----------------------------------------------------------------------------
WEEKLY WATCH number 257
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
from Claire Robinson, WEEKLY WATCH editor
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear all:
Lots of important news this week with the big story here in the UK being Prince Charles's latest statement strongly criticizing GM (PRINCE CHARLES SPEAKS OUT).
The Prince has drawn much support from the public, and some all too predictable attacks from the usual suspects (PRINCE CHARLES - THE REACTIONS).
The other big story is how Monsanto is trying to distance itself from its original GM product, Posilac - see COMPANY NEWS. And no wonder - quite apart from all the consumers, retailers and dairy farmers turning their back on its GM hormone, the American Nurses Association recently passed a resolution making it ANA's official position to oppose its use. The ANA have also called for the labelling of all GMOs (COMPANY NEWS).
Claire <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
www.gmwatch.org / www.lobbywatch.org
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUOTES OF THE WEEK
PRINCE CHARLES SPEAKS OUT
PRINCE CHARLES - THE REACTIONS
COMPANY NEWS
HEALTH RISKS
THE AMERICAS
EUROPE
ASIA
AFRICA
AUSTRALASIA
LOBBYWATCH
FOOD CRISIS
BOOK
CLONING
GENETIC CROSSROADS
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUOTES OF THE WEEK
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
+ PUSHING BIOTECH DOES MORE HARM THAN GOOD -- NATURE BIOTECHNOLOGY
A surprisingly candid editorial in the pro-GM journal Nature Biotechnology warns against hyping GM as a solution to the world's problems. It says GM crops "are not at present addressing key agricultural problems for poor farmers, such as salinity, desertification and drought", nor are they solving malnutrition or the food and fuel crisis: "This journal champions biotech research, so we are not downbeat on its prospects to, one day, generate products that will heal, fuel and feed the world. That is, nevertheless, an outrageous act of faith bordering on the religious."
http://fbae.org/news_08_08_pushing-biotech.html
+ FOOD FASCISM
"One company controls 95% of the GM seeds sold anywhere in the world: Monsanto. Most of the food traded in the world today is controlled by 5 grain giants; about 50% is controlled just by Cargill. So you might look at soya - geneticallly engineered soya growing in Argentina or Brazil -- and here in Europe you might think 'Oh, that's Brazilian soya'. No! It's Monsanto's seed and Cargill-traded. Only the land, the soil of Brazil was used. The control is of agribusiness. The control is by the seed corporation and the biotechnology industry...
"So while the prices of food have gone up 50%, the profits of these corporations have literally gone up 100%... Five giant seed companies, five giant grain-trading companies: we are talking about control that humanity has never experienced in its history.
"Italy had a Mussolini, Germany had a Hitler. The world has now the ten giant corporations controlling our food system, creating a food fascism. Food fascism means an end to food, just like fascism in Europe meant an end to freedom."
-- Video interview with Dr Vandana Shiva, vice president of Slow Food International, at:
http://multimedia.slowfood.it/index.php?method=multimedia&action=zoom&id=24084
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
PRINCE CHARLES SPEAKS OUT
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
+ PRINCE CHARLES WARNS GM CROPS ARE MAJOR ENVIRONMENTAL DISASTER
In a story that made the front page of the UK's Daily Telegraph and triggered a storm of media interest, Prince Charles warned that GM crops were the "biggest disaster environmentally of all time" and that firms were conducting a "gigantic experiment" with "nature and the whole of humanity which has gone seriously wrong".
Relying on "gigantic corporations" for food, he said, would result in "absolute disaster". "That would be the absolute destruction of everything... and the classic way of ensuring there is no food in the future," he said. "What we should be talking about is food security not food production -- that is what matters and that is what people will not understand.
"And if they think its somehow going to work because they are going to have one form of clever genetic engineering after another then again count me out, because that will be guaranteed to cause the biggest disaster environmentally of all time."
http://www.gmwatch.eu/archives/15-Prince-of-Wales-in-tune-with-public-and-indepe ndent-scientific-opinion.html
+ PRINCE BACKED BY REPORT
The Prince's comments come hard on the heels of the UN International Assessment of Agriculture report (IAASTD), carried out by 400 scientists and endorsed by 60 countries, including the UK. The report found no conclusive evidence that GM crops increase crop yields over time. It argued that even if crop yields are in the future pushed up by GM, this might still carry an unacceptable environmental and social cost, with degraded soils, accelerating climate change and a betrayal of the world's poor. The biotechnology industry pulled out of IAASTD in a fit of pique, when it became clear that the report would not endorse GM crops. The approved report stated that "business as usual" was no longer an option and that science and technology must learn to work with traditional knowledge and indigenous communities in finding localised farming solutions.
More on GM yields and IAASTD:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/letters/article4533806.ece
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
PRINCE CHARLES - THE REACTIONS
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
+ MINISTERS FURIOUS
UK Government ministers are said to be privately furious about the Prince's remarks about GM crops, which they believe risks becoming a constitutional crisis. One Labour source said the Prince had "overstepped the mark".
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/theroyalfamily/2571514/Prince-Charles -wrong-on-GM-says-minister.html
+ WOOLAS SAYS GOVERNMENT WILL PRESS AHEAD WITH GM
Phil Woolas, the UK's environment minister, said it was "easy for those with plentiful food" to ignore Third World hunger. He said that the Government had a "moral responsibility" to investigate whether GM products could help alleviate hunger in the developing world. "We see this as part of our Africa strategy." He also told The Sunday Telegraph that the Government would press ahead with GM crop trials and look at moving to a more "liberal" regime in Britain, unless scientific evidence showed that the crops had done harm.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/theroyalfamily/2571514/Prince-Charles -wrong-on-GM-says-minister.html
+ CHARLES CALLED "A LUDDITE"
A number of Labour Members of Parliament have attacked the Prince as a "Luddite".
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1044146/Prince-Charles-battle-ministers- cynical-attempts-push-GM-food-solution-world-hunger.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1044664/The-Luddite-Prince-GM-catastroph e.html
+ JOHN INNES CENTRE SCIENTISTS ATTACK PRINCE
Scientists at the UK's leading GM plant research institute, the John Innes Centre in Norfolk, have said that the Prince of Wales' attack against GM crops was "shocking and ill-informed".
http://new.edp24.co.uk/content/news/story.aspx?brand=EDPOnline&category=News&tBr and=EDPOnline&tCategory=News&itemid=NOED13%20Aug%202008%2020%3A53%3A33%3A637
+ SUPPORT FOR THE PRINCE
Comments on newspaper websites and in the blogosphere have been overwhelmingly in the Prince's favour. Here are some of the other public expressions of support:
*Prof John Wibberley of the Royal Agricultural College said:
"The Prince of Wales is a very welcome champion of farmers not only nationally but internationally. As a farmer himself, he is all too aware of the brilliance that most possess in cherishing the countryside and their farms.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/theroyalfamily/2571514/Prince-Charles -wrong-on-GM-says-minister.html
*Robin Maynard, Soil Association Campaigns Director, said:
"As so often, the Prince of Wales's views are in tune with public opinion. In questioning the value of GM crops for poor, small-scale farmers in developing countries, his comments also chime with the recent international agricultural assessment by 400 scientists from around the world, which questioned whether GM crops offered any solutions to global poverty, hunger or climate change."
http://www.gmwatch.eu/archives/15-Prince-of-Wales-in-tune-with-public-and-indepe ndent-scientific-opinion.html
*Dr Brian John of GM Free Cymru said:
"Prince Charles is absolutely right to have raised this issue now, in the midst of a sustained, cynical and sinister PR campaign from the GM industry, based on the myth that GM crops and foods are somehow going to solve the world's hunger crisis."
*Friends of the Earth's Campaign Director Mike Childs said:
"Prince Charles has hit the nail on the head about the damaging false solution that GM crops present. GM crops will not solve the food crisis - and forging ahead with an industrialised farming system will continue to fail people and the environment around the world."
http://www.gmwatch.eu/archives/15-Prince-of-Wales-in-tune-with-public-and-indepe ndent-scientific-opinion.html
*John Vidal, environment correspondent of The Guardian, said:
"It's easy to scoff at the Prince's latest 'green' intervention, but if you really look at what he's saying, it's completely cogent. Prince Charles' warnings that genetically modified crops and industrial agriculture will lead to ecological disaster appear only to be adding a dose of passion to the cooler analysis of the world's leading agronomists, climate scientists and grassroots groups in developing countries, who have been saying much the same about farming and ecology for some time."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/13/gmcrops.food
*Graham Harvey, farming commentator and agricultural editor of 'The Archers', said:
"[The Prince] must have expected this sort of [aggressive] reaction from the research industry. Over the years, they've been bankrolled to the tune of many billions of pounds from both the taxpayer and agribusiness corporations. Few areas of research have provided so many jobs for scientists.
"Despite the clamour, however, he is, as John Vidal observes, essentially right. The widespread adoption of GM crops may well threaten the world's food supply. It will probably throw millions of small farmers off the land, and it will almost certainly produce shanty cities of the sort he calls 'unsustainable, unmanageable, degraded and dysfunctional conurbations of unimaginable awfulness'. While GM technology may not be the direct cause of such horrors, it will perpetuate the system of industrial agriculture that makes them inevitable.
"Large agribusiness companies - together with their supporters in public science - are now promoting GM crops as the solution to problems they themselves have created. It's a sticking plaster solution to a wound that urgently needs to be cleaned up. If we really want a safe and sustainable supply of food, we must acknowledge that large-scale grain production has failed and needs to be replaced by small mixed farms.
"...Prince Charles is to be applauded for raising these issues."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/14/gmcrops.food1
*Kavitha Kuruganti of the Centre for Sustainable Agriculture, India, said:
"Many of us in India are watching and reading with keen interest the reports coming out of the UK, on Prince Charles' statements and views on GM crops. There are scores of civil society organisations which have recorded appreciation of the Prince's views here. He is right in pointing out that genetic engineering will compound the problems that exist why wouldn't they, given that we are turning to the same corporations which have created the problems in the first place? Millions of smallholder farmers in countries like mine will have sustainable livelihoods only when they get away from corporate science & technology seeking profits all the time."
*Eamonn Holmes, columnist for The People, said:
"I love it when Prince Charles lets rip as he did this week over genetically modified crops. The politicians wet themselves”¦ It's refreshing to hear a public figure talk crop instead of crap."
http://www.people.co.uk/news/tm_headline=charles-right-on-gm-crops&method=full&o bjectid=20700397&siteid=93463-name_page.html
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
COMPANY NEWS
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
+ MONSANTO FLEXES ITS MUSCLE
An important article by the well known agricultural commentator Alan Guebert explores how Monsanto is making the most of its monopolistic position in the GM seed and accompanying chemicals market, and farmers are paying a heavy price. In the wake of massive price hikes of Roundup, the company is set to raise the price of seed corn to over $300 per bag.
http://www.thehawkeye.com/column/Guebert-081008
+ MONSANTO TO SELL GM DAIRY HORMONE BUSINESS
Monsanto has announced that it will try to sell its business of producing the GM growth hormone for dairy cows, rBGH or rBST. The decision comes as more retailers, responding to consumer demand, are selling dairy products from cows NOT treated with the GM hormone.
"I think [Monsanto] saw the handwriting on the wall and gave up," said Andrew Kimbrell, executive director of the Center for Food Safety. "It's a major victory for consumers."
GM Watch comment: rBGH, marketed as Posilac, was launched in 1994. It was Monsanto's first GM product to hit the market, and it's taken 14 years of hard campaigning to get to this point... but what a success!
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/07/business/07bovine.html?ei=5070&en=7e1305646359 117f&ex=1218772800&adxnnl=1&emc=eta1&adxnnlx=1218117951-6NflL06Qp8VMfrsHfW5n0w
http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/August2008/08/c2833.html
http://www.commondreams.org/news2008/0807-13.htm
+ MORE COMMENTS ON MONSANTO'S ATTEMPT TO GET RID OF rBGH
"No one wants the growth hormone rBGH used in milk production, not even the company that makes it. In the last year we've seen retailers including Walmart, Kroger, and Starbucks fall like dominoes in the race to meet consumer demand for artificial growth hormone-free milk."
-- Food & Water Watch executive director Wenonah Hauter
"If genetically engineered products like this were safe, Monsanto would put 'made with GE' in big block letters on all its products."
-- Josh Brandon, agriculture campaigner with Greenpeace
"[rBGH is] a very attractive product."
-- Monsanto spokeswoman Christie Chavis
+ AMERICAN NURSES ASSOCIATION OPPOSES rBGH, CALLS FOR GM LABELLING
The House of Delegates of the American Nurses Association passed a resolution at their latest annual conference making it ANA's official position to oppose rBGH. The ANA also supported the labelling of all GMOs.
http://www.psr.org/site/PageServer?pagename=oregon_safefood
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
HEALTH RISKS
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
+ DR PUSZTAI ON 10TH ANNIVERSARY OF GM SAFETY SCANDAL
On 10 August 1998 the GM debate changed forever with the broadcast of a programme on British TV featuring a brief but revealing interview with Dr Arpad Pusztai about his research into GM food safety. Dr Pusztai's comments on the 10th anniversary of the scandal are well worth reading for the light they throw on the current state of GM food safety:
http://www.gmwatch.eu/archives/14-Dr-Pusztai-on-the-10th-anniversary-of-GM-safet y-scandal.html
+ GM CROPS: THE HEALTH EFFECTS
A Soil Association report looks at the worrying body of published, peer-reviewed scientific evidence from controlled animal studies carried out in many countries and by different parties that demonstrates that GMOs cause a wide range of serious unexpected health impacts. Evidence is also emerging that if GM crops are fed to animals, small amounts of GM material appear in the resulting meat and dairy products, and this had not been previously identified.
http://www.soilassociation.org/Web/SA/saweb.nsf/cfff6730b881e40e80256a6a002a765c /62b3b08dfb6cdaea80256a9500473789/$FILE/gm_health_effects.pdf
+ NEW POWER POINT PRESENTATION ON GM HEALTH RISKS
A downloadable scripted PowerPoint presentation on "The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Foods" is at
http://www.seedsofdeception.com/utility/showDocumentFile?objectID=162
You can also download either a PDF of the script or the Microsoft Word version.
http://www.seedsofdeception.com/utility/showDocumentFile?objectID=163
http://www.seedsofdeception.com/utility/showDocumentFile?objectID=164
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE AMERICAS
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
+ ARGENTINA: SOY -- HIGH PROFITS NOW, HELL TO PAY LATER
Argentina's soybean expansion has serious social, environmental, health and economic impacts, says an article for Inter Press Service. The advance of soy displaces native forests with their wealth of biodiversity, and takes over land used for family agriculture and belonging to indigenous peoples.
According to agronomist Walter Pengue, Johnson grass or Aleppo grass, a weed that is becoming resistant to glyphosate, has appeared in six provinces. Alternatives being discussed to combat it include herbicides that were discontinued in the 1980s as too toxic. "Because of transgenic soy, we have been losing our experts on weeds, and those who remain are working for the companies that produce genetically modified seeds and glyphosate," Pengue said.
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43353
+ MONSANTO SIGNS AGREEMENT WITH BRAZILIAN UNIVERSITY
At the beginning of this year, Monsanto signed an agreement with the University of Sao Paulo (USP), whose original contract, revised after pressure from teachers and students, bound USP to subordination to US laws. One clause that was kept establishes that the University and its Foundation FUSP, are obliged to keep secret all information regarding Monsanto's activities. Article in Portuguese:
http://www.brasildefato.com.br/v01/agencia/nacional/monsanto-na-usp-halliburton- na-agencia-nacional-do-petroleo
+ HERSHEY'S IN BRAZIL GOES GM-FREE
Chocolate bar manufacturer Hershey's in Brazil has announced that it will not source ingredients from Cargill, one of the world's largest food providers, because the company cannot guarantee that soy, lecithin, and oils are not GM.
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/8/7/164144/8933
+ CITIZENS FIGHT GM SUGAR BEETS
Michigan residents are calling for a boycott of Kellogg's to pressure the company into rejecting the use of sugar from Monsanto's Roundup Ready GM sugar beets and to spark widespread market rejection in products ranging from cereal to baby food to candy.
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/8/7/164144/8933
+ SIERRA CLUB URGES U.S. EPA TO SUSPEND NICOTINYL INSECTICIDES
In light of the mounting evidence that the nicotinyl insecticides (also known as neonicotinoids) are deadly to bees, the Sierra Club has reaffirmed its call for a US moratorium on these pesticides to protect bees and crops, until more study can be done.
http://www.sierraclub.org/biotech/whatsnew/whatsnew_2008-07-30.asp
+ ROUNDUP READY SUPERWEEDS
Extract from an article on superweeds caused by GM crop plantings:
"So how in the world did we take a weed like horseweed - that 15 years ago wasn't a problem weed - and make it a huge problem?
"Well, we sprayed Roundup and killed it repeatedly. Then, all of the sudden, it became resistant. At the same time, we went into no-till systems in big acreage. That's how we made horseweed one of the top three weeds in the South in about a five-year period."
-- Dick Oliver, University of Arkansas weed scientist
http://deltafarmpress.com/soybeans/libertylink-welcomed-0813/
More on superweeds:
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/8/14/9630/00762
+ U.S. FARMERS SUE OVER GM RICE
Arkansas citizens and farmers have filed a lawsuit against several chemical companies and Riceland Foods, Inc., alleging they lost money because of GM rice. The lawsuit centres on Bayer's development and testing of an unapproved GM rice, Liberty Link Rice 601 (LL601).
http://www.pbcommercial.com/articles/2008/08/08/news/news1.txt
+ U.S. JUDGE DENIES CLASS ACTION FOR GM RICE SUIT
A federal judge has ruled that hundreds of farmers will not be able to consolidate their lawsuits against Bayer CropScience AG over the accidental release of experimental GM rice into the food supply. US District Judge Catherine Perry denied a motion to certify the farmers' claims into one class-action suit, saying they were too different from one another to be lumped into a single case. If the case had been certified, attorneys say thousands of farmers in rice-producing states such as Missouri and Arkansas could have joined the action.
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/08/14/business/NA-US-Rice-Lawsuit.php
+ U.S.: VITAL UNRESOLVED ANTHRAX QUESTIONS
The FBI's lead suspect in the September 2001 anthrax attacks -- Bruce E. Ivins -- died on 29 July, apparently by suicide, just as the Justice Department was about to charge him with responsibility for the attacks. If the now-deceased Ivins really was the culprit behind the attacks, then that means that the anthrax came from a US government lab, sent by a top US Army scientist at Ft. Detrick. Without resort to any speculation or inferences at all, it is hard to overstate the significance of that fact. From the beginning, there was a clear intent on the part of the anthrax attacker to create a link between the anthrax attacks and both Islamic radicals and the 9/11 attacks. The case has (conveniently) closed with Ivins' death, as no other suspect will be sought and he will never get the chance to defend himself in court.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/08/01/anthrax/index.html
RELATED QUOTE: "The US army developed high-grade weaponised anthrax in order, it said, to work out what would happen if someone else did the same. No one else was capable of producing it: the terrorist who posted envelopes of anthrax in 2001 took it from one of the army's laboratories. Now US researchers are preparing genetically modified strains of smallpox on the same pretext, and with the same likely consequences." -- George Monbiot
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2004/12/21/americas-war-with-itself-/
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
EUROPE
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
+ VOLUNTEER REAPERS RID FRANCE OF GMOs
A hundred 'volunteer reapers', including Jose Bove, on Friday August 15 publicly destroyed two fields of Monsanto Mon810 maize, a GM cereal crop forbidden in France. "The volunteer reapers identified four fields of Mon810 in Vienne," Jose Bove informed Reuters. Two others had been destroyed the previous week. Article in French:
http://www.lexpress.fr/actualite/depeches/infojour/reuters.asp?id=76974
+ GERMANY: FLEEING GM AND PESTICIDES, BEES TAKE REFUGE IN CITIES
In Germany, bees are fleeing insecticides and GM crops to take refuge in cities. On July 15, six German apiarists moved their 30,000 bees into Munich city, some 500 km south of Berlin. They were trying to save their bees from GM maize crops 80 km from Munich. "If our bees were to come in touch with the genetically modified maize, and the honey was contaminated with it, we would not be allowed to sell it," Karl Heinz Bablock, one of the six apiarists who resettled their beehives, told IPS.
Peter Rozenkranz, entomologist at the University of Stuttgart, told IPS that monocultures are depriving bees of their natural habitat. "After some good weeks in spring, bees are threatened by famine, because later in the year, there are almost no more blooming flowers." Rosenkranz said that a satellite view of Germany illustrates the danger for bees. "You can see that in vast regions, especially in the eastern part of the country, there is nothing for bees to feed on." Besides, he said, monocultures are saturated with pesticides and insecticides. "Practically all pesticides and insecticides are deadly for bees."
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43557
+ WHY DOES THE BRITISH BEEKEEPERS ASSOCIATION ENDORSE DEADLY PESTICIDES?
In an unpublished letter to the Guardian, British beekeeper Phil Chandler asks, "Why does the British Bee Keepers Association endorse pesticides?" He writes, "The BBKA demands more taxpayers' money for research into bee diseases, while at the same time taking money from Bayer to endorse pesticides that are known to be toxic to bees."
+ BID TO PLANT GM TREES IN UK
Scientists have applied to plant GM trees in Britain despite fears that they will damage native wildlife. They have asked the Forestry Commission for permission to put GM trees on its land for an international study into agrofuels. Scientists from the University of Southampton want to plant poplars that have been genetically altered to reduce the amount of lignin, a constituent of wood. The team believes this will make it easier for the trees to be used to produce ethanol, an agrofuel which can be used to replace petrol in cars, as well as pulp for paper.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/08/09/eatrees109.xml
What's wrong with GM trees?
http://bereagardens.blogspot.com/2008/02/gm-trees.html
+ OVER 91,000 CITIZENS WANT GM-FREE CATALONIA
The people of Catalonia do not approve of GMOs. On 30 July, more than 91,000 signatures against GMOs were delivered to the Catalan Parliament and it is expected that before 21 August, the official date for the end of the campaign, close to 100,000 signatures will be gathered.
+ PUBLIC CONSULTATIONS TO START ON GM FOODS IN POLAND
In view of the strong opposition to GM production in the country, the Polish government is to launch public consultations this week on the draft of new GM legislation prepared by the ministry of environment.
http://www.polishmarket.com.pl/document/:17748?p=%2Flate%2F
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
ASIA
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
+ JAPAN FINDS UNAUTHORIZED GM RICE IN CHINESE PRODUCTS
Japan has found three incidences of processed rice product imports from China this year that contained a variety of GM rice, Bt63, not authorised there.
http://www.flex-news-food.com/pages/18191/China/GMO/Japan/rice/japan-finds-unaut horised-gm-rice-china-products.html
+ SOUTH KOREAN COMPANY STOPS USING GM CORN IN ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES
Jinro Ltd., South Korea's largest maker of the popular liquor soju, said Monday it will stop using GM corn in all its alcoholic beverages amid growing public concern over the safety of GM foods.
http://www.individual.com/story.php?story=86523328
+ INDIA: SHEEP DEATH -- NO TEST FOR BT TOXIN DONE
Following concern over the large number of sheep that died after grazing in Bt cotton fields, India's GM regulatory body -- the GEAC -- gave Bt cotton a clean bill of health, declaring in its minutes: "analytical reports received from the IVRI Izatnagar and Department of Animal Husbandry, Hyderabad, have confirmed that sheep death in AP [Andhra Pradesh] cannot be attributed to Bt cotton." But now it has emerged that IVRI had, in its own words, "conducted no experiment on grazing or feeding of Bt plants" and "no information on these aspects has been provided to the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee".
http://www.hindu.com/seta/2008/08/07/stories/2008080750041700.htm
+ MORE GOATS DIE IN INDIA AFTER EATING BT COTTON LEAVES
Around 120 goats died after consuming Bt cotton leaves cultivated in Patnagarh sub-division on Sunday. Bt cotton is banned though its seeds are illegally available in the State.
http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IEQ20080806092736&Page=Q&Title=Oriss a&Topic=0
+ INDIA'S SUPREME COURT TO HEAR PLEA FOR GM MORATORIUM
An application seeking a complete moratorium on release of any GM crops in the environment until an independent testing facility is set up will be heard in the Supreme Court. Dr P M Bhargava, the noted microbiological expert, has asked for a "review of six years of Bt cotton experience". He says "it is necessary that review must take place during a full moratorium on all GM crops, including Bt cotton" -- a view that will be placed before a Bench headed by Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan. Highlighting gaps in the present bio-testing system, Aruna Rodrigues, who had earlier filed a public interest lawsuit, has now moved an application urging the court to direct the central government to impose a ban on import of any GM product.
http://www.indianexpress.com:80/story/347682.html
http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/001200808121921.htm
+ PRIME MINISTER OF INDIA SHOULD DROP NEW REGULATORY AUTHORITY
The proposed National Biotechnology Regulatory Authority in India would be undemocratic and authoritarian and the central government should drop the plan, says P V Satheesh of the Deccan Development Society in a letter also signed by other NGOs and farm groups.
http://www.gmfreeireland.org/news/2008/jul.php
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
AFRICA
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
+ SOUTH AFRICA TAKES UNACCEPTABLE RISKS WITH GM
John Pilger asks why South Africa is the only country within the South African Development Community growing GM maize, cotton and soya, and why South Africa's food industry is saturated with GM products which British supermarkets refuse to stock.
http://www.gmfreeireland.org/news/index.php
+ ACT NOW TO STOP GM POTATOES
GM potatoes have reached their last regulatory hurdle in South Africa. This project is being spun by GM scientists as a home-grown South African project, but they fail to mention that they incorporate patented genes owned by Syngenta and Monsanto. **Please** read the petition against the GM potatoes and sign it: http://www.activist.co.za/campaigns/2008/gmpotato.php
Further information: www.biosafetyafrica.net
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
AUSTRALASIA
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
+ GM LABEL CALL IN AUSTRALIA
The Conservation Council of Western Australia (WA) is seeking European-style stringent labelling requirements for GM ingredients in Australia.
http://www.gmfreeireland.org/news/index.php
+ GM-FREE DECISION BY NSW FARMERS ASSOCIATION
The NSW Farmers' Association has declared it will call on State and Federal governments to protect non-GM canola growers from the financial risks of GM production on a commercial scale. The association's delegates carried a motion at their annual conference in Sydney yesterday that will see the farming lobby pressure governments to provide financial safeguards for farmers who choose not to use GM canola seeds.
http://www.drought.org.au/main/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=299&Ite mid=71
+ FARMERS FEDERATION DOESN'T WANT PEOPLE TO KNOW WHO'S GROWING GM
In Victoria, an anti-GM group has published the names and locations of farmers who are growing GM canola. The GeneEthics Network says state governments have failed to keep people fully informed and people have the right to know. But the Farmer's Federation says it's an invasion of privacy which could result in court action.
http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2008/s2332697.htm
+ NOSSAL'S LEAKY GM DEFENCE
Sir Gustav Nossal is the scientist on whose recommendation the Australian GM moratoria were dismantled. His defences of GM food are taken apart in an article for The Age at
http://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=8150
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
LOBBYWATCH
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
+ CULT OF THE AMATEUR THREATENS AG -- TREWAVAS
Prof Anthony Trewavas has written a polemic against "the cult of the amateur" in agriculture, in the journal Trends in Biotechnology. He attacks the "increasing interference in agricultural policy by a few scientists who are marginal to agriculture and from a variety of unqualified groups". While Trewavas is referring to "environmentalists", his words perfectly describe genetic engineers like himself and the pro-GM lobby who have laid claim to expertise over global food, farming and development issues.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
FOOD CRISIS
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
+ EUROPE'S GM HYPE IN TIME OF FOOD AND FUEL CRISIS
Read this article by GM Watch editor Claire Robinson, on how in Europe the pro-GM brigade has been losing no time in exploiting the current global food and fuel crisis and the high price of animal feed to promote GM as the solution in the mainstream media.
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/Exposed_GM-hype.php
+ SOWING FEUDALISM
The hazardous nature and global spread of GM crops constitutes another attack against the fragile food security of the world and the integrity of traditional food systems which feed about three billion human beings at the dawn of the 21st century, writes former US EPA analyst Dr Evaggelos Vallianatos in a wide-ranging article.
http://www.sciencealert.com.au/opinions/20081208-17781.html
+ BARRIERS TO THE GM FOOD REVOLUTION
A pro-GM article for Slate.com is surprisingly candid about the limitations of GM crops: "GM crop technology itself isn't ready to save the world. Despite GM's potential, the technology faces substantial technical and economic barriers before it will spark a second green revolution --barriers that aren't being discussed in the newly energized debate over genetically modified food."
http://www.slate.com/id/2196772/pagenum/all/#page_start
+ "ONLY FREE TRADE CAN GUARANTEE FOOD SECURITY", SAYS CORPORATE OSTRICH
The Blairite former chairman of Northern Foods Christopher Haskins, referring to the wartime blockade of Britain's food and fuel convoys, thinks it is "inconceivable in today's world that such an emergency would re-occur". Haskins shares the optimistic outlook of a recent Defra report on food security that, "as a rich country open to trade, the UK is well placed to access sufficient foodstuffs through a well-functioning world market".
But Robin Maynard, Soil Association campaigns director, says it is Haskins' "business as usual" scenario that is inconceivable, given the challenges which climate change and scarcer, more costly oil bring to global food production and trade. The industrial GM-oriented agriculture Haskins recommends is dependent on oil and a major emitter of greenhouse gases. Artificial nitrogen fertiliser, the bedrock of such farming systems, consumes 37 tonnes of water and emits nearly 7 tonnes of carbon dioxide for every tonne produced. None of the GM crops in the ground increase yields and they weren't designed to. At best, according to the US Department of Agriculture, they achieve the same or lower yields.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ced2dc4c-631b-11dd-9fd0-0000779fd2ac.html
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
BOOK
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
+ BARREN SPRING: BOOK DISHES THE DIRT ON GM
An interview with environmental lawyer Claire Hope Cummings, author of the book Uncertain Peril: Genetic Engineering and the Future of Seeds, is at
http://www.grist.org/feature/2008/08/01/
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
CLONING
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
+ WORLD'S FIRST COMMERCIAL DOG CLONES
South Korean biotechnologists have created five clones of a Californian woman's pet dog.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article4462922.ece
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
GENETIC CROSSROADS
News and Views from the Center for Genetics and Society
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
+ GERON, EXETER AFFILIATES MERGE TO CREATE LIVESTOCK CLONING SHOP
Geron and Exeter Life Sciences said today that Start Licensing, a joint venture between the two firms, and ViaGen, a subsidiary of Exeter, have merged to form a new entity that will focus on animal cloning.
http://www.geneticsandsociety.org/article.php?id=4213
+ THE STRANGE SAGA OF "BERNANN" MCKINNEY
by Jesse Reynolds
The story of the first happy customer of RNL Bio's new pet dog cloning service is almost too outlandish to mock. But while cloning certainly seems to attract more than its share of eccentrics, a dismissal is inappropriate.
http://www.biopoliticaltimes.org/article.php?id=4215
+ DNA DATABASES RUN AMOK
by Jesse Reynolds
Genetic forensics may assist in solving crimes, but the too-common assumption of the technique's infallibility makes it prone to implementation errors - seen most recently in the UK and Australia.
http://www.biopoliticaltimes.org/article.php?id=4208
+ BREADLINE OR EGG LINE?
by Marcy Darnovsky
More women are trying to deal with the economic downturn by selling their eggs or signing up as surrogates.
http://www.biopoliticaltimes.org/article.php?id=4205
+ QUESTIONING THE COMMERCE OF CONCEPTION
by Marcy Darnovsky
More concerns about the inadequate regulation of the assisted reproduction industry.
http://www.biopoliticaltimes.org/article.php?id=4199
+ WASHINGTON POST: INADEQUATE SUPPLY OF VIKING SPERM A CRISIS FOR SUCCESSFUL SINGLE WOMEN
by Jesse Reynolds
How reasonable are the expectations and disappointments of a woman, featured on the front page of the Washington Post, who's having difficulty obtaining a second sample of sperm from the Danish man who sired her first child?
http://www.biopoliticaltimes.org/article.php?id=4214
+ WHITHER STEM CELL FUNDING?
by Jesse Reynolds
Is funding for stem cell companies drying up? Perhaps it depends who, and when, you ask.
http://www.biopoliticaltimes.org/article.php?id=4206