from Claire Robinson, WEEKLY WATCH editor
------------------------------------------------------------
Dear all:
A new report on pharma trials around the world makes for eye-opening reading (NEW REPORT ON PHARMA TRIALS). New research shows how Bt maize is harming a European butterfly (RESEARCH).
A very fishy smell emanates from India, where it's emerged that postmortem reports on the sheep that died after grazing on Bt cotton fields have been tampered with in an effort to shift the blame for the deaths onto pesticides and even phantom chillis!
Claire
www.gmwatch.org / www.lobbywatch.org
------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS
------------------------------------------------------------
NEW REPORT ON PHARMA TRIALS
RESEARCH
LOBBYWATCH
THE AMERICAS
ASIA
EUROPE
BLAIR'S BIOTECH BRITAIN
AFRICA
GM MEDICINES
CORPORATE CRIMES
BIOFUELS
FREE TRADE
TAKE ACTION!
------------------------------------------------------------
NEW REPORT ON PHARMA TRIALS
------------------------------------------------------------
+ PHARMA FIELD TRIALS AROUND THE WORLD
The recent furore over pharma field trials in France, involving the production of monoclonal antibodies, is put into perspective by a new report on pharma field trials around the world. This report also shows that the French field trials involving monoclonal antibodies actually got underway a year ago. Genetically engineered monoclonal antibodies were involved in the catastrophic GM drug trial in London - see GM MEDICINES below.
The report is best read online for all the tables, figures, references etc. and can be found at: http://www.gmwatch.org/p1temp.asp?pid=83&page=1
------------------------------------------------------------
RESEARCH
------------------------------------------------------------
+ BT POLLEN DAMAGES EUROPEAN BUTTERFLY - NEW STUDY
A new study on the effects of pollen from the GM maize Bt176 on the European common swallowtail butterfly shows that less than 5 grains of this Bt pollen has a negative impact on the butterfly's life history.
The study, led by Andreas Lang of the Bavarian State Research Centre for Agriculture, found that uptake of Bt maize pollen led to swallowtail larvae consuming less plant material, having a lower body weight, and taking longer to develop. Larvae that consumed Bt maize pollen also had a lower body weight as adult females and smaller forewings as adult males.
Although this is a lab study and field conditions can be different, the pollen densities in this study are in accordance with maize pollen densities found on swallowtail host plants in the field. In fact, the field densities can be much higher, notably during the pollen shedding period of maize fields. The pollen shedding time also usually spans a much longer period than the 48 hours of this study. This might suggest that the actual impact of the Bt maize pollen on butterflies might be considerably greater.
The researchers conclude that possible effects of Bt maize on European butterflies and moths must be evaluated more rigorously before Bt maize cultivation expands. It's alarming that this GM maize was approved for commercialization in 1997 and we're now looking at the results of this simple lab study showing its negative effects 9 years on!
Dr Brian John of GM Free Cymru comments: "It is now incontrovertible that all plantings of Bt maize varieties (e.g. MON810 and Bt176) in Europe are harmful and thus illegal under Directive 2001/18. How much more evidence do the "experts" at DEFRA, ACRE, ACNFP, EFSA, etc. actually need?"
Details of this and other studies from Australia and Hungary showing Bt maize and cotton's toxic effects are at http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6826
+ MOVING BEYOND RIP-MIX-N-BURN GENETIC ENGINEERING
The most promising advances in agricultural biotechnology, says Brandon Keim - the Director of Communications of the Council for Responsible Genetics, tend to be the most subtle ones - techniques that steer away from transgenic hacking and focus instead on increasing our understanding of plant genetics. Recent research from the University of Arizona's Bio5 Institute provides a case in point.
In a study published in the July 20 issue of Nature, the U of A researchers looked at a phenomenon known as "paramutation," which underlines the tricky fact that, though the DNA is identical, genes in offspring sometimes function quite differently than genes in parents.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6841
------------------------------------------------------------
LOBBYWATCH
------------------------------------------------------------
+ BIOTECH INDUSTRY LOSES GM PLOT
"A recent Eurobarometer poll on biotechnology found a 21% drop in trust of environmental groups on biotech issues since 2002," claims GM lobbyist Peter Wynne Davies of Agricultural Biotech Europe in Brussels.
But Fouad Hamdan of Friends of the Earth Europe says Wynne Davies has missed the point: "the Eurobarometer poll that he quotes reiterated quite clearly the lack of public support across the European Union for GM foods.
"... the survey shows that public support for GM in many EU countries is now below that reported in 1996. Support in Germany is now only 30% compared with 56% in 1996. Whether the public has reached this opinion through their trust in environmental groups is irrelevant. As the poll states, 'Europeans think that GM food should not be encouraged. GM food is widely seen as not being useful, as morally unacceptable and as a risk for society'. That's the real story." http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6835
+ LOBBYISTS IN NGOs CLOTHING
Defending the governing Labour Party's plans for GM contamination in an exchange of letters in the UK's Guardian newspaper last week were Tony Combes of the Agricultural Biotechnology Council, and Prof Vivian Moses, chairman of CropGen.
Both these lobby groups are industry funded and both are run on a day-to-day basis by the same PR agency - Lexington Communications. Lexington was founded by Mike Craven - former chief media spokesman for the Labour Party!!
Needless to say, nothing in the letters makes these industry-government links clear to Guardian readers. Nor does Tony Combes mention his employer - Monsanto! http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6822
------------------------------------------------------------
THE AMERICAS
------------------------------------------------------------
+ WATCHDOGS OR LAPDOGS? THE REGULATION OF GMOs
"The Canadian GM risk assessment process is so simplistic that not a single submission has ever been rejected in Canada. Everything submitted, almost wholly by industry, has been accepted," according to Ann Clark PhD, an expert on the dangers of GMOs.
"The Canadian GM regulatory process is a ruse, claiming to safeguard human and environmental health, but actually intended to facilitate commercialization of GM crops," according to Dr Clark.
In a 2005 brief to Parliament regarding its controversial Bill C-27, Clark warned that if the federal government passes the pending Canadian Food Inspection Agency Enforcement Act, it will have voted to "facilitate international trade primarily by streamlining inspections, replacing Canadian assessment with those by foreign powers, and harmonizing regulations with the US and other countries, all of which challenge, rather than safeguard, the health and safety of Canadians."
Beth Burrows, president and director of the Edmonds Institute, says, "Even diplomats charged by their governments to discuss biosafety balk at doing so, perhaps because they are also charged to protect their countries' industrial interests. The discussions that took place during the biosafety protocol negotiations begun in 1995 under the aegis of the UN Convention on Biodiversity were almost surreal in their avoidance of the topic [of biosafety]." http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6846
------------------------------------------------------------
ASIA
------------------------------------------------------------
+ GEAC IGNORES DEAD BT-FED SHEEP
India's Centre for Sustainable Agriculture and the shepherds and goatherds' union in Andhra Pradesh - ANTHRA - have sent a letter to the country's main GM regulatory body, GEAC, pointing out that it has wilfully ignored or dismissed evidence of harm caused by Bt cotton, including a fact-finding study compiled by CSA on deaths in sheep and goats that grazed on Bt cotton. http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6828
+ POST-MORTEM EVIDENCE TAMPERED WITH IN BT COTTON DEATHS CASE
Following their report on the hundreds of sheep and goat deaths that occurred after animals grazed on the residue of harvested Bt cotton fields in India, ANTHRA and the Centre for Sustainable Agriculture have produced new evidence showing that the official post-mortem findings have subsequently been tampered with, both to undermine veterinary department diagnoses that linked the deaths to Bt cotton grazing and to introduce spurious alternative causes of death.
In a letter to India's GM regulatory body, GEAC, ANTHRA and CSA report what they discovered when they examined the postmortem findings register of the Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory at Warangal.
In the letter they state: "We are aware of at least three cases... where the shepherds had not said anything about pesticides being used on Bt cotton, whereas the postmortem findings register has some new things added about this in a different ink.
"The tampering is to such an extent that where farmers had not reported about grazing their animals on chilli crop, simply because there was no chilli crop being grown in a particular village, the postmortem register now has this mentioned in the case history, in a distinctly different writing!"
They also note: "A popular doctor, who was advising the farmers not to graze their animals on Bt cotton, given the trend that she noticed from the postmortem cases, is under pressure to tamper [with] her records - why? Who is behind this? Has the GEAC done anything to support her and investigate the whole issue?"
They point out in the letter that while the GEAC has tried to dismiss their initial report as "highly exaggerated", the postmortem findings register itself has some cases recorded under the diagnosis "poisoning fed on Bt cotton". If such a linkage was made by veterinary officials in their diagnoses, then why, ask ANTHRA and CSA, is such a possibility in their preliminary report dismissed as "highly exaggerated"?
What is needed, they emphasise, is a proper investigation rather than a cover up. http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6829
+ RISKS OF BT COTTON COVERED UP
In an article for The Deccan Herald, Devinder Sharma condemns the Indian government's failure to hold biotech companies responsible for the GM Bt cotton disasters that have blighted the lives of Indian farmers.
EXCERPT:
It is now official. A report by the Planning Commission has accepted that Bt cotton shouldn't have been approved for the rainfed regions of the country. The "astronomical" seed price, the need for more water and pesticides has aggravated the crisis for cotton farmers who are already reeling under a terrible agrarian emergency...
The prime minister visited Vidharba but neither have the cotton farmers growing Bt cotton been compensated nor has the industry been blacklisted. No uncomfortable questions are likely to be asked, no heads will roll, and no one will be accountable for the biggest scientific fraud to have hit Indian science. http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6827
+ INDIA NEEDS AGRICULTURAL RENAISSANCE TO END FARMER SUICIDES
Kavitha Kuruganti has forwarded to us "a wonderful, wonderful letter from Bhaskar Save of Kalpavruksha Farm in Gujarat to M. S. Swaminathan, chair of the National Commission on Farmers at the ministry of agriculture. Things are so beautifully articulated that if M S Swaminathan does not respond to this, it would be a great crime!"
EXCERPT: You, M. S. Swaminathan, are considered the 'father' of India's so-called 'Green Revolution' that flung open the floodgates of toxic agrochemicals - ravaging the lands and lives of many millions of Indian farmers over the past 50 years. More than any other individual in our long history, it is you I hold responsible for the tragic condition of our soils and our debt-burdened farmers, driven to suicide in increasing numbers every year.
As destiny would have it, you are presently the chairperson of the National Commission on Farmers, mandated to draft a new agricultural policy. I urge you to take this opportunity to make amends - for the sake of the children, and those yet to come. http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6839
+ SEEDS AND ROBBERS
In India, seed companies are robbing subsistence farmers - and the state and central governments are turning a blind eye, writes Devinder Sharma. Even the formerly bullish Andhra Pradesh government, which initially demanded compensation for farmers who grew Monsanto-Mahyco's failed Bt cotton, later backed away from challenging the multinational giant.
EXCERPT:
In 2005, Mahyco-Monsanto and its sub-licensees earned a profit of Rs 1000-crore [one crore= 10 million] from selling genetically modified seeds of Bt cotton. Profit does become a dirty word when one realises that at a time when the countryside is reeling under a terrible agrarian crisis, the Rs 1000-crore that the seed companies have siphoned-off from the ravaged farms could have been the life saving thread for millions of farmers struggling between life and death. http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6847
+ PETITION TO SUPREME COURT TO STOP BT BRINJAL
A petition has been submitted to the Supreme Court of India to stop the release of Bt brinjal (eggplant/aubergine) in field trials.
Many international scientists have provided affidavits for the Court in this case. Prof David Schubert of the Salk Institute says the safety testing data on the Ministry (GEAC) website is "very poorly done and in the absence of REAL DATA it is impossible to make any assessment of the validity of their claims".
Dr Doug Gurian Sherman, Senior Scientist at the Centre For Food Safety and a former EPA scientist concurs. Dr Robert Mann, formerly senior lecturer in biochemistry at the University of Auckland and Advisor to successive Ministries of Health in NZ, says, "I regard the Bt brinjal field trial proposal as one of the most ill-conceived I have encountered in my three decades of critical appraisal of GM. The risks and hazards, while not exactly known or indeed precisely foreseeable, appear to be so grave that the proposed field-trials should be enjoined pending a thorough assessment such as has yet to be performed." http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6833
+ BANGLADESH'S BIODIVERSITY VERSUS GOLDEN RICE
The Bangladesh Rice Research Institute intends to introduce GM golden rice, fortified with a vitamin A precursor, by 2010. According to officials the rice is currently being cultivated at laboratory level.
The Bangladeshi daily paper New Age comments:
Given the worldwide debate over genetically modified organisms, especially about their effects on the human body and environment, the rice research institute's move is rather alarming. Laboratory tests on rats have found that genetically modified foods result in allergic reactions, high white blood cell count, production of immature red cells, changed structure and cell functioning of the pancreas, liver and testes besides high death rates...
Advocates of food sovereignty point out that genetic technology destroys biodiversity and has enormous adverse affects on food sovereignty. http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6816
------------------------------------------------------------
EUROPE
------------------------------------------------------------
+ GM JOBS MYTH UNMASKED
According to a new study commissioned by Friends of the Earth Germany (BUND), no more than 500 people are employed in the plant genetic engineering sector in Germany. The study, carried out by Thorsten Helmerichs and Daniel Grundke of the Carl von Ossietzky University Oldenburg, Corporate Chair of Management, further stated that an increase is highly unlikely. This finding is in sharp contrast to assertions by politicians and biotech lobbyists, that plant genetic engineering creates thousands of jobs. http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6836
+ ACTIVISTS DESTROY 18 ACRES OF GM CROPS IN FRANCE
France's agriculture minister has condemned the destruction of two fields of GM maize by activists in southwestern France. Agriculture minister Dominique Bussereau called Sunday's slashing of the crops "vandalism contrary to the rule of law and the respect of private property," a statement from his office said.
More than 200 activists tore up 18 acres of the maize in two fields near the southern city of Toulouse. Five suspects were detained by police and held for questioning on Monday.
Jose Bove, who led the group, urged more "civil disobedience" if the government rejects its call for a national referendum on whether GM crops should be permitted in France.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6831
+ FRENCH FARMERS PROTEST AGAINST GM MAIZE DESTRUCTION
Around 300 maize growers protested in southwest France in defence of a local farmer whose field of GM maize was destroyed at the weekend by activists linked to Jose Bove.
The maize growers' group AGPM called the destruction of the maize intolerable and said in a statement that extremism and loutish behaviour should not be tolerated.
AGPM has a policy of encouraging farmers to get involved in GM maize cultivation, pro-actively seeking volunteers.
They're not France's first pro-GM counter-protesters. In 2004 there were reports of "the surprise emergence in France of a group of radical rural campaigners claiming to be in favour of open-field [GM] experiments".
These "radical rural campaigners" were led by Pierre Pagesse. As well as being a farmer, Pagesse turns out to be the president of Limagrain, which is not just one of the world's leading seed companies but is up to its neck in GM crop R&D!
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6840
+ CROP "MOWERS" ON THE RISE
In Europe, the number of "mowers" ready to destroy crops at the risk of five-year prison sentences or a fine of 75,000 euros ($96,000) is on the rise, says a United Press International article. In 2003, 300 were registered by name with various anti-GM organizations. This year 6,200 are on the lists. Commercial cultivation, they believe, is illegal since it does not conform to official European directives on the planting of GM crops.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6844
------------------------------------------------------------
BLAIR'S BIOTECH BRITAIN
------------------------------------------------------------
+ UK LEADER OF OPPOSITION WOULD "NOT KNOWINGLY" EAT GM FOOD
Quote from David Cameron, leader of the Conservatives - the main opposition party in the UK: "I don't think we should lift the moratorium [on GM crops] until we've dealt with the two issues of contamination and liability." When asked if he would eat food which has got GM content in it, he says, "not knowingly... on the whole I'd rather make sure I'm eating locally produced and un-genetically modified food."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6824
+ BLAIR GOVT LAUNCHES NEW SCHEME TO PROMOTE GM IN DEVELOPING WORLD
The Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and the Department for International Development (DFID) have announced a new scheme to promote GM in developing countries. BBSRC's press release says "The scheme will strengthen collaboration between BBSRC and DFID to support research that provides answers on how to increase agricultural productivity and food security so as to make significant differences to the lives of poor people in Africa and Asia."
The BBSRC's previous chairman was Peter Doyle, a director of the GM giant Syngenta. This was not considered a conflict of interest. In fact, the BBSRC has many biotech industry figures, including Syngenta representatives, sitting on its boards.
Doyle's replacement as head of the BBSRC is Prof Julia Goodfellow, the wife of the head of discovery research at biotech/pharma giant GlaxoSmithKline. Needless to say, GSK also has representatives on BBSRC boards!
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6821
+ GM CROP IMPOVERISHES DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
The Soil Association has condemned the British government's latest plans to promote GM crops in developing countries. The Government's announcement comes at the same time as new research showing that the GM "miracle crop", Bt cotton, has proved an economic and environmental failure in China.
Peter Melchett, Soil Association policy director said: "It is completely irresponsible of the government to promote this unwanted technology to the developing world. GM cotton has been a complete failure in China - it has lowered the income of farmers and failed to reduced pesticide use. Consumers in Europe have overwhelmingly rejected GM food and now it appears that the GM industry, with the help of our government, are using the developing world as a dumping ground for GMOs."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6821
+ YOU DON'T WANT GM FOODS? TOO BAD
Superb article from Blair's former UK environment minister Michael Meacher, published in The Sunday Telegraph (EXCERPT):
So, according to the government, we are to have GM crops commercially grown in Britain from 2009, and if you don't like your food being GM contaminated, too bad. That's the clear message of [the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs's] Defra's latest consultation paper proposing absurdly small separation distances between GM and other crops, a voluntary system of compensation for ruined non-GM farmers, and permission for GM crops to be grown at secret locations (rejecting a public register of sites as sanctioned by EU law).
All of this begs the question: is genetic modification of food safe? The question remains unanswered, but a pile of new scientific evidence has produced some worrying results. Within the last few months a Russian scientist, found that an astonishing 55 per cent of the offspring of rats fed on GM soya died within three weeks of birth compared with only 9 per cent in the control group.
Then an Italian researcher found that mice fed on GM soya experienced a slowdown in cellular metabolism and modifications in liver and pancreas. A third study, in Australia, showed that genes from a bean introduced into a pea created a protein that caused such serious inflammation of lung tissue in mice that the research was halted.
Enough, you might think, for the government (or the EU, for the Commission is now in charge of GM policy) to stop the import of GM processed foods until exhaustive tests had been carried out. Not a bit of it. The EU, under pressure from the US, has pushed through the approval of seven GM foods over the past two years, despite a lack of support from member states, and has commercialised 31 varieties of Monsanto's maize for cultivation in the EU.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6820
------------------------------------------------------------
AFRICA
------------------------------------------------------------
+ AFRICA MUST RESIST PRESSURE OVER GMOs
Africa must resist pressure from multinational corporations that continue to flood the agribusiness sector with GMOs, until Africans understand the implications of genetic engineering for biodiversity, the environment, farmers and consumers, warns an article in The Herald (Harare, Zimbabwe).
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6837
+ IS SOUTH AFRICA IN THE U.S.'s SIGHTS OVER GM BAN?
During September/October 2005, South Africa's Executive Council (ExCo) took a decision not to approve any new GM applications for import into South Africa as food, feed and processing. This decision was taken by the ExCo in order to accommodate the serious concerns raised by the national Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), regarding price distortions of GM maize and its concomitant negative impacts on the South African economy as a whole. The decision affects all new GM import applications. Mariam Mayet of African Centre for Biosafety in a typically incisive article wonders whether the US will challenge this decision via the WTO.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6842
------------------------------------------------------------
GM MEDICINES
------------------------------------------------------------
+ GM DRUG VICTIMS TOLD TO EXPECT EARLY DEATH
Victims of the disastrous "Elephant Man" GM drug trial, involving genetically engineered monoclonal antibodies, have been told they face contracting cancer and other fatal diseases as a result of being poisoned in the tests.
One of the six victims was told last week he is already showing "definite early signs" of lymphatic cancer. He and three others have also been warned that they are "highly likely" to develop incurable auto-immune diseases.
Genetically engineered monoclonal antibodies are being produced in maize in secret field trials in France - see NEW REPORT ON PHARMA TRIALS.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6830
------------------------------------------------------------
CORPORATE CRIMES
------------------------------------------------------------
+ MONSANTO'S AGENT ORANGE "CAUSED GENE DAMAGE"
New Zealand troops who served in the Vietnam War suffered significant genetic damage from exposure to Agent Orange, a study suggests.
The chemical was used by the US military in Vietnam in the 1960s. It has been blamed for a variety of medical conditions suffered by soldiers and up to four million Vietnamese.
The study by New Zealand's scientists could have a big effect on campaigners' efforts to sue major chemical firms and the US government.
Dow Chemical and Monsanto, the two companies mainly responsible for creating Agent Orange, have consistently denied that Agent Orange is responsible for these health problems.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6817
------------------------------------------------------------
BIOFUELS
------------------------------------------------------------
+ BIOFUELS "CAN HARM THE ENVIRONMENT"
Biofuels can make up no more than 5 per cent of petrol or diesel consumption in the US and the European Union without causing environmental damage, according to a report from Bank Sarasin, the Swiss bank.
The report examined the risk that producing biofuels would leave less fertile land to devote to food production, so raising the price of staple foods, and the danger that increasing biodiesel production in areas such as south-east Asia might lead to the cutting down of rainforest, with dire environmental consequences.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6823
+ ETHANOL NOT SO GREEN
Report from the University of Minnesota says ethanol may not be as green an option as its proponents make it out to be.
http://www.emagazine.com/view/?3278
+ FRANKENSTEIN FUELS
An excellent article by Mark Lynas for the New Statesman says biofuels' environmental credentials are "a con" (EXCERPT): "In 1997, the single worst year of Indonesian forest- and peat-burning, 2.67 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide were released by the fires, equivalent to 40 per cent of the year's entire emissions from burning fossil fuels. That was a particularly bad year: most summers, the emissions are only a billion or so tonnes, or about 15 per cent of total human emissions. The biggest Indonesian fires, in 1997 and 1998, took place on plantation company land, while in neighbouring Malaysia 87 per cent of recent deforestation has occurred to make way for palm-oil plantations. It is stretching credulity to argue that biofuels produced through this destructive process are helping combat climate change."
Lynas also warns that the biotech industry is trying to exploit biofuels, "The GM industry now plans to reinvent itself, following the example of the nuclear industry, on the back of climate change."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6843
------------------------------------------------------------
FREE TRADE
------------------------------------------------------------
+ GLOBALISATION AND ITS NEW AVATARS - VANDANA SHIVA
In an article for ZNet, Vandana Shiva points out that the US allowed the Doha Round of WTO negotiations to grind to a halt, by showing no willingness to reduce its massive farm subsidies in exchange for increased market access. This is because it is getting market access anyway through bilateral mechanisms like the US-India Knowledge Initiative in Agriculture, which is promoting GMOs.
EXCERPTS:
Monsanto, Walmart and ADM are on the board of the US India Agriculture Initiative.
US Aid is interfering directly in India's GM policies and has financed the push to commercialise Bt Brinjal, which would be the first GM food crop approved for large scale commercial trials and seed production in India.
The US biotech agenda is also being internalized into India's agricultural policy. The Planning Commission, India's highest planning body, headed by Montek Singh Ahluwalia is appointing a non-resident, the US based Dr Deshpal Verma, Professor of Genetics and Biotechnology at Ohio, to head a cell to promote GMOs in agriculture and increase the role of global corporations like Monsanto in the farm sector.
Thousands of Indian farmers have committed suicide due to debts resulting from a new dependence on costly yet unreliable hybrid and Bt cotton sold by Monsanto and its Indian partners.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6825
------------------------------------------------------------
TAKE ACTION!
------------------------------------------------------------
+ JOIN THE MONSANTO BOYCOTT!
The Family Farm Defenders have launched a boycott against Monsanto in response to its intimidation of small farmers via lawsuits, and the company's opposition to the labeling of GM foods. They recommend a boycott of the following products produced by Monsanto: NutraSweet, Equal, Aspartame, and Roundup, not to mention GM seeds!
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6834
+ SIGN THE 'MILLIONS AGAINST MONSANTO' PETITION
http://www.organicconsumers.org/monlink.html
+ TELL BLAIR WHAT YOU THINK OF HIS GM PLANS Tell the UK Government to keep our food and farming GM free at: http://www.stopgmcontamination.org
+ DON'T FORGET PERU!
Ask President Toledo of Peru not to pass a "MONSANTO LAW".
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6780