———————————————————–

SCANDAL OF THE MONTH: STACKING UP THE RISKS

———————————————————–

+ MONSANTO, DOW STACK UP THE RISKS

Stephen Leahy reports for the Inter Press Service on how the most complex

genetically engineered corn (maize) yet has been approved for use next year

in Canada and the United States without its potential health and

environmental risks even being investigated. Neither US nor Canadian health

officials have assessed the human health safety of Monsanto’s and Dow

AgroSciences’ new “SmartStax” genetically engineered corn with eight novel

genes inserted into corn DNA.

“Health Canada did not conduct or require any testing for this new

eight-trait GE corn and did not even officially authorize it for release

into the food system,” said Lucy Sharratt, CBAN’s coordinator. Health Canada

is the federal department responsible for “helping Canadians maintain and

improve their health”, according to its web site.

“People will be eating corn with eight novel traits without any assessment

of the potential health risks. Questions about risks are being ignored,”

Sharratt told Inter Press Service. According to Sharratt, Canadian

regulators did not do health or environmental risk assessments simply

because the novel traits had been approved on an individual basis

previously. Even though this is the first time a corn variety combines all

of these, it gets a free pass by regulators.

“It’s a fundamental misunderstanding of basic biology and the complexity of

biotechnology,” she said. It also points to a fundamental flaw in the

Canadian regulatory system.

SmartStax combines or “stacks” previously approved GE traits of herbicide

tolerance [Roundup and glufosinate herbicides] and insect resistance into

one seed variety for the first time, providing the most comprehensive insect

and weed control, according to a Monsanto press release.

“Combining many GE traits together can give rise to unintended effects which

could adversely affect health, such as creating new allergies or toxins, or

exacerbating existing allergies,” said Michael Hansen of the Consumers

Union, a US-based NGO and leading global expert on the potential health

risks of GE. This GE crop should have gone through a new safety assessment,

as recommended by Codex,” Hansen said in an interview.

However, US regulations do not require any health and safety assessments

because GE crops are considered the same as regular crops, even when novel

traits are combined, he said. “The Food and Drug Administration didn’t even

take the slightest look at SmartStax,” Hansen said.

Any studies on safety and nutrition done by Monsanto and Dow do not have to

be made public or shown to regulators, who are entitled only to a summary.

Moreover, no independent studies can be done without the companies’

permission. “It is illegal for a farmer to give researchers seeds to test

without the companies’ permission,” he said.

There have been studies on various GE foods. In May, the American Academy of

Environmental Medicine (AAEM), a US-based international association of

physicians, called for an immediate moratorium on genetically modified

foods, saying they pose a “serious health risk”.

“Multiple animal studies have shown that GM foods cause damage to various

organ systems in the body. With this mounting evidence, it is imperative to

have a moratorium on GM foods for the safety of our patients’ and the

public’s health,” said Dr Amy Dean, a board member of AAEM.

Moreover, under international trade rules, the lack of a new safety

assessment for this GE corn means that other countries could reject

SmartStax without running afoul of World Trade Organization rules, Hansen

told IPS.

Nor does there appear to have been an environmental risk assessment done by

Canadian regulators. “This seems to confirm that the corn bypassed existing

scientific assessment processes that have already been judged insufficient

by the 2001 Royal Society of Canada Panel,” said Sharratt.

The Royal Society of Canada formed an independent panel of scientists to

evaluate the regulation and safety of these new GE food products in the

country’s first-ever independent assessment.

Five years after GE crops and foods were widely available in Canada, the

2001 report from the panel slammed government regulators at Health Canada

and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) who allowed GE crops to be

grown.

Little has changed since then and the CFIA has failed to explain its

decision not to require environmental risk assessments for SmartStax, said

Sharratt.

“This scandal exposes the deepest and most dangerous nonchalance of Health

Canada towards the risks of GE foods and the safety of Canadians, said

Sharratt.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/KG31Dj04.html

+ SMARTSTAX APPROVAL IGNORED RISKS
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=11322:sm

artstax-approval-ignored-risks
http://tiny.cc/GDomS

———————————————————–

LOBBYWATCH

———————————————————–

+ U.S.: NEW ST LOUIS FRONT GROUP PUSHES GMOs

A press report states: “Three internationally known organizations based in

St. Louis – the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, the Washington

University School of Medicine and St. Louis Children’s Hospital – have

formed the Global Harvest Alliance. The partnership’s aim is to create

inexpensive, nutritionally complete food to help the world’s hungry and

undernourished.”

There’s hardly a mention of the Monsanto connections of these institutions

in the gene giant’s home town. And what speaks volumes is that the selling

point for the heavily Monsanto-backed Danforth Center is its GM cassava

project, which despite being hugely hyped has actually been remarkably

unsuccessful.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=11338:ne

w-st-louis-front-group-pushing-gmos
http://tiny.cc/k6Jm9

+ ISAAA GETS IT WRONG – AGAIN

The industry-sponsored International Service for the Acquisition of

Agri-biotech Applications – ISAAA – is notorious for its annual reports on

GM crops around the world. These reports aim to show GM crops in a positive

light but they have repeatedly been shown to use inflated and massaged

figures to try and make a struggling industry look unstoppable.

In the executive summary of ISAAA’s most recent report, it claimed the

“Number of countries planting biotech crops soars to 25 – a historical

milestone.”

In reality, there were only two new countries that grew GM crops in 2008

compared to 2007, making this “historical milestone” overstated.

One of the new countries (both in Africa) was Egypt. Egypt’s

commercialisation of GM Bt maize was repeatedly highlighted in the ISAAA

report. ISAAA also claimed it was of immense strategic importance, as Egypt

is one of very few African countries to plant GM crops and the only one to

do so in North Africa, opening the door, ISAAA claimed, for other African

countries to follow.

One problem with all this is that, according to a recent USDA report, Egypt

never actually commercialised Bt maize! The USDA report highlights the

“stalled progress on commercial planting approval” for the Bt maize in

question, Monsanto’s Mon 810, blaming multiple factors including “the

Parliament’s involvement, in addition to some political issues.”
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=11334:is

aaa-gets-it-wrong-again

+ YOU’RE APPOINTING WHO? SAY IT’S NOT SO, OBAMA!

Jeffrey Smith looks at the shameful record of new US food safety tsar and

former Monsanto man Michael Taylor, and the back story of Dennis Wolff, the

pro-GM bovine growth hormone lobbyist, who is reportedly being considered

for a food safety role at the USDA:
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=11325:yo

ure-appointing-who-please-obama-say-its-not-so-

———————————————————–

GM YIELDS

———————————————————–

+ RESPONSES TO “FAILURE TO YIELD” REPORT

Dr Doug Gurian-Sherman demolishes criticisms voiced by Wayne Parrott, Ronald

Bailey and other GM promoters that his report on GM crops’ disappointing

yield performance, “Failure to Yield”, did not discuss the full range of GM

crops’ potential benefits:
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=11340:re

sponses-to-qfailure-to-yieldq-critics

More about this important report:
http://www.gmwatch.org/component/content/article/10910-failure-to-yield-freq

uently-asked-questions

———————————————————–

GM APPROVALS / EXPANSION

———————————————————–

+ RISK REGISTER FOR GERMANY AND FRANCE

A “risk register” for GM crops in Germany is now online providing exact

locations of test sites via google maps, plus some analysis and additional

info: www.risikoregister.de For France see: www.xzcute.com

+ SECRET GM CROP TRIAL IN UK

GM potatoes are being grown in Britain for the first time in a year after

controversial trials of the plants were “secretly” restarted.

Cultivation of a field of potatoes designed to be resistant to pests was

abandoned over a year ago when environmental protesters ripped up the crop

near Tadcaster in North Yorkshire. But, without alerting the public as is

usual when such trials begin, the project has been restarted, prompting

environmental groups to warn that local farms and nearby residents could be

put at risk.

The Department for the Environment Food and Rural Affairs maintains that the

original permission for the trial to begin – granted for three years –

remains valid and the crops can be replanted without giving further notice.

Campaigners accused ministers of trying to “slip it under the radar” and

warned the trial could affect human health.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=11326:qs

ecretq-gm-crop-trial-in-britain

+ CALL FOR OPENNESS OVER GM POTATO SITE

GM Freeze has written to Hilary Benn, Defra Secretary of State, condemning

his Department’s failure to update the GMO public register to include the

one test site being grown in the UK this year as being “technically

‘legal'”, but not following “the spirit of the law and the intentions of

those who drafted [the law]”, as well as being an attempt “to keep

neighbouring farmers, landowners and local elected representatives in the

dark”.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=11343:ca

ll-for-openness-over-gm-sites–risk-registers

+ EUROPE’S FOOD AGENCY ACCUSED OF JUNK SCIENCE

An opinion by Europe’s food safety agency, EFSA, advocating the safety of

the only GM crop grown in Europe is flawed, according to a Greenpeace and

Friends of the Earth Europe report. The ten-year licence for MON810 maize

has expired and the EU is considering whether to re-authorise it. The EFSA

issued an opinion at the end of June claiming that MON810 is safe.

However, a scientific analysis commissioned by Greenpeace and Friends of the

Earth Europe reveals that EFSA:

***ignores or plays down research that shows that the insecticide produced

by the GM maize could have negative knock-on impacts on Europe’s butterflies

and other insects. Instead they recommend unspecified “management measures”

for areas known to host butterflies and moths;

***fails to admit that there care conflicting reports over the maize’s

impact on the environment or health;

***ignores peer-reviewed scientific studies that highlight safety concerns;

***quotes research carried out on a completely different GM crop as a basis

for claiming that MON810 is safe;

***fails to investigate the safety of new unknown proteins generated in the

maize by the GM process.

The Greenpeace/FoE report says, “The food safety agency either suffers from

a serious lack of scientific expertise or is playing a highly risky

political game with our health and environment. There is clearly enough

evidence to show that this insecticide-producing crop could be hazardous and

should be banned from Europe’s fields.”
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=11337:eu

ropes-food-agency-accused-of-junk-science
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=11339:ef

sa-blasted-over-gm-maize

———————————————————–

CORPORATE CRIMES

———————————————————–

+ AGENT ORANGE LINKED TO HEART DISEASE, PARKINSON’S

Agent Orange, principally manufactured by Monsanto and Dow and used by US

forces to strip Vietnamese and Cambodian jungles during the Vietnam War, may

raise the risk of heart disease and Parkinson’s disease, US health advisers

said. The preliminary findings add to a growing list of conditions that

could be linked to the defoliants, including leukemia, prostate cancer, type

II diabetes and birth defects in the children of the veterans exposed.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=11324:ag

ent-orange-linked-to-heart-disease-parkinsons

QUOTES ON AGENT ORANGE: “I find it ironic that on one hand you put Saddam

Hussein on trial for using biological warfare, but in another country where

you sprayed chemicals for warfare, you neglect your responsibility. The

United States must admit its responsibility and compensate the Agent Orange

victims in Vietnam. It is your moral obligation. Sooner or later, it has to

be done.” – Nguyen Duc to an American journalist. Duc and his late brother

Viet, both victims of Agent Orange, who were born conjoined in 1981
http://www.petitiononline.com/Monsanto/

“If no change is made, no condemnation of the use of Agent Orange, no call

for immediate compensation to the victims and their families, no call for

the chemical companies such as Monsanto and Dow to be charged with war

crimes, then the hearings will have solved nothing.” – Len Aldis, Britain

Vietnam Friendship Society
http://www.gmwatch.org/latest-listing/1-news-items/11103-monsanto-and-dow-sh

ould-be-charged-with-war-crimes

+ TAKE ACTION: DEMAND JUSTICE FOR THE VICTIMS OF AGENT ORANGE
http://www.petitiononline.com/Monsanto/

———————————————————–

CORPORATE CAPTURE

———————————————————–

+ MONSANTO A NEW EAST INDIA COMPANY

Monsanto is a second British East India Company in its seizure of control of

India’s agricultural research, says an excellent article in Dissident Voice.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=11323:mo

nsanto-a-contemporary-east-india-company

+ TOTAL DEPENDENCE ON BT COTTON IN INDIA’S SUICIDE BELT

Nowhere in India has Bt cotton been more hyped than in the Indian state of

Maharashtra’s cotton belt of Vidarbha, and nowhere have the consequences of

its rapid adoption been more terrible in terms of farmer suicides, with

farmers in Vidarbha at one point killing themselves at an average of one

every six hours. The region is now reported to be totally dependent on Bt

cotton.

Monsanto and its supporters, of course, continue to trumpet the rate of Bt

cotton adoption as proof of its desirability, but the same yardstick could

be applied to chemical pesticide adoption by poor Indian farmers, which has

proved a disaster in environmental, human health and endebtedness terms. And

Glenn Stone’s multi-year study of Bt cotton uptake among farmers in Andhra

Pradesh showed rapid adoption was actually driven by seed fads whipped up by

suspect marketing on the part of the seed industry and its supporters.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=11342:to

tal-dependence-on-bt-cotton-in-suicide-belt-

+ INDIA AND THE FOOD CRISIS

The US is pushing India into its own failed system of intensive agriculture

in order to capture huge markets for its seeds and food processing

corporations, says Kavitha Kuruganti in an article for DNA India.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=11330:in

dia-and-the-food-crisis

———————————————————–

ORGANICS

———————————————————–

+ ORGANIC AGRICULTURE IS THE FUTURE

Though not yet widely adopted, modern organic and other low-external-input

farming systems are already proving capable of producing large crop yields

while also conserving energy and minimizing pollution, writes Dr Doug

Gurian-Sherman in a well-referenced piece for the Union of Concerned

Scientists.

Among other important points, Gurian-Sherman writes that research

demonstrates that the green and animal manures employed in organic

agriculture can produce enough fixed nitrogen to support high crop yields.

Where additional synthetic inputs are needed, other low-external-input

methods are producing high yields with much reduced environmental impact.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=11344:or

ganic-agriculture-is-the-future

———————————————————–

GM INSECTS

———————————————————–

+ BRITISH COMPANY PLANS GM MOSQUITOES FOR INDIA

Experiments with GM mosquitoes planned in India by a British company in a

move to find a way to control dengue fever have taken sections of the

scientific community by surprise. “I am trying to get full details about

what is going on,” V.M. Katoch, secretary in the Department of Health

Research and chief of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), said.

Oxford Insect Technology (Oxitec) Ltd of UK is breeding the GM mosquitoes in

a facility provided by its local partner near Chennai. This species spreads

dengue fever in India. The company claims its patented genetic technology

allows generation of only sterile males and releasing millions of these in

the open could reduce the wild population through infertile matings, thereby

offering a novel way of controlling dengue fever.

Pushpa Bhargava, renowned biologist and the Supreme Court’s nominee in the

Genetic Engineering Approval Committee – the apex regulatory body – says he

is worried about experiments with alien strains of GM mosquitoes in a

private facility in the absence of government biosafety guidelines for GM

insects.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=11331:gm

-mosquito-trials-for-india

———————————————————–

INDUSTRY NEWS

———————————————————–

+ CHEMICAL FIRMS SEEK SALVATION IN AGRICULTURE

The only green shoots the chemical industry has seen lately are coming from

the one-time diminutive agricultural side of the business, a shift that has

spurred both new partnerships and legal battles to stake out new territory

and protect profits, says an article in the Chicago Tribune. Chemical makers

have been hard hit by the global economic downturn but food is one area

where consumers can’t cut back that much, a saving grace for an industry

that relies increasingly on the sale of high-tech seeds, fertilizer and

herbicides.
http://tiny.cc/KTEAC

+ NEW RESOURCES ON CHEMICALS/GM FIRMS

MONSANTO: A HISTORY

How one of the top 10 US chemical companies used the world’s biggest selling

pesticide to turn itself into a GM giant in order to try and escape its

past.
http://www.gmwatch.org/gm-firms

BAYER: A HISTORY

How a chemical and pharmaceutical giant with an appalling record of

corporate crimes became a key player in the development, commercialization

and sale of GM crops.
http://www.gmwatch.org/gm-firms

LINKS TO BACKGROUND MATERIAL AND RESOURCES ON MONSANTO & BAYER
http://www.gmwatch.org/gm-firms

———————————————————–

NANOTECHNOLOGY

———————————————————–

+ NANOTECHNOLOGY: ARE WE RISKING TOO MUCH?

Good article on the lack of government regulation and risk assessment of

nanotechnology, which is already being used in everyday products:
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=11332:na

notechnology-are-we-risking-too-much

———————————————————–

REST OF THE MONTH’S NEWS IN BRIEF

———————————————————–

Here are some of the stories from the last month. You can find all July’s

news and more in our archive.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_dategroup

+ EUROPEAN COMMISSION AGREES TO EXPLORE OPT-OUT PROPOSAL

The European Commission has agreed to draw up a list of options for further

discussion after 11 countries urged that individual nations be allowed to

opt out of growing GM crops.
http://tiny.cc/VwA25

+ FRANCE REJECTS REPORT BY EU FOOD AGENCY

France has rejected a report by the European Union’s food safety watchdog

that said Monsanto’s MON810 maize was safe. France and five other EU members

– Austria, Germany, Greece, Hungary and Luxembourg – have suspended sowing

of MON810, invoking safeguard clauses on the grounds of potential

environmental hazard.
http://tiny.cc/VwA25

+ TWO FORMER MONSANTO DIRECTORS SENTENCED

The French Supreme Court of Appeal has rejected the appeal by two former

Directors of Asgrow France, a subsidiary of Monsanto, confirming their fines

of 5,000 and 10,000 Euros for “placing GMOs on the market without

authorization”.
http://tiny.cc/VwA25

+ WALES: GM-FREE ZONES TO PROTECT FARMERS

Welsh farm leaders have welcomed tough new proposals to tighten controls on

GM crops.
http://tiny.cc/mpppQ

+ ROUNDUP DISRUPTS SEXUAL HORMONES

Roundup has been found in a new study to disrupt the action of androgens,

the masculinizing hormones. The action and formation of the female hormone

estrogen is also disrupted. This has been found to occur at very low levels,

800 times less than Roundup residues authorized in some GMOs for feed in

United States.
http://tiny.cc/LOtwL

Roundup: Is it safe? GM Freeze summary of the research: http://tiny.cc/sjuFS

+ STUDY CRITICIZES TESTING ON GMOs

A study conducted by eight international researchers calls into question the

reliability of tests of the European Food Safety (EFSA) and the US FDA to

assess the health risks of GMOs and pesticides.
http://tiny.cc/aW8zg

+ PAKISTAN AND INDIA: THIRSTY BT COTTON DEVASTATED BY WATER SHORTAGE, MEALY BUGS

Due to shortage of water in the Southern Punjab’s cotton belt, about 30

percent cottonseed pods of Bt cotton have been damaged and the cotton crop

is suffering great losses. In a new development, mealybugs have become a

problem on cotton in India.
http://tiny.cc/K3ked

+ UK TO SPEND GBP100 MILLION ON GM CROPS FOR THIRD WORLD

Britain, via the Dept for International Development (DFID), is planning to

quietly spend up to GBP100m on support for GM crops for the world’s poor.
http://tiny.cc/hOJNQ

DFID heading down blind alley:
http://tiny.cc/nNIRp

New Zealand Green Party leader Jeanette Fitzsimons says precious science

dollars should not be “poured down the black hole of GM crops, as it has

been in this country now for well over a decade”.
http://tiny.cc/QcZT0

+ BASF HALTS GM POTATO RESEARCH IN UK

BASF has pulled out of trialling its GM potatoes in the UK. This was the

only GM crop trialled in the UK last year.
http://tiny.cc/mmm2T

+ CANADA ABANDONS FIGHT WITH EUROPE OVER GM FOODS

Canada has agreed to end its World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute with

Europe over GM foods in return for bi-annual meetings with the European

Commission to discuss GM issues.
http://tiny.cc/8F1KD

+ VICTIMS OF PESTICIDES FIGHT FOR JUSTICE

News from victims of pesticide poisoning in Paraguay, France, and the UK:
http://tiny.cc/wq0X6

+ INDIAN GOVT PLANS GM VEGGIES WITHIN 3 YEARS

The Indian government has announced that it plans to introduce GM tomatoes,

brinjal and cauliflower in the country within the next three years.
http://tiny.cc/y7gyf