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from Claire Robinson, WEEKLY WATCH guest editor
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Dear all
Welcome to WW33, bringing you all the latest news in brief on the GM issue.
I'm a strong believer in the old saying, "Forewarned is forearmed", so as the UK's official public debate draws to a close, do take a look at the FSA/Government's looming scam in HIGHLIGHTS OF THE WEEK, "FSA AT IT AGAIN!"
If you share my indignation, please write to environment secretary Margaret Beckett to make your views known (CAMPAIGN OF THE WEEK). It will also be interesting to see whether the UK's GM Science Review, due to be published on Monday, follows the same strategy of underplaying health concerns on GM while allowing for some environmental and other "uncertainties".
HIGHLIGHTS this week kicks off with an extraordinary scandal. While there's no shortage of reasons to oppose GM, animal cruelty is a major one. GM has led to a massive growth in the number of experiments involving animals, something which had previously been in decline. Some argue that animal suffering in the name of research is justified by benefits to humans, but there are clearly none in these appalling experiments. Moreover, we have a choice of systems of healthcare and research, many of which have never involved animals. So it's undoubtedly time for a review of exactly what benefits animal experimentation has brought us, and whether we can continue to accept such large-scale suffering and waste of life.
This scandal highlights other vital issues. The British Government seems to have intentionally turned a blind eye to the extreme nature of the experimentation. The Novartis subsidiary which undertook the research made misleading claims of scientific breakthroughs. Scientific papers appear to have excluded deaths and abnormalities. The company even claimed it was ready to start trials on humans. And the whole grotesque scandal might never have been exposed if it weren't for leaked documents - documents whose publication Novartis fought to suppress.
Finally, following Andy Rowell's article last week on the sacking of Arpad Pusztai, don't miss the web address where you can read 'HOT POTATO' - excerpts from Rowell's new book giving more of the inside story of the whole Pusztai affair (HIGHLIGHTS).
Please circulate far and wide.
Claire <[email protected]>
www.ngin.org.uk
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CONTENTS
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HIGHLIGHTS OF THE WEEK - Animal cruelty / France / Italy / FSA lies / US lies / Pusztai. Incorporates CAMPAIGN OF THE WEEK
TOPIC OF THE WEEK: "Independent" government science advisors are corporate-owned - but still claim they're impartial!
REPORT OF THE WEEK: Still no health data
QUOTES OF THE WEEK
ILL OMEN OF THE WEEK
FACTS OF THE WEEK
HEADLINES OF THE WEEK
SUBSCRIPTIONS
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HIGHLIGHTS OF THE WEEK
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HOME OFFICE UNDER FIRE OVER GM ANIMAL EXPERIMENTS
British Members of Parliament are demanding to know how the Government allowed shocking experiments involving the transplant of genetically modified piglets' hearts into the necks of wild baboons to be classed as "moderate". The GM-organ experiments were undertaken by a company owned by gene giant Novartis. The experiments involved thousands of pigs and hundreds of higher primates, including wild-caught baboons which were transported from the African savannahs to die in steel cages the size of toilet cubicles
What has also emerged is the misleading nature of claims of scientific progress made by the Novartis subsidiary. Since 1995 it has said that it is now ready to start human clinical trials [The Sunday Times, Aug 6 2000]. But scientific papers declaring new breakthroughs, which claimed to make the successful transplant of GM animal organs into humans possible, have been shown to be dangerously misleading. The publication of leaked documents shows that a quarter of the dozens of baboons involved in the experiments died from "technical failures", often in extreme agony.
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,940033,00.html
The leaked papers also show that while one scientific paper claimed no baboons died from "hyperacute" reaction - two baboons excluded from the published study did. A second study described a baboon which survived for 39 days with a GM pig heart as healthy throughout. But records show its heart had grown in weight by three times, a fact not mentioned in the published data.
Novartis took out a High Court injunction to try and prevent the dissemination of the leaked papers exposing the scandal, and it subsequently moved its animal testing operations to the United States. But the recipient of the documents, the UK animal charity Uncaged Campaigns, argued successfully that it was in the public interest to reveal the truth behind one of Britain's most extreme programmes of animal experimentation.
The Government originally promised an investigation but in a subsequent announcement the then Home Secretary Jack Straw quashed the inquiry. But the Home Office's own role in the affair has increasingly come under question.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=1062
Also: Exposed: secrets of the animal organ lab
The Observer, April 20, 2003
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,940033,00.html
For Uncaged Campaign's detailed report, see the Diaries of Despair:
http://www.xenodiaries.org/index.html
DOLLY CREATORS BEGIN MASS SLAUGHTER
More animal suffering in the name of GM: PPL Therapeutics, the Scottish biotech company involved in the creation of Dolly the sheep carried out a mass slaughter of up to 3,000 GM sheep at two farms in East Lothian as it struggles to survive after Bayer, the German pharma/GM giant, pulled the plug on joint drug trials. The animals must be slaughtered and incinerated on the same day under Home Office regulations to avoid environmental risks. Meat from the animals cannot be sold as food. A similar programme of mass slaughter is expected soon in New Zealand.
http://www.thescotsman.co.uk/index.cfm?id=768342003
FRENCH PROTESTS CONTINUE AS BOVE IS REFUSED PARDON
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L1442107.htm
Supporters of French farmer Jose Bove, jailed for destroying GM crops, have been staging demonstrations throughout France to protest President Chirac's decision to only cut Bove's jail sentence instead of granting him a full pardon. Around 1,000 protesters beat sticks on security barriers around Bove's prison in Herault, southern France, while 50 people draped banners across the glass pyramid entrance to Paris's Louvre museum. Another 300 supporters held a protest picnic beneath the Eiffel Tower. Protesters were also arrested during France's Bastille Day parade while others disrupted the Tour de France. Meanwhile, GM maize fields in southwest France were ransacked following Chirac's decision. Monsanto has said that attackers also damaged one of its GM maize fields. Bove's arrest in June for destroying GM crops prompted an outcry after 80 armed police smashed into his Montpellier home and bundled
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