from Claire Robinson, WEEKLY WATCH editor
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Dear all:

Among this week's interesting news from around the world, note how the Prime Minister of India's fact-finding panel has called for government action to stop India's farmers from falling into the GM cotton trap. The linkage between the hyping of these expensive and problem-prone seeds and the wave of farmer suicides is at last being recognised even by India's political establishment.

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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THE AMERICAS
LOBBYWATCH
ASIA
EUROPE
AFRICA
RESEARCH
MEDICAL BIOTECH
GM ICE CREAM
BIOFUELS
CLONING
GM WATCH PODCASTS

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THE AMERICAS
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+ IMPORTANT ACTION ALERT: STOP GM PLUMS
Jeffrey Smith asks us to take a moment to send a friendly note to the plum industry, asking them to help stop the pending introduction of GM plums. The food industry has successfully stopped several GM crop introductions. Jeffrey believes that if the companies that grow and sell plums urge the USDA to withdraw the plum application, it will be withdrawn. There is a short window. (The USDA comment period ends July 17, but comments made after that BY THE INDUSTRY may still be effective.) To help, please click here:
http://www.responsibletechnology.org/GMFree/TakeAction/PlumIndustryEmail/index.cfm

Read an article by Jeffrey showing how disease-resistant GM crops may make humans (and plants) more vulnerable to viruses:
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6722

+ NO HONESTY ABOUT ORIGIN OF AMERICAN FOOD
Americans are not allowed to know the country of origin of their food or whether it's GM, points out Paul Johnson in an article for Counter Punch.

The US Dept of Agriculture was caught lying about how much country-of-origin labels would cost - they inflated the figures to persuade people it would be too costly. The food industry benefits, as it can sell cheap imported produce for the same high price that home-grown version would fetch, and keep the profits.

Regarding GM food, says Johnson, "Polls show that demand for this kind of food is low, and a large majority wants labeling. That could spell market failure, so biotechnology companies and agribusiness giants are opposed."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6719

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LOBBYWATCH
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+ THE LAUNCH OF "ASK-FARCE"
A new pro-GM lobby group -"ASK-FORCE" - has just been launched by Prof Klaus Ammann, the former Director of the Botanic Garden at the University of Bern.

ASK-FORCE is intended to expose "hidden agendas" and "confront" the critics of GM crops over their misinformation, hoaxes and "scaremonger stories".

Given its supposed penchant for exposing "hidden agendas", we wonder why ASK-FORCE does not explain in its launch document that:
***EFB, which is providing the organisational base for 'ASK-FORCE', has an extensive corporate membership.
***the financial backers of PRRI - the Public Research and Regulation Initiative - with which ASK-FORCE intends to work closely, include the biotech industry's global federation - Croplife International - and the US Grains Council, which represents the interests of US producers and exporters of GM crops.
***the financial backers of Africa Harvest with which ASK-FORCE also intends to work closely, also include Croplife International.

According to Ammann, "Within PRRI, Africa Harvest, the EFB and worldwide in other organizations there are a number of well known scientists, who - according to my encouraging contacts, are willing to help to build up a group of specialists who can answer questions."

So will we be getting answers from the likes of the PANTS ON FIRE award-winning chief executive of Africa Harvest, Florence Wambugu? Wambugu is notorious for her extravagant hype and spin. She told New Scientist, "In Africa GM food could almost literally weed out poverty".

Wambugu claimed that a GM sweet potato project she was fronting could increase yields in Kenya "from 4 tonnes per hectare to 10 tonnes." But this apparently massive improvement was a hoax. Both FAO and official Kenyan statistics indicate that conventional sweet potato yields in Kenya are already around 10 tonnes per hectare. Wambugu was massively understating conventional yields in order to make the GM crop look good. On top of that, the results of 3 years of trials showed that non-GM sweet potatoes out-yielded the GM ones - the very opposite of what Wambugu had been telling the world.

If ASK-FORCE is intended to confront GM hoaxes, it better start with its own.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6720

+ UK: NFU VICE-PRESIDENT'S LINKS TO INDUSTRY LOBBYISTS
National Farmers' Union vice-president Paul Temple has been heading the UK's Nation Farmers' Union's development of policy on "coexistence". The recently-unveiled NFU policy is, as John Vidal of the Guardian says, "gagging for" GM crops. Hardly surprising, given Temple's industry connections.

EXCERPT from Vidal's article:
Temple grew GM oilseed rape for three years as part of the government trials and since then has been seeing Europe courtesy of the industry and arguing for farmer choice [ie freedom to grow GMOs]. Back in October, he visted Spanish GM farms courtesy of the Spanish biotech organisation Antama; and in November he was paid to go to Brussels to take part in a stakeholder event organised by pro-biotech lobby groups Croplife International and EuropaBio. "To my mind it makes more sense if someone else is paying. I have never been incapable of making up my own mind about something," he says.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6712

+ "SPREAD BIOTECH RAPIDLY" IN INDIA - GM COWBOYS WORKING FOR BUSH AND  MONSANTO
Speakers at a workshop in India recently called for the rapid spread of biotechnology in agriculture to increase productivity and nutritional quality and achieve sustainable agriculture in India.

GM Watch comment:
This workshop provides a classic illustration of US/biotech industry lobbying activities c/o third parties.

The workshop was organised by Federation of Farmers' Associations (FFA-AP) in association with Acharya N G Ranga Agricultural University (ANGRAU). And if a farmers' group and a university in Andhra Pradesh sound like independent entities, bear in mind that the head of the Federation of Farmers' Associations, Chengal Reddy, has had a long association with Monsanto and has even said he would like to see the FFA become the operational arm in Andhra Pradesh of the Indian Crop Protection Association (ICPA) - the trade body of the leading agrochemical companies in India.

It's also worth noting that the workshop's co-organiser - the Acharya N G Ranga Agricultural University (ANGRAU) - was selected for a visit by George Bush during his nukes and biotech endorsing trip to India back in the spring. The Deccan Chronicle noted, "According to Vice-chancellor Raghuvardhan Reddy, US will set up a $100 million Indo-US Knowledge Initiative on agricultural biotechnology and ANGRAU will also benefit from this initiative." This ran under the heading, "Farmer Bush reins (sic) in ANGRAU ranch."

ANGRAU's Vice Chancellor also turns out to be one of the speakers endorsing "agricultural biotechnology" at the workshop, as was the US-based pro-GM lobbyist, CS Prakash, whose long and dubious association with Monsanto and its PR people is well established, as is his role as a GM ambassador on behalf of the US State Dept.

The other main speaker was Dr Sujatha Sankula, Director (Biotechnology Research Programmes), at the Washington-based National Centre for Food and Agricultural Policy (NCFAP). The science journal Nature describes NCFAP as "a pro-GM industry group." Its GM propagandising is backed by the Biotechnology Industry Organisation, Monsanto, the biotech industry-funded Council for Biotechnology Information (CBI), and the biotech-industry trade group CropLife America. It's also said to receive money from the US Department of Agriculture.

Of course, there's no reason why a group of people enjoying the support of the US government and the biotech industry shouldn't call for the rapid adoption of GM crops, but it would be nice if they were open about their vested interests.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6702

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ASIA
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+ PRIME MINISTER'S PANEL WARNS AGAINST BT COTTON TRAP
A fact-finding Prime Minister's panel in India has asked the central government to send "advisories against Bt cotton" to unirrigated areas. The panel has also recommended that suitable seeds, which are appropriately priced, should be made available to stop farmers from falling into the Bt cotton trap.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6704

+ U.S.-BASED CONSORTIUM VOUCHES FOR BT BRINJAL
With a few days left for the regulator to decide on the proposed large-scale field trials of Bt brinjal (aubergine/eggplant), a global consortium funded by United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has launched an active campaign vouching for the benefits of this GM crop.

The Agricultural Biotechnology Support Project-II (ABSP-II) funded by USAID and led by Cornell University is a global consortium of public and private sector institutions. ABSP partners have included Asgrow, Monsanto, and Pioneer Hi-Bred. Promoting GM is, of course, an official part of USAID's remit - one of its roles being to "integrate GM into local food systems."

The Bt brinjal was developed by Monsanto's Indian partner Mayhco with the support of ABSP.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6717

+ GEAC ADMITS NOT ENOUGH TOXICITY STUDIES
The Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) has decided to involve the state agriculture universities in biosafety studies and field trials of GM crops. It deferred the decision on the proposal submitted by Mahyco asking permission for large-scale field trials of Bt Brinjal.

GEAC admitted that it has not conducted enough toxicity studies. It said that it would conduct toxicity studies on Bt cotton leaves. The proposed field trials of four Bt brinjal hybrids developed by Mahyco are now delayed.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6700

+ GEAC SHIFTS TO EVENT-BASED APPROVAL FOR GM CROPS
There has been an ominous change in how GM crops are regulated in India, enabling certain crops to be fast-tracked through the approval process. Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) has decided to follow the "event-based approval system" for approving GM crops, instead of a case-by-case approach. Under the new system, once a certain genetic transformation has been approved, all similar crops will automatically gain approval.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6721

+ SIX YEARS OF BIOSAFETY BREAKDOWN INDIA
Five and a half years ago, a visit by journalist Keya Acharya to nine Karnataka farmers who were trialling Bt cotton showed regulatory breakdown. Acharya found no independent monitoring of the plots by branches of the University of Agricultural Sciences (UAS) as stipulated by the state government. Eight of the nine farmers said nobody from the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) had come to inspect their fields.

Six years on, "The story is almost a repetition of the field trials [earlier ones]... The same kind of secrecy, the same kind of lax monitoring.... and the same kind of violations," says a field survey report compiled by a group of 20 people's organizations and NGOs that clubbed together to form the Monitoring and Evaluation Committee (MEC).
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6700

+ PLEA TO DECLARE ORISSA GM-FREE
Voluntary organisations, particularly Thread, have urged chief minister Mr Naveen Patnaik to follow Uttaranchal's steps in declaring Orissa a GM-free state.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6698

+ INDIA: NGO SEEKS MORATORIUM ON GM SEEDS
A group of NGOs has filed a writ petition in the Supreme Court seeking a moratorium on release of GM seeds. The group cites the failure of Bt cotton and its health hazards to humans and animals.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6721

+ PRIME MINISTER TOURS BT COTTON DISASTER AREA
The Indian prime minister recently conducted a two-day tour of the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra where 600 farmers have killed themselves in the last year, the vast majority of them Bt cotton farmers. Prime minister Singh announced a relief package.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6698

+ INDIAN PM FAILS TO ADDRESS BT COTTON AND OTHER CRITICAL ISSUES
According to a press release from farmers' group Vidarbha Janandolan Samiti, the Indian prime minister's visit to a remote tribal village in Vidharba was cancelled in order to hide the real conditions faced by poor cotton farmers.

The village of Kolzari was the only place where the prime minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, was to visit cotton growers' homes in order to see the condition of the cotton growers who have been committing suicide.

Local farmers' leader Kishor Tawari, who has repeatedly drawn attention to the role of Bt cotton in the the crisis facing cotton farmers in Vidarbha, had already been banned from meeting the Prime Minister.

Kolzari villagers refused to meet the Indian prime minister at Yavatmal airport instead. They were replaced in discussions about their problems by "proxy villagers".

Tiwari has condemned the PM's package of relief measures for Vidarbha for its failure to address the real problems farmers are facing.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6701

+ VIDARBHA PACKAGE A LOLLIPOP
The package announced by prime minister Manmohan Singh for farmers has failed to address the core issues that have a direct bearing on suicides by cotton farmers of Vidharbha, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said.

"What he offered was a lollipop. He did not touch the basic issues that have led to increasing number of farmers taking their lives. The basic issue is lack of remunerative prices for cotton," BJP's Prakash Javadekar said.

He said the government had reduced duties on imported cotton, making it cheaper. This contributed to depressed domestic prices. The imported cotton was also cheaper because high subsidies had been given to farmers in the developed countries.

In its report on the BJP's criticism The Hindu daily newspaper also notes, "The crisis in cotton farming was due to the Bt cottonseed supplied by Monsanto. They cost more and promised more but often the yield was lower, especially on the land that did not have assured irrigation."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6715

+ INDIA: MONOPOLIES COMMISSION ISSUES INQUIRY NOTICES TO MONSANTO
The Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Commission (MRTPC) has issued inquiry notices to Monsanto and its Indian arm Monsanto-Mahyco Biotech Ltd on a contempt petition filed by the Andhra Pradesh government.

The state government had filed an application to MRTPC to initiate contempt proceedings against Monsanto-Mahyco for violating the Commission's orders to reduce the trait value charged on its Bt cotton seeds to the level prevailing in China.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6721

+ PHILIPPINES: ANTI-GM MAYOR SLAIN
Ilagan City Mayor Delfinito "Jojo" Albano, who supported victims of human rights abuses of the military, has been murdered in Quezon City. The critical views of mayor Albano and his support for activists may have earned him a place on the target list of death squads responsible for a spate of political killings.

Albano is the first local government chief executive who formed a human rights committee. Albano is also one of the convenors of the "Save the Valley, Serve the People Movement", a regional alliance of environmentalists concerned in protecting the Sierra Madre Mountains and the Cagayan River.

Albano had allowed people's protest marches against government policies. He is also said to have supported peasant protests against the spread of GM crops in Isabela.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6701

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EUROPE
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+ RUSSIA "BEING FORCED" AT WTO TALKS TO STOP GM LABELLING
A the Civil G8 conference in Moscow, after Geert Ritsema of Greenpeace asked President Putin to seek measures limiting the sale of GM crops, Putin signalled support, saying he felt surrounded by "kindred spirits."

"In negotiations about Russia's accession to the World Trade Organization, we are being forced to give up the right to inform people about" GM foods, Putin said. Putin did not name the countries opposed to mandatory labelling, but he noted, "We insist on norms suggested by NGOs."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6714

+ ACTION ALERT: KEEP PHARMACEUTICALS OUT OF FRENCH CHEESE
The French government has just approved 17 new GM test sites - including maize and tobacco genetically engineered to produce pharmaceuticals. These would be grown outdoors at secret locations and could result in unidentified pharmaceuticals in food, feed and the produce of animals eating feed - that then gets sold throughout Europe. International protests could stop these trials. Take action:
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6713

+ MONSANTO EXPERIMENTS DESTROYED IN FRANCE
Monsanto's French unit said that it had complained to French authorities after two of its GM maize experiments were destroyed this week by unidentified people. Monsanto previously has said half of its GM experiments in France are destroyed each year.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6697

+ UK: SOIL ASSOCIATION REJECTS ACRE'S PROPOSALS FOR ASSESSING GM CROPS
The Soil Association has sent a response to ACRE (the UK's GM regulatory body, the Advisory Committee on Releases to the Environment) on its draft report on proposals for "comparative risk assessment" for GM crops.

The Soil Association (SA) considers the report to be very poor: if followed through, it would be very helpful to the GM companies. The SA rejects ACRE's proposal and the continued use of "case-by-case assessment" (much loved by the pro-GM camp) as the main policy approach for GM crops.

The SA believes that before any individual assessment there should be an initial generic safety assessment stage which would look at the GM process itself.

Regarding "case-by-case assessment" of GMOs, the SA says it was based on assumptions about general impacts of the process and scientific certainty, which new evidence has proven were inadequate and wrong in many critical ways. The case-by-case assessments have not been addressing many of the problems now revealed by the generic research. Basic assumptions about genetic engineering, which informed the safety assessments, have been found to be incorrect, in particular the reductionist belief that genes operate without interaction by the rest of the organism.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6705

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AFRICA
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+ PATENTED GM CROPS" MAKING SEED SAVING ILLEGAL?
An excellent article in the African Executive says amid much talk of biosafety, everyone seems blind to the issue which is of most concern to African farmers: the issue of patented GM crops and how this will affect farmers' rights to save seed.

EXCERPT:
The implications of patented GM seeds for African farmers should not be underestimated. Saved seed is the one resource that the poorest depend upon to carry them through the year. If they are forbidden to save their seed and must pay up to triple the costs of buying new seed each season, the costs of growing food will become prohibitive. The claims of lowered production costs do not stand up to scrutiny. Neither are the yields of GM crops sufficient to recover the costs.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6703

More on the GM assault on Africa:
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6708

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RESEARCH
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+ GM RESEARCH ON NITROGEN FIXATION A WASTE OF MONEY
The Soil Association warns that research findings publicised on 28 June by the John Innes Centre (JIC) concerning the control of nitrogen fixation in leguminous plants by GM confirms that genetic engineering research is a costly, time-consuming and unrealistic way of spending public funds to achieve little. The Soil Association believes the researchers are seriously misleading the public about the significance of these results.

Gundula Azeez of the Soil Association said, "The researchers described the results as 'an important step' towards transferring the process of nitrogen fixation from legumes to crop plants that 'may reduce global need for nitrogen fertilisers'. Yet, after years of research, they have only managed to control one small stage of a complex process and in a legume which naturally fixes nitrogen anyway and which is also apparently 'amenable to genetic transformation'. This only highlights how far they are from identifying and managing to control and transfer the complete nitrogen fixation process to non-leguminous plants. This publicity looks like a shameless attempt to secure further funding to continue the research, rather than signalling any real potential with this result.

"This scenario is typical of genetic engineering research. Such projects have been going on around the globe consuming vast amounts of public money for years, with almost nothing to show at the end of the day. ...

"The researchers are also wasting time, money and effort by attempting to solve a problem already addressed in organic systems. Organic farming harnesses natural nitrogen fixation processes by growing legumes in rotation with crop production and livestock grazing. It has already managed to do away with the use of nitrogen fertilisers, halving the amount of energy needed to produce the same amount of food as non-organic farming."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6699

+ BEYOND GM CROPS - RIFKIN
The Foundation on Economic Trends, headed by Jeremy Rifkin, has recently caused waves among pro-GMers by pointing out that the non-GM breeding technique of marker assisted breeding (MAS) has eclipsed the crude and outdated technique of GM. In an article for the Washington Post, Rifkin writes that GM has become a serious impediment to scientific progress.

EXCERPT:
... the continued introduction of genetically modified crops could contaminate existing plant varieties, making the new MAS technology more difficult to use. A 2004 survey conducted by the Union of Concerned Scientists found that non-genetically modified seeds from three of America's major agricultural crops - corn, soybeans and canola - were already "pervasively contaminated with low levels of DNA sequences originating in genetically engineered varieties of these crops." Cleaning up contaminated genetic programs could prove to be as troublesome and expensive in the future as cleaning up the viruses that invade software programs. ...

As MAS technology becomes cheaper and easier to use, and as knowledge in genomics becomes more dispersed and easily available over the next decade, plant breeders around the world will be able to exchange information about "best practices" and democratize the technology. Already, plant breeders are talking about "open source" genomics, envisioning the sharing of genes. The struggle between a younger generation of sustainable agriculture enthusiasts anxious to share genetic information and entrenched company scientists determined to maintain control over the world's seed stocks through patent protection is likely to be hard-fought, especially in the developing world.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6707

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MEDICAL BIOTECH
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+ VICTIMS' AGONY AS DRUGS FIRM GOES BUST
The Daily Mail reports that the victims of the 'Elephant Man' drug trials have been left in even more misery after the company that made the drug went bust. However, the article omits to mention that this drug - TGN1412 - with its disastrous and "unexpected biological effect" was genetically engineered.

Six men suffered multiple organ failure when they were the first humans to try the drugs in London in March - with the head of one victim swelling to three times its normal size.

They are all hoping for a huge compensation payout to help them through the rest of their lives, but that hope was hit by the news that the German pharmaceutical firm TeGenero had filed for insolvency.

A spokesman for TeGenero said the "unforeseeable adverse reactions" caused by the drug, known as TGN1412, "have made it impossible to attract the investment necessary for the company to continue operations".

It had already emerged that the firm involved had just GBP2million insurance. The men were paid just GBP2,000 for taking part in the trials.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6716

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GM ICE CREAM
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+ PROF JOE CUMMINS ON GM PROTEIN IN ICE CREAM
Prof Joe Cummins comments on the Unilever application for GM ice cream in UK:

Unilever has been selling GM ice cream in US with FDA approval. Good Humor ice cream is a major producer of ice cream bars and other products mainly targeted to young children. The applications for approval of GM ice cream have all ignored the impact of GM ice cream on children.

In the FDA GRAS application the main focus of safety was the allergenicity of the ice structuring protein from the pouter fish. The main test was to examine effect of the ice structuring protein (ISP) on blood from 10 people with cod allergy. There was no indication that the blood contained IgE antibodies (allergic response) to the ISP. This experiment seems very strange to me because it tests blood that is allergic to cod but that allergen is a calcium binding protein called parvalbumin which is unrelated to ice structuring protein. Cod has an ice structuring protein but that protein is not at all related to the pouter ISP in the ice cream.

What I am saying is that Unilever's main allergy test seems to be a dummy test that could never produce results relevant to the GM ice cream, it could only provide results showing no allergy, in other words it seems rigged to produce favorable results. Unilever provided a GRAS panel of experts who ignored the fecklessness of the allergy tests.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6706

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BIOFUELS
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+ PRODUCING ETHANOL AND BIODIESEL FROM MAIZE IS NOT WORTH THE EFFORT,  NEW STUDY FINDS
A new study from the University of Cornell and the University of Berkeley, California has found that turning plants, such as maize and sunflowers, into fuel uses much more energy than the resulting ethanol or biodiesel generates. The study, published in Natural Resources Research (Vol.14, 65-76), found that:
* maize needs 29% more fossil energy than the fuel it produced
* switch grass needed 45% more fossil fuel than fuel produced
* wood biomass needed 57% more fossil fuel than fuel it produced
* soybean plants needed 27% more fossil fuel than the fuel produced
* sunflower plants needed 118% more fossil fuel than the fuel produced.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6709

+ BIODIESEL: WORSE THAN FOSSIL FUEL
The last word on biofuels comes in a superb article from a few months back by George Monbiot. He says biodiesel enthusiasts have accidentally invented the most carbon-intensive fuel on earth. The whole article is a must-read.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6709

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CLONING
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+ THE PERILS OF CLONING - TIME MAGAZINE
Last week we noted the comment of a leading biotechnologist that genetic engineering remains "a crude approach like adjusting an intricate watch with a sledgehammer". Here's an excerpt from an article in TIME magazine explaining the problems with cloning:

Dozens of animals have been cloned since that first little lamb [Dolly the cloned sheep] - mice, cats, cows, pigs, horses and, most recently, a dog--and it's becoming increasingly clear that they are all, in one way or another, defective. ...

Not only are clones separated from the original template by time - in Dolly's case, six years - but they are also the product of an unnatural molecular mechanism that turns out not to be very good at making identical copies. In fact, the process can embed small flaws in the genomes of clones that scientists are only now discovering. The more scientists have learned about the inner workings of the procedure that created Dolly, the more they are amazed that she survived at all. ...

For each clone born, hundreds of others never make it past their first days and weeks, the victims of defects in development too severe to allow them to survive. ...

During normal development, molecules called methyl groups attach themselves to DNA in precisely timed patterns that regulate which genes are expressed at which times. During cloning, however, those patterns are not always reconstructed in exactly the same way. It's a bit like taking all the words in a novel, jumbling them up and then trying to re-create the original book, putting sentences, pages and chapters back in the right order. The chances of that happening with 100% accuracy are minuscule, which helps explain why cloning is so inefficient.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6718

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GM WATCH PODCASTS
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The latest GM Watch podcast (6) looks at how pro-GM lobbyists mislead the media around the world. You can listen to it on your computer or MP3 player via iTunes:
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=158600210

Or listen on your PC via QuickTime:
http://biotech.indymedia.org/or/2006/07/5173.shtml