from Claire Robinson, WEEKLY WATCH editor
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Dear all
This week's theme is coexistence of GM with non-GM crops, otherwise known as GM contamination of non-GM crops, depending on which side of the fence you stand on.
Coexistence is the industry's new buzzword in its attempts to foist GM crops on the world. It usually appears with such democratic-sounding terms as "farmer choice" and "consumer choice", ignoring the fact that the overwhelming majority of people who don't want to eat GM foods will be deprived of the ability to choose if GM cultivation is allowed.
Our ASIA section this week shows how coexistence is being promoted as the way forward for India's agriculture. It's implied that segregation is not only possible but relatively easy.
Yet findings from the recently completed UK's 'BRIGHT' research project (in spite of the positive spin that's being put on it) point to problems with gene flow between different GM crops, and between GM and non-GM crops, meaning that segregation is not possible (see EUROPE).
This would seem to be confirmed by developments in the USA, where seed companies and the University of California mistakenly supplied GM tomato and grass seeds to scientists around the world wanting non-GM seeds (see THE AMERICAS).
If coexistence and segregation were as easy as the industry wants us to think, why is it complaining so loudly about the strict new law just passed in Germany making GM growers liable for GM contamination?
"This law is going to have dramatic consequences," says one industry body executive. "Planting GM crops in Germany is now an economic risk. Simply an economic risk."
It always was, but in Germany it will be a direct risk to the perpetrators and boy, are they bellyaching!
In contrast, here's the kind of thing they're keen to tell us when they don't have to put their money where their mouth is: "OK, we know that cross-pollination will occur but we've got thirty years of experience to say we know how far pollen will travel. And therefore what we've done is we'll grow a GM crop at a distance away from a non-GM crop, so the people that want non-GM can buy non-GM, and the people that want GM can buy GM. The two will not get mixed up. Everybody will have the right to choose." http://www.gmwatch.org/p2temp2.asp?aid=23&page=1&op=2
Don't miss two important stories on the abysmal record of the US FDA, which is supposed to regulate GM foods, in overlooking dangers to the public from dangerous and experimental drugs. In the land of the free, it seems that "lethal" drugs are being forcibly given to children without parents' consent (see 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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SICK JOKES OF THE WEEK
EUROPE
ASIA
AFRICA
THE AMERICAS - REGULATORY BREAKDOWN
COMPANY NEWS
LOBBYWATCH
FOOD AID
CATHOLIC CHURCH LATEST
GENETICS THEORY
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
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SICK JOKES OF THE WEEK
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+ SICK JOKE OF THE WEEK No. 1:
South Australia's Agricultural Minister claimed this week that the biggest danger arising from GM crop trials is the terrible risk of non-GM contamination! He told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, "The biggest risk to people like Bayer CropScience would be cross contamination the other way - imagine one of their crops has been cross contaminated by pollination and the genetic material put at risk, these companies are not going to expose these significant investments to any contamination"!
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4687
+ SICK JOKE No. 2 - SUPPORT THE GREAT DECEIVER!
CS Prakash and his AgBioView campaign appear to be astroturfing GM Watch's current financial appeal!! "The AgBioWorld Foundation needs support from its AgBioView readers," Prakash claims. Of course, Prakash &Co. may be genuinely short of cash but given that our research has exposed the extraordinary level of support that they've previously enjoyed from Monsanto's PR operatives, it's rather hard to credit!!
For more on this, see our Pants on Fire Award: CS Prakash - THE GREAT DECEIVER: http://www.gmwatch.org/p2temp2.asp?aid=55&page=1&op=2
Excerpt: "CS Prakash speaks Monsanto's script just as readily as Monsanto's own fake persona. He is the mannequin in Monsanto's virtual shopwindow and one who seems prepared to go anywhere and say or do almost anything to promote the interests of the US biotech industry."
If you'd like to oppose what AgBiasedView do, please support THE REAL DEAL - the GM WATCH APPEAL! Details of how to:
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4618
And many thanks to those of you who've already donated. This bulletin would not be here without your support.
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EUROPE
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+ SYNGENTA PULLS GM OUT OF EUROPE! - LOOKING MORE TO CONVENTIONAL BREEDING
Syngenta, the world biggest agrochemicals group based in Basel, Switzerland, has halted all its European field trials of GM plants and seed material varieties.
Syngenta's research director David Lawrence claimed that Syngenta had no intention of quitting genetic engineering altogether. But the group had placed all its projects on ice in Europe because of public resistance, high authorization hurdles and the lack of market opportunities. The entire biotech research function is being transferred to the USA.
Syngenta has now followed in the footsteps of Monsanto, Du Pont and Bayer Crop Science which have all abandoned their biotechnology activities in England. Not one field trial has been registered in Great Britain this year and Germany is well on the way to finding itself in a similar situation. In Germany, the European Commission still reports five field tests planned by various companies and research establishments. The largest number of field trials is scheduled in Spain. Applications for nine projects are still pending in that country.
Syngenta's research director, David Lawrence, pointed out that Syngenta had often found conventional methods to be more effective than GM. "We have conducted many genetic engineering experiments for seed materials and plant protection and they have often failed." On the other hand, excellent results had frequently been achieved with the traditional approach to plant growing.
A new picnic-sized conventionally bred melon, with a market launch in Europe scheduled for 2005 and the already on sale in the USA, "points the way in which the business is thinking".
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4680
+ EUROPE VOTES TO KEEP GM CROP BANS
Europe's member states voted on 29 November against proposals to overturn the bans of GM crops in five countries. The pro-GM position of the European Commission, who tabled the vote, has been described by Friends of the Earth as "deeply unpopular and clearly undemocratic".
Each of the Commission's proposals, calling on countries to repeal their bans within 20 days, failed to get the required "qualified majority" of 232 votes out of 321. For some of the bans the Commission narrowly escaped a qualified majority against them. The proposals will now go to a Council of Ministers meeting in the new year.
The Commission's proposals are seen as a direct result of the trade dispute in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) started last year by the US, Argentina and Canada. The three countries claim that Europe's precautionary stance on GM food, including the national bans, are a barrier to free trade and harm their farmers. The WTO has set up a 3-person panel which is currently meeting in secret to judge the case. A final verdict is expected next year.
Adrian Bebb, GMO campaigner of Friends of the Earth Europe said: "European countries should be congratulated for not supporting these outrageous proposals. The European Commission only survived today by a handful of votes. Their position on genetically modified foods is deeply unpopular and clearly undemocratic. This should serve as wake-up call for them to start fighting for the right of countries to ban genetically modified foods instead of caving in to the pressure of the World Trade Organisation and the Bush Administration."
A full briefing from Friends of the Earth on the national bans can be found at:
http://www.foeeurope.org/biteback/download/national_bans_briefing_Oct2004.pdf
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4674
+ EU'S FOOD SAFETY AUTHORITY ACCUSED OF INDUSTRY BIAS
A new report published 29 November by Friends of the Earth heavily criticises the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) for its constant position in favour of the biotechnology industry. The advice from EFSA is used by the European Commission to justify the approval of new GM foods and also the lifting of the national bans (see previous item).
The Friends of the Earth report, "Throwing Caution to the Wind", is the first ever critique of the EFSA and its work on GM foods. Earlier this year, the European Commission started using the EFSA scientific opinions as a basis to licence new GM foods. The report highlights the body's industry bias, and points out that:
*Virtually all of the 12 EFSA opinions on GMOS produced so far have been favourable to the biotechnology industry.
*Some of the scientists on the panel have involvements with the biotech industry, eg appearing on promotional videos for the industry
*During its consideration of the use of antibiotic resistance marker genes, the EFSA went beyond considering just the health and environmental risks, and decided to examine the economic value of using these genes for industry.
The FoE report recommends:
*Replacing pro-GM members of the EFSA GMO Scientific Panel, including the Chair
*A review by an independent panel of all the EFSA GM opinions
*The application of EU law to ensure long-term tests are done, the level of scientific uncertainty is highlighted and that the EFSA works with member states to overcome their differences of opinion.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4669
The report can be found at:
www.foeeurope.org/press/2004/AB_29_Nov_EFSA.htm
Excerpts are at
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4670
They include the following:
THE EFSA GMO PANEL SCIENTISTS
Members of the EFSA GMO Panel have to declare any direct or indirect financial interests they have. While most of the Panellists have not declared financial links with the biotechnology industry one scientist, Mike Gasson, has declared direct links.
He is a consultant to Danisco Venture - a venture capital company that invests in biotechnology companies. It is also part of Danisco, which together with Monsanto wants to market GM fodder beet in the EU. He also has shares in Novacta - a pharmaceutical and biotechnology company.
Friends of the Earth Europe questions whether scientists who are also employed by biotech companies should be participating in the decisions being made about GM foods. Other scientists have declared that they have indirect links with the biotech industry. For example, Pere Puigdomenech works at an institute which also does research for biotechnology companies. He is also Co-chair of the 7th International Congress on Plant Molecular Biology - an event sponsored by companies such as Monsanto, Bayer and DuPont.
Worryingly, either some Panellists are not completing their declarations fully or the EFSA website is not fully updated. For example, Hans-Jorg Buhk was also on the steering committee of the Agriculture Biotechnology International Conference that took place in Germany recently. This high-profile pro-GM conference "Europe's most important date for AgBiotech in 2004" was sponsored by companies including Bayer, KWS, DuPont and BASF. There is no mention of this role in Buhk's declaration of interest. Friends of the Earth Europe believes that members of such an influential scientific panel should have no involvements that could give no rise to any suspicion of bias.
Furthermore, the two German scientists, Hans-Jorg Buhk and Detlef Bartsch, are well known for their pro-GM views and have even appeared in promotional videos produced by the biotechnology industry6 (a suspicion of bias is therefore likely to arise). Friends of the Earth Europe questions whether people who have publicly promoted GM crops in this way should be playing a key role in the approval of GM foods. Friends of the Earth Europe also has two other areas of concern about the membership of the GMO Panel.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4670
For an updated profile of Mike Gasson, the man who heads the UK's expert advisory committee on GM food safety as well as being a member of the European Food Safety Authority's GMO Panel, see
http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=176
+ UK STUDY SHOWS PROBLEMS WITH GROWING GM CROPS
The results of the UK's BRIGHT ("Botanical and Rotational Implications of Genetically Modified Herbicide Tolerance") project are being spun in a pro-GM direction. As the BBC report has it,
"A new UK study of a number of specific GM crops has found no evidence that they are more harmful to the environment than conventional varieties.
"The BRIGHT Link project studied sugar beet and winter oil-seed rape which had been engineered to make them tolerant of specific herbicides. This modification allowed them to be sprayed and still prosper while all the weeds around them died.
"The novel crops were grown in rotation with non-GM cereals, and compared with similar rotations involving non-GM beet and rape. The project concluded that the GM varieties used in this way did not deplete the soil of weed seeds needed by many birds and other wildlife."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4672
However, it is clear from this same BBC report that the study raised some important problem issues.
In fact, as early as 2000 the BRIGHT Project confirmed that gene-flow was occurring between different herbicide tolerant (HT) oilseed rape (OSR) crops in its field trials, creating unintended multiple herbicide tolerance: "There was some hybridisation between adjacent plots of different HT rape varieties...", the 2000 report noted.
The report, then as now, tried to play down the significance of the discovery but, as land agent Mark Griffiths pointed out at the time, a number of important points arose, including:
*Multiple herbicide tolerance is being unintentionally created within individual plants.
*Because shed oilseed rape seed can remain dormant in the ground for several years farmers are clearly going to have problems further down the line with this situation. This is likely to happen, for example, when spraying stubbles later in the rotation which have freshly germinated OSR seeds in them.
*How are farmers going to know which herbicides to use in these cases several years later on? Stubbles are often 'cleaned' using the very types of 'total' herbicides that these genes provide tolerance to...
*These findings are unlikely to be a short term 'marginal' issue as similar problems are already cropping up in Canada on a wider scale after several years of commercial canola (oilseed rape) cropping. The problem is sufficiently severe that it has necessitated the introduction of a complex management plan to attempt to deal with the issue...
*The introduction to this latest BRIGHT report acknowledges that in this type of scenario: "Land could become infested with herbicide tolerant weeds and volunteers to the extent that GM crops could no longer be exploited and conventional crop management would need to be modified."
*This may not be a problem just for those farmers who plant GM herbicide tolerant crops, but also for neighbours where pollination or other forms of transmission (e.g. via vehicles or animals) spreads genetic material across farm boundaries. In this way one farmer can end up making herbicides on another's farm ineffective. This type of situation is already leading to litigation in Canada (see: http://www.netlink.de/gen/Zeitung/1999/991224.htm
http://www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex/Documents/UKOSRHTGMgene-flow.htm )
Four years later, the report authors have been unable to avoid acknowledging some of these problems, although the focus is primarily on the problems arising from the recurrent use of the same herbicide.
Note that the report's emphasis on the importance of proper "field management" of GM crops conveniently places blame for GM crop failures on the farmer for "bad management" - a strategy often used by the industry in the US to explain away problems with GM soy.
The following are excerpts from the BBC piece:
"BRIGHT did show some potential problems with cross-breeding between herbicide-tolerant varieties of rape, producing seeds immune to more than one herbicide.
"We did create a stock of oil-seed rape seeds in the soil following the growing of GM crops," said Dr Peter Lutman, from Rothamsted Research, one of the agricultural centres that took part in BRIGHT.
"And that seed bank, although it declines quite rapidly, does stay in the field for a number of years; so there is a question about how soon you could grow a non-GM crop in the same field and not have a problem arising from the GM plants from the previous crop."
Dr Lutman believes there could be further problems if, in the future, GM beet and rape were grown in rotation with cereals which were also genetically modified to be tolerant to the same herbicide.
"My experience of managing weeds over many years is that if you use the same herbicide year on year on year on year, then you will build up problems. Indeed there are problems arising in North America where people are growing Roundup-Ready soya and Roundup-Ready corn in the same rotations. And I would think one would need to look very hard about how one managed a rotation of GM crops."
Full BBC report is at http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4672
+ CAMPAIGNERS DISMISS "SAFE GM" REPORT
Environmental organisations reacted angrily to claims that the BRIGHT research (see previous item) presented no evidence that GM crops harm the environment.
Friends of the Earth's Emily Diamand said the results appeared to confirm fears that if released commercially GM crops would be difficult to control and would cross-pollinate with non-GM crops, which would pose a "real threat" of contamination for conventional varieties.
Greenpeace also criticised the findings of the BRIGHT project companies.
"Much more extensive trials have shown these GM crops are bad for UK wildlife and no amount of small-scale tests are going to change the fact that, in the real world, GM crop contamination is inevitable," Doug Parr, the organisation's chief scientist, said.
"It's virtually impossible for farmers in Canada to grow organic oilseed rape because of contamination, while in the USA GM crops have seen farmers spraying more herbicides on GM herbicide-tolerant crops even though the first claims were that there would be less. Consumers don't want GM crops and the environment certainly doesn't need them. It's time this ailing industry was put to bed."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4677
+ NEW GERMAN LAW WILL HELP KEEP EUROPE GM FREE
Friends of the Earth Europe has welcomed the adoption by the German Parliament of a new law that makes GM farmers and GM operators financially liable for economic damage caused if their crops contaminate non-GM products.
The most important provisions of the law are:
* In case of economic damage (e.g. when organic or conventional farmers cannot sell their products due to the presence of GM material), the neighbouring farmers growing GM crops are liable.
* If it is not clear which farmer has caused the contamination the principle of joint liability of all neighbouring GMO farmers will apply. That means a farmer who has sustained damage will be free to decide which neighbour to claim compensation from.
* A register with precise information about where GM crops are to be released will be publicly available.
Friends of the Earth believe that these provisions will give GM farmers and GM operators a strong incentive not to contaminate neighbouring fields, thus helping to ensure freedom of choice for the overwhelming majority of German and EU consumers that do not want to eat GM foods.
Nevertheless, the German law contains loopholes and could still be improved. Most importantly, the law hardly covers damage to the environment as a result of GM crops.
Friends of the Earth is concerned that the European Commission might want to overrule the German law by taking Germany to the European Court of Justice. In a leaked document (available from Friends of the Earth) from July 2004 the Commission already hinted in this direction.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4663
+ GM LAW "A BLOW FOR SCIENCE" - BIOTECH SECTOR
The final passage of a highly restrictive GM crops law (see previous item) is being hailed as a major victory by German agriculture minister Renate KŸnast, but the biotech sector sees the new legislation as a blow to German science and industry.
Among the most controversial aspects of the new law are clauses holding planters of GM crops liable for economic damages to adjacent non-GM fields even if they followed planting instructions and other regulations. Opponents say this will create a financial risk some German universities, research organizations, and companies will not take.
Mark Stitt, managing director at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology, said: "... now, research will be leaving Germany. Firms will be leaving Germany."
Jens A. Katzek, chief executive officer of BIO Mitteldeutschland GmbH, which promotes the biotechnological industry in central Germany, said that any farmer, researcher, firm, or organization considering planting GM crops now must decide whether to risk the possible economic consequences. "This law is going to have dramatic consequences," Katzek said. "Planting GM crops in Germany is now an economic risk. Simply an economic risk."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4684
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ASIA
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+ JAPAN: FIERCE OPPOSITION TO GM FROM CONSUMERS AND FARMERS
Fierce opposition from "concerned consumers and angry local farmers", as well as the governor of Hokkaido, has helped stop a Japanese farmer from planting GM soybeans. According to one article, this farmer believes that GM will give him 300-400% yield increases!
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4679
+ IS COEXISTENCE POSSIBLE IN INDIA?
Amidst a flurry of industry-sponsored studies proclaiming that coexistence is not just possible but relatively easy, an incisive new article examines the problems raised by coexistence in a country like India.
The article is taken from the latest book from Gene Campaign, "Relevance of GM Technology to Indian Agriculture and Food Security", edited by Suman Sahai. You can find out more about the book on Gene Campaign's website: www.genecampaign.org
After examining in detail whether coexistence is a feasible agricultural model in India, its conclusion, which has great relevance for other developing countries, is that for developing countries like India the operational costs of achieving coexistence could be "so significant as to actually put the food supply into jeopardy were it to be implemented. In other words, coexistence cannot be implemented in India."
This is an excellent article that is well worth reading in full:
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4666)
+ INDIAN GOVT TAKING THE WRONG PATH WITH GM - IMPORTANT ARTICLE
An important new article by Kasturi Das, researcher at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning (CESP), Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), India looks at how the Indian government is planning to promote GM crops. The article has been published by GM Watch.
http://www.gmwatch.org/p1temp.asp?pid=54&page=1
Das notes that a panel has been set up to formulate a National Biotechnology Policy and to put in place a single window system of clearance for transgenic products by January 2005, so as to ensure a speedy approval of GM crops.
The panel is likely to draw on the Report of the Task Force on Application of Biotechnology in Agriculture. The Task force was headed by the agricultural scientist Dr MS Swaminathan, who is also a member of the new government panel. However, Das warns that the recommendations of the Swaminathan Task Force contain glaring flaws and contradictions. Das examines these in detail.
She notes that the Task Force Report asserts, "The bottom line of our national agricultural biotechnology policy should be the economic well being of farm families, food security of the nation, health security of the consumer, protection of the environment and the security of our national and international trade in farm commodities".
Das warns that the proclaimed commitment towards these objectives is mere rhetoric. The actual aim is to facilitate the promotion of GM crops in the country by putting in place a regulatory and policy regime that will ensure speedy and hassle-free approval for the commercial cultivation of transgenic crops in India.
What is all the more perplexing, she says, is that in order to create enough justification for its evidently pro-GM prescriptions, the Task Force relentlessly attempts to project transgenic crops as the most appropriate means to achieve the above mentioned goals. However, to date there is no concrete and conclusive evidence to show GM can fulfil any of these targets.
On the contrary, there is plenty of evidence that indicates the potential regressive impact of genetic engineering in all these respects. And Das details how heading down the GM route threatens India's food security, its remarkable biodiversity, the enormous potential of its organic sectore, the economic well being of farm families, the health of consumers, and India's national and international trade in farm commodities.
Excerpts from the article are at
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4681
Full text and references:
http://www.gmwatch.org/p1temp.asp?pid=54&page= 1
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AFRICA
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+ SOUTH AFRICA TOLD DELEGATES TO OPPOSE IUCN ON GMOs
South Africa's government gave "strict instructions" to its delegates not to support the call made by the World Conservation Union (IUCN) for the halting of further releases of GMOs.
Critics said the government's stance indicated the extent to which it "kowtowed" to multinational biotechnology corporations while ignoring the negative impact of GMOs.
Explaining why South Africa had voted against the GMO moratorium, Chippy Olver, director-general of the Department of Environment Affairs and Tourism, said: "The government could not support the call because it was not properly phrased or thought through. We want the IUCN to focus on building up a scientific base. Making rash calls like this undermines the IUCN's credibility."
The IUCN, one of the world's biggest conservation organisations, resolved at its recent congress in Bangkok that there should be no further releases of GMOs until it had been proved they were safe for humans and the environment. The resolution was supported by 84 votes by world governments and opposed by 48.
Mariam Mayet of the African Centre for Biosafety said: "The government has bought into a lie. It must be accountable to the people and tell us exactly what it is up to. It appears it is assisting the agenda of the biotechnology corporates."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4673
+ AFRICA DOESN'T NEED A SECOND "GREEN REVOLUTION"
Friends of the Earth International's comments on the UN's Millennium Project Draft Global Plan of Action are at http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4662
The comments criticize the Millennium Project papers, which call for a new "African 21st Century Green Revolution" and the use of GM crops as a key mechanism to erradicate hunger, poverty and malnutrition.
EXCERPT from FoE's comments:
Throughout the draft action plan, the "need" for a green revolution for Africa is constantly repeated, yet this is in opposition to key findings, such as the ones from the InterAcademy Council report "Realizing the Promise and Potential of African Agriculture", published in July 2004 and about which Kofi Annan made his recommendations. In fact, the IAC report did not recommend a new Green Revolution, but what it termed "rainbow evolutions" - in other words, bottom up, location and farming system specific developments, rather than a simple, technology based approach applied uniformly across the continent, as is implied by the action plan.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4662
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THE AMERICAS - REGULATORY BREAKDOWN
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+ CONTAMINATION SCANDAL - SERIOUS COMPLIANCE VIOLATIONS GET SLAP ON WRIST
Two mix-ups involving GM seeds ended with modest fines for two companies and no fault for the University of California, Davis. Oxnard-based Seminis Inc., the world's largest fruit and vegetable seed company, and The Scotts Co. of Marysville, Ohio, a grass seed giant, are on the hook for penalties totaling $5,625 for violations of rules set to contain biotech genes.
The Sacramento Bee reports that the fines are toward the low end of the scale for the US Dept of Agriculture, which oversees biotech crop field tests and movement of plants between states. In 2002, for instance, the USDA fined Texas-based ProdiGene Inc. $250,000 after federal inspectors found biotech corn that had been engineered to produce a pharmaceutical compound growing among Nebraska soybeans.
The USDA's most recent penalties indicate a much lower level of agency concern, although it's admitted that the incidents do illustrate the difficulty of containing GM plants.
Norman Ellstrand, a genetics professor at the University of California, Riverside, said the EPA's report raises questions about whether Scotts followed rules to contain grass pollen. "It seems to me that there is a serious compliance violation," he said.
Joseph Mendelson, legal director of the consumer watchdog group Center for Food Safety in Washington, D.C., said, "It's good that (USDA is) actually doing some investigations," he said. "But is it window dressing when a company like Scotts gets ... slapped on the wrist and essentially rewarded for their bad actions?"
Seminis was fined $2,500 for shipping biotech tomato seeds to UC Davis without properly identifying the seeds. Davis researchers, unaware that the seeds were GM, shipped them to scientists around the world who had requested conventional seeds. Last December, embarrassed university officials said the mistake had been going on for seven years.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4683
+ FDA UNDER PRESSURE TO REFORM AFTER DRUG IS WITHDRAWN
The following story lays bare the corruption of the agency responsible for GM crop/food approval. As the scientist who forwarded this article to GM Watch commented, "This is what you get when industry pulls all the strings in Washington!"
He also noted, "It is also interesting that The Lancet is yet again at the centre of another scientific publication scandal; remember it was its editor Richard Horton who was threatened with having to face the 'consequences' if he chose to publish Arpad Pusztai's and Stan Ewen's paper." Their paper, which exposed the damaging health effects of a GM food, was published after successful peer review despite the campaign to suppress the findings.
Here's the article:
Amid claims that it suppressed publication of a study into the safety of a painkiller, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is under increasing pressure to reform the way in which it monitors approved drugs.
Vioxx, a prescription painkiller made by New Jersey-based Merck, was withdrawn by the company on 30 September after a study it had commissioned linked the drug to an increased risk of heart attacks.
But the FDA - the world's largest drug regulator - is facing detailed allegations that it pressed one of its top drug-safety officials to withdraw a paper on Vioxx from publication in The Lancet. The study, led by David Graham, associate director for science at the FDA's Office of Drug Safety, also linked the drug to heart attacks. Graham estimates that Vioxx has been responsible for several thousand deaths since it was approved in 1999.
On 18 November, Graham, a 20-year FDA veteran, vaulted into the national spotlight when he testified at a Senate hearing on Vioxx that the agency was "broken". The hearing raised questions about why the FDA waited for Merck to take action, when Graham's preliminary data earlier in the year had suggested that the drug should be withdrawn.
Now the agency is under attack for suppressing Graham's Vioxx paper, which he hoped to publish at the time of the hearing. According to extracts from e-mails printed in USA Today on 29 November, Steven Galson, acting director of the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, contacted editors at The Lancet and made reference to an internal FDA report that contained allegations that Graham might have manipulated data in his study.
Richard Horton, The Lancet's editor, reacted with irritation. "One could read such an allegation as an attempt to introduce doubt into our minds about the honesty of the authors," he wrote, "doubt that might be sufficient to delay or stop publication of research that was clearly of serious public interest."
The FDA said in a statement that Graham had submitted the paper "without going through the long-established peer review and clearance process established for scientific papers submitted by FDA scientists".
Graham says that the charges of data manipulation arose from corrections that he made between an earlier abstract and the final version of the paper. He ultimately withdrew the paper on 16 November, saying that he feared for his job. "I got a very explicit e-mail from Dr Galson saying I could not let it be published, and if I did, I and The Lancet would be responsible for the consequences." He says he may now remove his name from the study so that it can be published without the need for FDA approval. "The FDA is engaged in an act of scientific censorship," he claims.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4685
+ IS THE FDA LOOKING THE OTHER WAY AS DRUG COMPANIES TEST "LETHAL" DRUGS ON CHILDREN?
The FDA is supposed to oversee the clinical testing of all new medicines, as well as GM foods. But thus far it has turned a blind eye to an appalling scandal highlighted by the BBC TV report broadcast on 30 November, Guinea Pig Kids, in which children born to HIV-positive mothers were used as test subjects for experimental and highly toxic HIV drugs without the consent of parents or relatives.
Many of the children abused in this way were in a children's home in Harlem. It was reported by different sources to have ceased to recruit test subjects in either 2000 or 2002 after adverse publicity could no longer be ignored, but the trials continue elsewhere. The majority of test subjects were poor and black or Hispanic. Many were healthy until they were force-fed the drugs - by a tube in the stomach if they refused to take them in the normal way - when they rapidly became sick.
In cases where parents or foster parents took their children off the drugs, the Administration for Children's Services, a federal agency granted draconian powers by mayor Rudi Giuliani, forcibly took the children from their parents and put them back into the trial. One mother adopted two children from the Center and, under medical supervision, stopped the medication. She saw huge improvements in their health but was later convicted of child abuse in an action brought by the ACS and her children were removed from her care.
Dr David Rasnick from the University of Berkeley who has studied the effects of HIV drugs on patients - particularly children - says these drugs are "lethal".
The pharmaceutical giant Glaxo SmithKline has admitted it provided funds for some of the trials (Pfizer and Merck, Roche and Genentech were other funders) but said it is the responsibility of federal regulatory agencies "to ensure all subjects in a clinical trial provided appropriate, informed consent to conform with all local laws."
Vera Sharav, president of the Alliance for Human Research Protection, has written to the Office of Compliance of the FDA, demanding that an investigation be made as to the possible violation of the federal laws regarding human research subjects and informed consent.
Please read more about this shocking story at
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/this_world/4038375.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/this_world/4035345.stm
http://www.altheal.org/texts/house.htm
http://www.ahrp.org/ahrpspeaks/HIVkids0304.php
+ EPA JOINS IN THE CHORUS
"In setting limits on chemicals in food and water, the Environmental Protection Agency may rely on industry tests that expose people to poisons," reports the Associated Press. The EPA's draft plan suggests that Bush administration political appointees will evaluate studies using "a case-by-case process." EPA's Office of Pesticide Programs' senior policy adviser said human studies would be accepted, "unless they are fundamentally unethical or have significant deficiencies." Widespread criticism recently led the EPA to suspend a study on "how children's bodies absorb pesticides."
http://www.prwatch.org/spin.php
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COMPANY NEWS
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+ PIONEER SETTLES CORN DISPUTE
DuPont subsidiary Pioneer Hi-Bred International has settled a patent dispute over GM corn. In the agreement, Pioneer will license technology from Syngenta relating to two insect-resistant corn traits known as Herculex and YieldGard. Pioneer also will drop claims that Syngenta improperly acquired Pioneer genetic material 15 years ago. Additional terms, including payments, were not disclosed.
In 2002, Syngenta sued Pioneer and other major seed companies over use of its patented method for inserting genes into corn seeds to make them resistant to the European corn borer.
A trial involving the remaining defendants began 29 November in US District Court in Wilmington. Syngenta is seeking to stop St Louis-based Monsanto, Mich.-based Dow and Dow subsidiary Mycogen from marketing the Herculex and YieldGard traits.
Pioneer spokesman Doyle Karr said its settlement with Syngenta indicates the agricultural biotech industry is moving from patent disputes to licensing agreements. Many important techniques in plant biotechnology are still tied up in patent disputes, said Stephen Howell, director of the Plant Sciences Institute at Iowa State University. That makes it difficult to commercialize new products without fear of litigation, he said.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4675
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LOBBYWATCH
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+ PRO-GM SCIENTIST'S FANTASY HOUR IN OZ
A British pro-GM researcher, Jim Orson, has been busy telling Australians on ABC's Country Hour, in an interview broadcast in every state in Australia, that the UK is getting ready to grow GM crops, that public opinion has turned in their favour, that there's no future in going organic, etc.
In fact, a Which? consumer magazine survey published on 2 September shows that British public attitudes have hardened against GM since its last survey two years ago. Only around a quarter of people in the latest survey were in favour of GM crops being grown in the UK, compared with almost a third of people in 2002.
WHO IS JIM ORSON?
Jim Orson is the Director of The Arable Group (TAG), which was formed in 2003 in a merger involving the Morley Research Centre, which Orson also previously directed. Morley was a farmer-owned research station in Norfolk UK, providing information to support the businesses of some of the biggest arable farmers in Europe.
In August 2002 Orson was appointed for 3 years to ACRE, the UK government's official advisory committee on GM releases to the environment. He has served on the Advisory Committee on Pesticides and on the Scientific Steering Committee for the farm-scale evaluations (the UK government's GM trials on biodiversity).
The Arable Group, like Orson, take a strongly pro-GM position and Morley Research Centre, under Orson, has been involved in running GM crop trials - a potential source of income for a centre which newspaper reports suggest has experienced significant financial pressure.
Among the companies that Morley ran GM research for was AgrEvo. AgrEvo became part of Aventis and then Bayer, whose crops the farmscale trials evaluated.
Orson's public statements also put the question of whether his strong commitment to GM has not put at risk his ability to adequately assess its risks and benefits. He told Reuters, "The gain to farmers [from GM crops] is clear in terms of higher yields. We believe there are also ways of manipulating herbicide resistant crops for the advantage of the environment."
But the information on yields from GM rape and GM beet in UK trials does not indicate higher yields, and research on GM soya, the largest GM crop worldwide, shows similarly reduced yields.
Orson's belief indicates that regardless of the results of the UK government's farmscale evaluations, which showed a negative effect on biodiversity from GM rape and beet, Orson will argue not for rejection of the technology but for continued research - a perhaps not unreasonable position for the head of a research station interested in trialling GM crops.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4667
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FOOD AID
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+ FEEDING THE WORLD OR THE CORPORATIONS?
In an article for Science in Society, Sam Burcher shows how food agencies are feeding corporate greed while an estimated 880 million people in the world go hungry. The article takes issue with the UN Food and Ag organistion (FAO) report, "Agricultural biotechnology: meeting the needs of the poor?" which states that GMOs could be key to solving world hunger, and pushes for more funding. It also details the collusion of USAID with the biotech industry in helping it to dump GM surpluses on poor countries.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4665
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CATHOLIC CHURCH LATEST
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+ OPEN LETTER TO HOLY SEE ASKING IT NOT TO SUPPORT GM FOOD
Columban missionary Father Sean McDonagh has written an open letter (at http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4668 ) to the Holy See requesting that it does not support GM food. It was written by the in response to the Conference: Feeding the World: The Moral Imperative of Biotechnology, held in the Gregorian University in Rome on September 24, 2004. The event was organized by the US Embassy to the Holy See and co-sponsored by the Vatican's Pontifical Academy of Sciences.
Sean McDonagh was at the conference and his letter provides both an eye-witness account of what occurred and an extremely well-informed response from a Roman Catholic missionary with a deep knowledge of ecological theology and direct experience of agricultural and development issues in the developing world.
Here are some excerpts from the letter:
Unfortunately the Conference did not encourage dialogue on the crucially important question of how to banish hunger from our contemporary world. To begin with, all the speakers were staunch promoters of biotech crops and no other point of view was welcomed.
In his introductory address ambassador James Nicholson accused those opposed to GE crops of cultural imperialism. He emphasized that, "the worst form of cultural imperialism is to deny others the opportunities we have to take advantage of new technologies to raise up our human condition". I believe that the worst form of colonialism is to deny local communities the freedom to make decisions about their own development.
As in the case with more than 150 other treaties, the U.S. has not become a party to the biosafety protocol. Given this dismissive attitude to international treaties and initiatives and the size and political power of the biotechnology industry, are we now expected to believe that the U.S. interest in GE food is purely altruistic!
The first speaker, Dr. C.S. Prakash is a well-known promoter of genetic engineering. I believe that The Pontifical Academy of Sciences should have checked out Prakash's role in discrediting [critical scientific] research before agreeing to have him invited to speak at the Conference.
The next speaker at the conference, Dr. Peter Raven, was even more aggressive in the way he dismissed anyone who had reservations about GE crops: for him such people are ignorant and morally irresponsible.
He even accused the London-based Catholic Institute for International Relations (CIIR) of spreading unfounded fears about GE crops. The CIIR, according to him, was "not officially affiliated to the Vatican and perhaps not even to the Catholic Church". It was obvious that he knew very little about the work of CIIR in Third World countries for the past few decades.
When Dr. Raven accuses those who oppose GE crops of being motivated by questionable motives he ought to be forthcoming about his own connections with big business.
Again the Pontifical Academy of the Sciences should have asked whether it is appropriate to invite someone so closely identified with the biotech industry to speak at a conference on solving world hunger.
In the afternoon of the conference two farmers described how Bt crops had revolutionised their lives. According to them everything about GE crops was bright, positive and modern. One of the farmers, Mr. Edwin Y. Paraluman, is from Mindanao. I was interested to hear his fulsome praise for GE crops which he is growing in the vicinity of General Santos City. I lived with T'boli people in that area for over 12 years and I never heard of SARGEN the non-government organisation which Mr. Paraluman chairs. I do know, however, that the Bishop of the Diocese of Marble, Dinualdo Gutierrez, which includes General Santos, is the most vociferous critic of GE crops among the Philippine Bishops.
I am familiar with many farming organisations in the Philippines... It is legitimate to ask why some of the numerous independent farmers' organizations in the Philippines were not asked to send representatives to the Conference?
Significantly, Caritas Internationalis, the lead Catholic agency in the fight against hunger and malnutrition, was also not represented at the Conference. This body, with decades of first-hand experience in tackling hunger and poverty, issued a statement in conjunction with CIDSE on September 24, 2004 which was highly critical of the theme of the Conference.
I have no problem with a U.S. ambassador using every opportunity to promote U.S. business interests. However, I am dismayed that the ambassador's viewpoint has been uncritically accepted by the Pontifical Academy and other bodies in the Vatican.
The September 24th Conference at the Gregorian University was largely a promotional event for U.S. biotech corporations who are poised to make billions of dollars if GM food is forced on the majority of countries of the world.
Given the cautionary language about GE crops coming from Third World Churches and their leaders the Vatican must take a hard, principled look at GE crops and a strong, uncompromising stand against the patenting of life.
Read the full text:
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4668
+ CRITIQUE OF PONTIFICAL ACADEMY'S GM PUFF
Father Sean McDonagh's accompanying critique of The Pontifical Academy's "Study-Document on the Use of Genetically Modified Food Plants to Combat Hunger in the World" is at
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4671
The study document, like the conference it accompanied, presents GM crops as the solution to poverty and hunger in the third world.
EXCERPT from Sean McDonagh's critique:
The document presents no evidence to support the claim that GE food will help alleviate hunger. It fails to deal with the issue of distribution... many countries where poverty and hunger are endemic actually export food. "Brazil, for example, is the third largest food exporter in the world, but a fifth of its people (32 million) do not have enough food. About 100,000 children die of hunger each year. Clearly, hunger is not due to lack of food but is caused by both the highly unequal distribution of wealth and the huge number of people who are landless. Adopting a purely 'technology can fix it' approach to hunger problems can create more hunger and more food at the same time".
Most missionaries and development workers know this but the authors of the Pontifical Academy's document seem to be unaware of it.
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GENETICS THEORY
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+ DIFFERENCES IN GENE USAGE CAN HAVE DRAMATICALLY DIFFERENT EFFECT
Exactly the same gene or genes can have a dramatically different effect even in a closely related organism.
When and where a bacterium uses its DNA can be as important as what's in the DNA, according to new research. The researchers found significant differences in two bacterial organisms' use of a gene linked to processes that govern a form of antibiotic resistance. The distinction alters the bacteria's "lifestyles," or their ability to survive in different environments.
"These differences in gene usage are harder to look for, but we're not going to understand these organisms fully unless we take into account this other dimension," says senior investigator Eduardo Groisman, PhD, professor of molecular microbiology and Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4678
+ GENETIC THEORIES HAVE AS MUCH TO DO WITH CULTURE AS SCIENCE
In a perceptive essay with this title, biological anthropologist Jonathan Marks argues that the overwhelming similarity of human DNA to that of the chimpanzee shows not that we are "mostly" chimp but how little we actually understand about DNA. Though Marks is concerned here with the issue of heredity, he points up questions about how ideologies shape contemporary science that have a wider relevance to our understanding of genetics.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4664
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QUOTE OF THE WEEK
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"...privatisation has corrupted the fabric of science itself. Science is dead without honesty, which should be judged as the lawyers judge it: the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. As things are, this most fundamental principle is compromised at every turn. Bad results are concealed; apparently favourable results are bruited in the spirit of PR; people are bought and/or threatened so that they comply, and even that once final guarantor of honesty, "peer review", is now routinely circumvented."
- Colin Tudge, "The honesty of science is being compromised at every turn", New Statesman, 26 April 2004
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4661