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WEEKLY WATCH number 116 (28/3/2005)

from Claire Robinson, WEEKLY WATCH editor
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Dear all:

It looks as if Monsanto & co. ordered a distraction campaign in the run up to last week's Bad News Week - publication of the GM farm scale trial results, generating headlines like "The end of GM crops" (LOBBYWATCH SPECIAL - UK FARM SCALE TRIAL RESULTS), and the admission that tons of rogue GM corn has gone into the food chain worldwide (NEW CONTAMINATION SCANDAL).

The industry will have had time to prepare for both and surely it cannot be coincidence that, on one side of the Atlantic, we've had a wave of invective against critics of GM as "extremists", "fundamentalists", etc., while on the other, AgBioView's attack dogs, chief among them Andrew Apel - have suddenly been let off the leash. These attack dogs have been pretty much kept out of the fray since the media revelations in 2002 as to how AgBioView was being used as a front for Monsanto and its poison pen attacks. (http://www.lobbywatch.org/p1temp.asp?pid=25&page=1).

Apel's latest article hypes the latest "healthier" GM plants - ignoring the fact that the "healthy" trait of Monsanto's new low-linolenic acid soybeans owes nothing to GM (LOBBYWATCH - OTHER STORIES)! Doubtless many more such pieces will follow, even if AgBioView puts Apel back on his chain.

Finally, an extraordinary uprising of wisdom in the Indian state of Orissa: around 3000 women have made a bonfire of GM and hybrid seeds and demanded that the state be declared organic (ASIA).

Claire [email protected]
www.gmwatch.org / www.lobbywatch.org

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CONTENTS
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NEW CONTAMINATION SCANDAL
LOBBYWATCH SPECIAL - UK FARM SCALE TRIAL RESULTS
LOBBYWATCH - OTHER STORIES
ASIA
EUROPE
AFRICA
THE AMERICAS
MIDDLE EAST
AUSTRALASIA
NEW RESEARCH
CAMPAIGNS OF THE WEEK

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NEW CONTAMINATION SCANDAL
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+ 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 kilometres 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 Syngeta ae 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 unauthorised 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 becoiming 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."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5024
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5029
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5037
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5023
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5018
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5022

+ JAPAN TO MONITOR US CORN CARGOES FOR UNAPPROVED GM STRAIN
Japan has said it will monitor US corn cargoes to check if they contain the unapproved strain of GM corn.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5026

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LOBBYWATCH SPECIAL - UK FARM SCALE TRIAL RESULTS
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+ GM CROPS TAKE ANOTHER KNOCK
The latest results of the UK GM crop trials show commercial use of some GM crops could alter the balance of weed species that thrive on British farmland, reports Nature. Such a shift could harm bees and butterflies. Butterfly numbers were cut by up to two-thirds and bee populations by half in fields of transgenic winter oilseed rape (canola), according to the final results of a three-year study commissioned by the UK government.

Researchers behind the GBP6 million study say that the project's weed-control system is to blame. The crops are engineered to resist a particular herbicide, which hits broad-leafed weeds harder than grassy varieties. Bees and butterflies suffer because they prefer the former type of weed.

The scientists add that this would have a knock-on effect on animals higher up the food chain. "If this crop were commercialized we'd be concerned about the implications for birds such as sparrows and bullfinches," says David Gibbons, a conservationist from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and a member of the committee that oversaw the experiment.

The results will be felt as a further blow to advocates of transgenic crops. In 2003, two of the three other transgenic varieties covered by the study, spring oilseed rape and beet, were shown to harm biodiversity by reducing overall levels of weeds.

Clare Oxborrow of Friends of the Earth said: "These results are yet another major blow to the biotech industry. Growing GM winter oilseed rape would have a negative impact on farmland wildlife. No wonder Bayer tried to withdraw its application to grow GM winter oilseed rape." [See next item]
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5015

The trial results have led to several distinctly unimpressed media articles - The Independent gave us "The end for GM crops: Final British trial confirms threat to wildlife". The article says, "[the] results make it even less likely that other big agribusiness firms will want to come forward and go through the extensive testing process - and public opposition - that bringing a GM crop to market in Britain would involve."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5017

+ CONSERVATIVES SPOT POLITICAL OPPOR

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