Bio-imperialism_-_excellent_article

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> GMW:_Bio-imperialism_-_excellent_article

> " GM_WATCH " <info

> Thu, 2 Sep 2004 11:22:10 +0100

 

>

> GM WATCH daily

> http://www.gmwatch.org

> ---

> Perhaps over gloomy on what's happening in Europe

> but an otherwise excellent article. Note

> 'Bio-imperialism' secyion and analysis re USAID.

> ---

> Gene-manipulated Seeds: Are We losing Our Food

> Security Too?

> By F. William Engdahl

>

http://www.currentconcerns.ch/archive/2004/04/20040401.php

>

> Washington and London are united not only on policy

> in Iraq. Tony Blair and George W. Bush also agree

> that the world should be saturated with

> gene-manipulated (GM) or genetically-engineered

> crops and seeds. Its advocates, including major

> chemical giants Monsanto, Syngenta, DuPont and

> Bayer, claim that GM crops are the answer to world

> hunger, and promise food security to growing

> populations. Astonishing enough, the claims are made

> in the absence of almost any serious independent

> scientific long-term study of the effects of GM

> crops on animal or human organisms.

>

> If the spread of GM crops continues at the current

> pace, within perhaps seven to eight years, the

> essential food supply of mankind will pass to the

> corporate control of perhaps three to four giant

> multinationals. Such power over life and death has

> never before in history been so concentrated in so

> few hands. Most shocking is that such a profound

> policy change is being advanced with almost complete

> absence of truly independent scientific study, or

> analysis of long-term possible negative effects of

> genetically modified foods, sometimes called GMO’s,

> on either humans or animals.

>

> Since April 18, 2004 the EU, under heavy pressure

> from Washington, has permitted gene-manipulated

> foods to be sold inside the EU for the first time

> since a ban was imposed in 1998. The new rule

> appears to be a control of GM products, as it

> imposes labelling, somewhat like that warning on

> cigarettes, that a product contains a certain

> percent GM substance. The EU Agriculture

> Commissioner, Franz Fischler, an open fan of GM

> food, hails it as " farmers' right to choose. "

> However, with this step, the EU moratorium on GM

> plants has now been effectively destroyed. And the

> world’s second largest economic region now faces

> loss of its own control over the most vital

> commodity—its own food supply.

>

> In June 2003, immediately following the US

> occupation of Baghdad, President George W. Bush

> launched an offensive against the EU moratorium on

> GM products. Bush blamed the EU for starving Africa

> by its ban, and threatened to go to the WTO to

> challenge the EU moratorium. " For the sake of a

> continent threatened by famine, " Bush then declared,

> " I urge European nations to end their opposition to

> biotechnology. "

>

> Bush's urgency about lifting Europe’s ban on GM

> products arguably had little to do with stopping

> starvation in Africa however. It had very much to do

> with future control of the world food supply by a

> power whose military already has developed the most

> awesome dominance of any military in history, and

> whose financial and economic weight dominates the

> world economy. If Washington and its corporate

> backers succeed in their GM push, it will be to the

> worse for mankind. How so?

>

> In late January the EU Commission approved sale of

> canned GM Maize by the Swiss biotech firm, Syngenta,

> allowing it to sell the food as corn-on-the-cob in

> EU shops and restaurants. The EU argues that the new

> rules on GM labelling make it safe to approve such

> foods. The same day the Belgian government said it

> was planning to approve a variety of GM oilseed or

> raps, for cultivation.

>

> In march, the EU Commission announced it was about

> to approve planting of an allegedly

> herbicide-resistant maize, NK603, owned by Monsanto,

> the world's largest owner of GM plant patents. At

> the same time Swiss giant, Syngenta, applied to

> German officials to begin trials of GM wheat crops

> in Thuringia. If the US experience is a guide,

> within a few short years, the entire EU agriculture

> production from Poland to Hungary to Germany and

> France, will be dominated by GM crops. The Polish

> Parliament, under pressure from Monsanto and the US

> agribusiness GM lobby, recently opened the country

> to wide use of GM crops in one of the richest

> growing soils in Europe. The EU Commission has

> opened Pandora's Box with its decisions to allow

> consumers a " choice. " Brussels European Food Safety

> Authority is reviewing applications from Monsanto

> and Syngenta for GM maize cultivation and feed use.

>

> No independent research

>

> Most shocking is the near total absence of

> fundamental independent research on the possible

> effects on humans and animals of introducing GM

> substances into the food chain, as the floodgates

> are opened for changes which could potentially alter

> the way we live and even who lives.

>

> British Minister for Environment, Michael Meacher,

> was fired from his cabinet post by Tony Blair in

> June 2003. The reason, according to British sources,

> was Meacher's refusal to back untested use of GM

> plants. Meacher, after leaving the Cabinet, accused

> the Blair government of " rushing to desired

> conclusions which cannot be scientifically

> supported. " The UK Soil Association backed Meacher's

> charge, stating, " The decision whether or not to

> allow the commercial growing of GM crops is a

> momentous one, potentially one of the most

> far-reaching that any government has had to take in

> terms of environment and public health. "

>

> The Soil Association went on to warn, " The only

> human GM trial so far found that GM DNA transferred

> to bacteria in the human gut, while animal trials

> have seen a doubling of death rates among chickens

> fed GM feed and the development of gut lesions in

> rats eating GM potatoes and tomatoes. " What they did

> not state was evidence as well that Britain’s BSE or

> mad-cow scare a few years ago may well have been the

> result of feeding cattle GM feed.1

>

> In August 1998, the world's leading GM research

> expert, Hungarian-born scientist, Dr. Arpad Pustzai,

> was fired from his job at the UK Rowett Institute

> research center. His career was ruined and he was

> blacklisted from finding further work. His crime was

> that he had the courage to go public with alarming

> research findings in a British ITV television

> interview. Pustzai revealed that his research on

> laboratory rats showed rats fed GM potatoes suffered

> stunted growth and immune system damage. Pusztai

> stated his data showed that the diet of GM potatoes

> led to smaller livers, hearts and even affected

> brain size. His research was embargoed, his research

> team disbanded and he was forbidden to talk with his

> colleagues about his former work.

>

> Pustzai, an eminent scientist with more than 35

> years published professional research, later found

> he was fired on the intervention of British Prime

> Minister Blair. It seems that then-President Bill

> Clinton phoned Blair, after himself being alerted by

> Monsanto of the danger were the Pustzai research to

> gain worldwide attention. At the time Monsanto, a US

> chemicals firm famous for the deadly Agent Orange

> used in Vietnam, produced 91% of the world’s GM

> seed. Clinton had reportedly been the one to

> convince Blair of the benefits of promoting GM foods

> as a major new field for UK industry.2

>

> One year later, in the Scientific Conference of the

> International Federation of Organic Agriculture

> Movements in 1999, delegates from 60 countries

> called on governments to ban use of GM food, citing

> possible threats to human health and risk to rights

> of choice for farmers. Dr. Michael Fox, a specialist

> in bioethics from Washington, cited evidence that

> with GM crops, foreign DNA can enter the human body;

> GM organisms can produce unanticipated toxins or

> allergens; that gene transfer can occur between

> transgenic plants and bacteria, " the ecological

> consequences of which can be catastrophic. " He also

> reported that milk from cows injected with a GM

> substance, r-BGH, creates an increased insulin-like

> growth implicated in human breast cancer. Fox called

> for a worldwide moratorium on GM spread until

> adequate scientific risk assessments could be done.

>

> In March 2004, a report was released in the United

> States of tests by two independent laboratories who

> tested non-GM seeds, which make up the traditional

> seed supply for maize, soya and oilseed rape, the

> three most important animal feed sources. They

> found, according to a report in the UK Independent,

> that fully 67% of all conventional crops—corn, soya,

> rape oilseeds—had been contaminated with genetically

> modified material through wind, pollination and

> other causes. The study said farmers unwittingly

> planted billions of GM seeds a year believing they

> have normal or non-GM seed. This came only 8 years

> after GM crops were introduced in US farming. The

> report warned there could be " serious risks to

> health " if GM drugs or GM industrial chemicals from

> the next generation of GM products find their way

> into the human food chain.

>

> In one well-publicized incident, genes from Starlink

> (Bayer AG), a GM crop approved only for animals,

> planted in only 0.4% of all US maize, showed up in

> food across the United States including in tacos

> from Taco Bell. The tacos contained insecticide

> proteins not digestable by humans.

>

> GM seed pollution is at the heart of the GM issue.

> Once the door is open to any planting of GM seeds in

> a region, all seeds in that region are vulnerable to

> contamination, whether by wind carry or bees or

> other insects. There are little controls on large

> grain trading firms like Cargill or ADM, many of

> whom have been suspected of deliberately mixing GM

> with non-GM seeds. That contamination, or genetic

> pollution factor alone will spell the end of

> bio-farming, as well as of conventional agriculture

> within a few years at most as US experience shows.

>

> In another silenced study, Dr. Terje Traavik,

> director of the Norwegian Institute for Gene

> Ecology, found alarming evidence of GM effects. In

> the case of BT-Maize from US seed producer, Dekalb,

> evidence suggested that during pollination, the GM

> (maize) corn triggered disease in Philippine people

> living near the GM field. A virus used in making

> most GM foods, CaMV, was found intact in rat tissues

> three days after it had been mixed into a single

> meal, and was also confirmed in human cells. Most

> alarming, GM pox viruses recombined with natural

> viruses to create new hybrid viruses with

> unpredictable and potentially dangerous

> characteristics.

>

> Traavik urged immediate further investigation of the

> alarming findings. He said his research, " raises

> additional concerns that GM foods might encourage

> genetic instability and mutation, accidental

> expression of allergens or toxins from non-target

> genes, and even activation of dormant viruses … We

> must investigate whether Bt-crops contribute to the

> unexplained rise of allergies. " He was greeted with

> stony silence in major western media.

>

> A three-year UK government study, originally done

> under the supervision of Michael Meacher, and

> published in October 2003, showed that farmland

> wildlife is harmed more severely by the

> extra-powerful herbicides used by GM crops than even

> by conventional chemical herbicides. One argument

> used by Monsanto and the GM lobby to silence green

> critics of GM seeds, is the allegation they require

> less chemical herbicides. The UK biotech industry

> denied the report was important, and the Blair

> government approved " limited " GM use. The Meacher

> study also found that GM crops had been engineered

> to be herbicide tolerant and unaffected by even the

> strongest deadly chemical weed-killers like

> Monsanto’s Roundup, a chemical so strong it kills

> everything in conventional crop fields including the

> crops, bees and butterflies.3

>

> The Meacher UK study lasted 3 years, cost millions

> of euros, and found a 500% decrease in flora, a 25%

> fall in butterflies and fewer seeds in oilseed rape

> fields. The Blair government buried the results, and

> approved limited GM use this year.

>

> Fraudulent GM cost-benefit claims

>

> The spread of GM seeds to American farmers was made

> on the basis of fraudulent promises of major

> productivity gains and significantly lower chemical

> pesticide use. Reality does not support this; in

> fact the opposite seems the case. In 2001 Dr Charles

> Benbrook presented results of analysis of the

> economics of Bt Maize (corn). He found that over

> three years US farmers paid large price premiums for

> GM seeds and ended with a net loss of $92 million or

> $1.31 per acre from it. Benbrook also found that the

> " planting of 550 million acres of GE corn, soybeans

> and cotton in the United States since 1996 has

> increased pesticide use by about 50 million pounds. "

> So-called 'herbicide tolerant' crops, which require

> far more use of special herbicides than normal

> plants, have been specially GM developed to insure

> that farmers who grow the GM corn or other crops are

> forced to buy the GM herbicide from the same

> company, such as Monsanto's Roundup.4

>

> GM seeds were promoted aggressively to desperate US

> farmers in the late 1990's on promises of big

> profits and higher yields, and less weed problems.

> As of 2002, more than 70% of all US soybeans were GM

> plants, over 61% of all cotton and 25% of all corn.

> Supermarket products from Ovaltine to baby foods

> from Nestle, to McDonald's burgers contained GM

> food.

>

> An Iowa State University study by Michael Duffy

> showed that HT-Soya, a GM crop, lost $8.87 per acre

> compared with normal soya. In 2001 the Canadian

> government Biotechnology Advisory Committee stated,

> " …there is no publicly available survey or data on

> how individual farmers have benefited from adoption

> of GM crops in Canada. "

>

> Another hidden cost to farmers for GM seeds is what

> Monsanto and others term a " technology fee. "

> Monsanto charges an added " technology fee " on top of

> the already high seed price on the argument farmers

> will get the benefit of the GM technology. Including

> the fees, GM seeds typically cost farmers 24-40%

> more than non-GM seeds. For GM maize, costs run

> anywhere from 30% to 90% higher. In addition, when

> buying the seed, the farmer is forced to sign a

> " technology agreement " with Monsanto the supplier,

> legally forbidding the farmer from saving any seed

> for the next harvest. If he cheats, he risks legal

> action.

>

> According to a report by Food First Institute for

> Food and Development Policy in California, GM seeds

> " may be responsible for a string of crop failures. "

> They report that herbicide-tolerant plants and weeds

> have emerged in the United States, and that

> glyphosate-tolerant weeds there are plaguing GM

> cotton and soya fields. Atrazine, one of the most

> toxic herbicides, has to be used with

> glufosinate-tolerant maize.

>

> More alarming, Bt proteins, used in about 25% of all

> GM crops worldwide, have been found harmful to a

> range of non-target insects, and many scientists

> have warned against releasing Bt crops for human

> use. Increasingly, large pharmaceutical companies

> are using GM crops to produce drugs, including

> cytokines, which is known to suppress the human

> immune system, induce sickness and central nervous

> system toxicity, according to FoodFirst. GM plants

> have also been documented to have produced

> interferon alpha, reported to cause dementia, and a

> viral sequence such as the 'spike' protein gene of

> the pig coronavirus, which is in the same family as

> the SARS virus which recently swept across Asia.

> Glufosinate ammonium and glyphosate are used with

> herbicide-tolerant transgenic or GM crops, in some

> 75% of all GM crops worldwide. Glufosinate ammonium

> is tied to neurological, respiratory and

> gastrointestinal toxicities and birth defects in

> humans and animals. Children born to users of

> glyphosate had heightened neuro-behavioral defects.

>

> Food First concludes, " The known effects of

> glufosinate and glyphosate are sufficiently serious

> for all further uses of the herbicides to be

> halted. " Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide has been found

> to cause cell dysfunction that may be linked to

> human cancers. But the most frightening danger of GM

> consumption is the inherent tendency of gene

> recombination and transfer, the main route to

> creating viruses and bacteria which cause epidemics.

> In 2001 an 'accidental' killer mouse virus was

> created in the course of an apparently innocent GM

> experiment.5

>

> In February this year, Devinder Sharma, writing in

> the journal, BioSpectrum, reported alarming results

> of planting Monsanto Bt (GM) cotton. The Indian

> company, Mahyco-Monsanto, promoted the Bt cotton

> seeds claiming it had the built-in ability to kill

> pink bollworms, a major pest. Because of the claim,

> they were able to sell the GM seed at four times the

> existing seed price. In its first year of planting,

> the Bt cotton crop in India has failed, in some

> fields by 100%.

>

> In China, some 7 million hectares were planted with

> Bt cotton in 1999. Today, pesticide use has returned

> to earlier pre-1999 levels as the Bt cotton loses

> resistance to pests. GM cotton in China accounts for

> 50% of its entire cotton. This year, the Beijing

> government issued import certificates for several US

> gene technologies including five from Monsanto. More

> than 70% of China's soybean imports are GM. China is

> trying to develop its own GM rice and plant

> varieties, presumably hoping that might be safer.

>

> GM food as a US geo-strategic weapon

> The country which grows far the world’s largest

> acreage of GM crops, the United States, allows GM

> agriculture to go ahead essentially unregulated.

> Owing to a 1992 Executive decision by

> then-President, George H.W. Bush, the US Government

> has ruled ever since that GM-altered seeds or crops

> are " substantially equivalent " to normal seeds or

> plants, and so, do not require any special testing!

>

> The term " substantially equivalent " was intended to

> be vague, giving GM companies full freedom in

> developing GM products. The ruling was entirely

> political, not scientific. Many of the US Food and

> Drug Administration scientists at the time

> disagreed. US courts have upheld the fact that GM

> foods are " unregulated. " In other words, the most

> far-ranging alteration to the human food chain in

> history, with potential consequences unimaginable,

> is officially treated as if it were a new brand of

> toothpaste. Children’s toys receive more regulatory

> control than GM foods.

>

> In short, GM foods have entered the diets of most

> Americans with no significant pre-market testing by

> the FDA or even the US Department of Agriculture. In

> fact the USDA holds many patents on GM seeds and

> stands to gain significant revenue from its

> worldwide sale.

>

> The 1992 decision not to regulate GM plants has been

> upheld by both Presidents Clinton and now by George

> W. Bush. The present Secretary of Agriculture, Ann

> Veneman, came from the board of directors of

> Calgene, a part of Monsanto, the world’s largest GM

> seed producer. Veneman also sat on the powerful

> agriculture industry trade group, International

> Policy Council on Agriculture, with Monsanto, World

> Bank, Syngenta, Cargill, Nestle, Kraft, ADM and

> other power food multinationals. This group, IPC,

> defines all key policy issues in world agriculture

> trade. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld came from

> Chicago where his drugs company, G.D. Searle, was

> bought by Monsanto.

>

> Other members of the Bush Cabinet are in one or

> another way financially tied to the GM bio-industry

> lobby. At the very least, this indicates what a

> strategic priority GM food domination has assumed

> for Washington. At a time when US foreign policy

> under George Bush and Dick Cheney is guided by the

> looming crisis of oil depletion worldwide, and US

> efforts to control remaining oil and natural gas,

> the US push to spread GM seeds to the entire world

> food production assumes alarming dimension.

>

> There is an intimate link between the Washington

> government and the GM industry.

>

> A bio-imperialism?

>

> To counter the small number of truly independent

> research efforts, Monsanto and the biotech industry

> have funded their own partisan research, and

> aggressively slandered or attacked contrary studies.

> Monsanto and the USAID, the State Department agency

> which administers world food aid, along with the

> World Bank, finance the Kenya Agriculture Research

> Institute studies of Dr. Florence Wambugu. Her

> studies claim that GM crops could raise crop yields

> by 4-10 tons per hectare. Independent investigation

> by Aaron deGrassi of the Sussex Institute of

> Development Studies, revealed that the data used by

> Wambugu was fraudulent. " The transgenic sweet potato

> being used as the answer to Africa's food security

> was no improvement at all, " Sharma charges.

>

> In April 2002, the respected British science

> journal, Nature, printed its first ever declaration

> that it had been " wrong, " in printing a scientific

> paper. The paper was from University of California

> Berkeley scientists critical of GM, charging native

> Mexican maize had been contaminated by GM maize.

> Nature had come under enormous pressure from the GM

> industry. A media PR firm hired by Monsanto, Bivings

> Group, it later was revealed, ran the coordinated

> attack on Nature resulting in their repudiation of

> the research. Scientists at respected universities

> such as Berkeley, signed attacks of the Nature

> article. Some of the scientists were involved in a

> university GM research project that got $25 million

> from Monsanto.6

>

> Given all the evidence, it is not beyond the pale to

> ask whether the Washington demand for worldwide use

> of GM crops and products is part of a more sinister

> agenda than mere corporate profit and greed of a

> few. In his historic and unexpected visit to West

> Africa in summer of 2003, President Bush offered

> food aid to several African countries. It had big

> strings tied to it.

>

> The US food aid was in the form of US-grown GM

> plants and seeds, not the traditional financial

> grant allowing the country to buy food on the

> market. Africans were told by USAID, the State

> Department agency in charge, either take GM or

> starve. The UN Food Program and the EU give food aid

> in financial grants allowing the country to buy

> locally or regionally. UK Chief Scientist, Prof.

> David King, called Bush Administration efforts to

> force GM foods on Africa, " a massive human

> experiment. " When some African governments protested

> the US move, a US official replied, " beggars can't

> be choosers. "

>

> The official USAID role is explicitly to promote GM

> crops as part of its food aid in developing or poor

> countries. Its own website boasts, " The principal

> beneficiary of America's foreign assistance programs

> has always been the United States. Close to 80% of

> USAID contracts and grants go directly to American

> firms. Foreign assistance programs have helped

> create major markets for agricultural goods… "

>

> USAID finances US corporations such as Monsanto to

> run GM research programs in Africa. A former

> Monsanto official is USAID consultant on use of GM

> in food aid. Recently USAID granted $100 million for

> a 10-year program, " Collaborative Agriculture

> Biotechnology Initiative or CABIO, to 'help

> developing countries access and manage the tools of

> modern biotechnology.' "

>

> To help this along, USAID has pressured numerous

> developing governments in Africa and elsewhere to

> pass national laws on " intellectual property rights

> (IPR's). " Given the fact that GM companies like

> Monsanto and Syngenta are filing patents on GM

> maize, rice, soya and other natural crops, the day

> is approaching where a Kenyan traditional farmer or

> Indian peasant must pay a " technology fee " to plant

> rice or corn grown by their ancestors for thousands

> of years simply because a DNA gene has been altered.

> The WTO is in charge of enforcing these IPR's.

> Washington has the largest weight in WTO.

>

> USAID also funds the International Service for the

> Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA).

> The ISAAA promotes GM crops for the developing

> world, from Africa to Asia and Latin America,

> including GM bananas, sweet potatoes, maize and

> papaya. ISAAA is funded by USAID together with

> Monsanto, Bayer AG, Syngenta, Cargill, Dow

> AgroSciences, and the US Department of Agriculture.

>

> Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe recently refused GM food

> aid. In Malawi, the IMF demanded the government sell

> its emergency grain reserves to pay its debts. Then,

> with a famine that could have been prevented, USAID

> demanded Malawi accept GM food aid. The South

> African government, on US pressure, approved $18

> million for research on GM maize. Developing country

> farmers increasingly will be forced to go to

> Monsanto and other US and multinational companies to

> buy seeds each year, and special GM pesticides.

>

> The next likely step is likely to be introduction of

> the controversial " terminator seed " technology once

> the markets are dependent on GM crops. In 1999

> Monsanto caved in to massive public pressure and

> announced it was not going to commercialize its

> Terminator Seed technology.

>

> The name is a deliberate reference to the Hollywood

> movies made by the California Governor. Terminator

> or GURT seeds, use GM engineering to ensure that any

> GM seeds replanted by a farmer are sterile, courtesy

> of a built-in GM sterilizer. Monsanto argued it was

> part of its protection of its " intellectual property

> rights. " With Terminator seeds, a farmer cannot use

> a part of his seeds for the next harvest. He is

> totally dependent on Monsanto or his corporate seed

> source, and whatever price they decide to name. The

> vital right of a farmer to save and replant seeds

> will be gone. He will be a modern-era serf to seed

> company giants like Monsanto and Syngenta.

>

> In April 2003, Monsanto scientists published a paper

> praising Terminator technology benefits. The

> technology will take an estimated four years more to

> be ready for commercial introduction. At that point,

> with the largest growing areas of Africa, Asia,

> Europe and North and South America dominated by GM

> crops, the potential for Monsanto, Cargill and a

> handful of US-led agri-giants to " play God " with the

> human race becomes real and concrete.

>

> In May 2003, Monsanto won a surprising decision

> before the European Patent Office in Munich. After a

> 9 year legal battle, the company was given monopoly

> rights, European Patent no. 301,749, to “all forms

> of genetically engineered soybean varieties and

> seeds, regardless of the genes used.” The patent has

> been attacked worldwide as immoral and illegitimate.

> In 2001 91% of all GM seeds in the world were from

> Monsanto. Syngenta holds the most patents on rice,

> including basmati rice grown for more than 2,500

> years.

>

> Kissinger’s NSSM200 and the GM revolution

>

> It is but a short leap of the mind to imagine the

> temptation for some leading policy circles in the

> Anglo-American establishment to impose Malthusian

> population reduction using their power over GM

> crops. This is especially credible in the face of

> growing shortage of vital energy such as oil and

> natural gas.

>

> In 1974 US Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger,

> proposed a Presidential security policy memorandum,

> NSSM 200, titled, “Implications of Worldwide

> Population Growth for US Security and Overseas

> Interests.” NSSM200, which was made policy by

> President Ford in 1975, made population control and

> birth reduction official US foreign policy. It

> stated, “World population growth is widely

> recognized within the (US) Government as a current

> danger of the highest magnitude calling for urgent

> measures.” The USAID, CIA, Agriculture Department

> and Defense Departments were all involved in

> formulation of the Kissinger policy.

>

> NSSM200 was officially revoked as US policy in face

> of heavy Vatican pressure, at least as open policy.

> But it continues to this day unofficially, as US

> foreign policy, imposed via third agencies, such as

> the IMF and World Bank, and their “conditionalities”

> for emergency financial aid. In an April 2002

> article in Australia’s The Age, Nobel Prize

> microbiologist, Sir Macfarlane Burnet, advocated

> biological warfare as a form of population control.

> Is the proliferation of GM seeds for every vital

> crop a part of such a strategy? For the sake of the

> human race we should make certain it is not.7

>

> 1 " Brussels clears GM maize to 'Please US' " by

> Andrew Osborn, UK Guardian, January 29, 2004.

> " Meacher attacks GM crops, " in BBC News, 18 February

> 2003. news.bbc.co.uk.

>

> 2 " Soil Association backs Meacher’s stance on GM

> crops, " press release, 23 June 2003,

> www.soilassociation.org. " World’s top GE researcher

> was fired and persecuted by White House & Blair " ” by

> Andrew Rowell, The Daily Mail, July 7 2003.

> www.organiconsumers.org.

>

> 3 " Revealed: Shocking new dangers of GM crops, " by

> Geoffrey Lean, Independent, 7 March 2004. “Proven:

> Environmental dangers that may halt GM revolution,”

> by Michael McCarthy, Independent, 17 October, 2003.

> “New health dangers of genetically modified foods

> (and vaccines) discovered,” by Institute for

> Responsible Technology, February 24, 2004 on

> www.organicconsumers.org. “Dangers of GE foods &

> crops,” Dr. Michael W. Fox, Humane Society of the

> United States, www.hsus.org or

> www.organicconsumers.org.

>

> 4 “Farmer Income: seeds of doubt” by Norfolk Genetic

> Information Network, 24 October 2002.

> members.tripod.com. or www.non-gm-farmers.com.

>

> 5 “The case for a GM-free sustainable world,” by

> Food First/Institute for Food and Development

> Policy. Available on www.foodfirst.org.

>

> 6 DevinderSharma, “GM crops: If it can’t work, fake

> it” in BioSpectrum, February 2004. in

> www.organicconsumers.org. “Monsanto’s World Wide Web

> of Deceit,” in The Big Issue, no. 484, 15-21 April

> 2002. reprinted in ngin.tripod.com.

>

> 7 " USAID and GM Food Aid, " in Norfolk Genetic

> Information Network, 8 October 2002. Terminator

> details in " Broken Promise? Monsanto Promotes

> Terminator Seed Technology, " ETC Group, 23 April

> 2003. Press release: www.etcgroup.org. and “Patently

> Wrong!” May 7, 2003, www.etcgroup.org. on Monsanto’s

> success in a Munich Patent Court to win patent

> monopoly rights to all forms of GM soybeans and

> seeds regardless of genes used. “World Population

> Control: US Strategy and UN Policy Program,” in

> www.fathersforlife.org.

 

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> http://www.gmwatch.org

 

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