from Claire Robinson, WEEKLY WATCH editor
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We've just heard that in India in just the past two months 900 farmers have committed suicide. It's a stark reminder of Devinder Sharma's recent warning that to talk of the need to usher in the "second Green Revolution" without first ascertaining where the equation has gone wrong with the first "will be mankind's greatest folly". The tragedy is, says Devinder, that while the scientific community and the policy makers will escape scot-free, it is farmers in the years to come who will continue to be sacrificed on the altar of agricultural development.
Devinder is calling for an end to the obscene diversion of public funds into hugely expensive GM crops while millions are going hungry. He points out that in India nutritious food containing on average around 9 per cent in protein is being left to rot in the countryside, while biotechnologists are celebrating the production of GM potatoes containing a mere 2.5 per cent of protein.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4070
Meanwhile, there have been some serious developments this week at Health Canada, where three scientists who raised doubts over the safety of certain vetinary drugs (including Monsanto's GM cattle growth hormone rBGH) have been fired, almost certainly for their commitment to the public interest.
But it's encouraging to see that the pro-corporate bias of much of what passes for science these days is being challenged in such respectable arenas as the British Medical Journal. An excellent report from the Center for Science in the Public Interest, following a conference on the subject, confronts the problem head-on. And don't miss the report on professor of medicine Dr David Egilman's contribution to the conference, "SUPPRESSION OF SCIENCE IS NOT AN ANOMALY - IT'S THE SYSTEM". (Read all the above and more in our CORPORATE TAKEOVER OF SCIENCE section.)
Finally, if you think you've heard it all, watch out for how Monsanto's PR firm was a key player in shaping the UK Food Standards Agency's public consultations on GM!
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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LOBBYWATCH
CORPORATE TAKEOVER OF SCIENCE
FOCUS ON AFRICA
EURO-NEWS
OTHER GLOBAL NEWS
PATENTS ON LIFE
GM MELTDOWN CONTINUES
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
DONATIONS
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LOBBYWATCH
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+ THE TRUTH ABOUT THE "NGOs" BEHIND THE LETTER TO THE FAO
A letter from representatives of "NGOs" to the UN Food and Ag Organisation in support of that body's recent report hyping GM crops for the third world, brings a whole new meaning to the word "NGO".
Most of the signatory organisations are free-market libertarian groups who campaign against restrictions on almost anything, i.e. they're anti-Kyoto, pro-GM, pro-smokers' rights, etc. Several receive funding from biotech corporations like Monsanto, plus other corporate sponsors. For instance, one signatory, the Free Market Foundation in South Africa, acknowledges funding from GlaxoSmithKline, Monsanto South Africa, Eli Lilly, British American Tobacco, and Exxon Mobil.
And then there's signatory Horacio Marquez, a Partner in The Latin America Finance Group, Inc. of Princeton, New Jersey. If you think they don't sound much like your your normal NGO, you're right. They're investment bankers! LAFG at one time headed a group planning to take over Chiquita, the controversial multinational (formerly United Fruit). One can imagine what a commitment such an "NGO" must have to safeguarding the future of small farmers!
You can read the letter at
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4165
We've provided links below many of the signatories to GM WATCH or other profiles where you can find out more about the background of the signatories and what kind of "NGOs" they represent.
+ NEW LOBBY GROUP IN US HYPES GM WHEAT
Predictably, in the wake of the widespread rejection of GM wheat, a new lobby group, "Growers for Wheat Biotechnology" has sprung up in the US.
GWB has been hyping a study by North Dakota State University which said that nearly 80 percent of respondents would choose a hypothetical pasta genetically modified with added vitamins and minerals over regular pasta that didn't have this benefit.
This study, said GWB, "sends an important signal that consumers are ready to accept the positive attributes biotechnology can bring to a safe and abundant food supply."
But GENET's Hartmut Meyer comments, "It is interesting to find out what the GWB group does not quote from the study:
*62.6% disagreed with 'Scientists know what they are doing so only moderate regulations on GM are necessary';
*61.1 % agreed to 'Companies involved in creating GM crops believe profits are more important than safety'.
Hartmut also notes that the internet domain www.growersforwheatbiotechnology.org is registered by Morgan & Myers, a US PR company which numbers Monsanto among its clients.
+ GM-ORGANIC COEXISTENCE PAPER SKEWS FACTS
An article for CropChoice reveals how UK agricultural researchers PG Economics Ltd. misrepresented findings of an organic farmers' survey in order to support the premise that GM and organic crops successfully coexist in the US.
The recently released paper, "Coexistence in North American Agriculture: Can GM Crops Be Grown with Conventional and Organic Crops?", states that claims by "anti-GM groups" that GM and non-GM crops cannot coexist in North America are "greatly exaggerated" and that coexistence measures have "been delivering effective coexistence for nearly nine years".
However, a closer look reveals that the paper's conclusions are heavily based on a 2002 survey by the Organic Farming Research Foundation (OFRF) that shows the exact opposite: that GM crops are starting to cause economic and operational hardships to organic farmers.
The main problem with PG Economics' findings is that they ignored the fact that the OFRF survey was included organic farmers in areas where GM corn and soybeans are not grown. In fact, the survey had 1,034 respondents, but only 100 to 150 (ie a maximum of about 15%) produced corn or soybeans and were at-risk from GM crops.
Farmers who live in Midwestern states, where the majority of GM corn and soybeans are grown, reported significant impacts. In these states, 70 to 80% of respondents reported negative impacts from GMOs. In addition, up to 88% of organic farmers in Midwestern states said they had to take some measures to protect their farms from GMO contamination. By quoting only the nationwide statistics the PG Economics authors, Graham Brookes and Peter Barfoot, are able to minimise the problems caused to non-GM and organic growers.
Read on at:
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4146
GM WATCH comment:
What's so disturbing about the bias that has been revealed is that this same research company, PG Economics, were commissioned to provide a report on the impact of GM crops on UK farm profitability by the Prime Minister's Strategy Unit to inform its report, "Field work: weighing up the costs and benefits of GM crops". PG Economics' report was even made publicly available by the Strategy Unit in tandem with its own report.
http://agrifor.ac.uk/browse/cabi/51fa0266cf12af4379ffa8dbe06e614d.html
+ "SCIENTISTS AND SCHOLARS" DENOUNCE CATHOLIC GROUP OVER GM CROPS
A group of "scientists and scholars" released a statement via the pro-GM listserv AgBioView denouncing the Catholic Institute for International Relations for saying that "GM crops won't solve world hunger."
But some of the signatories to this attack on the CIIR are far from being what anyone might normally imagine by the term "scientists and scholars". Greg Conko, for instance, works for the Competitive Enterprise Institute - a pro-corporate lobby group sponsored by Monsanto, Dow Chemicals and US tobacco and food giant, Philip Morris.
Another of the "scientists and scholars" is Andrew Apel, editor of a biotech industry newsletter, who during the southern African food-aid crisis called on the US to bomb Zambia with GM grain if it continued to reject it. On a discussion list Apel wrote of the crisis, "I can almost picture the darkies laying down their lives for the vacuous ideals... their death throes, how picturesque, among the baobab trees and the lions!"
http://ngin.tripod.com/forcefeed.htm
Apel is given as one of the 2 media contacts on the "scientists and scholars" attack on the CIIR.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4151
+ COLLUSION & CORRUPTION IN GM POLICY
In an article for ISIS, GM WATCH editor Claire Robinson uncovers some uncomfortable truths about the machinations of the pro-GM establishment in Britain. Singled out for particular attention is the collusion between Dr Ian Gibson, the chairman of the supposedly independent parliamentary Science and Technology Committee, and GM 'godfather' Derek Burke.
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/CCIGMP.php
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4142
+ WORLD WILL NEED GM FOOD SAYS USUAL SUSPECT
Prof Mike Gale claims in The Scotsman that GM is essential to increase food production and meet huge projected rises in the world's population. The paper reports breathlessly, "If the advances made in creating genetically modified foods are not used to increase food output the world could find itself in the grip of a food crisis in as little as 15 years, perhaps even ten, said Professor Mike Gale of the John Innes Centre..."
Gale has spoken about this necessity before, though from a different angle - the necessity of avoiding damage to the institute which he ONCE headed and where he has spent the majority of his working life. Gale warned then that any serious slowdown on GM would be a huge blow for the John Innes Centre, hitting its industry grants: "It would be very, very serious for us."
Gale is a perfect example of the enormous influence of the small self-interested clique campaigning for this technology. Gale has contributed in different ways to 3 Royal Society reports on GM; he was a member of the UK government's science review panel on GM; he served on the government's Advisory Committee on GM; he is a Consultant to the Rockefeller Foundation; he is a Member of the Board of Trustees of the International Rice Research Institute and he is on the CGIAR's Central Advisory Services Steering Committee. He has also contributed, with Derek Burke who also connects to the JIC, to both Nuffield reports on GM (1999 and 2003). He is also one of the GM 'experts' in a directory compiled by the Royal Society to help journalists get their science stories right.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4160
+ THE SOUND OF MANY HANDS CLAPPING
If anyone's in any doubt over why there has been so much delight over the news of the planned departure of Sir John Krebs from the UK Food Standards Agency, they need only consider the extraordinary lengths to which the FSA under Krebs has gone to betray the interests of consumers which it is supposed to protect. See a rundown at
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4162
Notably, the FSA's citizens' jury on GM, which asked a single leading question, "Should GM foods be available to buy in the UK?", was orchestrated by PR firm Bell Pottinger, which works for Monsanto. Bell Pottinger has links that go to the very heart of the Blair Government. In contravention of standard practice for citizens' juries, no panel of stakeholders was assembled to oversee balance and fairness in the jury process. Staff at the FSA stated that it was itself an independent agency and had been advised by Bell Pottinger that no such oversight panel would be necessary. Needless to say, the jury was said to have come up with a positive answer to the question, which was touted by the FSA as evidence that, in spite of the overwhelmingly anti-GM conclusions of the public debate, the UK public were happy about GM foods! Find out more about how the jury was fixed:
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4162
+ CITIZENS' JURY WANTS HALT TO GM
In contrast to the FSA citizens' jury, an independently overseen pair of citizens' juries run by the Policy Ethics And Life Sciences Research Institute (PEALS) of the University of Newcastle, UK, turned up some decidedly GM-sceptical verdicts. The juries wanted:
*A halt to the sale of GM foods currently available, and to the proposed commercial growing of GM crops. This conclusion was based on the lack of evidence of benefit and the precautionary principle.
*Long-term research into the risks of damage to the environment and the potential for harm.
*An end to blanket assertions that the GM crops are necessary to feed the starving in the Third World, given the complex social and economic factors that lie behind such hunger.
Among the wider concerns raised by the juries were:
*A concern that the gradual privatisation of scientific research is threatening the independent regulatory assessment of GM technologies, together with a call for future research to be more accountable to the population.
Read the testimonies of expert witnesses Prof Tim Lang and farmer Michael Hart at
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4163
Excerpts:
Lang: A most interesting split has just emerged over GM. ... I refer to the split between government and the big retailers. ... the top bosses of Tesco, Sainsbury and Asda went to No. 10 Downing Street for a discussion about GM. The Prime Minister wants them to be more enthusiastic about GM. They were reluctant and said so. "Listen to the science which gives GM the all-clear," was the Prime Minister's line. "We listen to our customers," was the reply.
Hart: Farmers have been told that this technology holds great promises: that it will help feed the world; that it will reduce pesticide use; that it will reduce cost of growing crops; that it will provide environmental benefits; that it can co-exist with conventional and organic crops; that it is safe to eat and grow. Having spent time talking with farmers in the USA and talking to Canadian farmers on a trip to the UK as one farmer talking to other farmers most if not all of the above claims are not working. The only benefit I have heard US and Canadian farmers claim, is that "it makes farming very big farms easy".
+ BAYER TRIES TO TOUCH OUR HEARTS
The Financial Times reports that chemicals giant Bayer is holding 'Kids' Labs' in German and Asian schools in order "to bring chemistry closer to the public, and improve the image of an industry that for many people conjures up only thoughts of periodic tables and sulphurous smells or accidents and pollution".
"You need to be much more emotional," says Jurgen Hambrecht, who became chief executive of gene and chemical giant BASF last year. "You can't just work via the brain, you need to get to people's hearts..."
Bayer evidently hopes that children will learn to put logic aside sufficiently to take the risks with GMOs that BASF's native Germany is currently rejecting.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4144
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CORPORATE TAKEOVER OF SCIENCE
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+ HEALTH CANADA FIRES 3 SCIENTISTS
Three senior Health Canada scientists known for questioning the department's commitment to veterinary drug safety have been fired. Health Canada claims the reason for the termination of Shiv Chopra, Margaret Haydon and Gerard Lambert has nothing to do with their outspokenness.
But Steve Hindle, president of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada, disagrees: "This is retribution for having spoken out about what's going on at Health Canada and the concerns they have around the safety of drugs for veterinary use," he said.
Chopra and Haydon protested against the approval in Canada of Monsanto's GE bovine growth hormone, variously known as rBGH, BGH or by its brand name Posilac. In the wake of Chopra's and Haydon's revelations, the drug was not approved in Canada and is now quietly being withdrawn from sale in the US by Monsanto. It's also banned in the EU.
Excerpts from earlier articles by Dr Richard Wolfson give some background:
After BGH was approved in the Human Safety Division in Canada, against the advice of the scientists who got vetoed by their boss, it was passed onto the Animal Safety Division. In the Animal Safety Division it wound up in the hands of another scientist, Margaret Haydon, and the people who passed it along to her didn't realize she had a conscience. So she started looking at the results of the research that was given to her (industry does the research, and they pass it along to Health Canada). She found problems such as mastitis or inflammation of the udder, joint problems, deformed offspring, and a decrease in lifespan of up to two years. So Dr Margaret Haydon recommended it not be approved. What do you think happened to Dr Margaret Haydon, after she made this recommendation? She got dropped. She was never allowed to study BGH again.
Margaret Haydon was one of the scientists who were at a meeting with Monsanto officials when they offered Health Canada one to two million dollars to approve BGH without any further studies. Fifth Estate, Canada AM, and several other TV stations have confirmed this by talking to other people present at the meeting. Len Ritter, the Director of the Bureau of Veterinary Drugs tried to pressure Margaret Haydon to approve BGH conditionally, and subsequently keep records of the effects of the hormone on the cows and the humans. Margaret responded that it's illegal to approve a drug, and allow it on the market before it is shown to be safe. Then what happened to Margaret was very scary, to say the least. A few weeks later, Margaret came in Monday morning and realized someone had stolen all her records on Bovine Growth Hormone, research showing that it produced lameness in animals and increased mastitis, as well as the notes she had taken at the meetings when Monsanto offered one to two million dollars to Health Canada.
---
The battle [at Health Canada] erupted in 1998 with the evaluation of rBGH. When rBGH is injected into dairy cattle, cows produce more milk. Chopra and other scientists uncovered research showing rBGH causes safety problems for animals and humans. Sparks flew when they would not approve the drug and the Senate Standing Committee on Agriculture and Forestry investigated the resulting commotion. The Committee called the scientists to testify. After hearing about the dangers of rBGH, the senators recommended that the drug not be approved - a decision Health Canada eventually agreed to.
The Health Canada scientists also told the Committee about other drugs of questionable safety that had been approved against their advice including growth hormones for animals that had been allowed even though the drugs were known to produce deformities in animals and were linked to cancer!
Health Canada officials were frantic! Corruption in its drug approval process was exposed. How could it silence the dissenting scientists?
On July 23, 1999, two months after Chopra spoke before the Senate his supervisor, Dr AndrŽ Lachance, suspended him for five days without pay. But at the end of the same year another Senate committee began investigating whether the suspension was retaliation against Chopra for testifying before the Senate. Such retaliation is against the law. This investigation was stalled due to various events, including the disappearance of Dr Lachance, Director of the Bureau of Veterinary Drugs - a key witness.
Shortly before Lachance was to testify, his lawyer sent a letter stating that he was on stress leave and couldn't appear for questioning!
At about the same time, the Federal Court of Canada investigated and removed a gag order that Health Canada imposed on Chopra in 1998 forbidding him from speaking to the press or in public about concerns regarding the health of Canadians being risked. The court ruled Chopra was justified in speaking to the public because he had first exhausted all possible government channels for voicing his very serious concerns.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4143
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4153
+ CANADIAN FARMERS UNION CALLS FOR INQUIRY
Canada's National Farmers Union President Stewart Wells commented (see above item), "The Canadian government must launch an immediate judicial inquiry into the firing of three senior Health Canada scientists. An inquiry would serve two vital purposes: to gain justice for the scientists, and, even more important, to investigate allegations of political interference, bribery, industry meddling, and improper drug approvals within Health Canada.
"The firing of these scientists is certainly tied to their years of speaking out in the public interest. It appears that a government that prides itself on making decisions based on 'sound science' has decided that it needs to get itself more submissive scientists."
Margaret Haydon and Shiv Chopra won a September 2000 Federal Court of Canada case they brought after they were reprimanded for speaking publicly about risks posed by certain veterinary drugs. In its ruling, the court ruled: "Where a matter is of legitimate public concern requiring a public debate, the duty of loyalty cannot be absolute to the extent of preventing public disclosure by a government official. The common law of duty does not impose unquestioning silence."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4157
+ FUNDING AND BIASES NEED TO BE EXPOSED BY MEDIA AND SCIENCE JOURNALS
Two articles from the Center for Science in the Public Interest address the vital need to disclose possible conflicts of interest on the part of sources of reports in the media and science journals. For the full articles, see
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4137
Summaries follow:
(1) News Articles Often Silent on Scientists' and Groups' Funding & Biases
How a reporter describes an expert source determines how much credibility a reader gives to the expert's assertion, according to a new survey by the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI). Most respondents say that news media should disclose whether information in their articles comes from scientists or organizations who receive grants or funding from corporations. Often, however, such disclosure is absent.
According to the poll, 59 percent had confidence in a hypothetical statement asserting a drug is safe when the statement was attributed to a "Harvard professor whose research is government supported." When the statement was simply attributed to "a Harvard professor," 48 percent had confidence. 41 percent had confidence in the statement when it was attributed to a "Harvard professor whose research is supported by drug companies." Only 24 percent of those surveyed had confidence when the statement was attributed to a "Harvard professor who owns stock in drug companies."
"These findings are particularly salient at a time when so many researchers are funded by the very companies whose products they are studying or commenting on," said CSPI executive director Michael F. Jacobson. "Regrettably, the news media do an uneven job of disclosing potentially biasing sources of funding when quoting scientific researchers or reporting their findings. Readers, therefore, can't put various reports about medicine or health into context."
.. According to CSPI, news accounts often fail to identify the funding sources of ostensibly independent nonprofit organizations that are quoted on health and medical issues. For instance, a group called the American Council on Science and Health is largely funded by chemical, food, and agribusiness companies and is widely quoted downplaying various risks to public health or discrediting studies indicating risks to health. In the pages of The New York Times it is sometimes blandly cited as a "science advocacy group," a "private health education group," or a "group that describes itself as 400 doctors and scientists who release position statements on science and the environment." Elsewhere, the Times more helpfully has described the group as a "consumer foundation in Manhattan that is in part financed by industry," or as a group that is "financed in part by the food industry."
"If a reporter is going to quote a group like the American Council on Science and Health, the Center for Consumer Freedom, or other nonprofit groups funded by corporations, that reporter should be sure to identify the corporations that fund it," Jacobson said. "If a group refuses to disclose its corporate funding, journalists should say so."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4137
(2) Report Faults Scientific Journals on Financial Disclosure
Several leading medical and science journals fail to enforce their own policies for disclosing financial conflicts of interest among contributing authors, according to a study by the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI). The study examined 163 articles in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), Environmental Health Perspectives (EHP), and Toxicology and Applied Pharmacology (TAP).
It identified at least 13 articles where authors did not disclose relevant conflicts of interest that should have been disclosed according to the journals' policies. CSPI found another 11 articles where there were undisclosed conflicts of interest that might not have directly related to the subject at hand, but should have been disclosed nevertheless.
CSPI recommends that journal editors require authors to disclose any financial arrangements they have had with private firms within the past three years, regardless of whether those arrangements relate to the subject of the article, and that the conflicts be published if they are in any way related to the article's subject. CSPI also says that authors should be required to disclose any patent applications, or intentions to apply for any patents. To encourage authors to comply with journals' policies, CSPI also recommends that editors adopt strong sanctions for failing to disclose conflicts of interest, such as a three-year ban on publication imposed on authors who fail to make complete disclosures.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4137
+ SCIENTIST CALLS FOR END TO STUDY BIAS
A letter to the editor of the British Medical Journal says GlaxoSmithKline's recent legal troubles resulting from not publishing negative results of clinical trials on the antidepressant Paroxetine are just part of a larger problem of publication bias in modern research. JAC Delaney, a clinical statistician of epidemiology, says the solution is to track all clinical trials so as to ensure that the results of such trials are properly reported.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4164
+ SUPPRESSION OF SCIENCE IS NOT AN ANOMALY - IT'S THE SYSTEM
"Suppression of science is not an anomaly but is typical of and produced by, the current economic, political, and social situation, and that is - money talks. It is the system; it is not just a few bad apples." This point was made by Dr David Egilman, a professor of medicine at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, at a conference, "Conflicted Science: Corporate and Political Influence on Science-based Policymaking", held in Washington, DC in mid-July, and sponsored by the Center for Science in the Public Interest.
Although money was important, there were also other forces at work, Egilman said: "It is broader than money, it's ideology and power. Ideology is a much larger bias than money much harder to ferret out and think through."
Source: British Medical Journal, 2004; 329:132 (17 July)
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4164
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FOCUS ON AFRICA
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+ US BIOTECH CORPORATIONS PROFIT FROM HUNGER AND AIDS IN AFRICA
Read African biosafety lawyer Mariam Mayet's brilliant expose of how the US and the biotech corporations are working to profit from hunger in Africa, at
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4155
As Mariam shows, areas like agricultural research, technical assistance, food aid, and the funding of biosafety initiatives, have all been drawn into the frame, with the Bush administration channeling big money to agencies like USAID and USDA to promote projects to "integrate biotechnology into local food systems and spread the technology through regions in Africa," as USAID's remit explicitly states.
Mariam's native South Africa has played a pivotal role in this industry marketing campaign, which is aimed at removing regulatory hurdles and trade restrictions. This is because South Africa's introduction of GM crops has been amongst the most rapid anywhere outside the US. The aim is to take the biosafety system that permitted this and make it the model for the rest of Africa.
What is so depressing about this is that while GM crops introduce novel risks and uncertainties, the benefits from GM, as Aaron deGrassi of the Institute of Development Studies has shown, are much lower than can be obtained with alternatives for a tiny fraction of the cost (see: http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=2561).
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4155
The US has been working through the WTO to ensure that its industries with patents on antiretroviral AIDS drugs do not lose out and to ensure that developing countries cannot use their own cheap generic versions. The US government poured USD15 billion into its own HIV campaign, outside the control of the Global Aids Fund. A huge proportion of this money will be spent to purchase US patented drugs, thereby circumventing the use of US dollars to purchase the generic drugs promoted by WHO and the Global Fund for Aids.
And at the recent Aids conference in Bangkok, France's President Jacques Chirac accused America of blackmailing developing countries into giving up their right to produce cheap drugs for AIDS victims.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4155
NEW BRIEFING ON GM IN AFRICA: A useful briefing from Mariam Mayet, "African agriculture under genetic engineering onslaught", is at
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4166
+ SOUTH AFRICA MUST REJECT BEING PHARM TEST GROUND
Glenn Ashton has published a letter in the Cape Times protesting against plans to use South Africa as a test ground for plants genetically engineered to produce drugs:
Excerpt:
The suggestion ... that pharmaceutical compounds would be engineered into food crops, is something that would be strongly opposed by most rational South Africans, scientists and citizens alike. Even were these to be grown in strictly contained conditions, the risks remain excessive. Two cases of contamination of food crops by pharmed products in the US last year nearly allowed the release of an untested pig vaccine into the food supply, according to the journal Nature Biotechnology. Spurious internet adverts have been posted looking for growers for such crops and responses have reportedly been received from South African farmers.
.. This appears to be yet another case of shifting another dirty industry to a developing nation so that we bear all of the risks, while the northern developers reap the genetically engineered fruits. As we have cast off colonialism, so too must we reject its latest iteration; bio-colonialism. Not only does bio-colonialism hold direct threats to our biodiversity but it equally exposes that very diversity to exploitation by wealthy individuals, nations and corporations, leaving us, yet again, to pick up the pieces. Remember; genetic engineering gives pollution a life of its own!
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4139
+ GMOs will not solve hunger, but will make it worse!
A coalition of international mainstream environmental, consumer and farmer groups condemned the aggressive promotion of GMOs as a solution to hunger in the world. The condemnation was made following an international conference held 15-16 July in Maputo, Mozambique on hunger, food aid and GMOs.
The coalition was critical of the UN body on Food and Agriculture (FAO) for its report presenting GMOs as a key to ending hunger in Africa and the rest of the world: "Not only GMOs will not solve the problem of hunger, but they will worsen and complicate the hunger issue even further. FAO, through the publication of its biased report has betrayed the interest of farmers and consumers worldwide".
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4145
+ MOUNTAINS OF FOOD, OCEANS OF HUNGER
A poem with this title by Nnimmo Bassey of FOE Nigeria, following an apparently successful food security conference in Maputo, Mozambique, is at
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4147
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EURO-NEWS
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+ EU HALTS GM AGAIN
The EU's 25 national governments failed to back a European Commission proposal to open Europe's door to imports of Monsanto's NK603 maize.
Adrian Bebb of FoE Europe said, "The European Commission has now failed seven times in a row to get enough support to approve new genetically modified foods. Their position is increasingly untenable and clearly incompatible with the wishes of the citizens and Governments of Europe. It is time that they put the welfare of the European public before the business interests of the biotechnology industry."
US officials said that the decision raises a "serious" question mark over an EU commitment to end a five-year moratorium on biotech crops.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4150
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OTHER GLOBAL NEWS
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+ PUERTO RICO'S MASSIVE UNREGULATED BIOTECH HARVEST
Puerto Rico has more GM experiments per square mile than any state, with the possible exception of Hawaii. According to data from the US Department of Agriculture, between 1987 and 2002, the island hosted 2,957 such experiments. This figure was surpassed only by Iowa (3,831), Illinois (4,104) and Hawaii (4,566).
... A spokeswoman [at the Puerto Rico Environmental Quality Board] said that since Puerto Rico has no laws or regulations for GM crops, it has no mandate to intervene or investigate.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4148
For more on how Puerto Ricans have long been subjected by US administrations to 'environmental racism', see Dr Peter Montague's analyses:
http://www.rachel.org/search/index.cfm?St=1 (type in Puerto Rico)
+ PHILIPPINES: GMO-FREE LEGISLATION LAUNCHED
The provincial government of Bohol in the Philippines launched an ordinance July 21 prohibiting the entry of GMOs into the province. The ordinance aims to protect human health and the environment from the adverse effects of GMOs. Bohol's legislation is the first of its kind in the Philippines and comes amid growing worldwide concerns about the environmental and health impact of GMOs.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4156
+ "BIOTECH IS A CANCER IN ARGENTINA"
After the approval of Roundup Ready maize in Argentina, here are some reflections on the destruction of the country's ecology and economy by GM model:
"....no other third world country must follow the Argentine path. Argentina could feed itself even in the worst periods of our history. We produced varied, cheap and healthy food for our own population... But since the no-tillage/GM crop/pesticide package agro-export model was forced on us, through the neoliberal government of Carlos Menem during the 90's .. the consequences were catastrophic.
"Argentina does not know how to get free from the model. We have had GM agriculture since the 90's and now the Argentinian people are starving for the first time in our history. ... we should stop this from happening in Africa, Asia and other Latin American countries. They do not have the right to go on starving more people, just to make a quick profit. Once the industry is there, they become a cancer."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4140
+ PIONEER ILLEGALLY DISTRIBUTES GM SEED IN CROATIA
After recent lab analyses of food products from Croatia revealed GMO contamination in one sample, Croatian NGO Osijek Greens reports that another GMO scandal is shaking the country. The Croatian branch of Pioneer Hi-Bred International illegally distributed unapproved GM seed to farmers and companies in the country, the Ministry of Agriculture and Water Management has announced. Two thousand hectares of maize will be destroyed to prevent contamination of other crops. According to the minister of agriculture Mr Petar Cobankovic, Pioneer will pay a fine of around 150,000 EUR and compensate farmers and companies who bought its seed.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4138
+ ILLEGAL BT COTTON CROP IN PAKISTAN PERFORMS BADLY
The approval of Bt cotton for the south of India, following the hype created by Monsanto and the resultant spread of illegal seeds by seed merchants cashing in on the expectations created, is triggering problems in north India and in neighboring Pakistan, where there is no Bt cotton approval.
This "viral marketing" then creates pressure for the regulatory systems to catch up and legitimise an undesirable situation in which farmers are the victims.
In 2001-02, cultivation of Bt cotton was undertaken illegally in lower and upper Sindh, probably with seeds smuggled from India. The performance of this Bt cotton in Pakistan, observed over 2 years, was "erratic", according to a report in the newspaper The Dawn: "Under no rain and hot and dry weather conditions it was found highly susceptible to Jassid and CLCV disease, whereas under heavy monsoon rain of 2003 it was found susceptible also to armyworm. Besides, cultivation with mixture of Bt cotton and non-Bt cottonseeds was found harboring more bollworms as compared to cultivation undertaken with pure non-Bt cotton seeds."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4145
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PATENTS ON LIFE
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+ LEGAL IMPLICATIONS OF SCHMEISER RULING
Two articles on the Percy Schmeiser vs Monsanto ruling of Canada's Supreme Court, one from The Nation and the other (by Lim Li Ching) from ISIS, are at
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4149
Excerpt from Ching's article:
The court, while confirming the validity of Monsanto's patent on the transgene and modified cells, did not rule on the validity of patents on life forms, or whether it is right or wise to genetically modify plants. Neither did it answer the difficult questions about how GMOs can be controlled once released. These issues will have to be addressed by Parliament.
The 2002 Supreme Court decision that higher life forms, such as plants, are unpatentable still stands. Monsanto did not claim patent protection over a GM plant, only the modified genes and cells and the process for making them. However, the effect of this judgment is that Monsanto's rights on a patented gene and cells extend to the (unpatentable) plant in which it is found, if the alleged infringer is judged to have used the patent; in Schmeiser's case, by saving, planting, harvesting and selling in a commercial context.
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GM MELTDOWN CONTINUES
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+ BAYER TO PAY USD66 Mln TO SETTLE PRICE FIXING CHARGE
Bayer AG, Germany's second-biggest drug, chemical and biotech company, has agreed to pay USD66 million to settle a US charge it participated in a global conspiracy to fix prices of chemicals used to make rubber. Bayer agreed to assist the government's investigation that has already netted the guilty plea of Crompton Corp., which was fined $50 million for its role in the cartel, the Justice Department said. European Union and Canadian authorities are also investigating the cartel.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4138
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QUOTE OF THE WEEK
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"Seeds will be our only recourse if the prevailing belief in the safety of genetic engineering proves wrong," warns UCS. "Heedlessly allowing the contamination of traditional plant varieties with genetically engineered sequences amounts to a huge wager on our ability to understand a complicated technology that manipulates life at the most elemental level." - Union of Concerned Scientists, February 2004
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