from Claire Robinson, WEEKLY WATCH editor
-------------------------------------------------------

Dear all,

Why are we not surprised that the UK government's Science Review Panel got their science wrong? Even an article in the vigorously pro-GM journal Nature Biotechnology has now admitted that GM DNA can be transferred from GM plants to bacteria in the guts of people or animals who consume them - an event that the Science Review Panel claimed was "unlikely".

We are not surprised because we know that "there is more stupidity in the ag-biotech industry than there is hydrogen in the known universe" (NLP Wessex's Mark Griffiths, after Frank Zappa). As proof of this, we have another Nature Biotechnology article blasting the folly of engineering drugs into food and feed crops (see STUPID WHITE MEN RUNNING BIOTECH). As Mark puts it, "How do you feel about leaving the future of the world's biology to stupid people?"

If your answer is "Not too good," please consider supporting GM WATCH's work by making a donation. A big thank you to those who have already responded to our recent appeal. You can now donate online in any one of five currencies via the (relatively) simple PayPal system, at
http://www.gmwatch.org/donate.asp
OR by cheque or postal order payable to 'NGIN', to be sent to: NGIN, 26 Pottergate, Norwich, NR2 1DX, UK.

We appreciate your support.
Claire    [email protected]
www.ngin.org.uk / www.gmwatch.org

-------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS
-------------------------------------------------------
OBSCENITY OF THE WEEK
HIGHLIGHTS OF THE WEEK
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
CAMPAIGN OF THE WEEK - UK
HEADLINES OF THE WEEK
SUBSCRIPTIONS

-------------------------------------------------------
OBSCENITY OF THE WEEK
-------------------------------------------------------

+ SAVING BILLIONS OR MAKING BILLIONS?
'BIOTECH BOUNTY' is the title of the latest issue (March 2004) of 'The American Enterprise', a publication of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). Biotech's principal bounty, to judge from the contents, is a surfeit of biotech lobbyists. This issue of The American Enterprise is chock full of their offerings. http://www.taemag.com/issues/issueID.157/toc.asp

AEI is the Godfather of Washington Neo-Conservative lobby groups. It has the guiding hand of pharma giant Merck and Dow Chemical's CEOs on its Board. It is America's richest and most influential think tank and is generally regarded as one of the Bush administration's closest allies.

Many of the leading lights in the Bush administration, including Vice President Dick Cheney, directly connect to AEI, which also rents office space to the Project for the New American Century (PNAC). Founded in 1997, PNAC has been agitating since its inception for war with Iraq. Like PNAC, the AEI is regarded as a major promoter of Bush's war-agenda.

BIOTECH BOUNTY has half a dozen articles on the GM foods theme, including one by CS Prakash and Greg Conko called, 'Technology That Will Save Billions From Starvation'. Prakash and Conko are the co-founders of the AgBioWorld campaign. Conko works for AEI's young cousin the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) which has Dow Chemical among its funders. AgBioWorld has had links to Monsanto's PR operations, particularly its Internet PR firm Bivings.

Prakash was exposed in a recent report by Aaron deGrassi of the Institute of Development Studies as promoting the benefits of Monsanto's GM sweet potato project in Kenya when he had no knowledge of the data. The recent publication of that data has shown the project was a complete failure.

There is a real irony here because Monsanto's front-person for that project was Dr Florence Wambugu, who was celebrated in Forbes magazine as one of the fifteen people who would reinvent the future. The headline for the Forbes piece was "Serving millions...". In fact, Wambugu's project has served nobody but herself - she's built a career around it - and Monsanto, which has won hundreds of column inches of PR hype while the project's dismal failure has gone almost unreported.

Unfazed by the failure of the project he helped to hype, Prakash has - in true Dr Goebbels style - transformed "serving millions" into "saving billions"!

In reality, the Prakash-type hype and misinformation with which this technology is being promoted, and the resulting distortion of research funding and priorities, actually threatens the prospects of improving the livelihoods and food security of the very people it is supposed to help.

The real agenda here, of course, has little to do with "saving billions" and almost everything to do with "making billions" for US corporate interests. That is the real BIOTECH BOUNTY.

Other contributors to BIOTECH BOUNTY include Tony Gilland of the far right LM-network; Carol Foreman - an outspoken lobbyist on behalf of Monsanto's genetically engineered cattle drug rBGH before returning to the Consumer Federation of America (!) - who encourages us to "love not fear biotech products"; and, inevitably, there's Canadian logging-industry front man Patrick Moore, who's presented by the AEI as a "Green activist"!

For more on Prakash, Conko, CEI, LM, Gilland, Moore & Co., see our directory 'THE BIOTECH BRIGADE' at http://www.gmwatch.org

-------------------------------------------------------
HIGHLIGHTS OF THE WEEK
-------------------------------------------------------

+ GM SCIENCE REVIEW PANEL GOT IT WRONG
University of Leeds microbiologist John Heritage has published a paper in Nature Biotechnology which argues, based on the evidence thus far, that GM transgenes do transfer to gut microflora of people or animals that eat the G