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Wed, 3 Sep 2003 21:36:02 +0100

 

Announcing Science in Society 19

press-release

 

The Institute of Science in Society

Science Society Sustainability

http://www.i-sis.org.uk

 

General Enquiries sam

Website/Mailing List press-release

ISIS Director m.w.ho

===================================================

 

 

Announcing Science in Society Issue 19, Summer 2003

***************************************************

 

find out more

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/isisnews/sis19.php

or buy from the ISIS online store

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/onlinestore/magazines.php

 

 

 

From the Editor

Get involved in the GM science debate!

 

The debate over the commercial growing of GM crops in Britain is happening as

summer temperatures soar to record highs in Europe and other parts of the world.

 

There is no longer any doubt within the scientific community that climate change

is well on its way. By now, however, the effects are very difficult to reverse.

New evidence suggests it will be more abrupt and substantial than previously

thought.

 

With GM crops, there is still time to reverse and prevent serious damages to

health and the environment. A comprehensive shift now to non-GM sustainable

agriculture, especially agroecology practiced by non-corporate family farmers

(see " Agroecology rescues organic farming " ), will benefit health and the

environment and ameliorate climate change by reducing consumption of fossil fuel

from industrial agriculture, which GM crops epitomise. Some 75% of current GM

crops depend on industrial herbicides sold as a package with the crops; and at

least half the total energy consumed is spent on manufacturing herbicides and

pesticides.

 

Despite the tens of millions of hectares already planted with GM crops, that

accounts for just 5% of the world’s agriculture land - as pointed out by The

Economist - still confined largely to the United States, which has 66% of all GM

hectares. Argentina comes a distant second with 23%, Canada 6% and China 4%.

 

The bad news is that transgene contamination has spread worldwide, which is the

most convincing evidence that there can be no co-existence of GM and non-GM

agriculture. But that is nothing compared to the spread of dirty science.

 

The GM Science Review is perhaps the most important of the three-pronged

consultation that includes an economic review and a ‘national debate’, but it is

also the most controversial. Its Review Panel is dominated by industry, with

Monsanto drafting the report on GM safety. On the eve of the release of its

report, one panel member said he has resigned weeks earlier, unhappy with

pressures on him to toe the pro-biotech line, and another panel member revealed

a top establishment scientist has attempted to undermine his research funding

and career.

 

The good news is that the real scientific concerns have been widely taken up,

and by no less than ex UK environment minister Michael Meacher, who came to the

launch conference of the Independent Science Panel (ISP) on GM in May, shortly

before he was sacked from his job.

 

The ISP is a group of prominent independent scientists who found it necessary to

join forces to inform the public of the scientific evidence of hazards inherent

to the GM technology, as well as the proven successes and benefits of diverse

forms of non-GM sustainable agriculture, so that civil society as a whole can

make a rational choice for the future of our food and agriculture. And they are

helping to make waves.

 

Resistance to GM is spreading like wildfire across the world. Farmers, mothers,

independent scientists and many other ‘ordinary people’ have taken up arms

against GM crops. Getting the science right is so important that you cannot

leave it to the scientists. It is time to take matters into your own hands. Make

an effort to understand the scientific debate and this issue of SIS gives you

plenty of help. If you need more, see ‘FAQs on genetic engineering’ on ISIS’

website.

 

More Science & Precaution

Unless we take science seriously and adopt a precautionary approach in line with

good science, we will end up ignoring all the ‘early warnings’ of hazards, as we

had, on just about any and every ‘great’ technology that plagues our planet

today. That’s the message of a landmark publication from the European

Environment Agency (SiS review). The time lag between the first scientific

evidence suggestive of hazards to the final ban could be a hundred years or

more, with monumental costs in human lives, environmental damage as well as in

economic monetary terms.

 

Yet, tens of thousands of industrial chemicals are still released into our

environment without any safety consideration let alone safety testing; among

them hundreds of actual and potential carcinogens, hormone disrupters,

neurotoxins, genotoxins and agents causing birth defects. The UK Royal

Commission on Environmental Pollution has challenged the government to seriously

address the safety of these industrial chemicals in its latest report.

 

Bio-defence & biohazard

The economic review in UK’s public GM consultation presented a bleak future for

GM crops, as there is simply no market. The biotech slump has extended to the

biomedical applications. Technologies from cloning and gene therapy to

xenotransplantion are unravelling, and high profile companies are going bust.

 

Amid such signs that the much touted ‘biotech century’ could be ending,

bio-defence is the next big business. Bush’s ProjectBioShield is pouring

billions into creating dozens of bio-defence labs around the country, some

located in heavily populated areas in big cities. If there’s any doubt that GM

could be dangerous, look no further than these high level biological containment

labs that handle and genetic engineer the most deadly pathogens. Worse, secrecy

surrounds the intended labs; one is refusing to disclose any information, even

though full disclosure is required by the National Institutes of Health (NIH)

guidelines on recombinant DNA research. It is a test case on how much civil

society is entitled to know about dangerous research, and ultimately, how much

say it has on whether such research should be done.

 

The mainstay of bio-defence research is developing vaccines, which even the US

Department of Defence has acknowledged are not as effective as the facemask.

 

Health & the fluid genome, and beyond

In my new book, Living with the Fluid Genome, I wrote,

 

" The responsiveness of genes and genomes to the environment makes clear that the

only way to keep genes and genomes constant and healthy is to have a balanced

ecology... On the other hand, it is definitely futile to think that we can go on

ruining our ecosystem and stay healthy so long as we have ‘good’ genes.... "

 

New evidence indicates how major chronic diseases, such as Gulf War Syndrome,

AIDS, autoimmune diseases and more, could arise from environmental agents that

shuffle genomic DNA, and how existing strategies to combat the diseases could

make things worse.

 

This fully exposes the poverty of the ‘health genomics’ approach that amasses

DNA samples and databases in the hope of identifying gene variants

‘predisposing’ individuals to diseases, and demands dedicated attention instead,

to environmental health as well as a shift to minimally interventionist holistic

medical practices.

 

Could homeopathy work? New research indicates that water may retain memory of

dissolved substances that have been diluted away.

 

Contents

From the Editor

 

GM Food Fights

 

Genetically Modifying Science

 

The GM National Debate Farce

 

GM Science Review Deeply Flawed

 

Public Say No to GMOs

 

GM Potato = Malnutrition

 

Food Producers in China Go GM-Free

 

Schmeiser’s Battle for the Seed

 

NZ Mothers Mad against GM

 

Defiant Australian States Ban GM

 

Canada Rejects Patents on Higher Life Forms

 

Dirty Works in UK’s GM Science Review

 

ISP News

 

Independent Science Making Waves

 

Rethinking Health

 

Health & the Fluid Genome

 

Molecular Engineers in Junk DNA

 

Dynamic Genomics & Environmental Health

 

Endogenous Viruses & Chronic Diseases

 

AIDS Vaccines Worse Than Useless?

 

Cure for Toxic Environment

 

Rethinking Food & Agriculture

 

Organics for Health

 

Agroecology Rescues Organic Farming

 

Biodefence & Biohazard

 

Bio-defence Mania Grips United States

 

Biodefence Contravenes Biosafety

 

Vaccines, Gulf War Syndrome & Bio-defence

 

SARS Virus Genetically Engineered?

 

Biotech Century Ending?

 

Animal Pharm Folds

 

BioDefence and Genetics Research Rescue Biotech Slump

 

Gene Therapy Risks Exposed

 

Death Sentence on Cloning

 

Pig Organ Transplants Costly and Dangerous

 

Biosafety

 

Transgenic Contamination of Certified Seed Stocks

 

New Terminator Crops Coming

 

SiS Review

 

Learning from Past Mistakes

 

Organic Physics

 

Water Remembers?

 

 

find out more

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/isisnews/sis19.php

or buy from the ISIS online store

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/onlinestore/magazines.php

 

===================================================

This article can be found on the I-SIS website at http://www.i-sis.org.uk/

If you would prefer to receive future mailings as HTML please let us know.

If you would like to be removed from our mailing list - please reply

to press-release with the word in the subject field

===================================================

CONTACT DETAILS

The Institute of Science in Society, PO Box 32097, London NW1 OXR

telephone: [44 20 8643 0681] [44 20 7383 3376] [44 20 7272 5636]

 

General Enquiries sam

Website/Mailing List press-release

ISIS Director m.w.ho

 

MATERIAL IN THIS EMAIL MAY BE REPRODUCED IN ANY FORM WITHOUT PERMISSION, ON

CONDITION THAT IT IS ACCREDITED ACCORDINGLY AND CONTAINS A LINK TO

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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