Announcing Science in Society #27, Autumn 2005

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18 Aug 2005 22:48:11 -0000

Announcing Science in Society #27, Autumn 2005

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The Institute of Science in Society Science Society

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

 

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ISIS Press Release 18/08/05

 

Announcing Science in Society #27, Autumn 2005

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The only radical science magazine on earth

 

This issue is now being printed in the UK. We are offering

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Download this magazine in its entirety as a PDF document

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From the Editor Health, Human Rights, and GM crops

 

In 1978, the governments of the world gathered under the

aegis of the World Health Organisation to sign the Alma Ata

Declaration promising " Health for All by 2000 " . But this

promise was never taken seriously, and was sidelined in

subsequent health policy discussions.

 

In December 2000, 1 453 delegates from 75 countries,

representing people's movements and other non-government

organization across the globe, came together in Savar,

Bangladesh for the world's first People's Health Assembly,

to reiterate the pledge of " Health for All " , declaring

health as a basic human right, including the environmental,

social and economic conditions that guarantee health. The

Assembly documented the adverse impacts of the structural

adjustment programmes (SAPs) on people's health, and roundly

condemned the international financial institutions – the

World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World

Trade Organisation - for pushing SAPs, the governments for

imposing the policies on their people, and the big

transnational corporations for putting profit before people.

 

SAPs are supposed to help poor indebted nations restore

their balance of payments, reduce inflation and create the

conditions for " sustainable growth " . Typical measures

include devaluation of local currencies, spending cuts in

the public sector, privatisation of public services,

elimination of subsidies and trade liberalization (removal

of all barriers to trade, finance and procurement). In

practice, SAPs deprive poor people of basic healthcare,

education and other essential services, and leave poor

countries wide open to economic exploitation, especially

through transnational corporations - based in rich countries

in the North operating in the South - that have scant regard

for human health or the environment. As a result, peoples'

health worsens while the environment is destroyed at an

ever-accelerating rate, and the poor countries sink deeper

into poverty and indebtedness.

 

The People's Health Assembly met for the second time this

July in Cuenca, Ecuador, when " Health for All " seems even

more remote than in 2000. Nevertheless, thirteen hundred

delegates from 80 countries came to reaffirm the Alma Ata

vision amid deteriorating conditions of health for most of

the world's people, which are blamed unequivocally on " neo-

liberal policies that transfer wealth from the South to the

North, from the poor to the rich, and from the public to

private sector. " The delegates were unanimous in opposing

the signing of the Free Trade Agreements imposed by the

United States government and the international financial

institutions that can only further worsen people's health

prospects.

 

Invited to speak on genetically modified organisms (GMOs), I

explained to the Assembly why GM food and feed are proving

unsafe, because genetic modification goes against the grain

of the new science of genetics. I also exposed all the lies

and half-truths told by certain scientists that genetic

modification is perfectly safe and very precise; and makes

environmentally friendly GM crops that improve yield, reduce

pesticide use, improve nutrition and so on. Among the most

important conditions for health is people's right to food

and adequate nutrition. The People's Charter for Health

calls on governments to implement agricultural policies

attuned to people's needs, and not to the demands of the

market, in order to guarantee food security and equitable

access to food. GM crops guarantee neither food security nor

equitable access to food, quite the opposite.

 

In fact, GM crops usurp people's right to food by imposing

licence fees on patented seeds and by preventing farmers

from saving and exchanging seeds, a practice going back for

thousands of years. GM crops are industrial monocultures,

only worse. They are more genetically uniform than

conventional monocultures, and hence more prone to disease.

They are more dependent on external inputs, particularly

pesticides; and according to the latest reports by farmers

across the world, GM crops require more water and are less

tolerant of drought.

 

Delegates were right to fear that the Free Trade Agreements

will mean forced imports of GM seeds and GM food and feed

into Latin America, especially as " food aid " . The US'

agricultural exports are worth more than US$ 50 billion each

year, and rejection of GM food and feed across the world is

hurting exports. War on world food rights fought over GM

crops

 

A war on food rights is being fought over GM crops with big

agribusiness - supported by the US and US-friendly

governments (including the Blair administration) – against

the rest of the world; and it is taking place at all levels

from the international arena to local communities. The US

government has sued the European Union (EU) at the World

Trade Organization (WTO) for restricting import of GMOs, and

wants the WTO to override the Cartagena Protocol on

Biosafety - which gives countries the right to regulate and

reject GMOs - in order to force GMOs on the world in the

name of free trade. The European Commission responded to the

WTO complaint by urging European countries to lift their

national bans on GMOs. But EU member states stood firm with

a clear majority vote in June in favour of keeping the

existing national bans.

 

The US administration is pushing GMOs both officially and

through unofficial channels. In July, the Indian Prime

Minister Manmohan Singh announced a " second generation of

India-US collaboration in agriculture " . This, after

Monsanto's Bt cotton has proven to fail, as reported by both

independent and Indian government scientists. Monsanto's

Indian subsidiary, Monsanto-Mahyco has shamelessly hyped the

GM-cotton seeds, even enlisting a Bollywood star and dancing

girls to go on promotional tours in Punjabi villages.

 

GM crops are also aggressively promoted in Africa. Earlier

in July, a team of " international food scientists " was

reported complaining that, " regulatory hurdles are

preventing African farmers from reaping the benefits of

genetically modified foods " , but nonetheless the African

farmers " have been adopting this technology rapidly " . The

team's spokesperson, Joel Cohen of the International Food

Policy Research Institute, was formerly with USAID, and

worked with Monsanto to fund Florence Wambugu to head

Monsanto's GM sweet potato project in Kenya, generating

fantastic PR for GM crops, although the project turned out

to be a total flop at a cost of millions. Florence Wambugu

is regularly featured and quoted in top scientific journals

including Nature as a scientist speaking on behalf of Africa

and in favour of GM crops, despite having been exposed by

fellow African scientists on many occasions.

 

Meanwhile, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has awarded

US$ 3.3 million to the Monsanto-backed Donald Danforth Plant

Science Centre in Ohio, USA, to genetically engineer

cassava; and $16.9 million to Wambugu's African consortium

to genetic engineer sorghum for African farmers, also at a

US company, Pioneer Hi-Bred, a subsidiary of DuPont based in

Des Moines, Iowa.

 

Within the US, repressive bills have been passed in at least

10 states to block local communities and regions declaring

themselves GM-Free, and are clearly targeted at the

grassroots uprising against GM crops that has been gaining

momentum over the past year. A Sustainable World is possible

 

Dr. Tewolde Berhan Gebre Egziabher, Minister for the

Environment, Ethiopia, supported the first public action

against commercial GMOs in Germany with the following

statement: " Badly informed governments and corrupt members

of governments everywhere in the world are the main obstacle

to an objective discussion of the true problems of world

food supplies. The merciless forces of the free market,

which in the wake of globalisation is taking on a cynical,

inhuman character, deprive the poorest of the poor of any

basis for making a living. "

 

Alan Simpson, Member of UK Parliament, similarly declared at

our Sustainable World International Conference in London

that, " irreverence, heresy, and the breaking of rules are

necessary to raise awareness in the face of deepening water,

energy and food insecurity. " Adopting GM crops, when oil and

water are both rapidly depleting under global warming and

when industrial monoculture is showing all the signs of

collapse, is a crime against humanity and our planet,

especially when we have all the knowledge at our disposal to

build a truly sustainable and equitable world.

 

All SiS issues and articles can be accessed at

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

 

 

GM-Free

Molecular Pharming – the New Battlefront over GM

Crops

Molecular Pharming by Chloroplast Transformation

GM Pharmaceuticals from Common Green Alga

Cover-up over GM DNA in Milk

Bt10 Detection Method Unacceptable

 

Energy

Energy Strategies in Global Warming: Is Nuclear

Energy the Answer?

Taking to the Wind

Deconstructing the Nuclear Power Myths

 

Science under the spotlight

What Science, What Europe?

 

Letters to the Editor

 

Sustainable World Bug Power Dream Farm Biogas Bonanza for

Third World Development

Agriculture without Farmers

Sustainable Food Systems for Sustainable Development

Sustainable World Coming

 

Technology Watch

Safe Gene Therapy at last?

 

HIV/AIDS

US Foster Children Used in AIDS Drugs Tests

Guinea Pig Kids in AIDS Drugs Trails

NIH-Sponsored AIDS Drugs Tests on Mothers and Babies

 

Against corporate serfdom

SoS: Save Our Seeds Italy's

Genebank at Risk

 

Rethinking Agriculture Organic Cotton Beats Bt Cotton

 

Download this magazine in its entirety as a PDF document

from the ISIS members area

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/members.php,

or the first few pages here

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/isisnews/sis27_1-5.pdf.

Hardcopies are available from our online store

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/onlinestore/magazines.php#233.

 

 

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