GMW: Mother Nature Is No Lab - mainstream media turns on regulators

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GMW: Mother Nature Is No Lab - mainstream media turns on

regulators

" GM WATCH " <info

Tue, 22 Aug 2006 14:29:27 +0100

 

 

 

 

GM WATCH daily

http://www.gmwatch.org

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1.Mother Nature Is No Lab - Hartford Courant,

2.Escaped bentgrass sounds a warning - Minneapolis Star Tribune

3.Biopharming gone awry - Denver Post

 

COMMENT: Even before the contaminated rice fiasco, federal regulators

were getting a pounding for their shortcomings in editorials in

America's mainstream media:

 

EXCERPTS: The judge called USDA's regulatory heedlessness " arbitrary

and capricious " and " an unequivocal violation of a clear congressional

mandate. "

 

Those findings recall similar conclusions reached by the USDA's own

auditors last year.

 

Unless the USDA can prove capable of doing a far better job of

regulating crops, the courts and Congress should consider imposing a

moratorium

on new permits. Mother Nature shouldn't be used as a laboratory for

some uncontrolled genetic experiment. (Hartford Courant - ITEM 1)

 

....it's a nightmare scenario for Oregon's seed producers. If the

resistance gene shows up in their grasses, it could kill exports to

the many

countries that ban genetically modified plants. If it shows up in

noxious grasses, their weed-control problems will multiply...

(Minneapolis

Star Tribune - ITEM 2)

 

Given the recent revelations of blunders, we think federal regulators

ought to re-evaluate the regulatory process and monitoring safeguards.

While tomatoes run amok might be the stuff of Hollywood, the risks from

sloppy handling of gene-altered crops is all too real. (Denver Post -

ITEM 3)

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1.Mother Nature Is No Lab

The Hartford Courant, 20 August 2006

http://www.courant.com/news/opinion/editorials/hc-biopharm.artaug20,0,1759554.st\

ory?coll=hc-headlines-editorials

 

Given the latest criticisms of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's

inept handling of genetically modified crops, comparisons to Pandora's

box

are inevitable.

 

Pandora, as a version of the Greek legend goes, was the first mortal

woman. And what a stunner: Epimetheus (a titan, no less) fell in love

with her. Zeus gave her a box as a dowry. Suspecting Zeus was up to

something, however, Epimetheus warned her not to open it. But Pandora's

curiosity got the better of her. She raised the lid, releasing all

misfortunes onto the world including disease, sorrow, poverty, crime,

despair

and greed.

 

Genetically modified crops may not fall into the category of

" misfortunes. " But the USDA's oversight of these crops leaves a lot to be

desired. Once these crops are released into the world, there is no

going back.

 

On Aug. 10, a U.S. District Court judge in Hawaii had harsh words for

the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, which grants

permits for genetically engineered crops. The judge concluded that the

agency allowed such crops to be planted on four islands without first

determining whether they posed a threat to the 329 endangered or

threatened

species that call Hawaii home. The modified crops consisted of corn and

sugar cane that were genetically tweaked to produce human hormones,

drugs and ingredients for vaccines against AIDS and hepatitis B.

 

The judge called USDA's regulatory heedlessness " arbitrary and

capricious " and " an unequivocal violation of a clear congressional

mandate. "

 

Those findings recall similar conclusions reached by the USDA's own

auditors last year. After reviewing two years of records, the auditors

concluded that the agency's biotechnology regulators overlooked

violations

of their own rules, failed to inspect sites and did not assure that

genetically engineered crops were destroyed after field trials. In some

cases, regulators did not even know the locations of trials.

 

Spokesmen for the USDA say all these mistakes are in the past. They say

the agency has made changes that will address long-standing concerns

about oversight. Advocates of biotechnology, meanwhile, paint a picture

of a better world where there is less disease and where foods are

cheaper and more plentiful.

 

It's a noble vision, of course. But getting there is the tricky part.

Genetically modified crops may contaminate ordinary plants, creating

such mutants as a tougher, more herbicide-resistant weed. Crops modified

for industrial or pharmaceutical uses can also get into the food chain,

unleashing strains that put public health and the environment at risk.

 

Unless the USDA can prove capable of doing a far better job of

regulating crops, the courts and Congress should consider imposing a

moratorium

on new permits. Mother Nature shouldn't be used as a laboratory for

some uncontrolled genetic experiment.

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2.Editorial: Escaped bentgrass sounds a warning

Minneapolis Star Tribune, 21 August 2006

http://www.startribune.com/561/story/627420.html

 

BEYOND THE BUFFERS

" It's a cautionary tale of what could happen with other [transgenic]

plants that could be of greater concern. I suspect that more examples of

this will show up. "

Jay Reichman, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, who led the search

for escaped

 

You don't have to be a grass-seed producer in central Oregon to be

alarmed by last week's news that genetically modified bentgrass has

escaped

its test area and taken root among wild plants miles away.

 

Once again, companies controlling the transgenic revolution have proved

themselves unable to safely sequester their creations while the risks

are under study. Those risks remain murky, though certainly real, and

even if this first documented escape of engineered plants from a U.S.

test plot falls short of catastrophe, rest assured there will be others.

Industry practices and lagging government oversight virtually guarantee

it.

 

In some ways, the downwind migration of creeping bentgrass into an area

including the Crooked River National Grassland, northeast of Eugene, is

more alarming than the earlier case of transgenic canola popping up in

Canada. The issue is the same: accidental transfer, especially to wild

and weedy plants, of a gene specially inserted to make the engineered

variety resistant to the herbicide glyphosate (Roundup). But unlike

canola, which has few wild cousins to pollinate and must be replanted

each

year, bentgrass is a perennial with at least a dozen close relatives

susceptible to cross-pollination.

 

While the goal in both cases was also the same -- lowering herbicide

use -- it's not irrelevant to consider that canola contributes lots of

vegetable oil to the world's food supply, while the high-tech bentgrass

was destined for golf courses (and perhaps, down the road, some lawns in

affluent suburbs).

 

Because old-fangled grass seed is a $370-million-a-year industry in

Oregon, officials of Scotts Miracle-Gro and Monsanto offered safety

guarantees against seed or pollen escaping from their experimental

bentgrass

plantings, including a wide buffer zone around the test plots. But by

the time the test crop's seed was harvested two years ago and the

modified plants destroyed, scientists had found its pollen well beyond

the

buffer.

 

Now bentgrass sampling in wild fields has turned up nine plants with

the gene that provides Roundup resistance, as far as three miles outside

the zone. It's unclear how many of these grew from escaped seed or are

essentially wild plants that picked up the resistance gene from

drifting pollen.

 

Either way, it's a nightmare scenario for Oregon's seed producers. If

the resistance gene shows up in their grasses, it could kill exports to

the many countries that ban genetically modified plants. If it shows up

in noxious grasses, their weed-control problems will multiply -- while

the usefulness of glyphosate, rather earth-friendly as herbicides go,

will correspondingly contract.

 

Scotts and Monsanto are pressing for federal approval to bring their

talented new bentgrass to market. But you've no need to worry that its

Roundup resistance will drift into your manicured grass, or your

neighbor's weedy yard, or that vacant lot down the street. The Scotts

people

say the golf courses will surely keep the bentgrass stuff cut so short it

won't have a chance to produce pollen or go to seed. Rest assured.

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3.Biopharming gone awry

Editorial, The Denver Post, 21 August 2006

http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_4215493

 

It's not exactly the Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, but the genetically

engineered grass that recently escaped from an Oregon test plot has the

potential to wreak serious environmental havoc.

 

The creeping bentgrass, genetically modified to be resistant to common

herbicides such as Roundup, was found to have crossed with wild

grasses, the first known transgenic crop escape in the U.S.

 

Yikes!

 

Grass farmers and environmentalists fear the creation of a superweed

that would contaminate grass seed production, a $373.5 million industry

in Oregon.

 

The revelation underscores the caution that is necessary - and

apparently wasn't exercised - in handling genetically engineered crops.

 

A federal judge recently came to a similar conclusion in a case out of

Hawaii. The judge ruled that U.S. Department of Agriculture officials

displayed " utter disregard " for Hawaii's many endangered plant species

by not investigating potential impacts on them before issuing permits

for cultivation of genetically modified crops.

 

In a scathing 52-page order, U.S. District Judge J. Michael Seabright

took the agency to task, saying the Animal and Plant Health Inspection

Service violated the law by granting permits for modified corn and sugar

cane plants. Companies modified their genetic structure so that when

harvested, the plants would contain hormones or proteins that could be

used to treat human illnesses.

 

Seabright this week will be considering remedies, and the plaintiffs

are asking the judge to prohibit the issuance of biopharming permits for

open air crops anywhere in the country until agency reviews its

permitting process.

 

It is a prudent course of action. While Oregon and Hawaii are far from

Colorado, biopharming interests have eyed our state before. Two years

ago, we urged extreme caution as the federal government planned to move

ahead with permits allowing " pharmaceutical " corn to be cultivated in

Colorado.

 

Luckily, it would seem, no commercial biopharm crops were actually

planted here. An Iowa State University researcher sowed a tiny plot of

seed

corn, but that was a far cry from original plans.

 

Given the recent revelations of blunders, we think federal regulators

ought to re-evaluate the regulatory process and monitoring safeguards.

While tomatoes run amok might be the stuff of Hollywood, the risks from

sloppy handling of gene-altered crops is all too real.

l

 

 

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