Guest guest Posted March 12, 2003 Report Share Posted March 12, 2003 Tue, 11 Mar 2003 15:01:01 -0800 News Update from The Campaign Two important developments News Update From The Campaign to Label Genetically Engineered Foods ---- If you would like to comment on this News Update, you can do so at the forum section of our web site at: http://www.thecampaign.org/forums Dear News Update Subscribers, This News Update will cover two developments that have taken place this week. DRUGS IN YOUR FOOD - COMING SOON? On Monday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) published Proposed Rules on the regulation of crops that are grown to produce pharmaceutical drugs and industrial chemicals. In our opinion, the new USDA rules are a recipe for disaster. If adopted as proposed, they will practically guarantee that the human food supply will become contaminated by pharmaceutical drugs and industrial chemicals. It is well established fact that corn pollen can drift for miles. Yet the USDA is only requiring a distance of one mile between corn grown as human food and corn genetically engineered to create drugs and industrial chemicals. Keep in mind that this biotech " pharm " corn is being grown as open-pollinating corn. Incredible! If the genetically engineered corn has bags on the tassels to control the pollen flow, the distance is 1/2 mile and the planting needs to be 28 days before or after neighboring farms where the corn is grown for food. In a perfect world where humans didn't make mistakes, this safeguard may be adequate. But humans do make mistakes and accidents do happen in the real world. Both the Grocery Manufacturers of America and the National Food Processors Association previously told the USDA that they oppose any food crops such as corn being used to grow pharmaceutical drugs and industrial compounds. However, it appears the USDA has ignored their request. It is the position of The Campaign to Label Genetically Engineered Foods that even non-food crops such as tobacco should not be used to produce drugs and chemicals in an open growing environment because of " horizontal gene transfer. " We only want these pharmaceutical drug and chemical crops to be permitted in greenhouses to prevent the pollen from entering the human food supply through cross-pollination or horizontal gene transfer. The USDA is requesting public comments on their Proposed Rules until May 9, 2003. We will issue an ACTION ALERT next week that will provide the means for you to send your comments to the USDA opposing the new Proposed Rules. If you would like to read the USDA Proposed Rules, here are links to both the html and pdf versions: http://thecampaign.org/usda_pharm.html http://thecampaign.org/usda_pharm.pdf MORATORIUM PETITION ON BIOTECH WHEAT On Tuesday, a petition was submitted to the USDA on behalf of some Montana and North Dakota groups, along with the National Family Farm Coalition, requesting a moratorium on the introduction of genetically engineered wheat in the United States. If the USDA ignores the petition, a lawsuit is likely to be filed. If you would like to read the actual 38-page petition, here is a link to a pdf version: http://www.thecampaign.org/WheatUSDApetFinalD7.pdf As The Campaign has reported, we are setting up the Save Organic Wheat! coalition to aggressively oppose the introduction of genetically engineered wheat in both the United States and Canada. Our web site on this project is still under construction, but can be seen at: http://www.saveorganicwheat.org Posted below are two articles on the USDA's new Proposed Rules (written last week after the USDA announced the rules would be published on Monday) and one article on the moratorium petition on biotech wheat. If you would like to read more about the behind-the-scenes politics working to promote genetically engineered wheat, you can read an article titled " Farmer funds promoting genetically engineered wheat? " from CropChoice editor, Robert Schubert, at: http://www.saveorganicwheat.org/newsupdates.htm#Funds Note: We hope to have the Save Organic Wheat! web site ready to start accepting coalition members by the end of the month. Organizations, businesses, farmers and consumers will be encouraged to join. Membership in the coalition will be free for everyone. Organizations, businesses, and farmers will be able to list complete contact information including a 25-word description, again at no charge. We intend to send a strong message to the wheat industry that genetically engineered wheat is not acceptable and will be actively opposed. Craig Winters Executive Director The Campaign to Label Genetically Engineered Foods The Campaign PO Box 55699 Seattle, WA 98155 Tel: 425-771-4049 Fax: 603-825-5841 E-mail: label Web Site: http://www.thecampaign.org Mission Statement: " To create a national grassroots consumer campaign for the purpose of lobbying Congress and the President to pass legislation that will require the labeling of genetically engineered foods in the United States. " *************************************************************** Rules on modified plants will be tougher USDA to order more inspections, buffers Washington Post The Agriculture Department will issue tighter rules this morning to keep pharmaceuticals grown in plants out of the food supply, promising a greatly stepped-up inspection regimen to be sure people don't wind up eating someone else's drugs in their breakfast cereal. The new plans include greater buffer zones between ordinary crops and drug-containing crops, better training for farmers and employees of biotechnology companies, stricter harvesting requirements, and a sevenfold increase in the number of inspections to which the biotech companies will be subjected every year. Ann M. Veneman, the secretary of agriculture, pledged " stringent " oversight of this nascent sector of the biotech industry, declaring: " It's very important that we regulate in a way that allows this technology to proceed so we can reap the benefits of it. " However, the new rules were immediately criticized by the food industry, consumer advocates and environmentalists. People from all three groups said the rules, though a step in the right direction, don't go far enough to ensure that crops containing pharmaceutical or industrial compounds don't spill over into food, as nearly happened last fall in Iowa and Nebraska. In particular, these groups faulted the Agriculture Department for not restricting the locales where such crops can be grown or requiring that they be grown only in plants not usually eaten. Some skeptics said the department had caved in to pressure from the biotech industry and to political interests in the Midwestern corn belt that want to see that region grab a piece of the new industry. " They put a Band-Aid on an old, antiquated regulatory system, and sooner or later that Band-Aid is going to fall off, " said Matt Rand, biotechnology campaign manager at the National Environmental Trust in Washington. " There will be a mistake, and we're going to see contamination of the food supply. " The debate involves one of the strangest, and potentially most significant, applications of the new biology sweeping through the nation's laboratories. Into scores of plants, biotech companies have inserted new genes that encode instructions for making pharmaceutical or industrial proteins. Their plan is to grow fields of these plants, harvest them, refine the proteins and package them like any other drug or chemical. It is a cheaper way and, in some cases, the only way to grow some of these useful proteins. The idea has enthused farmers eager for more-valuable crops. And biotechnology companies argue that the technology could cut the cost of producing drugs, making possible such applications as a cancer vaccine custom-designed to attack an individual patient's tumor. As it happens, though, the companies have achieved their greatest successes to date in plants also grown as food, and particularly in corn. Corn is the nation's largest crop, and corn pollen containing the foreign genes can spread readily to nearby fields, introducing the genes into food corn that could make its way into such products as cornflakes or baby food. The risks of the new technology became apparent last year when ProdiGene Inc., a small company in College Station, Tex., mishandled pharmaceutical corn in Iowa and Nebraska. Nearby fields of food corn had to be burned in Pocahontas County, Iowa. In Aurora, Neb., small amounts of corn leaf containing a pig vaccine may have contaminated a vast warehouse of soybeans. The beans were quarantined just before they reached processing centers and were eventually burned. ProdiGene is in the throes of a management shakeup aimed at tightening procedures, and other biotech companies using the technology are busy reviewing their plans for the coming growing season. So far, the pharmaceutical crops have been grown on no more than a few hundred acres a year, but that could become thousands or even tens of thousands of acres as the companies move toward full commercialization. It became clear in the ProdiGene case that the government's requirements, meant to keep food crops and pharmaceutical crops strictly separated, were weak in some respects and not fully enforced in others. The Agriculture Department acknowledged last fall that it might need to tighten the rules and step up enforcement. It will do that with new guidelines to be published this morning in the Federal Register. The new rules, which leaders of the Agriculture Department outlined yesterday, are not a radical overhaul of the old ones at first glance but may hold greater implications than is immediately evident. The department will, for instance, double the buffer zones that biotech companies have to maintain between their specialty corn and ordinary corn. In some cases the buffer zone will now be a mile instead of a half-mile, a requirement that may rule out large swaths of the Midwestern corn belt, since finding a spot of land there with no corn growing within a mile is no mean feat. The department will also require that land used to grow pharmaceutical corn lie fallow the next year. If in place last year, this provision would have prevented the ProdiGene soybean problem in Nebraska. In that instance, soybeans were grown on a plot used to grow pharmaceutical corn the previous year, but leftover corn kernels sprouted in the beans and may have contaminated them at harvest time. Yet farmers are reluctant to take good land out of production for a year, and the potential expense of doing so in the Midwest may well drive companies to consider growing their crops in places such as Arizona or Hawaii, where little food corn is grown. The new rules will require that pharmaceutical crops be harvested with separate or specially cleaned equipment and stored in dedicated bins, yet another large expense. And, in perhaps the most significant change, the Agriculture Department said it would send inspectors to look at every biotech plot at least seven times over two years, compared with one time under the old rules. Some groups expressed skepticism that the Agriculture Department could round up enough inspectors, but Cindy Smith, acting head of biotech regulation, said she would borrow them from other agencies. The Agriculture Department ruled out some of the more stringent steps recommended by environmental groups or the food industry, such as geographic restrictions to keep the new crops away from the agricultural heartland. The Agriculture Department has been under intense political pressure, particularly from Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), chairman of the powerful Senate Finance Committee, not to institute rules that would drive the new industry out of the Midwest for good. The Agriculture Department said it would further tighten regulations later this year, and several groups made clear yesterday that they would continue pressing for more vigorous regulation. For instance, the Grocery Manufacturers of America, a Washington trade group that includes companies making most of the processed foods in American pantries, declared that " much more needs to be done to ensure the safety and purity of the food supply. " March 7 *************************************************************** Medicine crops to stay in Midwest despite concerns By Randy Fabi WASHINGTON, March 6 (Reuters) - The federal government said on Thursday it would not stop U.S. farmers in the Midwest and Plains states from planting new crops engineered to produce medicines despite pleas from environmental groups and the food industry worried about possible contamination. U.S. food industry groups and environmental activists have expressed concern that without tough safeguards, the new biotech crops could accidentally contaminate corn, soybeans and other crops destined for human and livestock food. In response, the U.S. Agriculture Department proposed new rules requiring farmers and biotech companies, such as Dow Chemical Co. (DOW.N) and Monsanto Co. (MON.N), to plant pharmaceutical and industrial corn crops at least one mile from other crops. " This technology ... holds tremendous promise for the future of agriculture, " said Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman. " So it's very important that we regulate in a way that allows this technology to proceed. " The USDA also promised to keep a closer eye on the experimental crops, after a Texas company last year was fined for allegedly mishandling its pharmaceutical corn and contaminating nearby crops. ProdiGene Inc., a privately owned biotech firm, agreed to pay about $3 million in fines and costs after USDA found traces of its experimental corn in some Nebraska soybeans. Bobby Acord, administrator for USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, told reporters the changes were made to " make absolutely certain that there are no ProdiGenes in the future. " About 15 to 20 companies have spliced corn, soybeans, tobacco, rice, barley and sugar crops as a cheaper way to mass-produce medicines to treat a range of human ailments. None of these pharmaceutical crops has yet been approved by U.S. regulators for commercial use. Companies aim to begin marketing them in about five years. FOOD INDUSTRY WANTS " FAR MORE " SAFEGUARDS The U.S. food industry and environmental groups said USDA's actions, while a good first step, fell far short of what was necessary to guarantee pharmaceutical crops do not seep into the food supply. " Though these steps are in the right direction, far more is needed to ensure against any contamination of food and feed supplies, " said Rhona Applebaum, vice president of the National Food Processors Association. The Grocery Manufacturers of America, whose members include major foodmakers such as General Mills Inc. (GIS.N), Kellogg Co. (K.N), and Del Monte (DLM.N), urged for a temporary halt to all bio-pharm crop plantings until a better regulatory system was in place. A coalition of 11 environmental and consumer groups said on Wednesday it would sue the USDA if it continued approving field tests. " By allowing pharmaceuticals to be grown in food crops, it is just a matter of time before another mistake happens and contamination occurs again, " said Richard Caplan, spokesman for the Public Interest Research Group. The USDA said it will allow the continued planting of pharmaceutical and industrial crops in the Midwest, but under stricter conditions. " The guidelines are demanding for those farmers who decide to pursue this value-added opportunity, but they are fair and based on sound science, " said Sen. Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican. ONE-MILE BUFFER ZONE Under the proposed rules, bio-pharm corn crops would have to be planted at least one mile away from plants destined for human and livestock food. Current regulations call for half-mile separation. Producers must also use separate equipment and storing facilities when planting pharmaceutical crops. And they cannot grow food or feed crops on the same land the following year. The USDA said about 130 acres of land last year were authorized for these field tests. The 34 test plots, each typically about a half-acre in size, included farmland in Nebraska, Iowa, California, Kentucky, Virginia and Hawaii. " We are very supportive of these guidelines, " said Lisa Dry, spokeswoman for the Biotechnology Industry Organization. USDA said it would significantly increase the number of inspections, potentially checking each field five times a year. However, environmental groups said they were skeptical that USDA has the resources and personnel to meet these goals. The USDA announcement confirmed what industry sources told Reuters earlier in the week about the new rules. 03/06/03 17:08 ET *************************************************************** Groups petition US for moratorium on biotech wheat By Carey Gillam KANSAS CITY, Mo. (Reuters) - A consortium of U.S. agricultural and environmental groups opposed to Monsanto Co.'s planned introduction of genetically modified wheat filed a legal petition on Tuesday with the USDA seeking a federal moratorium on the biotech wheat. Citing surveys that show widespread foreign opposition to buying biotech wheat, the groups are demanding that the U.S. Department of Agriculture withhold approval of Monsanto's Roundup Ready wheat variety until the government assesses the complete environmental and economic impacts of a release of the herbicide-resistant wheat. " We have had drought, hail, floods. But none of these natural disasters can compare with the potential devastating effects of the introduction of genetically engineered wheat, " said Montana wheat farmer Helen Waller, who is among the petitioners. Waller said she and her husband have raised wheat in eastern Montana for decades. " We would most likely lose the market for our grain if genetically modified wheat is introduced. Our wheat farm and many others would no longer be a viable operation, " she said. The petition was submitted Tuesday by three farmer and land protection organizations - the Dakota Resource Council of North Dakota, the Northern Plains Sustainable Agriculture Society, also of North Dakota, and the Northern Plains Resource Council of Montana. Both states produce spring wheat, with North Dakota holding distinction as the largest spring wheat producing state in the U.S. Monsanto's Roundup Ready wheat is designed to be first introduced in spring wheat and has been genetically engineered to tolerate herbicide to make weed control easier for farmers. Joseph Mendelson, legal director for the Center for Food Safety who filed the petition for the groups, said the legal petition is the first step toward a likely lawsuit if the USDA did not address the concerns. " This is a major product for Monsanto, " said Mendelson. " It will push very hard to have this product commercialized. We need the USDA to take a step back from its process that has favored commercialization...and really do an honest assessment. " Mendelson said Monsanto's final regulatory filing was made December 19 and he believed the biotech wheat would be out in time for the 2004 planting season if some sort of restraint is not placed on its approval. Monsanto defended its product development work Tuesday and said it is working closely with the wheat industry to ensure that a rollout of the biotech wheat does not disrupt markets. " We continue to make progress, " said Monsanto spokeswoman Shannon Troughton. " We're committed to the responsible introduction of the product, " she said. " We're not going to make it available until there is a market for the grain. " Troughton said Monsanto was carefully " taking everyone's concerns and questions into account as we go forward. " The petitioners said Tuesday that there was too much potential damage the biotech wheat could do to their markets to make it worthwhile as a commercial product. Studies by wheat export experts have shown that many large foreign buyers of U.S. wheat will shun U.S. wheat supplies if Roundup Ready wheat is introduced to the marketplace. Iowa State University professor of economics Bob Wisner said Tuesday that university researchers had determined that prices for U.S. spring wheat would drop by at least one-third and up to half of the U.S. export market for the wheat could be lost if Monsanto's biotech wheat is released in the next few years. " There is the widespread negative consumer attitude...that places our exports at high risk, " he said. North Dakota wheat farmer Tom Wiley called on Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman to study the issue closely. " This Roundup Ready wheat variety...it's an economic train wreck coming down the track and we need some help, " said Wiley. " If we lose markets, it will be tough to win them back. " 03/11/03 13:35 ET --------- Gettingwell- / Vitamins, Herbs, Aminos, etc. To , e-mail to: Gettingwell- Or, go to our group site: Gettingwell Web Hosting - establish your business online Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You are posting as a guest. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.