From: "Soil Foodweb, Inc" info@soilfoodweb.com
Sent: Monday, April 18, 2005 10:03 AM
Subject:
MILLIONS OF CITIZENS COUNTERING MONSANTO'S BUSINESS PRACTICES
From: Bea Bernhausen
Date: March 29, 2005 10:27:05 PM PST
Given Monsanto's ongoing, criminally irresponsible record of
disregarding human health
and the environment,
the Organic Consumers Association (OCA) is stepping up the pace
in our "Millions Against Monsanto" campaign.
If you're talking about Agent Orange, rBGH, water privatization, PCBs,
or DDT,
you're talking about Monsanto.
Sign the "Millions Against Monsanto" petition now,
and forward this Alert to your friends and colleagues.
TAKE ACTION HERE: http://www.organicconsumers.org/monlink.html
MONSANTO WARNS TWO BILLION FARMERS: "STOP SAVING YOUR SEEDS"
Since the advent of farming, thousands of years ago,
farmers have carefully collected seeds at harvest
so as to have enough seed for the next year's planting.
Concerned that seed saving by farmers reduces their profits,
seed and biotech giants like Monsanto
have rammed though controversial "intellectual property laws"
in numerous countries
that make traditional seed saving a crime.
Last year, Monsanto harassed and/or sued more than 500 U.S. farmers
who saved their seeds,
forcing them to pay the company over $15 million in fines,
including up to 8 month long prison sentences.
http://www.organicconsumers.org/monsanto/seedsaving031405.cfm
**********************
GM Food Contamination: Spinning Out Of Control.
March 29, 2005
On March 23 the journal Nature reported that between 2001 and 2004, the
multinational corporation Syngenta "inadvertently" produced and
distributed several hundred tonnes of an unapproved GM corn. However,
it now looks as if the figure is closer to 185,000 tons. This GM corn
was planted on about 150 square kilometers over four years in the USA.
Syngenta officials declined to list the countries that accidentally
received the wrong seed. It appears that US authorities have known about
this for several months but have kept it secret until Nature let the cat
out of the bag. Since then both cyberspace and the media has been
humming with the story.
We have given a sampling below.
1) We start with an overview from today's GM
Watchhttp://www.gmwatch.orgwhich is an excellent source of information
on the politics and science of GM foods. This summary was issued
earlier today.
2) A second report from GM Watch today notes that Nature has published
another story on the issue.
3) The second Nature report published today, March 29, 2005
4) The first Nature report published last week, March 22, 2005.
5) An AP article on the first Nature article.
6) A Knight-Ridder/AP article on the first Nature article.
7) Response to the story by Friends of the Earth, Europe.
8) Response to the story by GM Free Cymru (full of scientific detail).
9) Response by the Australian group GeneEthics Network.
10) Finally, a press release from GM Free Cymru, today, which draws
attention to the integrity issue, pointing out how the British
government agency DEFRA (Department for Environment Food and Rural
Affairs) has been involved in several ways to cover-up this issue.
I am sorry that this is so long but again I believe it is important to
keep up with these issues which, at their heart, like fluoridation,
threaten both scientific integrity and democracy.
Moreover, after global warming there is probably no more serious issue
threatening life
on this planet, as we know it, than genetic engineering.
Who knows the arrogance to pursue this
may have been spurred on by the same arrogance
that allows some governments to force medicine on their “subjects"
via the public water supply.
So grab yourselves a glass of wine or a cup of coffee and brace
yourself
for yet another horror story
which starts with people who are far more clever than they are wise.
Paul Connett
FROM GMWATCH, March 29, 2005.
NEW CONTAMINATION SCANDAL
------------------------------------------------------------
US LAUNCHES PROBE INTO SALES OF UNAPPROVED SYNGENTA GM CORN
Between 2001 and 2004, Syngenta inadvertently produced and distributed
"several hundred tonnes" of an unapproved corn, called Bt10. About 150
square kilometers of the crop was planted over the four years in the
USA. Syngenta officials declined to list the countries that accidentally
received the wrong seed.
But it looks like there was far more of it going into the food chain
than Syngenta are owning up to. Dr Brian John points out that while
Syngenta says that "some hundreds of tonnes" went into the food supply,
they also say that over 4 years farmers planted 37,000 acres of the
stuff. Average yields are around 150 bushels per acre, which translates
to about 5 tonnes per acre. And that translates to *185,000 tonnes* of
unauthorized Bt10 maize going into the food supply -- into corn oil,
cornflakes, sweeteners, starch, many dairy products, and even medical
products. Syngenta claims it only discovered the mistake in
mid-December. Syngenta and the USDA say they didn't publicize the
situation "because of the ongoing investigation"!
A report in Nature says, "Regulators and the company have since been
involved in months of discussions over what should be done about the
error, and how and when information should be released to the public.
White House officials have also been involved in these sensitive talks,
partly because the United States and the European Union are locked in a
fierce trade dispute over whether tough European rules to trace the flow
of genetically modified crops are scientifically necessary.
"Instead of building international confidence in genetic engineering,
the industry continues to shoot itself in the foot," said Greg Jaffe of
Center for Science in the Public Interest in Washington DC. But on top
of that, it's becoming increasingly clear that the initial claims that
Syngenta's rogue corn (maize) - Bt10 - was almost identical to an
approved corn - Bt11 - are bogus - like the claims that only small
quantities were involved.
In particular, Bt10 has an antibiotic resistance gene which is not
present in Bt11, and it also has a different promoter.
There are also concerns that Bt10 contains certain synthetic genes and
proteins which are not easily broken down by stomach enzymes.
"It's a massive failure of the U.S. regulatory system," said Sujatha
Byravan, executive director of the Council for Responsible Genetics, a
nonprofit biotechnology interest group based in Cambridge,
Massachusetts. "They didn't know about this until the end of 2004 and
they only found out quite by chance. That tells you how poorly companies
are monitoring the experiments they do."
_______________________________________________________________
2) A second GM watch report today.
From: "GM WATCH" <info@gmwatch.org>
Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005
Subject:GMW: Syngenta admits antibiotic-resistance genes in its rogue
seeds
GM WATCH daily
http://www.gmwatch.org
EXCERPTS: Officials at the company last week argued that Bt10 is
basically identical to Bt11 corn, which has been approved for sale (see
Nature 434, 423; 2005). But this week, Sarah Hull, a spokeswoman for
Syngenta, confirmed that a marker gene that confers resistance to
ampicillin, a commonly used antibiotic, was present in the Bt10 seeds.
Critics have expressed surprise that neither Syngenta nor the US
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced the presence of the
marker when they admitted that the release of Bt10 had taken place. "It
is quite scandalous," says Greg Jaffe, head of the biotechnology
project at the Center for Science in the Public Interest
In a ruling published last April, for example, the European Food Safety
Authority, which advises European Union governments on food issues, said
that marker genes conferring resistance to ampicillin "should be
restricted to field trials and not be present in genetically modified
plants placed on the market".
____________________________________________________________________
Stray seeds had antibiotic-resistance genes
Nature. Published online: 29 March 2005;
Colin Macilwain
Accidental release of genetically-modified crops sparks new worries.
http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050328/full/434548a.html
Hundreds of tonnes of genetically modified corn seeds sold to farmers by
mistake over the past four years contained a gene for antibiotic
resistance, Nature has learned. The release of such genes into the
environment is sometimes considered inadvisable, as there is a small
chance that they could flow from crops to microorganisms and spread
problems of antibiotic resistance.
The Swiss biotechnology company Syngenta admitted last week that it had
accidentally released a variety of corn (maize) called Bt10 between 2001
and 2004. Like other crops with the name Bt, this corn had been
genetically modified to produce a protective pesticide. But Bt10 has not
been approved for sale by regulatory agencies.
Officials at the company last week argued that Bt10 is basically
identical to Bt11 corn, which has been approved for sale (see Nature
434, 423; 2005). But this week, Sarah Hull, a spokeswoman for Syngenta,
confirmed that a marker gene that confers resistance to ampicillin, a
commonly used antibiotic, was present in the Bt10 seeds. She adds that
this gene would not have been active in the corn plants that grew from
the seeds.
Antibiotic-resistance genes are widely used as 'tags' during the
production of genetically modified crops, to help breeders identify and
preserve desirable strains. But the genes are often removed before the
seeds enter the food chain. The presence of the marker gene in Bt10 corn
was noted in a 2003 advice notice from a UK government committee, the
Advisory Committee on Releases to the Environment, which was using Bt10
as a comparison to prove that there were no marker genes in Bt11 corn.
Critics have expressed surprise that neither Syngenta nor the US
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced the presence of the
marker when they admitted that the release of Bt10 had taken place. "It
is quite scandalous," says Greg Jaffe, head of the biotechnology project
at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a pressure group in
Washington DC. "This shows that the government and the company are not
being forthright."
Hull says that the company didn't mention the gene's presence because
"it wasn't relevant to the health and safety discussion". She adds that
the antibiotic-resistance genes have been around for a long time.
"They've been studied extensively, and they pose no risk to humans or
animals," she says. Regulators say that the genes present a very small
risk to human health, either directly - if in the stomach of a patient
on antibiotics, for exa - or indirectly through gene flow into microbes.
Michael Rodemeyer, director of the Pew Initiative on Food and
Biotechnology, a think-tank in Washington DC, says that the presence of
such genes would be unlikely to see a crop declared unsafe in the United
States - but adds that it could cause problems in Europe.
In a ruling published last April, for example, the European Food Safety
Authority, which advises European Union governments on food issues, said
that marker genes conferring resistance to ampicillin "should be
restricted to field trials and not be present in genetically modified
plants placed on the market". And the Codex Alimentarius Commission, the
international food-standards body, has urged the agricultural
biotechnology industry to use alternative methods to refine genetically
modified strains in the future.
The EPA, which is jointly investigating the release of the Bt10 corn
with the US Department of Agriculture, declined to say what it knew
about the antibiotic-resistance marker. "What the company told us and
when about the marker gene is part of our ongoing investigation and we
are not able to discuss it at this time," the agency said in a
statement.
"I think they've done a terrible job," says Margaret Mellon, head of the
food and environment program at the Union of Concerned Scientists in
Washington DC, referring to both Syngenta and the government agencies.
"There are lots and lots of unanswered questions, and the longer they
remain, the less confidence people are going to have in the technology
and in the regulatory system."