WEEKLY WATCH number 221
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from WEEKLY WATCH editor, Claire Robinson
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Dear all:
Well known biotech corporations, including BASF, DuPont, Monsanto, and Syngenta, are holding back about their involvement in U.S. biowarfare research, while U.S. universities are carrying out lucrative GM bioweapons work. Any Third World university doing the same would probably have been nuked by now! (BIOWARFARE RESEARCH)
There's an important action you can take to prevent the US overturning state GM bans (THE AMERICAS). You can have your say whatever country you are in.
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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ASIA - BT COTTON NIGHTMARE
INDIA - GM 'REGULATORS' BLINK
ASIA - OTHER NEWS
AFRICA
EUROPE
THE AMERICAS
AUSTRALASIA
FOOD SAFETY
MEDIAWATCH
NEW RESEARCH
BIOWARFARE RESEARCH
ZOMBIE CROPS
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ASIA - BT COTTON NIGHTMARE
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+ INDIA: BT COTTON CAN KILL FARM ANIMALS, ANDHRA GOVT CAUTIONS FARMERS
The Andhra Pradesh government has advised farmers not to allow animals to graze on Bt cotton fields after four institutes reported the presence of toxins. Goats and sheep grazing on post-harvest Bt cotton fields were found dead in 2006 and 2007. Dr L Mohan, director, Andhra Pradesh animal husbandry department, said: "The deaths have resulted in huge economic losses for farmers."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8023
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8041
+ INDIA: FARMERS' WIDOWS MEET PRESIDENT, URGE BLANKET BAN ON BT COTTON
A delegation of farmers' widows from the Indian state of Maharashtra's cotton growing belt of Vidarbha, have had an audience with the President of India Dr APJ Abdul Kalam to draw his attention to their helpless condition following their husbands' suicides. The widows broke down while narrating their tales. An article on indianmuslims.info reports:
The costly and improper Bt cotton seeds, which are not suitable for dry land farming [the most common form of farming in India], are being freely propagated and sold at a very high cost which is virtually killing the farmers due to high input cost and low yield. There must be a blanket ban on Bt cotton seeds in the dry land farming areas. This has to be done immediately in order to save the farmers from undue exploitation and cheating. There must be a ban on sale and misleading advertisements of Bt cotton seeds in the dry land areas of Maharashtra where such seeds are not useful. The so-called upgrade technology is killing the farmers.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8022
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8028
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8019
+ PAKISTAN: CATHOLIC AID AGENCY RAPS BT COTTON
Farmers have related their disappointing experiences with Bt cotton at a press conference in Pakistan organised by the Catholic aid agency, Caritas. Currently 3,000 farmers in southern Punjab are involved in Caritas programmes. Pakistan's ministry of food and livestock approved Bt cotton only in April this year, and provincial governments have yet to give approval, although the GM seeds have been available illegally.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8024
+ NEW PATHOGENS WITH BT COTTON
Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) plant pathologists Drs HS Rewal and Chander Mohan have warned about a high incidence of pathogen-alternaria blight as well as the development of other fungal and bacterial pathogen problems as a result of Bt cotton.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8042
More research findings on Bt cotton
http://www.gmwatch.org/p1temp.asp?pid=86&page=1
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INDIA - GM 'REGULATORS' BLINK
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+ INDIA'S GM REGULATORS BLINK
Despite predictions to the contrary, India's Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) failed to approve multi-locational field trials of GM food crops. Those on the agenda for Friday's meeting included six Bt rice hybrids, three Bt okra hybrids, two GM corn crops, and eight Bt eggplant hybrids. The committee asked the GM seed companies to submit validated protocols for detection of 0.01% level of GM contamination, before it considered proceeding with the field trials.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8046
+ GEAC GETS CONTEMPT OF COURT WARNING
The GEAC's failure to approve GM food crop trials may well have been influenced by a contempt of court warning it received on the eve of its meeting. The warning pointed out that the granting of fresh approvals for field trials represents a clear attempt to violate the Orders of the Supreme Court and will trigger legal action.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8044
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8046
+ WAVE OF PROTESTS IF TRIALS APPROVED
News that the GEAC was toying with the idea of authorising GM food crop trials also led to warnings that such a move would trigger a wave of protests. Kerala's Agriculture Minister declared, "No GM crop trials and cultivation will be allowed in Kerala", adding that Bt cotton had led to suicide for farmers in Vidharbha and Andhra Pradesh and that he would not allow anything like that to happen in Kerala.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8045
http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IEQ20070624011045&Page=Q&Title=ORISSA&Topic=0
+ PANCHAYATS CAN STOP GM TRIALS
More than 80 Indian panchayats (local authorities) from Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Orissa, Punjab, Tamilnadu and West Bengal wrote to the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) reminding them that the companies wanting to run GM crop trials need to get prior permission from the relevant panchayat.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8035
http://www.countercurrents.org/kuruganti210607.htm
+ GM FOOD CROP TRIALS "IMPOSSIBLE"
Bhagirath Choudhary, the Indian representative of the GM industry front group, the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA), told the Deccan Herald that the GEAC by accepting the stringent contamination detection level of of 0.01% set by the Supreme Court, had made such trials "impossible", at least for many years. Interestingly, the co-chair of the GEAC is on the board of the ISAAA.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8046
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ASIA - OTHER NEWS
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+ CHINESE INVESTIGATE GM IMPORT ALLEGATIONS
The Chinese Ministry of Agriculture is investigating allegations that Japanese food producer Glico and German retail chain Metro have been found to be selling GM food products in China, even though they are committed to totally avoiding GM ingredients in their home markets. Chinese GM campaigner, Lorena Luo said, "Like Japanese and German consumers, Chinese consumers do not want genetically engineered food. Glico and Metro should stop having double standards and apply their non-GE policy to China as well".
http://www.ap-foodtechnology.com/news/ng.asp?n=77521-greenpeace-gmo-labeling
+ MALAYSIA: PUBLIC SAFETY COMES FIRST
Despite U.S. pressure Malaysia's Environment Minister has said that that the labelling of products containing GM organisms will remain mandatory under the new Biosafety Bill.
http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/NST/Wednesday/Letters/20070530081151/Article/index_html
+ INDONESIA: GM FOODS NEED LABELLING - EXPERTS
The Indonesian Government is coming under increasing pressure to implement its existing regulations on labelling GM foods.
http://www.thejakartapost.com/yesterdaydetail.asp?fileid=20070622.H05
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AFRICA
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+ SOUTH AFRICA: MONSANTO FORCED TO WITHDRAW GM CLAIM
Monsanto has been ordered to withdraw an advertising claim that no negative reactions have been reported to GM foods. South Africa's Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) made the ruling in response to a consumer complaint lodged against a Monsanto South Africa print ad, after Monsanto failed to come up with evidence to substantiate its claim.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8033
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EUROPE
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+ RUSSIA'S DUMA DRAFTS GM FOOD BAN BILL
The Security Committee of the Russian Duma [the lower house of the Federal Assembly (parliament)] has drafted a bill banning the production and sale of GM food.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8031
+ CYRPUS TO SHELVE GM FOOD SEPARATELY
The Cyprus parliament has passed legislation requiring supermarkets to put GM products on separate shelves from other food.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8017
+ NEW GM RULES "COULD PUSH UP ORGANIC FOOD PRICES"
The price of organic food could increase because of new rules about GM content, campaigners warned. EU agriculture ministers last week agreed that food accidentally contaminated with up to 0.9% GM content could be labelled "GM free". But the Soil Association and Organic Farmers And Growers, which together certify more than 90% of the UK's organic food, pledged to keep their own criteria at the current 0.1 per cent. It wants GM firms to foot the bill for clearing up any future contamination of organic produce above the 0.1 per cent threshold.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8034
+ EU RISKS WTO CASES OVER GM FOOD, WARNS MANDELSON
The European Union must accept more GM foods to avoid renewed complaints about market barriers at the World Trade Organization, EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson said. Mandelson was UK prime minister Tony Blair's closest political supporter and was appointed an EU Commissioner by Blair after twice being forced to resign as a government minister because of impropriety. The press dubbed him, "The Prince of Darkness".
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8015
+ GM CHICKEN FIRM AT DEATH'S DOOR
The future looks bleak for Viragen, the Edinburgh based firm best known as the co-developer, with the Roslin Institute, of cancer treatments derived from the eggs of genetically engineered chickens. Viragen was praised as recently as February by then Deputy First Minister Nicol Stephen as an example of Scotland's "key strengths in life sciences", but it has lost more than $193.8m since its inception, and is now facing a cash crisis that could drive it into bankruptcy by the end of the month.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8047
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THE AMERICAS
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+ U.S.: TAKE ACTION ON FARM BILL'S VOIDING OF STATE GM BANS
A coalition of 40 consumer, environmental and other groups have petitioned Congress to delete a provision in a proposed farm bill that they claim would nullify California and other state laws banning or restricting GM crops. At issue is a section in the bill before the House Agriculture Committee that "prevents a state or locality from prohibiting an article the secretary of agriculture has inspected and passed." The advocacy groups said the provision was quietly slipped into the bill a few weeks ago.
TAKE ACTION: http://ga3.org/campaign/House_Ag?rk=md_JbDY1L2b9W
Journalist Michael Pollan comments on the farm bill in the New York Times: "The smorgasbord of incentives and disincentives built into the farm bill helps decide what happens on nearly half of the private land in America.... The health of the American soil, the purity of its water, the biodiversity and the very look of its landscape owe in no small part to impenetrable titles, programs and formulae buried deep in the farm bill."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8032
+ BRAZIL JUDGE BANS BAYER'S GM CORN
A federal judge has banned the use of Bayer's GM corn 506285.BY a month after federal biosafety agents approved the product for retail sale. The judge also blocked the official biosafety agency, CTNBio, from approving GM corn in its meeting this week. Monsanto and Syngenta GM corn was up for review for possible commercial approval at the meeting.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8029
+ BRAZIL'S LANDLESS CALL LULA TRAGEDY FOR COUNTRY
"Lula is the biggest political tragedy in the history of Brazil," says Jose Maria Tardin, who was elected the first mayor of the the Party which President Luis Inacio "Lula" da Silva heads. Tardin now works in the Brazilian Movement of Landless Rural Workers (MST) and his view of Lula is shared by most MST members. Before he became president, Lula famously declared that it would be insanity for Brazil to adopt GM crops. The MST is raising support for the Via Campesina's occupation of the Syngenta corporation's experimental site in the state of Parana, which was taken over by the movement on March 14th, 2006 after Syngenta illegally planted GM soy there.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8026
+ CANADA: GM FOOD - NO MORE SECRETS
Canadian MP Alex Atamanenko has tabled a private member's bill that will require the mandatory labelling of GMOs in food. "Year after year the results of public opinion polls overwhelmingly demonstrate that over 80% of Canadians want products containing genetically modified organisms to be labelled," he said.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8014
+ U.S.: AGENT ORANGE VICTIMS BACK IN COURT
Vietnamese Agent Orange victims have brought their case against Dow, Monsanto and other manufacturers of the toxic herbicide used to defoliate Vietnam, back to court. A Vietnam veteran who stood in front of the courthouse for hours while the judges heard testimony inside told reporters, "I am here to demand simple justice and dignity for victims of Agent Orange, both Vietnamese and others. We have to hold those who provided these chemicals accountable. They knew."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8043
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AUSTRALASIA
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+ GM WHEAT TRIALS APPROVED
The first ever Australian field trials of GM wheat will take place in Victoria this year, after being approved by the federal gene technology regulator. The 30 GM wheat lines contain transgenes for drought tolerance. UK land agent Mark Griffiths commented: "Ironically Australia is taking these measures in response to the drought situation in the country. Yet Australia has refused to ratify the Kyoto protocol on climate change. Australia is in effect adopting a policy of 'carbon pollute and GM contaminate'. This is a downward spiral of self-compounding mistakes which can only risk the further devastation of Australia. The most appropriate response to these problems is the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and the adoption of sustainable soil and water management measures."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8049
+ MOTHERS RALLY AGAINST "GM" MILK
Mothers and children rallied outside the United Dairyfarmers of Victora (UDV) conference in Melbourne to voice their opposition to milk produced from cows fed GM grain. Mothers Against GE (MAdGE) spokeswoman, Glenda Lindsay, said the group - a newly formed coalition of anti-GM mothers, grandmothers and children - wanted to show farmers that Victorian consumers didn't want GM milk as there are no peer reviewed studies that prove it is safe. Ms Lindsay said the group wanted the ban on GM canola in Victoria to be extended permanently.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8027
+ NZ BIOPHARMING FUTURE UNCERTAIN
A Lincoln University study has sounded a highly sceptical note about biopharming, saying it is too early to forecast what economics benefits, if any, are to be gained by New Zealand establishing a commercial biopharming industry. This is because there's scant information about the final cost of producing biopharmaceuticals, the demand from consumers, and the possible damage to New Zealand's 'clean and green' reputation.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8047
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FOOD SAFETY
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+ ANOTHER MONSANTO MAIZE POTENTIALLY TOXIC
New research into the health impacts of GM food already approved in Europe casts further doubt on the way these products are checked for safety by EU authorities before being approved for sale and consumption. The study, carried out by French scientific research institute CRIIGEN on the results of rat feeding trials using GM maize NK603 made by Monsanto, highlights 60 significant differences between the rats that were fed the GM maize and those fed normal maize (all for 90 days). The first group showed differences in their kidney, brain, heart and liver measurements, as well as significant weight differences. These could be warning signs of toxicity, but have not been further investigated.
Neither Monsanto nor the scientific committees consulted on the feeding trials disputed the differences found in the test animals compared to the control group. However, they dismissed the results as "not of biological significance". The CRIIGEN study questions that conclusion.
"It is alarming that a company which produces a genetically-engineered crop not only gets to design and conduct the safety tests of its own product, but also to analyse the results. The lack of any independent scrutiny of test data suggests that Europe's risk assessment procedure is overlooking the threats and not assessing risks at all, just rubberstamping company dossiers," said Marco Contiero of Greenpeace.
GM Watch comment: Dr Arpad Pusztai has explained that to claim that certain results are "not of biological significance" is not scientifically valid. Either a result is statistically significant or not. To claim that statistically significant results, which these must have been, are of no biological significance is a matter of unsubstantiated opinion with no scientific underpinning.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8018
+ STUDY ON THE EFFECTS OF TRANSGENE FLOW
A paper commissioned by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) studies the effects of transgene flow on human health, the environment, and genetic resources. The study, by Jack Heinemann of the Centre for Integrated Research in Biosafety and the School of Biological Sciences, University of Canterbury in New Zealand, concludes that transgene flow is a highly likely event and that each event needs to be assessed on a case-by-case basis.
Some of the risks he highlights include the development of new weeds. Farmers may incur liabilities from transgene flow while non-GM farmers may risk losing their non-GM label and potential markets for their produce. The effects on wild biodiversity could be a reduction in the number of species. In plants, existing genes might be replaced by transgenes, or unmodified plants might be replaced by transgenic plants. Both outcomes can lower diversity of the gene pool.
Heinemann also highlights the risks to human and animal health posed by crops modified to serve as "biofactories" for the production of pharmaceutical products and industrial chemicals, or altered nutritional value.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8030
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MEDIAWATCH
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+ ISAAA FIXING MEDIA COVERAGE IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) and the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA) have just published a 139-page book, "Genes are gems: Reporting agri-biotechnology". According to ICRISAT, the book "has been prepared for science communicators who want to report on agricultural biotechnology."
Meanwhile, ISAAA jointly organized a media workshop on agricultural biotechnology in Punjabi and English in Chandigarh, India, on 7 June 2007, along with the Chandigarh Press Club, the Punjab State Council for Science and Technology, and India's environment ministry.
GM Watch comment: This demonstrates how an industry-funded and directed lobby group, ISAAA, is being allowed to utilize public bodies to help it train journalists and shape the reporting of "agri-biotechnology" in developing countries. What adds to the Orwellian nature of this exercise is the fact that not only is the ISAAA an industry-backed vehicle for promoting GM crops, but that it has a long record of hype and media manipulation.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8038
+ IRELAND: ROW OVER NEWSPAPER'S BIASED GM COVERAGE
Following a briefing on food safety and GMOs in Dublin, GM-free Ireland has complained that the Irish Times' coverage of GM issues is heavily biased in favour of GM and fails to mention a conflict of interest by one of the owners of the newspaper who spoke in favour of GMOs at the briefing.
Prof David McConnell, whose Department of Genetics at Trinity College Dublin is part-funded by the agribiotech industry, is also the co-chair (along with a former Vice President of the World Bank) of the biotech industry lobby group EAGLES (European Action on Global Life Sciences) which promotes GM food and crops in the developing countries.
GM-free Ireland says:
[The Irish Times'] report on Friday's briefing on Food Safety and GMOs at the European Parliament Office in Dublin failed to mention that the short address by the acting leader of the Green Party, Trevor Sargent, was followed by two expert presentations on the scientific evidence of deaths and disease linked to GM food in laboratory animals, livestock and the human population.
While quoting extensively from statements made from the floor by Prof David McConnell, who is chairman of the Irish Times Trust which owns the newspaper, the article also signally failed to mention the latter's financial ties to the agri-biotech industry (which GM-free Ireland made public at the briefing), and avoided any comment on his oft-repeated attempts to portray those who disagree with his views on GMOs as scientifically illiterate.
The fact that both presentations - not attended by the Irish Times - were scientifically compelling underlines the deplorable lack of journalistic balance in this article. The briefing was co-hosted by Kathy Sinnott MEP, and Michael O'Callaghan of GM-free Ireland who said, "This Professor reminds one of the Pope who accused Galileo of heresy for discovering that the Earth is not the centre of the Universe, whilst refusing to look through Galileo's telescope."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8037
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NEW RESEARCH
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+ "JUNK" DNA HIGHLY ACTIVE
Scientists have been forced to rethink how the human genome turns a single cell into a complex living being following the most intensive study of our genetic code ever undertaken.
The research reveals that genes make up only a tiny fraction of the role played by the 3 billion letters that constitute the entirety of the human genome. Large swathes of the genome, previously dismissed as "junk DNA" because it was thought to serve no practical purpose, have been found to be highly active inside the cells in our bodies. Other sequences of genetic code are thought to be "on standby", awaiting a time further down the evolutionary path when they will be beneficial to human beings.
The findings highlighted how scientists had become so blinded by the importance of genes that the role of other parts of the genome had largely gone unappreciated. Prof Steve Jones of University College London describes the seismic implications of the new findings: "I once wrote a book called The Language of the Genes, but now biologists are beginning to face up to the uncomfortable truth that they have only been looking at the nouns in life's lexicon - the crudest and most basic elements of any tongue."
The new work identifies many more kinds of genetic punctuation that control how genes are read, amounting to 35 per cent more than previously recognised. No wonder, given our poor understanding of these control mechanisms, splicing new DNA into the genome by gene therapy has proved so difficult.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8021
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8036
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BIOWARFARE RESEARCH
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+ CORPORATE AMERICA'S DEADLIEST SECRET
According to U.S. reporter Sherwood Ross, a number of major biotech and pharma corporations are concealing the nature of the highly lucrative biological warfare research work they're doing for the U.S. government. A study by nonprofit bioweapons watchdog - the Sunshine Project, lists among the corporations holding back information about their activities: BASF Plant Science, DuPont, Eli Lilly, GlaxoSmithKline, Hoffman-LaRoche, Merck, Monsanto, Pfizer, Schering-Plough, and Syngenta.
The biowarfare buildup is also getting an enthusiastic response from academia, which sees new funds flowing from Washington's horn of plenty. Ross quotes Francis Boyle, an international law authority at the University of Illinois, Champaign, as saying, "American universities have a long history of willingly permitting their research agenda, researchers, institutes and laboratories to be co-opted, corrupted, and perverted by the Pentagon and the CIA."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8043
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ZOMBIE CROPS
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+ SUICIDE SEED SEQUEL: TERMINATOR INTO ZOMBIE
ETC Group has released a report on a new crop of GM technologies that are being promoted as a biosafety solution to the unwanted spread of transgenes from GM crops, trees and pharmaceutical-producing plants, but which could enable companies to pull the plug on plants they believe are being grown without the proper licensing agreements.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8013
+ "ZOMBIE CROPS" FUNDED BY BRITISH TAXPAYERS TO "GET ROUND" GM BAN
"Zombie" GM crops - so called because farmers will have to pay biotech companies to bring seeds back from the dead - are being developed with British taxpayers' money. The highly controversial development - part of a GBP3.4m EU research project - is bound to increase concerns about the modified crops and the devastating effect they could have on Third World farmers.
Environmentalists charge that it appears to be an attempt to get round a worldwide ban on a GM technology so abhorred that even Monsanto has said it will not use it. The ban is on the so-called "terminator technology", which was designed to modify crops so that they produce only sterile seeds. This would force the 1.4 billion poor farmers who traditionally save seeds from one year's harvest to sow for the following one instead to buy new ones from biotech firms, swelling their profits but increasing poverty and hunger.
Zombie crops would also be engineered to produce sterile seed that could be brought back to life with the right treatment - almost certainly with a chemical sold by the company that markets the seed. Farmers would therefore have to pay out, not for new seeds, but to make the ones they saved viable.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8020