June 15, 2001
Media Compilation # 14: 1. As Biotech Crops Multiply, Consumers Get Little Choice + 2. SOME MORE GMO-RELATED NEWS + 3. WILL EUROPE BAN ASPARTAME - Sweetener probed + 4. Global Resource Action Center for the Environment (GRACE) Calls for a Tax on Meat
Dear media person
In a world where we are bombarded daily with often trivial information, there comes sometimes *really* important stuff that should absolutely get a first-place treatment by our media. Unfortunately the politicians and the latest crime scene or some local disaster get all the air-time and front-page space and there is no time or space left for those generally uncovered but not so trivial news that seldom get a proper in-depth treatment.
I believe the safety of our food supply is now being radically jeopardized by a combination of corporate greed, political corruption at the highest level, fraudulent science and sheer subservience of the mainstream media in far too many countries to the political and/or financial Establisment that owns and control them with a tight grip.
Can you be instrumental in helping to change this situation?
Please, read on...
Jean Hudon
Earth Rainbow Network Coordinator
http://www.cybernaute.com/earthconcert2000
1.
From http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/10/business/10GENE.html
As Biotech Crops Multiply, Consumers Get Little Choice
By DAVID BARBOZA
New York Sunday Times 10 June 01
CHICAGO, June 9 - Despite persistent concerns about genetically modified crops, they are spreading so rapidly that it has become almost impossible for consumers to avoid them, agriculture experts say.
More than 100 million acres of the world's most fertile farmland were planted with genetically modified crops last year, about 25 times as much as just four years earlier. Wind-blown pollen, commingled seeds and black-market plantings have further extended these products of biotechnology into the far corners of the global food supply - perhaps irreversibly, according to food experts.
"The genie is already out of the bottle," said Neil E. Harl, a professor of agriculture and economics at Iowa State University, speaking of genetically modified organisms, or G.M.O.'s. "If the policy tomorrow was that we were going to eradicate G.M.O.'s, this would be a very long process. It would take years if not decades to do that."
Most of the biotech fields are soybeans and corn planted in North and South America, the biggest food exporters. But biotech crops - genetically altered to do things like release their own insecticide or withstand the spraying of weed-killing chemicals - are being shipped or experimented with in many other countries, including China, India, Australia and South Africa.
They are even turning up where people least expect them: in countries where they are banned but a black market has developed; in food supplies where they are forbidden or shunned, like organic products; even in fields that farmers believe are completely free of genetically modified crops.
The rapid adoption and proliferation means that even as scientists and others debate the safety of altering foods' genetic codes to produce cheaper and bigger supplies, a large share of the world's population has little or no choice but to consume genetically modified crops.
One indication came last year when Starlink, a variety of genetically modified corn not approved for human consumption, accidentally entered the global food supply, leading to extensive food recalls in the United States and Japan over fears it could cause allergic reactions.
Starlink has not been shown to be harmful; indeed, there is little evidence that biotech foods are dangerous to humans. But the episode showed that seeds planted on less than 1 percent of America's corn acreage could easily spread from farm to farm, contaminate the nation's grain handling system and seep into global food supplies.
Seed companies, farmers, processors and food makers have spent more than $1 billion in the last six months trying to eradicate Starlink. But most experts agree that will take years.
In the meantime, experts say the spread of biotech crops creates an entirely new set of trade, regulatory and legal problems:
- Large countries with policies limiting the use of genetically modified crops may soon have to change course, because they will not be able to get enough nonbiotech crops to meet their import needs.
- Regulators are under pressure to develop new standards to determine what is and is not genetically modified - a situation complicated, as the Starlink episode demonstrated, by the commingling and cross- pollination of different crops.
- Big food and agriculture companies are facing legal and public relations challenges, because some farmers and consumers believe their products have been contaminated.
Gene-altered crops are already ubiquitous in the United States, where the Food and Drug Administration has deemed them "entirely safe." But Europe and parts of Asia remain wary of the crops, and there have been moves in those regions to halt or slow their import.
Skeptics say that tampering with nature could inadvertently alter species, harm wildlife and give rise to new problems, like herbicide-resistant "superweeds." They also worry about the long-term health consequences of eating foods that are armed with insecticides and foreign genes. And the critics suspect that the industry has intentionally flooded the world market with genetically altered seeds to pre-emptively settle the question of whether or not to adopt biotechnology
Opponents expected Starlink to be a turning point in the fight against genetically altered crops. But while the episode helped stall the advance of genetically modified wheat, potatoes and sugar, it seems to have served as proof, over all, of biotech's inexorable spread. Most food makers in the United States continue to use biotech crops, insisting they are safe and far too pervasive to avoid; meanwhile, relatively few American consumers seem to care.
Perhaps more important, the bulk of American grain sold for domestic and international use goes into animal feed, and thus far few farmers or big companies have opposed feeding biotech grain to livestock.
Indeed, biotech industry officials believe the game is nearly won. The United States, Brazil and Argentina account for about 90 percent of the world's corn and soybean exports. Bulk shipments from the United States and Argentina are predominantly biotech. And Brazil is widely believed to have a black market in biotech soybeans.
If Brazil legalizes biotech production, Europe and Asia - the world's two biggest purchasers of soy - would have almost nowhere to turn for adequate supplies of nonbiotech soybeans. Environmentalists in Brazil have protested biotechnology, and though the government there is split, industry officials in the United States say that Brazil is leaning toward allowing the use of genetically modified seeds.
"We are very hopeful that last domino will fall," said Bob Callanan, a spokesman for the American Soybean Association, a trade group that supports the use of gene-altered crops. "That's why the environmentalists are putting up a stink down there in Brazil. They know if that goes, it's all gone."
That would be a huge victory for biotechnology companies. Monsanto, Aventis, Syngenta and others have spent billions of dollars to create the crops, and some independent groups, including the United Nations, promote them as one answer to world health and hunger problems.
Andrew Cash, an analyst who follows the biotechnology industry at UBS Warburg, says that Europe already has little choice but to accept the crops, largely because Monsanto's Roundup Ready Soybeans, the primary biotech variety, are so widespread.
"Europe is learning its first lesson in the `beggars can't be choosers' world of agricultural reality - it's G.M.O. beans or no beans," Mr. Cash wrote last January.
Food companies are already having a hard time obtaining nongenetically modified crops. Grain handlers like Archer Daniels Midland and Cargill are charging extra to segregate and test crops to certify that they are nonbiotech.
And that is becoming harder to do. Some agriculture experts say that cross-pollination of biotech corn and seed corn, as well as poor and imperfect grain-handling practices, have thoroughly scrambled crops in a global food chain that for decades shipped bulk supplies of largely undifferentiated products.
Food makers around the world are finding traces of gene-altered crops in foods that were not supposed to be made with them; Midwestern farmers are complaining that wind is blowing pollen from gene-altered crops into neighboring fields planted with conventional corn.
Even organic crops labeled "G.M. Free" are testing positive for genetic modification. Organic growers are now considering a class-action lawsuit against the biotech industry that would seek damages for the contamination.
"We have found traces in corn that has been grown organically for 10 to 15 years," said Arran Stephens, president of Nature's Path Foods, an organic producer of breads and cereals based in Delta, British Columbia. "There's no wall high enough to keep that stuff contained."
Some critics of biotechnology see a sinister plot at work, with the industry ignoring the implications of widespread pollen flow and perhaps even encouraging a black market in biotech crops.
"They're hoping there's enough contamination so that it's a fait accompli," said Jeremy Rifkin, a longtime critic of biotechnology.
"But the liability will kill them," he said. "We're going to see lawsuits across the Farm Belt as conventional farmers and organic farmers find their product is contaminated."
The world's biggest biotech seed companies acknowledge that some pollen may go astray. And they acknowledge that they cannot guarantee that even the conventional seed they sell is 100 percent free of genetic modification.
Agriculture, they say, is prone to mishaps.
"By and large, where there are crops grown, and where G.M. materials are approved, the issue is with us," said Dean Oestreich, a vice president at Pioneer Hi-Bred, the world's largest seed company. "Our basic seed stocks are pure. But there's always adventitious presence, which means small amounts of unintentional presence through pollen flow and physical mixing."
Because of all this commingling, the companies are calling on regulators in many countries to relax tolerance standards for crops, to avoid trade, labeling and legal problems.
Zero tolerance, said Jeanne Romero-Severson, a professor of agriculture at Purdue University, is simply not realistic.
"If your standard is 100 percent pure," she said, "you better stop eating right now."
2.
SOME MORE GMO-RELATED NEWS
“The introduction into the environment of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) which can reproduce is a crime against humanity. Such an introduction can have unknown and unforeseeable consequences and can modify the planet’s natural genetic inheritance”.
1/5/01
Roundup Ready Soybeans Approved for Consumption in Thailand.
Source: Agweb, USA, by Julianne Johnston.
Thailand’s government has approved Roundup Ready soybeans for human
consumption. RR soybeans has thus become the first GM crop to get such
approval.
2/5/01
Genetically engineered 'Golden Rice' not to be released into the environment
within the next five years admits International Rice Research Institute.
Source: Genet.
During a visit payed last March by Greenpeace to The International Rice
Research Institute (IRRI) this latter has confirmed the environmentalists
that it does not intend to release genetically engineered, so-called "Golden
Rice” into the environment in the near future and that it is likely to take
five years even before field trials could be conducted. The IRRI scientists
told Greenpeace that various genetic elements in the “Golden Rice” need to
be changed or removed, in particular its antibiotic resistance gene. The
IRRI also confirmed that the currently available “Golden Rice” only produces
very low levels of beta-carotene. They also agreed with Greenpeace that the
best solution to vitamin A deficiency is a diverse diet.
2/5/01
Monsanto recalls GE Canola in Canada.
Source: Genet.
Monsanto Co. announced that it had recalled hundreds of tons of
bioengineered canola seed from Canadian farmers because the shipments may
have contained genetic material not approved for consumption in Japan, one
of the leading export markets for Canada and the United States. A spokesman
for Monsanto said the St. Louis-based company is trying to find out how the
mistake happened.
3/5/01
Monsanto’s Roundup could become victim of its success.
Source: St. Louis Post Dispatch, by Tina Hesman.
A new report by a biotechnology consultant, Charles M. Benbrook of the
Northwest Science and Environmental Policy Center in Sandpoint, Idaho,
suggests that Monsanto Co.'s premier product could soon become a victim of
its own success. The report contends that farmers' embrace of the technology
could become a death grip, causing wide-spread herbicide resistance in weeds
and spreading crop diseases. Using U.S. Department of Agriculture data from
1998, Benbrook found that farmers sprayed 11.4 percent more herbicide on
Roundup Ready fields than on fields treated with conventional herbicides,
despite biotech industry claims to the contrary. Benbrook's report says
shifts in the types of weeds growing in soybean fields and decreased
susceptibility of weeds to the herbicide are causing a slip in Roundup's
efficacy. As a result, farmers must use more herbicide, accelerating the
build-up of resistance in weeds. Furthermore, there are other problems
associated with the Roundup system, Benbrook said: university field trials
indicate that Roundup Ready soybeans typically yield 5 percent to 10 percent
less than conventional soybean varieties and this may be due to the
herbicide's effect on a soybean plant's metabolism. His report also cites
studies that show that the Roundup system makes soybeans more susceptible to
disease and insects and reduces the plants' ability to fix nitrogen. Soil
scientist Robert Kremer and his colleagues at the University of Missouri at
Columbia conducted a four-year study of Roundup and fungal infections in
soybeans. The researchers found that Roundup Ready soybeans treated with
Roundup were more likely to get infected with fungi than the same variety of
beans treated with conventional herbicides. Higher incidence of fungal
diseases in soybean crops may be a long-term ecological consequence of using
the herbicide. The full report by Dr Charles Benbrook entitled "Troubled
Times Amid Commercial Success for Roundup Ready Soybeans", is available on
www.biotech-info.net/troubledtimes.html.
3/5/01
Nigeria pleads for labels on GM foods.
Source: Globe and Mail, Canada.
Noting that many scientists are worried that the human food supply could be
contaminated by the proliferation of genetically modified crops, Nigeria was
cited as asking a United Nations body meeting in Ottawa to introduce strict
labelling rules quickly. If it ever turns out that GM foods do present a
health hazard, African nations will be hardest hit. Other developing
nations, particularly India, echoed Nigeria's impassioned push for
comprehensive, mandatory labelling of all GM foods.
3.
Date: Sun, 10 Jun 2001
From: Betty Martini <Mission-Possible-USA@altavista.net>
Subject: WILL EUROPE BAN ASPARTAME - Sweetener probed
Aspartame: UK national press article
The Sunday Express, May 20, 2001 page 7
Sweetener probed
By Lucy Johnston, Health Editor
Action at last over additive Aspartame as fears grow of health risk in food and drink
The Government has ordered a top-level investigation into the safety of Britain's best-selling sweetener amid fears that the low calorie chemical is a health risk.
Aspartame, used in thousands of diet food and drinks has been linked to more than 90 adverse reactions including brain tumours and blindness. The Sunday Express has seen a leaked letter which reveals the Government's food watchdog - the Food Standards Agency - has sent more than 500 research papers on the chemical to the Brussels-based Scientific Committee on Food.
If it finds it is a health risk, the sweetener widely used in fizzy drinks, squashes, yoghurts, spring water, chewing gum and pharmaceutical products, and often sold under the names NutraSweet and Canderel, could be banned. Last night, Liberal Democrat MP Norman Baker, who is campaigning for NutraSweet to be taken off the shelves added: "This is a very positive step. Doubts have been raised about this product and they need to be cleared." Last September, the Sunday Express led calls for an inquiry after our investigations discovered large numbers of people were claiming their health had been damaged by the sweetener.
They included Lyn Hunter, 49, of Liverpool, who regularly drank diet drinks with Aspartame and had pain in her limbs, headaches, lack of concentration and insomnia.
Her constant pain became so great she even considered suicide. Her doctor treated her for arthritis even though tests for this condition were negative. When she eliminated Aspartame her symptoms disappeared. The leaked letter from food scientist Dr Sandy Lawrie expresses concern that Aspartame has not been reviewed by the Scientific Committee on Food for 13 years.
It states: "We have discovered more than 500 papers on Aspartame published between 1988 and 2000. There is clearly sufficient new data on Aspartame to justify a review."
Sources at the agency say that if scientists find strong evidence about dangers of a product, they will advise an EU-wide ban. A spokeswoman for European manufacturers of Aspartame, Ajinomoto, said: "All of the good scientific data shows it is safe. No data raises any concerns about Aspartame either new or old."
However, many studies which have not been sponsored by the food industry highlight potential dangers. Professor Ralph Walton of Northwestern Ohio Universities said: "I dispute the assertion that there are no health risks. "I believe Aspartame increases risk of cancer. Virtually all the studies attesting to its safety have been funded by the industry."
One independent study on animals shows how digestion breaks Aspartame down into formaldehyde, which accumulates in the animals' cells, damaging DNA and poisoning the liver, kidneys, eye and brain. However, the manufacturers argue that all the constituents of Aspartame are found in much greater quantities in natural drinks such as milk and tomato juice, and are not considered a health risk.
In the US, there are now five Aspartame detox centres. Symptoms reported to America's Food and Drug Administration include headaches, skin problems, stomach disorders, poor vision, depression, carbohydrate cravings, panic attacks, irregular heart rhythms and seizures.
For more information send an SAE to Geoff Brewer, Additives Survivors Network, 63 Downlands Road, Devizes, SN10 5EF or visit the online support group at http://www.dorway.com
END OF ARTICLE
Comments from Betty Martini, Mission Possible International
As many know I lectured in the UK the end of August and Sept, 2001 and provided many records the UK had not seen. Aspartame was approved in the UK through a business deal between Searle and Professor Paul Turner. When Parliament found out there was a big blowout but the order was not rescinded. (Article in Guardian) Therefore, the UK did not know that in the beginning the FDA had asked for the indictment of Searle but two U.S. Prosecutors hired on with the defense team and the statute of limitations expired. For 16 years the FDA refused to approve aspartame because of the brain tumors but Searle hired Don Rumsfeld (now Secretary of Defense) who said he would call in his markers and get it approved anyway. See UPI 8 month investigation of aspartame on http://www.dorway.com
The day after Reagan took office he appointed Dr. Arthur Hull Hayes. A Board of Inquiry was setup who told Dr. Hayes it had not been proven safe, and because of the brain tumor issue he could not approve it. (See Board of Inquiry summation on http://www.dorway.com). Dr. Hayes over-ruled the Board of Inquiry and approved aspartame anyway, and then went to work for the PR Agency of the manufacturer and refused to talk to the press ever since. Over a year ago Fox News in Washington, D.C. went to Dr. Hayes house and asked "were the public ever at risk?" Again, Dr. Hayes refused to answer and shut the door. With audio hear the Fox News newsclip on DORway.
We thank James Turner, Attorney, Washington, D.C. for those records and Jon Baum, Mission Possible National Capital Area for sending them to us. Aspartame which was never proven safe and in original studies triggered brain, mammory, uterine, ovarian, testicular, thyroid and pancreatic tumors, as well as grand mal seizures should never have been approved. Three congressional hearings because of the outrage of consumers being poisoned never banned aspartame because senators like Orrin Hatch were paid by Monsanto who bought Searle in l985, and since sold.
On June 20, l999, The Independent in the UK exposed "World's top sweetener is made with GM bacteria." As more and more evidence is brought forward we hope that aspartame will now be banned having created one of the greatest plagues in world history. H. J. Roberts, M.D. is about to release a 1000 page medical text on this global plague titled ASPARTAME DISEASE; THE IGNORED EPIDEMIC. Consumers and physicians will be able to get it by accessing http://www.sunsentpress.com/ or in the US by calling 1 800 814 - 9800. We wish to thank all those in the UK working to expose this deadly chemical poison, Felicity Mawson, Geoff Brewer, Carl Sims, Marjorie Schofield, Joanna Clarke, John Smith, and many others.
The Sunday Express is not on web and for those reading it on the Internet who would like to send them their case history on aspartame poisoning you may write expressletters@express.co.uk
Betty Martini, Founder, Mission Possible International
(770) 242-2599
http://www.dorway.com
Aspartame Toxicity Center, http://www.holisticmed.com/aspartame"
Aspartame Support Groups may be accessed at http://www.dorway.com
4
Date: Fri, 08 Jun 2001
From: Mark Graffis <mgraffis@vitelcom.net>
Subject: Global Resource Action Center for the Environment (GRACE) Calls for a Tax on Meat
From Global Resource Action Center for the Environment (GRACE)
Friday, June 8, 2001
NEW YORK -- According to David Brubaker of the Henry Spira/GRACE Project on Industrial Animal Production at Johns Hopkins University's Center for a Livable Future in the School of Public Health, America's systematic disregard of corporate accountability for the devastating consequences of contemporary industrial animal farming must be immediately and substantially addressed.
---
* In 2001, Industrial Animal Producers (IAPs) are the source for most of the meat Americans eat at home and in restaurants every day-though the public is little aware of exactly what this means.
* IAPs-termed Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) by the EPA-are officially defined as having at least 1000 "animal units," equivalent to 700 dairy cows or 2,500 hogs, though they often contain many times those numbers, crammed into cages, boxes, and vegetation-less outdoor pens.
- The USDA reports that animals in the U.S. meat industry produce 61 million tons of waste each year, which is 130 times the volume of human waste generated in the same period. One IAP alone yields the waste equivalent to the output of a 12,000-person town, though they exist on a fraction of the land.
Consolidated meat processing firms are the driving force behind the IAPs. Comprising suited executives, remote stockholders, and hapless, transient employees working under notoriously hazardous conditions, the industry imposes a system that spews pollution and chemicals into our rivers, streams, and bodies, all in the name of farming. The industry uses legal loopholes, massive government lobbies, and charismatic subterfuge to evade pollution responsibilities while garnering the lion's share of federal and state subsidies nominally intended to aid American farmers-all paid with hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars per year.
- "Today, 20 feedlots feed 50 percent of the cattle and are directly connected to the four processing firms that control 81 percent of beef processing, either by direct ownership or through formal contracts," reported researchers from University of Missouri, at the beginning of this year. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, similar figures apply to poultry and hog production, where four corporations control half of the chicken market, and four processing firms control 75 percent of the hog business.
- In 1998, while independent farmers were receiving the lowest prices since the great depression, Smithfield Foods, IBP, and Hormel Foods (first, second and fifth largest hog packers, respectively) announced record profits gained via the processing-rather than the raising-of livestock.
* Economists and environmentalists alike report, over and over, that the IAP-based model shifts the processes and burden of food production into a rigid and precarious structure designed to make a very small percentage of people very wealthy - at a cost to the environment, public health, and taxpayers that far outweighs the perceived efficiency of the IAP institution.
* Amid the prevailing furor over mad cow or Bovine Spongiform Encephaly (BSE) and foot-and-mouth diseases, Americans are fast being forced to look beyond tidy packages and cheap prices on grocery store shelves.
* The unregulated, overuse of subtherapeutic antibiotics by IAPs has caused The World Health Organization (WHO), The Center for Disease Control (CDC), The Union of Concerned Scientists (USC), and many other national and international health agencies to issue alerts to the acute possibility that antibiotic abuse will render crucial, life-saving drugs useless within the next ten years. Approximately 13.5 millions pounds of antimicrobials prohibited in the European Union are used for nontherapeutic purposes every year by U.S. livestock producers.
- Food-borne illnesses, specifically Salmonella and Campylobacter, are on the rise in the U.S. while the occurrence in humans of formerly treatable infections that resist traditional antibiotic therapy have increased in the last decade.
* What economists call "hidden" or "external" costs thoroughly saturate the production and sale of meat in this country. Loss of skilled farmers' livelihoods, termination of free markets, crumbling community structures, suffering animals, mass-scale environmental degradation, and untold health risks all amount to an enormous cost that must be quantified to a degree that the American public will recognize.
___
Ideally, Americans will one day realize that we rely far too heavily on meat in our national diet, to our health and economic detriment. It is necessary now to address the demand that drives supply. We propose an excise tax levied on IAP-produced meat to help balance the scheme that protects the current system from experiencing any meaningful alteration.
Justification for the tax would follow a line similar to that by which recent cigarette tax legislation succeeded, whereby the product is identified as both an economic burden and a harm to human health. While our government behaves as though its hands are tied when called upon to enforce environmental and anti-trust laws in the farming industry, a clear-cut excise tax could definitively untwist the knot. "Excise taxes are usually easier to enact and enforce," economist Bill Weida explains, "because they hold out the promise that if the taxed entity cleans up its act (literally) it can avoid the tax. Further, they can be enacted in stages, which give the taxed entity time to rectify the problem before the full tax hits. The hooker here is that if the factory farms did clean up their acts, the increased cost would make them non-competitive with conventional farms." The portion of the tax cost that IAP processors transfer to retail prices at any stage would raise the cost of the meat, making conventionally raised, free-range, organic meat competitively priced on grocery store shelves. Consumers would therefore encounter a tangible distinction between IAP meat and organic, free-range meat.
The window of opportunity in which to purposefully enact this tax is narrow. Traditional farmers are a vanishing resource. Environmental and water-reserve losses, accompanied by the impending antibiotic crisis, pose irretrievable losses. As corporate hegemony overtakes retail outlets, the grocery stores that sell meat will be owned by the same parent companies that process the meat, thereby ensuring a retail freeze-out of independent farmers.
A change in prices via an excise tax is sure to speak to Americans through our most sensitive receptor: our pockets. It has worked to curb teenage smoking, it could certainly work for customers provided with a better alternative. When customers alter their spending habits, the industries are quick to respond in suit. Let's make it one that truly fits the needs of our country.
We call for a national dialogue on the development of this tax to encourage a fair and healthy American food supply.
For details on how you can get involved, contact David Brubaker by phone at (717) 627-7789 or email DBRUBAK@aol.com.
For more information on industrial animal production systems and GRACE, visit www.factoryfarm.org
For more information, contact David Brubaker
Project Director Global Resource Action Center for the Environment (GRACE)
717-627-7789
dbrubak@aol.com
Web site: http://www.gracelinks.org
