New threat to indigenous people

February 5, 2002

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Jo

> NEW THREAT TO INDIGENOUS PEOPLE

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March 11, 2002

--------- Forwarded message ----------Rachel News <rachelRACHEL-NEWSDate: Tue, 5 Feb 2002 13:44:13 -0500Rachel #743: New Threat to Indigenous PeopleIf you find the Rachel newsletter useful or interesting,please forward it to a friend suggesting that they starttheir own free E-mail subscription.To stop receiving the Rachel newsletter, send E-mail tolistserv with two words in the body of themessage (not in the subject line): UNSUB RACHEL-NEWS=======================Electronic Edition==================. .. RACHEL'S ENVIRONMENT & HEALTH NEWS #743 .. ---January 31, 2002--- .. HEADLINES: .. NEW THREAT TO INDIGENOUS PEOPLE .. ========== .. Environmental Research Foundation .. P.O. Box 5036, Annapolis, MD 21403 .. Fax (410) 263-8944; E-mail: erf .. ========== .. All back issues are available by E-mail: send E-mail to .. info with the single word HELP in the message. .. Back issues are also available from http://www.rachel.org. .. To start your own free subscription, send E-mail to .. listserv with the words .. SUBSCRIBE RACHEL-NEWS YOUR FULL NAME in the message. .. The Rachel newsletter is now also available in Spanish; .. to learn how to in Spanish, send the word .. AYUDA in an E-mail message to info. .=====================================================NEW THREAT TO INDIGENOUS PEOPLEThe survival of indigenous people, within the U.S. and acrossthe globe, is being directly threatened by genetic engineering(GE) of food crops.In September, 2001, scientists discovered genetically engineered(GE) corn at 15 locations in the state of Oaxaca, deep insouthern Mexico, a country that has outlawed the commercial useof all genetically engineered crops.[1] No one knows how it gotthere.In the U.S., genetically engineered corn has been growncommercially since 1996 and 26 percent of all U.S. corn acreageis now genetically engineered. The remote region of Oaxaca wherethe illegal GE corn was discovered is considered the heartlandof corn diversity in the world. Scientists had hoped to keepOaxaca's rich diversity of corn uncontaminated by GE strainsbecause Oaxaca retains the wealth of genetic varieties developedduring 5500 years of indigenous corn cultivation. Scientists nowsay that aggressive forms of GE corn, let loose in Oaxaca, maydrive native species to extinction, causing the loss ofirreplaceable cultivars.It is unclear whether the GE corn was carried deep into Mexicoby birds, or was intentionally spread there by corporations orgovernments promoting GE crops.All genetically engineered varieties of corn are owned andpatented by transnational corporations. The only legal way toacquire such seeds is to purchase them from the corporationholding the patent. Such patents are called "intellectualproperty" and their enforcement under international law has beena major goal of "free trade" agreements in recent years. TheWorld Trade Organization (WTO) contains strict protections forTrade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs), and patentedforms of life, such as GE crops, are explicitly covered byTRIPs.Under WTO rules, national governments are required to protectthe intellectual property rights of corporations. In the U.S.and Canada, farmers have complained that they have becomevictims of gene drift, or genetic pollution, as GE crops havedrifted across property lines, contaminating non-GE crops withpatented GE varieties. Genetic drift of GE crops to non-GEfields has, in fact, been well documented and even the GEcorporations and their regulators in government acknowledge thatit is a serious problem. Now, however, Monsanto, a leadingsupplier of GE seeds, has cleverly turned the tables on thealleged victims of genetic pollution by suing them for stealingMonsanto's patented genes. In the first case that came to trial,in Canada in 2001, Monsanto sued Percy Schmeiser, an organicfarmer who complained of genetic pollution. Monsanto said thatafter 40 years of growing crops organically, Mr. Schmeiser had achange of heart and decided to raise a genetically-engineeredcrop by stealing Monsanto's patented genes. Monsanto won andSchmeiser must pay. With this important victory in the bank,Monsanto now has similar lawsuits pending against farmers inNorth Dakota, South Dakota, Indiana, and Louisiana.[2] Thusfarmers that fall victim to genetic pollution may findthemselves sued for violating the intellectual property rightsof a corporation and be forced to compensate the geneticpolluter.The purpose of patenting seeds is to prevent seed saving -- theancient indigenous practice of keeping seeds from this year'scrop to grow next year's crop. Farmers who purchase GE seedssign contracts requiring -- under penalty of law -- that theynot save seed from one crop to the next. Thus farmers who employGE seeds must purchase new seed year after year, making themdependent upon whatever transnational corporation owns thepatent. Farmers who can't afford to buy seed each year willsimply not be allowed to grow a crop. In free-market societies,such displaced farmers are free to move to a city where they arefree to be unemployed.Today's GE crops can't guarantee that farmers won't save seeds.Corporations intent on preventing seed-saving must hire agentsto travel from farm to farm, reporting any unlicensed crops.Such monitoring is expensive.To avoid the need for monitoring, and to gain 100 percentcontrol over farmers, the GE corporations have developed a newtechnology -- terminator genes. Terminator genes prevent a cropfrom reproducing itself unless certain "protector" chemicals areapplied to the crop. Any farmer using terminator seeds must buythe "protector" chemicals each year. As terminator technologyspreads around the world, it will end indigenous agriculture,and much biodiversity as well. An estimated 1.4 billionindigenous people currently grow their own crops forsubsistence, worldwide.[3] In many instances, their land isbeing eyed for corporate "development" and GE crop technologyoffers a legal way to separate indigenous people from theirland.The ETC Group (www.etcgroup.org) of Winnipeg, Canada, revealedlast week that two of the world's largest genetic engineeringfirms -- DuPont and Syngenta (formerly Astrazeneca) -- during2001 were awarded new patents on "terminator" seeds, engineeredfor sterility. In 1999, Syngenta's (then Astrazeneca's) Researchand Development Director claimed that all work on terminatortechnology had ceased in 1992, but the ETC Group found that theDirector was either mistaken or dissembling: Syngenta's latestterminator patent was applied for March 22, 1997 and awarded May8, 2001."Terminator [technology] is a real and present danger forglobal food security and biodiversity -- governments and civilsociety cannot afford to let 'suicide seeds' slip beneath theirradar," said Hope Shand, Research Director of the ETC Group.[4]Despite the grim social consequences that seem likely to followthe widespread adoption of genetically engineered crops, fewscientists have questioned the safety of the technology itself.The major GE corporations have insisted for 15 years that theirtechnology is thoroughly understood, reliable, and safe, andgovernment regulators have agreed (or at least remained silent).Now a new report, released this month, asserts that thescientific theory underpinning the genetic engineering industryis dangerously outdated and wrong.[5] The new report, by Dr.Barry Commoner of Queens College, City University of New York,says, "The genetically engineered crops now being grownrepresent a massive uncontrolled experiment whose outcome isinherently unpredictable. The results could be catastrophic,"the report says.At present, 68 percent of U.S. soybean acreage, 26 percent ofour corn acreage, and more than 69 percent of our cotton acreagehave been genetically engineered. "[A] ny artificially alteredgenetic system, given the magnitude of our ignorance, mustsooner or later give rise to unintended, potentially disastrous,consequences," says the new report.The safety assurances of the genetic engineering industry arebased on the scientific premise that one gene controls onecharacteristic. If this is true, then removing a gene from onespecies and inserting it into a new species will give the newspecies one new characteristic, no more and no less.Unfortunately the theory that a single gene controls a singlecharacteristic, while it may have seemed true 40 years ago, isknown to be wrong today:1) Genes are composed of segments of DNA, a long molecule coiledup within each cell's nucleus.2) The 40-year old theory (developed by Francis Crick, who, withJames Watson, discovered DNA in 1953), says that DNA strictlycontrols the production of RNA which in turn strictly controlsthe creation of proteins which give rise to specific inheritedcharacteristics. Because DNA is the same in all creatures, thistheory says that a gene will produce a particular protein (and aparticular characteristic) no matter what species it findsitself in -- thus making it possible for the genetic engineeringcorporations to claim that inserting genes from one species toanother will not lead to any surprises or dangerous sideeffects.3) It was -- of all things -- the Human Genome Project thatrevealed most starkly that Crick's theory was wrong. There areabout 100,000 different proteins in a human and, if Crick wereright, there should be 100,000 genes to produce these proteins.However, the Human Genome Project announced last February thathumans have only about 30,000 genes. (See many articles inSCIENCE Feb. 16, 2001.) Thus there must be something more thanmere genes controlling the development of proteins and theresulting characteristics.4) Actually, scientists had known for many years (since 1981 inthe case of human genes) that after DNA creates RNA, the RNA cansplit into several parts, giving rise to several differentproteins and several different characteristics. This is called"alternative splicing." By 1989 more than 200 scientific papershad been published describing alternative splicing.5) As cells split and reproduce themselves, their DNA moleculealso reproduces itself, but sometimes errors occur in in DNAreproduction. Special proteins repair these errors ofreproduction, so genetic inheritance is not simply a matter ofgenes -- it's a matter of interaction between genes and repairproteins. Will these complex interactions always work reliablyand identically when a gene is placed into the entirely newenvironment of a different species?6) Proteins function as they do because of two characteristics:they have a specific chemical (molecular) make-up, and they arephysically folded into a particular shape. The Crick theoryassumes that a particular gene always gives rise to a singleprotein that is chemically identical and is identically folded.However, scientists now know that proteins get folded in aparticular way by the presence of additional "chaperone"proteins. More protein-gene interactions.7) Furthermore, during the 1980s, in searching for the causes offatal "mad cow" disease, scientists made the startling discoverythat some proteins can reproduce themselves without involvingany DNA whatever -- an impossibility according to the Cricktheory. These proteins are now called "prions" and, as Dr.Commoner points out, they reveal that processes far removed fromthe Crick theory are at work in molecular genetics and can giverise to fatal disease.Thus the basic theory underlying genetic engineering of crops isquite wrong. Single genes are important, but they do notinvariably give rise to a single characteristic in an organism.A gene's action is modified by alternative splicing, by proteinsthat repair errors in reproduction, and by the chaperones thatfold the final protein into its active shape. In nature, such asystem works reliably within a species because it has beentested and refined for thousands of years. But when a singlegene is removed from its familiar surroundings and transplantedinto an alien species, the new host's system is likely to be"disrupted in unspecified, imprecise, and inherentlyunpredictable ways," the Commoner report concludes. In practicethese disruptions are revealed by the vast number of failuresthat occur whenever a gene transplant is attempted.Most ominously, the report points out, Monsanto Corporationacknowledged in 2000 that its genetically modified soybeanscontained some extra fragments of a transferred gene. Despitethis, the company announced that it expected "no new proteins"to appear in the GE soybeans. Then during 2001, Belgianresearchers announced that the soybean's own DNA had beenscrambled during the insertion of the new gene. "The abnormalDNA was large enough to produce a new protein, a potentiallyharmful protein," Dr. Commoner concludes.Thus genetically engineered crops threaten not only theagricultural systems and the cultural survival of all indigenouspeople, but also the food security and safety of all peopleeverywhere.==========[1] Carol Kaesuk Yoon, "Genetic Modification Taints Corn inMexico," NEW YORK TIMES October 2, 2001, pg. unknown. Availableat www.nytimes.com for a fee.[2] David R. Moeller, GMO LIABILITY THREATS FOR FARMERS (St.Paul, Minn.: Farmers' Legal Action Group, Inc., November 2001).Available in PDF format at www.iatp.org.[3] Pat Roy Mooney, THE ETC CENTURY; EROSION, TECHNOLOGICALTRANSFORMATION, AND CORPORATE CONCENTRATION IN THE 21ST CENTURY(Winnipeg, Canada: The ETC Group, 2001); available in PDF: http://-www.rafi.org/documents/other_etccentury.pdf. The ETC Group(formerly RAFI, the Rural Advancement Foundation International)can be reached at 478 River Avenue, Suite 200, Winnipeg, MB R3L0C8 Canada; Tel: (204) 453-5259, Fax: (204) 284-7871. Thisreport is "MUST READ " for all activists.[4] News Release: "Sterile Harvest:New Crop of Terminator PatentsThreatens Food Sovereignty," January 31, 2002. Available in PDF:http://www.etcgroup.org/documents/new_termpatent_jan2002.pdf[5] Barry Commoner, "Unraveling the DNA Myth," HARPER'S MAGAZINE(February 2002), pgs. 39-47.################################################################ NOTICEIn accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107 this material isdistributed without profit to those who have expressed a priorinterest in receiving it for research and educational purposes.Environmental Research Foundation provides this electronicversion of RACHEL'S ENVIRONMENT & HEALTH NEWS free of charge eventhough it costs the organization considerable time and money toproduce it. We would like to continue to provide this servicefree. You could help by making a tax-deductible contribution(anything you can afford, whether $5.00 or $500.00). Please sendyour tax-deductible contribution to: Environmental ResearchFoundation, P.O. Box 5036, Annapolis, MD 21403-7036. Please donot send credit card information via E-mail. 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