Franken Foods: GM WEEKLY WATCH number 118

[Guest guest]

WEEKLY WATCH 118

" GM WATCH " <info

Thu, 7 Apr 2005 22:46:02 +0100

 

 

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WEEKLY WATCH number 118

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from Claire Robinson, WEEKLY WATCH editor

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Dear all:

 

Are EU 'regulators', and others worldwide, taking a " don't look, don't

see " attitude to Syngenta's unauthorized GM maize Bt10, which has

contaminated the food supply? See our CONTAMINATION SCANDAL LATEST and

decide for yourself.

 

One place integrity is alive and kicking is Vermont where senators,

angry at bully-boy threats from the biotech industry, have voted 26-1 to

approve the new GM liability bill, which would place the liability for

contamination firmly on the GM seed companies. (THE AMERICAS)

 

Finally, watch out for the study just published by a University of

Pittsburgh researcher suggesting that Roundup, the herbicide most

commonly

used on GM crops, is extremely lethal to amphibians and may be

responsible for their global decline. This follows on from other recent

research suggesting the active ingredient in Roundup could have toxic

effects

for humans. (NEW RESEARCH)

 

Claire claire

www.gmwatch.org / www.lobbywatch.org

 

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CONTENTS

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CONTAMINATION SCANDAL LATEST

LOBBYWATCH

ASIA

AFRICA

THE AMERICAS

NEW RESEARCH

DON'T MISS...

CAMPAIGN OF THE WEEK

 

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CONTAMINATION SCANDAL LATEST

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*Between 2001 and 2004, Syngenta produced and distributed an unapproved

GM corn [maize], called Bt10, and sold it as an approved corn, Bt11*

 

+ JAPANESE DEMAND FOR US CORN SLOWS

Some Japanese buyers have already halted imports of US corn to avoid

importing problematic cargoes contaminated by Bt10, traders said.

http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5075

 

+ JAPAN AND SOUTH KOREA TRYING TO TAKE STEPS AGAINST CONTAMINATED US

IMPORTS

The biggest importers of sweetcorn from the US, Japan and South Korea,

both appear to be trying to take steps to shut off maize supplies

contaminated by Syngenta's illegal unapproved Bt10 maize at the ports.

 

The Japanese government has said that if inspections " discover

contaminated cargoes, the ministry will order importers to destroy

them or ship

them back to the United States. " But the government also says Japanese

ports would only be able to " start testing samples of corn cargoes from

the United States after the ministry obtained the necessary data from

Syngenta to detect Bt10. "

 

+ SYNGENTA NOT MAKING INFORMATION AVAILABLE

It's clear that Syngenta is delaying the release of full information on

Bt10, as a damage limitation exercise.

 

An obvious example is the way in which Syngenta initially maintained

that Bt10 and Bt11 were more or less identical without disclosing that

Bt10, unlike Bt11, contained a gene for Ampicillin resistance.

 

Ampicillin is a broad spectrum antibiotic which has the ability to kill

a wide range of bacterial infections in the body, including infections

of the respiratory tract, the ear, and the urinary system, as well as

salmonella infections and gonorrhoea. It is still widely used.

http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5073

 

+ SYNGENTA HAS DONE THIS BEFORE

This is not the first time that Syngenta has been reluctant to

cooperate in a GM fiasco arising from its negligence. In 2000 5.6

tonnes of GM

contaiminated maize seed, supplied by Syngenta, was illegally shipped

to New Zealand and then planted as non-GM seed. There were subsequent

allegations that the New Zealand government had been involved in a

deliberate cover up, but a parliamentary committee of enquiry could never

establish the truth of what had happened because, " the seed exporter,

Syngenta, refused to allow the committee to talk to the Genescan

laboratory

which carried out the testing that identified the contamination. "

http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=3344

 

+ Bt 10 TESTING ALREADY AVAILABLE WORLDWIDE

There is concern that the European Commission, Britain's Food Standards

Agency and others, are deliberately turning a blind eye to Syngenta's

illegality.

 

The EU's Health and Consumer protection Spokesman Philip Tod has

claimed they can't detect Bt10 " because it is not an authorised

product, " but

it is not clear that it's necessary for the EU to continue to wait for

the necessary data to come from Syngenta in order to detect Bt10.

 

The longest-established GM detection firm, Genetic ID, says detection

of Bt10 is possible immediately: " Contrary to statements by the EU

Commission, as reported in some media reports over the past few days, the

detection of Bt10 maize as well as the distinction from Bt11 is possible

immediately. "

 

Testing for Bt10 is also widely available, including both in the EU and

in Japan and South Korea, " Genetic ID offers its test for Bt10 through

its laboratories in Germany, the US, and Japan, as well as through

Genetic ID's Global Laboratory Alliance members in Brazil, Britain,

Italy,

China, Singapore, Taiwan, India, South Korea and, again, the US. "

http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5073

 

+ AUTHORITIES SLAMMED FOR INCOMPETENCE AND COMPLACENCY

The official response within the UK and Europe to the GM maize scandal

has been " incompetent and complacent " , according to GM Free Cymru. The

group also claims that Europe's GM regulatory system, promoted as being

the most rigorous and robust in the world, is actually a shambles.

 

It is more than ten days since the world was alerted to the " accidental

release " onto the world food market of GM maize contaminated with an

unauthorized and untested Syngenta variety known as Bt10. The story was

kept under wraps for almost four months by the US authorities and

Syngenta, and when Nature reported the contamination incident on 22 March

there was a carefully coordinated " damage limitation campaign " involving

statements to the press which were extremely economical with the truth.

 

In the UK, DEFRA put out a statement on 23 March which was evasive and

dishonest. More seriously, it contained lies which have still not been

officially admitted or corrected.

http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5073

 

+ SCIENTISTS RUBBISH OFFICIAL CLAIMS

Official claims that illegal GM maize accidentally grown in the US for

the past 4 years is " safe " are being challenged by independent

scientists. The scientists have backed consumer-group concerns that

testing and

monitoring of 'Bt10' maize-accidentally grown and marketed as 'Bt11' is

inadequate and have called for publication of the data that supposedly

shows the proteins from the plants to be 'identical'.

 

The UK-based Institute of Science in Society has issued a detailed

report on the Bt 10 problem which calls into question claims made by

officials.

Read the report at http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5069

 

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LOBBYWATCH

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+ TAVERNE BLASTED - " A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE AND A LOT OF BOMBAST ARE

DANGEROUS "

Real scientist Margaret Cook demolishes pseudo-scientist and GM

lobbyist Lord Dick Taverne's new book, The March of Unreason: Science,

Democracy and the New Fundamentalism, in a scathing and brilliant

review in

the Guardian that takes Taverne to task for the hectoring and irksome

dogma of his writing.

 

EXCERPT:

In spite of his stated commitment to evidence-based science, much of

his discussion is rant rather than reason.

 

There are regrettably a number of howlers. He attributes our health and

longevity to modern medicine, whereas it owes much more to public

health measures, sanitation, clean water, housing, diet. [GM WATCH

comment:

Here's a statistic for Taverne: " The results of seven years of research

reviewing thousands of studies conducted by the NIA (Nutrition

Institute of America) now show that medical errors are the number one

cause of

death and injury in the United States. "

http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/2003/10/29/medical_system_is_leading_cause_\

of_death_and_injury_in_us.htm

 

]

 

He states, " Food has never been safer or more carefully tested, " when

we have just had the most troubling food scare involving contamination

of many different food products by the dye Sudan 1. He demolishes in

scathing terms the fears linking radiation from mobile phones and

masts to

brain damage. Yet only two months ago, top scientists warned that

children under nine should not use mobile phones as their brains

absorb more

radiation than adults' and the dangers are unclear.

 

He draws a rigid line between mainstream and alternative medicine,

reluctantly admitting that an extract of St John's Wort might help

depression, then countering this with a discussion of dire side

effects. In

fact, in a recent issue the BMJ, hypericum extract from this plant has

been shown to be at least as effective as paroxetine for depression and

better tolerated. The timing of these reports has not been kind to him,

but they underline the hectoring dogma of his writing, which becomes

increasingly irksome.

http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5059

 

+ BLACKWASHING THE GM FOOD DEBATE

PR watchdogs SpinWatch and PR Watch, and others, have helped draw

attention to the extraordinary story broken by GM WATCH editor Jonathan

Matthews in his article, " The Uncle Tom Award " of how the GM industry is

recruiting black front-people to tout GM as the cure-all for Third World

agriculture. " [F]rom US administration platforms to UN headquarters,

from Capitol Hill to the European Parliament, we've been treated to a

veritable minstrelsy of lobbying. "

http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5076

http://www.freezerbox.com/archive/article.asp?id=337

 

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ASIA

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+ INDIA: MULTINATIONALS, DESIGNERS JOIN LOBBIES AGAINST GM CROPS

Western multinational companies and Indian fashion designers are to

join hands with environmental activists to make the country a GMO-Free

Zone. The campaign for making India a GMO-free zone will begin in two

months, according to Indian environmentalists.

 

Indian activists have already asked American sports giant Nike,

international lifestyle brand Espirit and several domestic fashion

designers

the question - " If we launch a campaign, will you refuse to procure GM

products for manufacturing your products? " Says Vandana Shiva of

Delhi-based environmental group Navdanya, " The answer was Yes. They

will come

on board when we start our campaign. "

http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5064

 

+ SCIENTIST CRITICISES BT COTTON IN SOUTH INDIA

The performance of Bt cotton in 2004 has come under severe criticism

from scientists as well as NGOs. Founder-director of the Hyderabad-based

Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), Dr Pushpa M Bhargava,

alleged that farmers in south India [the only area for which Bt cotton

was approved] have suffered heavy losses on account of cultivation of

Bt cotton.

 

He also said, " There is a lack of transparency in the approval process

of Bt cotton. Revelant data are not yet placed in public domain. No

tests have been conducted to verify the consumption effects of Bt plants

on cattle. Bt toxin may have some undesired effects on bacteria present

in rumen in cattle. "

 

Dr Bhargava also pointed out that the recent amendments to the Seeds

Act are designed to strengthen the monopoly of multinational seed

companies in the seed sector. He argued that no multinational company

should

be allowed to control the country's seed sector and hence agriculture.

http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5064

 

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AFRICA

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+ TANZANIA BLITZED BY US GM LOBBY

Intense lobbying is under way in Tanzania in an effort to secure a

toe-hold for GM crops, with CS Prakash, Shanthu Shantharam, USAID and the

US State Department all involved.

 

As part of this effort, the head of the Agricultural Biotechnology

Support Program (ABSP II) is being brought to Tanzania byy the US State

Department. ABSP is a USAID funded project. Promoting GM is an official

part of USAID's remit - one of its roles being to " integrate GM into

local food systems. " ABSP's partners have included Asgrow, Monsanto, and

Pioneer Hi-Bred.

 

Among the advisors to USAID is CS Prakash who serves as the principal

investigator of a USAID funded project " to promote biotechnology

awareness in Africa " . Prakash was in Tanzania in August 2002, when he

" met

with Tanzanian scientists, describing the potential of bio-engineered

foods for the benefit of the country. "

 

Prakash was reported in the press at the time as having told his

Tanzanian audience that GM " doubles production " ! (The Express,

Tanzania, Aug

21, 2002).

 

This February, Dr Shanthu Shantharam, a close ally of Prakash's and a

former employee of Syngenta was in Arusha, Tanzania for a seminar on GMO

technology for East African plant inspectors. Like Prakash, Shanthu

Shantharam appears to have a cavalier attitude towards the truth. He told

India's science and environment magazine, Down to Earth, that in the

Percy Schmeiser contamination case, " Court records clearly establish that

Schmeiser had planted GM canola which he had purchased illegally. " This

is completely untrue - the records establish the exact opposite!

 

In Tanzania, Shantharam apparently told his audience that GM had the

" potential of alleviating hunger in Third World countries " .

 

What adds to the irony of the lobby attack on Tanzania, is that while

it has apparently led to GM cotton being lapped up as a 'liberator' of

Tanzania's cotton farmers, Devlin Kujek of GRAIN explains that it is

almost impossible to imagine how farmers could derive any benefit at all

from the GM seed.

 

Tanzania's cotton farmers are suffering from miserably low global

cotton prices at the same time as they are successfully increasing

production without GM. America's huge contribution to low cotton

prices through

its massive subsidies has, of course, got it into trouble even with the

WTO.

http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5074

 

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THE AMERICAS

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+ BIOTECH INDUSTRY THREATS BACKFIRE IN VERMONT

The Vermont Senate on Tuesday gave nearly unanimous approval to a bill

designed to make seed manufacturers liable for the impacts of GM crops.

As many as a dozen senators were expected to oppose the bill, but the

final vote was 26-1.

 

Seed manufacturers who will reportedly not sell their products in

Vermont if the bill passes may have been responsible for the nearly

unanimous vote, senators said. " Some of the manufacturers made threats

that

undermined their arguments, " said Senate President Pro Tem Peter Welch,

D-Windsor.

 

Sen. John Campbell, D-Windsor, was even more direct. " I don't take well

to threats from international companies that don't want to come into

the state and compete on a level playing field, " he said. " It's not

acceptable. "

http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5071

http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5058

 

+ US RICE PRODUCERS OPPOSE PHARMA RICE

Ventria Bioscience's plan to grow GM pharmaceutical-containing rice in

Missouri has been attacked by rice producers worried about rattling

already unstable markets. " I've followed rice marketing and trade issues

for years, " said Bob Papanos, vice president of international programs

for the US Rice Producers Association. " Rice farmers are right to be

worried. I'm sure farmers recall StarLink and Prodigy in Nebraska

[previous contamination incidents]. If there's even a hint that Ventria's

pharm-rice has contaminated food-grade rice, we're in serious trouble.

Actually, foreign trade negotiators can use this against us whether

there's

contamination or not. "

http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5058

 

+ CONTAMINATION OF FOOD BY EXPERIMENTAL GM CROPS SHOULD NOT BE " FOUND

ACCEPTABLE "

The current Syngenta rogue corn fiasco (see CONTAMINATION SCANDAL

LATEST, above) throws new light on US plans to routinely allow unapproved

experimental GM proteins to contaminate US food crops and exports. The US

Food and Drug Administration has issued draft guidelines which say that

" intermittent, low levels of biotechnology-derived genes and gene

products from such field tests could be found acceptable " .

 

As Third World Network's Lim Li Ching notes, " Short of FDA specifically

notifying importing countries of the presence of unapproved genetically

engineered proteins in US food exports and providing the necessary

reference materials to facilitate detection and identification, the only

way other countries can determine if there is presence of unapproved

genetically engineered material is to randomly test for their presence. "

 

But even countries as rich and technologically advanced as Japan and

the EU are currently claiming not to be able to, in the words of the

Japanese government, " start testing samples of corn cargoes from the

United

States " until they have " obtained the necessary data from Syngenta to

detect Bt10 [the unapproved maize]. "

http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5073

Syngenta's foot-dragging suggests that the industry will do everything

it can not to facilitate that process.

 

The US is taking the world along a trajectory where the food supply may

not only be be modified at a molecular level in any number of ways but

where it has moved beyond all meaningful regulatory control.

http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5077

 

+ SOUTH AMERICAN MINISTERS REFUSE MONSANTO ROYALTY PLAN

Farm ministers from Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay -- the world's top

soybean exporters behind the US - have shunned a bid by Monsanto to

charge royalties on GM soybeans when they are harvested.

 

Royalties " should only be charged when farmers buy seeds, " said a

statement issued by Argentina after a special meeting of the Southern

Agricultural Council in Cartagena, Colombia at the request of Argentine

Agriculture Secretary Miguel Campos.

http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5072

 

+ GENETIC COLONIALISM AND MEXICO'S " MONSANTO LAW "

Two useful articles explains why Mexico's new 'biosafety' law is so

unpopular outside the biotech industry/government circle.

 

EXCERPTS:

The opponents had wanted the new law to set out penalties for

transgenics producers who " contaminate " farmers' crops without their

permission.

They also wanted the law to demand that all transgenic products be

labeled for consumers. As is, the law requires only some labeling. The

law's proponents argued that the approval process made it unnecessary and

that it would unfairly mark the products while increasing the price for

consumers.

....

After several years of study, a panel of international experts...

recommended that Mexico reduce corn imports, clearly label transgenic

corn

and mill any genetically modified corn as soon as it enters the country

to prevent local farmers from planting it. In the end, the Mexican

government set aside the milling recommendation as too expensive but

required provisions for labeling that remain unclear.

http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5062

http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5067

 

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NEW RESEARCH

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+ ROUNDUP KILLS FROGS, MAY EXPLAIN GLOBAL DECLINE

A study published by a University of Pittsburgh researcher finds that

Roundup, the herbicide most commonly used on GM crops, may be

eradicating much more than weeds. Pitt assistant professor of biology

Rick Relyea

found that Roundup is extremely lethal to amphibians.

 

This field experiment is one of the most extensive studies on the

effects of pesticides on nontarget organisms in a natural setting, and

the

results may provide a key link to global amphibian declines.

 

Relyea examined how a pond's entire community--25 species, including

crustaceans, insects, snails, and tadpoles--responded to the addition of

the manufacturers' recommended doses of two insecticides--Sevin

(carbaryl) and malathion--and two herbicides--Roundup; (glyphosate)

and 2,4-D.

 

Relyea found that Roundup caused a 70 percent decline in amphibian

biodiversity and an 86 percent decline in the total mass of tadpoles.

Leopard frog tadpoles and gray tree frog tadpoles were completely

eliminated

and wood frog tadpoles and toad tadpoles were nearly eliminated. One

species of frog, spring peepers, was unaffected.

 

" The most shocking insight coming out of this was that Roundup,

something designed to kill plants, was extremely lethal to

amphibians, " said

Relyea, who conducted the research at Pitt's Pymatuning Laboratory of

Ecology. " We added Roundup, and the next day we looked in the tanks and

there were dead tadpoles all over the bottom. "

 

The paper, " The Impact of Insecticides and Herbicides on the

Biodiversity and Productivity of Aquatic Communities " , is published in

the

journal Ecological Applications.

http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5068

 

Needless to say, Monsanto has been working hard to rubbish the research

but Dr Relyea has effectively rebutted them here:

http://www.pitt.edu/~relyea/Roundup.html

 

In another study, a group of scientists led by Gilles-Eric Seralini

from the University of Caen in France has found that human placental

cells

are very sensitive to Roundup at concentrations lower than the

agricultural use. This, they suggest, could explain the high levels of

premature births and miscarriages observed among women farmers in the

US using

glyphosate.

http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5040

 

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DON'T MISS...

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+ NEW DOCUMENTARY: 'ALIENS IN THE FIELD'

Here are transmission times for 'ALIENS IN THE FIELD', the Earth Report

documentary on GM crops in developing countries that many of you helped

create. The film will be shown on BBC World on Saturday the 9 April at

the following times (find other country times at www.bbcworld.com):

India -- 14.00 and 19.00

Zambia -- 10.30, 15.30 and 22.30

Argentina -- 05.30, 10.30 and 17.30

Paraguay -- 09.30 and 16.30

USA Central Zone -- 08.30 and 15.30

UK -- 09.30 and 21.30

http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5065

 

+ BURN YOUR OWN CDs

South African campaigner Andrew Taynton writes:

This could be a cost effective method of getting our message out to

hundreds of government officials, media people, farmers, consumers,

religious leaders, educators, friends and relatives. It could also be

useful

at workshops.

 

Seeds of Deception author Jeffrey Smith invites everyone to download

his hour-long lecture, " You're Eating What? " on GM foods, to burn your

own CD's and distibute them as widely as possible. Visit:

http://www.seedsofdeception.com/youre-eating-what.php

 

Listen to this one-hour lecture online or download it.

http://www.seedsofdeception.com/Youre-Eating-What-CD.zip

We recommend that you burn CDs to give away, and you can use our labels

and jewel case artwork as well.

 

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CAMPAIGN OF THE WEEK

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+ STOP SMALLPOX GENETIC ENGINEERING!

Please take action now to stop smallpox genetic engineering! Visit

www.smallpoxbiosafety.org to send a letter to the WHO Director General,

urging the World Health Assembly to reject a proposal that would permit

the genetic engineering of smallpox, and to instead ensure that all

remaining stocks of the virus are destroyed within two years.

 

The proposal to genetically engineer smallpox, which would also permit

smallpox genes to be inserted into related poxviruses and the unlimited

distribution of small segments of smallpox DNA, poses a large number of

public health, biosafety, and biological weapons risks.

 

The World Health Assembly will discuss the proposal when it meets in

Geneva, Switzerland from 16-25 May 2005. Every letter counts, so please

send one today. It's quick and easy to do at www.smallpoxbiosafety.org

 

 

 

 

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