DO BETTER THAN ENGLAND TO PROTECT FARMING
Friends of the Earth Cymru has slammed UK government plans to allow widespread GM contamination of agriculture in England and challenged the Welsh Assembly government to take action to protect farmers in Wales. http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6797
+ BLAIR'S LEGACY: A COUNTRYSIDE CONTAMINATED BY GM CROPS
Commenting on the government's proposals for GM contamination, Peter Melchett, Soil Association policy director said, "If the government sticks to this policy, part of the prime minister's legacy will be to leave a GM-contaminated country behind him. The prime minister is promoting a technology that is well past its sell-by date."
Melchett writes for The Guardian (EXCERPT):
Does this sound vaguely familiar? The prime minister has decided that the UK should side with President Bush and US interests on an issue that is deeply unpopular with the British people. He is out of step with most EU governments. However, he is sure that he is right, and that he understands Britain's long-term interests, and he has a higher duty to take this line. He seems to relish the fact that he faces strong public opposition. Since Tony Blair took this stand (in this case in 1999), none of the benefits he then confidently predicted have happened. In fact, many of the negative consequences predicted by his opponents have emerged.
Back in 1999, the Soil Association had a meeting with the prime minister... [at which he] insisted that GM food would become a major part of the British economy in a few years time... So he had a duty as prime minister to be in favour of it, even if the British people were against.
Since then, despite receiving huge amounts of public research funding, GM crops have contributed nothing to the UK economy. More and more scientific evidence of the risk to human health posed by genetic engineering has emerged.
Read the rest of this excellent article at http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6799
See CAMPAIGNS above for how to oppose Blair's plans.
+ MONOCLONAL ANTIBODIES IN MAIZE CROPS
The GM maize approved for open field trials in France produces monoclonal antbodies (mABs) to be used for clinical purposes, report Dr Maewan Ho, Prof Joe Cummins and Prof Peter Saunders. All mABs used for clinical purposes are associated with severe side effects. The GM drug trial in London that went catastrophically wrong also involved mABs. Yet GM crops with these drugs are being grown in open fields in secret locations and unsuspecting members of the public face being exposed to them without their knowledge or consent.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6812
PROTEST THESE PHARMA FIELD TRIALS http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6777
+ FRENCH COURT ORDERS GREENPEACE TO WITHDRAW GM MAP
A French court has ordered Greenpeace to withdraw from its website information pinpointing fields of GM maize, a move the environmental group called censorship.
Greenpeace said it would likely appeal the ruling. In the meantime, it has moved the maps to another website managed by Greenpeace International, and Greenpeace supporters also entered a field of GM maize, or corn, in southern France and carved a giant "crop circle" containing an "X" in the field.
Greenpeace pointed to an EU law dating from 2001, not yet adopted into French legislation, requiring the location of all GMO fields, including commercial growing, to be made public. http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6809
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6815
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AUSTRALASIA
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+ OZ CANOLA RECOVERY EXPOSES LOBBYISTS' LIES
GM firms and pro-GM lobbyists have been putting Australia's states and farming organisations under intense pressure to abandon their support for a moratorium on GM canola (rapeseed).
Only last week a pro-GM lobbyist claimed that GM "is a technology that we have to have to be able to compete on the world stage." Another well-known pro-GM lobbyist has been telling Australia's farmers that Australia is "being left behind in the GM gold rush."
Contrast this unsupported hype with what Richard Koch, the Managing Director of Profarmer newsletter, has to say about canola prices. Koch was asked to make predictions about crops and prices for Australia's current winter crop. He was generally pessimistic about prices and the season ahead but there was one notable exception where Australia's farmers are getting good prices - canola. Koch said, "Where Australia has been benefitting is that our rapeseed is GM-free, free of genetically modified organisms, so we have been their preferred supplier into that EU market for the past 18 months or so." That preference has allowed a major price recovery.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6801
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WORLD BANK AND TECHNOLOGICAL CHOICES
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+ THE WORLD BANK AGAINST BIOSECURITY
A good article by Silvia Ribeiro shows how the World Bank's true role is not to act as a financial institution but to frame countries' policies so as to prepare the way for private corporations to act later on in those countries.
EXCERPT:
... biosecurity projects ... under cover of training and "multi-sector" dialogue programs, in reality paved the way for biosecurity norms that favour the global interests of the handful of multinational GM businesses....
In Latin America's case, they seek to "train" the governments of Mexico, Brazil, Peru, Colombia and Costa Rica to manage GM contamination resulting from the introduction of GM maize, potato, yuca, rice and cotton and on the other hand to manage public opinion critical of GM techonology by means of cost-benefit analysis and standardization of what they call "adequate" scientific means of contamination management. In no part of the project do they allow that the best biosecurity to prevent contamination is not to allow GM crops at all, as millions of rural workers, indigenous people, environmentalists, consumers and responsible scientists demand in their countries. On the contrary, the basic assumption is that GM organisms either are already introduced or inevitably will be.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6796
+ WORLD BANK PROMOTING GM - SIERRA CLUB PROTESTS
The Sierra Club has written to Paul Wolfowitz, president of the World Bank, protesting the Bank's promotion of GM in the third world.
EXCERPT from Sierra Club's letter:
The Sierra Club ... is concerned about your involvement, together with the Global Environmental Facility, in biotech "harmonization" programs in Africa and Latin America. We believe these so called "capacity building" programs will be both bad for the environment and bad for economic development. We are asking you to reassess your involvement and, based on that reassessment, to remove your support from them...
Genetically engineered (GE) agriculture is an extension of industrialized agriculture which has been chiefly successful in allowing increased herbicide use (in the herbicide tolerant crops) or which incorporates pesticides within the crop. If anything is saved, it's human labor, which makes GE crops more suited to countries with higher labour costs and to export-oriented commodity farming.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6785
+ TECHNOLOGICAL CHOICES AND THE POOR
An article for SciDev.net Melissa Leach and Ian Scoones argue that policymakers should rethink their assumptions about what constitutes "sound science", a politically loaded term, in order to ensure that technological advances benefit the poor: "Global food safety standards, for example, are assessed in relation to chemical composition, regardless of social and ecological context, both of which are equally valid scientific considerations. Developing country agendas must be allowed a place at the standard-setting negotiation table."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6800
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LOBBYWATCH
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+ PRODUCE FROM ANIMALS FED GM FOODS IS SAFE, INDUSTRY MAN SAYS
"Meat, milk, and eggs produced by farm animals fed biotechnology-derived crops [GMOs] are as wholesome, safe and nutritious as similar products produced by animals fed conventional crops," says John Bonner, the executive vice-president of the Council for Agricultural Science and Technology (CAST).
Who is Bonner?
Earlier in his career he was employed by the International Minerals and Chemical Corporation and Bio-Zyme Enterprises, Inc.
Then for 15 years before heading up CAST, Bonner was employed by Land O'Lakes Inc., first as beef production manager and then as beef production and marketing manager. Most recently, he has served as Land O'Lakes training and marketing manager and eastern sales manager.
Land O'Lakes has developed Roundup Ready alfalfa, in collaboration with Monsanto.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6810
+ INDIA: BIG BUSINESS FOR LOBBYISTS
The US-India nukes deal has generated big business in the US, with lobbyists earning a fortune from prime minister Manmohan Singh's government and the Indian-American community to push the deal through Congress.
The US-India Business Council, which was formed in 1975 and consists of 180 companies, now describes itself as "the principal interlocutor for American industry operating in India." It includes the lobbyists Vickery International and Barbour Griffith; as well as Monsanto, now involved in the US-India agriculture initiative; Lockheed Martin, which is now vying for defence contracts with India; Wal-Mart, which is poised to enter the Indian agriculture sector along with Coca-Cola, IBM, Sony, Microsoft and a host of other multinationals.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6781