1.STRANGE CULTURE
2.GM hens lay eggs to fight cancer
3.Courting Armageddon

GM WATCH COMMENT: The second article below describes how researchers at the Roslin Institute, which created Dolly the sheep, have now bred a 500-strong flock of chickens "genetically modified to lay eggs capable of producing drugs that fight cancer and other life-threatening diseases".

The chickens are "a common breed of egg-laying hen" that produces about 300 eggs, per hen, a year. They "have each had human genes added to their DNA to enable them to produce complex medicinal proteins."

Mark Griffiths of nlpwessex has asked, "How long before human error (or crime) means these chickens get into the food chain?" Mark also wonders, "Why didn't they choose an avian species which is not part of the food chain? Clearly the 300 eggs per year was too tempting for them."

Mark points out that we already have experience of the problems. GM pigs have more than once unintentionally entered the human food chain. In one incident nearly 400 pigs used in GM research accidentally got into the US food supply. The FDA said "it could not verify the researchers' claim [that the pigs weren't dangerous] because they failed to keep enough records"!!

(US biotech researchers careless with 386 pigs - FDA) http://ngin.tripod.com/100203a.htm

Another article on the GM-pig-to-market scandal suggested other animals involved in GM research, such as chickens, goats and cows, could also have entered the food chain.

News also emerged of a previous release of GM pigs:

"One year ago, several genetically altered pigs ended up in Canadian poultry feed. Researchers at the University of Guelph in southern Ontario discovered 11 dead piglets were mistakenly sent to a rendering plant and ground into poultry feed."

http://ngin.tripod.com/100203a.htm

The year before that we had:

"Tainted pork from genetically altered pigs stolen from the University of Florida showed up in sausage served at a funeral in High Springs, university police said.

"The stolen pigs were genetically engineered to develop a disorder similar to diabetic blindness in humans. University officials do not know what effect, if any, the treated meat could have on people who eat it."

We were also told:

"the meat from the pigs... had been genetically altered and injected with enough barbiturates and chemicals to kill a 500-pound pig".

And that:

"The pig incident is one in a series of missteps at the university's Animal Resources department which oversees the treatment of biomedical research animals."

(Tainted pigs show up in sausage at funeral) http://ngin.tripod.com/100203a.htm

Pigs themselves were also put at risk by a lab break out a year later:

"WASHINGTON -- Federal authorities are investigating the disappearance of genetically altered bacteria fatal to pigs that appear to have been stolen from a research laboratory at Michigan State University.

"Investigators said that while the bacteria apparently are harmless to humans, they could devastate the pork industry..."

(Authorities Probe Case Of Missing Bacteria) http://online.wsj.com/article_print/0,,SB1032390712851591555,00.html

Then there were the bubonic-plague-ridden GM mice that went AWOL from a lab in New Jersey!

(No good way to spin plague)
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5728

And let's not forget the US bio-biz that accidentally sent vials of a pandemic flu strain to laboratories across the world - just one of a series of bio-weapons blunders. (item 3)

But compare the lethal cocktail of laxity and hubris surrounding potentially catastrophic biotech experiments with just how far the authorities are prepared to go to face down a non-existent threat from outside the industrial-biotech-military complex - item1.

---

1.STRANGE CULTURE
by Mark Bell
(2007-01-20)
2006, Un-rated, 75 minutes
http://www.filmthreat.com/index.php?section=reviews&Id=9553

Exactly how far is the U.S. government allowed to go in order to protect our nation? Some would say as far as humanly possible... but what happens when they react and attempt to punish a nonexistent threat?

These questions are but two of the many that "Strange Culture" stirs in the mind. The documentary concerns the story of Steve Kurtz, an artist and college professor who was preparing an exhibition on genetically modifed food for the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art exhibition. Part of the exhibition concerned the usage of bacteria and other inocuous biological specimens, as audiences were allowed to test foods with the biological agents to draw conclusions one way or the other. Then, a few days prior to the exhibition, Steve's wife died of heart failure in her sleep.

While responding to the 911 call, paramedics noticed Steve's labeled bacteria specimens, and a few choice books on biological warfare, and they called the FBI, who sent over agents in HazMat suits to quarantine Steve's apartment while he was brought under investigation for possible bio-terrorism. Within hours of his wife's death, he was being detained.

Things get worse from there, as Steve's wife's body is sent around the country and autopsied a number of times. Despite medical proof that she died of a condition not brought on by the harmless bacteria, as well as proof that the bacteria is readily available for ordering online (I don'