from Claire Robinson, WEEKLY WATCH editor
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Dear all

We've some fascinating stories for you this week but first the good news and the bad news. The good news is that Monsanto's suffering financial problems. The bad news is... so are we!

First, Monsanto. The company's suffering depressed earnings, losses to its share price, and a troubled horizon. Many stock analysts say the company is overvalued by Wall Street, and that its long-term outlook is bleak. All agree its future will be critically determined by its success or otherwise in building its GM seeds and traits business. (see COMPANY NEWS)

And that's where we come in! Like you, we're determined to deny Monsanto a future that involves the contamination of our food supply, the control of our farming, the devastation of our environment, the suppression of dissent in science and society, and the shameless misdirection of policy and attention from sustainable means of increasing food security and of improving the lot of the world's poor.

But we are currently broke and faced with unpaid bills, so this is a request to you, our subscribers, for help. If you like what we do and want us to be able to continue doing it, please make a donation by either:
*donating online to GM WATCH (aka NGIN): http://www.gmwatch.org/donate.asp
*or sending a check or money order, **made out to 'NGIN'**, to: GM Watch, 26 Pottergate, Norwich, NR2 1DX, UK.

For more on the reasons for the appeal: http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4618

Many thanks for your support and for working with us to finish off Monsanto!

Claire Robinson and Jonathan Matthews
www.gmwatch.org / www.lobbywatch.org

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CONTENTS
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MONBIOT ON GM WATCH
FOOD SAFETY
NUTRIENT-ENRICHED FOODS
LOBBYWATCH
PHARMING
COMPANY NEWS / SOY LATEST
ASIA
THE AMERICAS
AUSTRALASIA

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MONBIOT ON GM WATCH
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George Monbiot is an internationally respected journalist, author and broadcaster. A columnist for The Guardian newspaper, he's held visiting professorships or fellowships at the universities of Oxford (environmental policy), Bristol (philosophy), Keele (politics), East London (environmental science) and Oxford Brookes (Planning). He's received a UN Global 500 Award, the Sir Peter Kent Award and the OneWorld National Press Award.

This is what he has to say about GM Watch:

"I have been following and making use of GM Watch's work since 1998. Over the past 20 years, I have worked with scores of NGOs and individual whistleblowers, who have provided much of the information I've used as an investigative journalist. But I have never come across any as well-organised, effective and hard working as GM Watch.

I have now written four major investigative pieces on the back of their findings, each of which has caused a storm in the media. I have yet to find fault with any of the factual information they have supplied.

Here are a few of the other things they have achieved.

Their work has been a constant inspiration and a primary source of information for the movements opposing GM crops. It is hard to see how these campaigns could have sustained their effectiveness without the information GM Watch has provided.

They have assembled the world's most comprehensive database on the impacts and the politics of genetically engineered crops.
http://www.gmwatch.org

Their documentation of the corruption of science and the means by which corporations have manipulated public opinion and government policy has transformed the environment movement's understanding of the world in which it operates.

Their investigative work is second to none. They have uncovered an extraordinary network of fake citizens and fake citizens' movements established by the PR companies working for the biotech, pharmaceuticals and tobacco industries.

They have shown how almost the entire infrastructure of communication between science and the public in Britain has been captured by a bizarre ultra-rightwing cult. It's one of the oddest and most alarming stories I've ever come across.

As a result of these exposures, they have forced the scientific establishment to begin to question some of its funding arrangements and political compromises.

They turn out an extraordinary volume of web pages, articles, letters and bulletins. Very seldom does a day go by without a new update or commentary. They are highly readable, irreverent and accurate. Please examine their site www.gmwatch.org and the new one, www.lobbywatch.org .

As they have done all this in their free time, I really have no idea how they manage it. But it reveals an unwavering dedication."

For more comments on GM Watch from campaigners, journalists, scientists and others around the world:
http://www.lobbywatch.org/p1temp.asp?pid=33&page=1

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FOOD SAFETY
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+ SPIN OF THE WEEK: "GMOS SAFE FOR ENVIRONMENT, HUMAN USE, STUDY SAYS"
A revealing piece of spin from America: researchers at Southern Illinois University Carbondale detected bits of corn transgene in the stomach contents of 50 piglets they studied, and also found GM gene DNA in one of the samples screened from the small intestine, suggesting that GM gene DNA can at times survive the digestive process in pigs. This news is released as, "GMOs safe for environment, human use, study says"!

This curiously illogical leap is presumably, at best, supposed to imply that the low incidence of GM DNA survival into the small intestine in pigs suggests transgenes do not, in all likelihood, survive the digestive process and end up in the small intestines of humans.

If so, the joke is, this is already known to be a misplaced assumption. Intact GM DNA was found in the small intestine of humans in the Newcastle human feeding trial. Interestingly, the subjects in the Newcastle study were tested after only ONE meal containing GM soy content and yet the tests showed transgenes transfer out of GM food into gut bacteria at detectable levels.

Despite this, the new pig research, we are told, confirms that GMOs "are safe for human consumption", not to mention the environment!

The Council for Food and Agricultural Research and the Illinois Corn Marketing Board paid for the research.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4612

Also see "Updated comments on the Newcastle Feeding Trial", by Dr Michael Antoniou, senior lecturer in molecular genetics at a London teaching hospital
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=1517

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NUTRIENT-ENRICHED FOODS
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+ NON-GM IRON-ENRICHED RICE A SUCCESS
Worldwide, the biggest micronutrient deficiency is iron. It affects 1.4 billion women, 24% of the world population. The deficiency is especially severe in developing countries where the major staple food is rice.

The lessening of such deficiencies has been one of the major selling points for GM, as reflected in innumerable headlines:
Genetically Enhanced Rice to Help Fight Malnutrition ...
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/282/16/1508
Genetically Modified Rice Could Save Hundreds of Millions of Lives
http://www.google.com/url?sa=U&start=9&q=http://www.