GMW: EVIDENCE OF HARM FROM GMOS GROWING

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GMW: EVIDENCE OF HARM FROM GMOS GROWING

" GM WATCH " <info

Wed, 19 Apr 2006 21:24:20 +0100

 

 

 

GM WATCH daily

http://www.gmwatch.org

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EXCERPT: This is the same company that in February 22, 2002, was found

guilty by a US court in Anniston, of poisoning the water supply of the

local residents, on all six counts of " negligence, wantonness and

suppression of the truth, nuisance, trespass, and outrage " .

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PRESS RELEASE: GMOs REJOINDER AFFIDAVIT

 

SERIOUS EVIDENCE OF HARM FROM GMOS TO HEALTH & ENVIRONMENT SAFETY GROWS

 

A Rejoinder Affidavit was filed on the 18th April 2006 in the Supreme

Court [in India]. This is a follow-up of the Public Interest Writ

Petition, filed last year for a moratorium on Genetically Engineered

crops,

pending a comprehensive and transparent biosafety testing protocol.

 

The 'Rejoinder' contains clear and damning evidence from independent

world scientists about serious hazards of GM crops to health and

biosafety. It effectively destroys the government's stance that GM crops,

including those used for animal feed, eg. Bt cotton are safe.

 

One of the main selling platforms of the biotech industry, for example,

is that GM crops are effective against pests and weeds. Scientists have

long known that both claims hold little truth based on their knowledge

of how 'resistance' occurs in nature. Farmers around the world have

reported it for both Bt and herbicide-tolerant GM crops. They were

ignored. Now, there is scientific proof that GM crops, both pest and weed

resistant crops create a nightmare of super pests and super weeds

precisely

because of the phenomenon of resistance. Yet various national

governments, including the Indian Government, have preferred to be

lured by the

high claims of the biotech industry and their commercial agenda to

profiteer and control farming through patents. The G of I has even

ignored

the reasons for farmer suicides directly linked to the failure of Bt

cotton and has comprehensively ditched farmer interests and public health

safeguards to support the biotech industry. So if this fundamental

tenet of GE is now proven to be the sham it always was, the Q is:

 

What is left of this technology and what conclusions must civil

society draw from a government that is resolute in its support of the

biotech and US commercial agenda?

 

The evidence against GE on every dimension of biosafety is now so

serious that the 'Rejoinder' accuses the Government of " deliberate intent

to allow GM contamination in India. The biosafety violations are so

extreme that they represent the highest betrayal of India's national

interest including national food security " .

 

Transgenic (Bt) cotton is recognised by scientists to be a potentially

toxic crop. Therefore, the effects of GM crops are similar to that of

pesticides and must be tested accordingly, using stringent

safety-testing protocols as required in the Public Interest Writ. It

must be

stressed that no GM food has been proven safe for human consumption

anywhere

in the world because the safety testing has simply not been done.

 

Notwithstanding the serious evidence of biosafety hazards of GE, the

Government has concluded an agreement with the US, which will swamp India

with GM crops and allow access by multinational biotech corporations to

India's rich genetic wealth. The so-called 2nd green revolution to be

ushered in by the 'Indo-US Knowledge Initiative on Agricultural Research

and Education', will contaminate India's biodiversity and our food

supply in perpetuity. It astoundingly elevates Monsanto, a thoroughly

discredited company internationally, to the position of official 'US

brand

ambassador' to India. Monsanto is the 90% monopoly leader of biotech

with the stated dark dream of supremacy over world agriculture, where

" NATURAL SEEDS ARE VIRTUALLY EXTINCT and the hope of the industry is that

over time, the market is so flooded that there's nothing you can do

about it. You just sort of surrender " . This is the same company that in

February 22, 2002, was found guilty by a US court in Anniston, of

poisoning the water supply of the local residents, on all six counts of

" negligence, wantonness and suppression of the truth, nuisance,

trespass, and

outrage " . Outrage, according to Alabama law, usually requires conduct

" so outrageous in character and extreme in degree as to go beyond all

possible bounds of decency so as to be regarded as atrocious and utterly

intolerable in civilized society. "

 

Monsanto hasn't changed. If Monsanto hid what it knew about its toxic

pollution for decades, what is it hiding now? And what does it mean,

what are we called upon to believe, when the Indian Government forms an

alliance with such a company, with such a track record? This agreement

will deliver Monsanto's dark agenda with the active help of the Indian

Government! It is a morally bankrupt and ethically deviant policy on GM;

a tragically inappropriate tie-up, wholly detrimental to the national

interest, which impacts sovereign issues of genetic wealth and IPRs,

bio-safety, food security, farmer and consumer rights and public health.

The Country now faces the unbelievable situation, which defies the most

elementary logic, where Indian policy concerning these issues will be

subject to even greater manipulation than at present, by private

multi-national biotech corporations that exist to make a profit. The

company

with its hand firmly on the rudder is MONSANTO! The Rejoinder provides

evidence of why and how this will lead to the predicted fait accompli

of contamination that is " the objective of a regulatory body, which is

manifestly in a conspiracy of collusion and UNTRUTH with the biotech

industry " . This is a serious charge. It asks for a high level enquiry

based on prima facie evidence of the regulatory bodies including the GEAC

of misleading the Prime Minister and his cabinet about the hazards of

GM.

 

It is a truism that the goal of health safety-assessment is that a

" food should not cause harm when prepared, used or eaten according to its

intended use " (Codex Alimentarious guideline 2003). Or, to expand the

logic, if a product causes cancer in animals, it should not be put in

food. This is in fact the `Delaney Amendment' in the US, which is being

used in the case against Monsanto's Aspartame, (the sweetner also

called EQUAL), which has been proven to cause cancer amongst other

serious

hazards as outlined in the Writ Petition. If GMOs cause cancer in rats,

as has been demonstrated along with other significant health risks,

then, eminent world scientists are absolutely right to call for

stringent,

independent and peer-reviewed long-term animal feeding studies to

determine the health safety of GM crops. Until then they have called

for a

global moratorium. This is also the impeccable logic of the Petitioners

prayer in the WP. The `Precautionary Principle' is the superior

scientific principle and path that must be followed most urgently for

GM crops

because the spread of GMOs will alter the molecular structure of the

world's food supply in PERPETUITY. Even if, eventually, for the sake of

argument, the evidence against GM were to be proved wrong on all

dimensions of biosafety, it would still prove to be `right action'

based on

prudence, for India to apply the precautionary principle in the SHORT

TERM in order to be reasonably sure of the biosafety of GM crops. The

short term is a mere blip on the horizon of perpetuity and worth every

nano-bit of trouble to avoid a disaster of unimaginable and many

magnitudes, should even a small part of the evidence be proved right.

 

Aruna Rodrigues

Petitioner

 

Co-Petitioners: Devinder Sharma, Rajeev Baruah and PV Satheesh

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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