from Claire Robinson, WEEKLY WATCH editor
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Dear all:
Anyone struck by the contrast between the absence of appropriate precaution displayed by so many British and American politicians over pollution, global warming and emergency planning for 'natural' disasters, and the excess of precaution the same people display over bird flu, should read our section, POLITICANS MAKE MONEY FROM DISEASE SCARES.
And there's great news about the Polish farmer who faced prison for protesting against GMOs (EUROPE). And South Africa looks set to turn its back on the GM cattle drug rBST, under pressure from its milk suppliers (AFRICA).
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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AUSTRALASIA
ASIA
EUROPE
THE AMERICAS
AFRICA
POLITICANS MAKE MONEY FROM DISEASE SCARES
BIOTECH MEDICINES
BIOFUELS
INDUSTRY NEWS
EPIGENETICS
GM TREES
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AUSTRALASIA
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+ OZ FARM GROUPS IN BED WITH GM LOBBYISTS
The leading lights of a Western Australian farmers' group (WAFarmers) brag in a recent press release about how they have been "lobbied by the major players in GM technology" and then repeat the claims of those lobbyists as if they were matters of fact. These include a claim that "the current moratorium is standing in the way of progress".
This is combined with a call for Western Australia's Agriculture Minister to stop "politicising" the GM issue, and to stop "working in isolation within the comfort zone provided by the [GM] moratorium", and to embrace instead "the wealth of knowledge available through industry expertise"!
It's not every day that a government minister is baldly advised to give up his political judgement in favour of heavily-lobbied industry advice! But such a corrupt proposition apparently makes perfect sense to the President and the Communications Officer of WAFarmers.
Meanwhile, an ex-Monsanto manager for GM crops in Australia publicly boasts about how he has helped to "evolve" the policies of "the Gene Technology Grains Committee, Australian Seeds Federation, Australian Oilseeds Federation and more recently Ausbiotech, and the Grains Council of Australia."
In short, it seems to be GM industry lobbyists who shape the policies of the bodies that supposedly represent Australia's farmers.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5919
+ OZ INDUSTRY LEADERS BETRAYING FARMERS
The Network of Concerned Farmers (NCF) is warning industry leaders that they should not ignore the economic wellbeing of farmers in their personal support of GM crops. The NCF claim industry leaders are betraying farmers to side with the GM companies.
"We are being sold out by our industry leaders and they should be held accountable for accepting liability on behalf of farmers," said Juliet McFarlane, canola grower from Young, NSW.
"Why are existing policies being ignored? Why are ex-Monsanto managers and GM companies now actively working with farm lobby groups to evolve policies and strategies? ... The GM industry must be laughing at our industry leaders. The GM benefits are just not there to pay for the multitudes of parasites wanting to profit from GM introduction."
The NCF claim that State lobby groups such as NSW Farmers, WA Farmers, GRDC, AWB and GCA are making statements that clearly oppose the policies and constitutions of their own organisations.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5924
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ASIA
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+ NEW REPORT ON BT COTTON PROBLEMS IN ANDHRA PRADESH
Recently we circulated a report on the problems with Bt cotton in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. Now we have another important report on some of the severe problems being found in Andhra Pradesh. This report comes from a Fact Finding Team which visited Adilabad district and which included eminent agriculture scientist and Advisor to the Andhra Pradesh Government, Dr K R Chowdhary.
EXCERPTS FROM THE NEW REPORT:
In the case of those farmers who had sown Bunny Bt Cotton, the seed did not germinate properly...
Other Bt-cotton fields are severely infested with the sucking pest complex - jassids, aphids and thrips...the boll size, number of bolls and cotton weight in Bt-hybrids is less compared to non-Bt Cotton hybrids...
Bt Cotton is severely affected by leaf curl and reddening of leaf was found as a result of both damage by jassids and leaf curl of TSV [Tobacco Streak Virus] transmitted by thrips [the incidence of TSV on Bt cotton has been confirmed by various agencies...]
...[very close] non-Bt cotton fields are affected by these pests and diseases to a very low degree.
The overall growth of the Bt-crop was stunted... However, other non-Bt hybrid crops in the vicinity have grown above three feet... Farmers say they can expect a good crop from non-Bt fields.
Read the report in full.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5918
+ PUSZTAI IN DELHI
Dr Arpad Pusztai has been in Delhi speaking about the lack of evidence that GM foods are safe for human health or the environment. On the health safety aspect, he said that so far only 19 peer-reviewed papers have been published. Only one human clinical trial has been conducted and only a few animal studies done so far. Dr Pusztai alleged that the industry's and regulator's preferred "safety assessments" are based on the poorly defined and not legally binding concept of "substantial equivalence."
"In such a situation it is difficult to conclude that GM foods are safe," he told an audience that was described in the Financial Express as "spell-bound".
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5914
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EUROPE
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+ SWISS DEVELOPMENT CHARITIES FAVOUR GM MORATORIUM
The Swiss Alliance of Development Organisations has called on voters to support a five-year moratorium on GMOs in agriculture. "In Argentina, transgenic soya beans have contributed to the disappearance of 150,000 small farms," said Caroline Morel, director of Swissaid. http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5910
+ POLISH FARMER AVOIDS PRISON OVER GM PROTEST
There's good news regarding Marian Zagorny, the Polish farmer who faced prison for attempting to block illegal shipments of GM grain and actively protesting against the factory farming of pigs in Poland as well as the introduction of GMOs. Several hundred letters were sent in support of Marian - and the court agreed that his and his organization's actions were done to protect Polish agriculture and the health of society and were not a criminal action. So Marian will not be prosecuted. Marian sends many thanks from himself and his farmers' union 'Solidarni'.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5925
+ 90% of POLAND DECLARES ITSELF GM-FREE
The board of Opole Province has declared the province a GM-free zone. This brings the total number of provinces to have declared GMO Free status to 14 (around 90% of the total area of Poland) and leaves just 2 to go.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5925
+ GERMAN ELECTION PUTS BIOTECH LAW UNDER PRESSURE
On 18 September, the Germans voted for a new parliament - with surprising results. Since neither of the two main parties obtained a big enough majority to form a government, the Conservatives (CDU/CSU) and the Social Democrats (SPD) look set to form a "grand coalition". The Greens, including the previous Agriculture and Consumer Minister Renate Kenast, look set to be on the backbenches. This could have big implications for the German biotech law and also the shape of European politics for GMOs.
It is quite possible that the biotech law will now be watered down by a grand coalition of the two main parties. The driving force to re-start the legislative procedure are the Conservatives who promised their friends in the biotech industry to weaken the liability regime, to prevent public access to the cultivation register and to allow GMO contamination from deliberate releases in food and feed products. According to a draft proposal revealed a few days before the election, the Conservatives have a new idea to solve the liability question: GMO farmers and taxpayers shall pay compensation for any economic damage caused to conventional and organic farmers.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5929
+ BIOTECH BATTLE HEATS UP AS STRAINS MIX
From The Wall Street Journal:
For 15 years [Spanish farmer] Felix Ballarin labored to perfect a strain of organically grown red corn. He figured the crop could fetch twice the price of traditional yellow corn because local chicken farmers say it gives their meat and eggs a rosy color.
But when the ears first emerged late last year, the farmer made a horrifying discovery: Yellow kernels were mixed in with the red. As government scientists would later confirm with a DNA test, the kernels had been contaminated with a genetically modified strain. No longer considered "organic," Mr Ballarin's corn lost its premium value and his decade and a half of careful breeding was down the drain.
..."Biotech pollution," as critics call it... is beginning to pit growers of nonbiotech crops against the big biotech producers, as each side battles to serve their very different markets.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5922
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THE AMERICAS
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+ SONOMA GM BAN REJECTED
A proposed ban on planting or cultivating GM crops was rejected by Sonoma County voters. Measure M lost 56 to 44 percent in one of the county's most expensive ballot fights ever.
"Regardless of the outcome, we think it's a tremendous victory because of the grassroots support in the community," said Daniel Solnit of GE-Free Sonoma County. "This fight's going to continue, and I believe this country will be GMO-free within a decade."
Part of the problem seems to be the poor understanding of corporate capture in the US. If the biotech industry hides behind the farm bureau, as it did in this case, or the FDA (see below), it seems they can get their message accepted.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5920
+CLONED MEAT FINE IF FDA SAYS SO
Two-thirds of US consumers said they would either buy or consider buying meat and milk made from cloned animals if the FDA declared cloning safe, according to the results of a public opinion poll. They appear unaware of the FDA's record of protecting corporate interests at the expense of the public.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5920
+ FARMERS BEING STRANGLED IN SYNGENTA VS MONSANTO FIGHT
In the race to woo US farmers with GM seeds, Syngenta AG of Basel, Switzerland, is up against Monsanto. According to Forbes magazine, it's one ugly contest.
Farmer John Pedersen and his wife, Connie, have been dealers for Golden Harvest over the last 15 years. But now their livelihoods are in trouble. Last November the Pedersens received a letter informing them that, within a year, they shouldn't count on GM seeds from Golden Harvest anymore. The warning came from Monsanto, which licenses the technology for those modified seeds and plans not to renew the agreement. Coincidentally, the licensee for the last year and a half is Monsanto's chief competitor: Syngenta. "We're being strangled," says Connie.
Syngenta responded with an antitrust suit in July 2004, alleging that "Monsanto launched a scorched-earth campaign to cut off Syngenta's access to the market" - essentially intimidating farmers into staying away from Golden Harvest and Garst seeds. A related complaint charges Monsanto-owned seed companies with poaching Garst employees to obtain trade secrets. The war of the acres isn't likely to end anytime soon.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5915
+ GM AG A "SCARED COW" IN IOWA
Every community has its sacred cows - the institutions you don't challenge, the economic engines you don't mess with and the myths you don't try to debunk, explained Vandana Shiva in a recent speech at Iowa State University. In India, it's actually cows that are sacred. In Iowa, the "sacred cow" is modern-day agricultural production, chemically enhanced and genetically modified.
The new form of cultivation doesn't really bring cheaper food because there are higher costs to livelihoods, the environment, health and nutrition, she said, adding, "There's a way in which we can trick our minds through a monoculture, and even while we destroy systems, even while we undo productivity, even while we produce less, we can actually pretend we are doing more."
In an article on Shiva's talk in the Des Moines Register, Rekha Basu writes that Iowans owe it to themselves to consider every side of this issue "as we debate the future of our state and its role in the world." This is somewhat ironic in the light of ISU's recent sacking of Fred Kischenmann as director of its Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5912
+ HAWAII: GM ACTIVISTS MARCH AT MEETING SITE
About 20 protesters of GMOs on Molokai were allowed into a company meeting of Monsanto Hawaiian Research, but they left when they couldn't get answers from executives. When they weren't permitted to ask their questions, the protesters began marching around the room with their signs.
The group wanted to ask Monsanto if GMOs were being grown on Molokai and whether company representatives would agree to sit down with the community to talk more about the subject. They alleged that many Monsanto employees didn't even know what they were growing. When the media asked a couple of Monsanto staff, "Do you know what a GMO is?", they got the reply, "Yeah, we know something with chemicals or something."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5909
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AFRICA
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+ SUPPLIERS TURN SOUR ON GM MILK-BOOSTER DRUG
A leading milk forum in South Africa has opposed the use of the GM growth hormone rBST, also known as "crack for cows". The hormone, which has been banned in Canada and the EU, is injected into dairy herds in SA to boost their milk production.
The decision by the SA Processors Organisation (Sampro) comes after South African newspaper The Star published an article which exposed the link between the use of rBST and cancer.
Sampro will apply to the Department of Agriculture for the deregistration of rBST. The chairperson of the organisation, Alwyn Kraamwinkel, said: "The use of rBST in certain dairy herds is undermining the important role that milk and other dairy products should play in the wellbeing of society.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5927
+ ZAMBIA HOLDS FIRM TO GM BAN
Zambian Minister of Science, Technology and Vocational Training, Mrs Judith Kapijimpanga, told the international conference on Genetic Engineering and Sustainable Agriculture in Lusaka, 3-6 October, that her country had taken a bold stance to reject GMO foods and conditions attached to them, "much to the annoyance of some donors".
The Zambian government is committed to rejecting GM foods and aids to protect humans and animals and the environment. It is taking a precautionary stance on GM and ensuring sustainable agriculture.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5928
+ SERIOUS CONCERNS IN AFRICA OVER GMOs
An interesting report for Black Britain details concerns in Africa over GMOs and the rising demands for labelling and safety regulations.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5917
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POLITICANS MAKE MONEY FROM DISEASE SCARES
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+ RUMMY'S BIRD FLU BONANZA
Think the US administration is violently opposed to the spirit of precaution? Not when it favours major corporate interests, it isn't.
President Bush has called on Congress to immediately pass a new US$7.1 billion in emergency funding to prepare for a not-imminent, not-pandemic danger, avian flu. Now that's precaution. Prominent among his list of emergency measures was a call for Congress to appropriate another $1 billion for Tamiflu.
Tamiflu was developed and patented in 1996 by a California biotech firm, Gilead Sciences Inc. In 1997, before he became Pentagon chief, Donald Rumsfeld was named chairman of the board of Gilead.
Rumsfeld holds a Gilead stake valued at between $5 million and $25 million, according to his federal financial disclosures. In the past six months, the global rush to buy Tamiflu has sent Gilead's stock from $35 to $47 - amounting to a windfall of at least $1 million for Rumsfeld. And now, with Gilead collecting royalties averaging 10% from Roche's sales of Tamiflu, he is poised to reap more gains for a flu panic his administration has done everything it can to promote.
The defence secretary is an accomplished hand at getting the government to buy vaccines from companies in which he has a financial interest. Recall the scare just after September 11, 2001 when the Bush administration was talking loudly about the "possible" danger of Osama bin Laden releasing a deadly smallpox attack that would devastate the American population.
Rumsfeld at that time ordered members of the armed forces to be inoculated against smallpox, an inoculation with horrendous side effects. The package also included injection with a drug named Vistide, to treat side-effects of smallpox infection should it occur. Vistide was also a product of Gilead Sciences.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5913
+ UK FARMERS TO PAY FOR GOVERNMENT SLAUGHTER OF POULTRY FLOCKS
British MPs on the Public Accounts Committee have agreed to a proposal that in the event of an outbreak of bird flu, farmers would be billed for any action mandated by the government. The government is trying to avoid a replay of catastrophic foot-and-mouth cull in 2001, in which it illegally killed 9 million healthy animals, refused the relatively inexpensive vaccination programme recommended by the EU, and got taxpayers to foot the GBP3 billion bill. It later passed a bill enabling it to carry out such a mass slaughter of healthy animals legally in future. So if bird flu arrives, farmers must meekly accept whatever the government decides should be done to them and their animals, and will then be sent the entire bill.
- summarised from Private Eye no 1145
+ BLAIR BACKER'S SMALLPOX BONANZA
Earlier this year UK prime minister Tony Blair placed in the Ministry of Defence the man who has been tipped to be Lord Sainsbury's successor as Science Minister - Lord Drayson, the former head of the BioIndustry Association. Drayson had made a substantial donation to Labour while the Ministry of Defence was deciding who should be awarded a smallpox vaccine contract. Drayson gave a further donation of half a million pounds to Labour just six weeks after the PM made him Lord Drayson.
Controversially, the Blair government - in what has been called a "cash-for-contracts" scandal - awarded Drayson's company, PowderJect, the smallpox vaccine contract without any competition. The contract was worth GBP32million and Drayson is thought to have made around GBP20m for PowderJect from this deal.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5913
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BIOTECH MEDICINES
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+ DISAPPOINTING BIOTECH
From British Medical Journal 331:895-897, October 15, 2005:
We assessed the biotech medicines approved by the European Medicine Evaluation Agency from 1995 to 2003.
Summary points:
Only a small proportion are therapeutically innovative.
Most new products were variations on existing drugs.
Evaluation of these substances was not always based on rigorous methodological criteria.
The promises of good tolerability of biotechnology substances have not been met - most are no less toxic than conventional drugs.
One clear difference between conventional and biotechnology drugs is cost. Those produced by biotechnology are generally more expensive, and this deserves evaluation.
In conclusion, the promises of biotechnology substances to be more effective and less toxic than conventional drugs have been only partially fulfilled. Many of the substances produced so far have contributed little to innovation in medicine.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5923
Dr Richard Nicholson, editor of The Bulletin of Medical Ethics, has made this comment on the record of gene therapy to date: "Ten years ago we were being told that gene therapy was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Today its record stands at: Cures: nil. Deaths: 5. Major adverse effects: at least a thousand."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=225
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BIOFUELS
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+ GMOs, BIOFUELS AND THE THIRD WORLD
The GM lobby is exploiting the current energy crisis to push biofuels grown from GM crops, reports Resistance Bulletin. President Lula of Brazil has declared GM soya to be used for biofuels and non-GM soya for human consumption. Argentina is also advancing plans to transform GM soya into biodiesel.
Third World Countries are expected to play an important role: they will provide the land, cheap labour and will absorb all environmental effects caused by large biofuel plantations.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5921
An article in ECOS warns of the potentially damaging implications for landscape and communities of developing a large-scale, centralised bioethanol industry in the UK. What's required is localised energy policies.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5921
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INDUSTRY NEWS
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+ DEVELOPMENT OF GM CROPS STAGNATING
Dr Philippe Vain of the John Innes Centre has analysed the scientific literature on GM crops and has found that while the number of articles published is increasing, the number of articles on how to develop the technology - i.e. how to genetically modify plants more effectively - has not significantly increased since 1995.
Given that so many of the objections to GM crops stem from the problems with transgene insertion, one might have expected this to be an area of priority. But this is not so, and the author predicts that this "lack of growth in the production of articles on plant transgenic technology development is likely to hamper the further evolution of basic and applied transgenic science and the development of GM crops."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5926
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EPIGENETICS
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+ ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS AFFECT DESCENDANTS' HEALTH
Some of our UK readers may have caught the recent BBC Horizon programme about epigenetics. It showed a bunch of geneticists catching up with what's been obvious to most of us all along: that environmental factors cause heritable effects in humans.
According to the programme, "The conventional view is that DNA carries all our heritable information and that nothing an individual does in their lifetime will be biologically passed to their children". But epigenetics goes beyond DNA, proposing that environmental factors, including the food we eat, can switch genes on or off and that the effects are passed down through generations.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5911
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GM TREES
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+ FIRST DOCUMENTARY ON GM TREES RELEASED
Global Justice Ecology Project and the STOP GE Trees Campaign have announced the release of 'A Silent Forest: The Growing Threat, Genetically Engineered Trees', a 45 minute documentary narrated by Dr David Suzuki, renowned geneticist and host of PBS' 'The Nature of Things'.
In 'A Silent Forest', Dr. Suzuki confronts the rush to commercialize the unproven products of biotechnology: "In any revolutionary area [of science], and biotechnology is a revolutionary area, most of our current ideas are wrong. Then I ask you, what the hell is the rush to apply these ideas? We're still at the very beginning of understanding what we're doing. The rush to apply these ideas is absolutely dangerous because we don't have a clue what the long term impacts of our manipulations is going to be." The video is available for purchase at http://www.customflix.com/207574
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5930