GM WATCH MONTHLY REVIEW No. 33 (10/6/2006) | |
Claire Robinson, editor Check out the new GM Watch podcasts ------------------------------------------------------------ LOBBYWATCH ------------------------------------------------------------ + LEADING RESEARCHER CALLS FOR WITHDRAWAL OF "WORMY" CORN PAPER The study, carried out at a farm store in Canada, claimed that sales of GM sweetcorn were 50 per cent higher than those of non-GM corn. The journal later awarded the study a prize as its "most outstanding paper" of 2004. But New Scientist reports that GM Watch has published a photograph that it says shows a large sign suspended above the non-GM corn during the study asking: "Would you eat wormy sweet corn?" The GM corn, it claims, was labelled as "quality sweet corn". The paper claims that the corn was marked simply as either genetically engineered or regular. If this is the case, "it is grounds for the journal to retract the article", says Richard Jennings, who studies research conduct at the University of Cambridge. The journal's editor has refused to withdraw the paper, but says he is willing to publish a letter condemning it followed by a response from the lead author, Doug Powell of Kansas State University. To see the picture and for more on the paper go to: For the full New Scientist piece: ------------------------------------------------------------ + THAILAND: GREENPEACE HELPS PLANTER DESTROY GM-CONTAMINATED ORCHARD + MARKET LOSS AND CONTAMINATION - GM PAPAYA + UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII PAPAYA SEEDS STILL GM-TAINTED Click here for a 19-page report in pdf format http://www.gmofreemaui.com/press_releases/Contamination_Report.pdf + EU NATIONS DIVIDED OVER ORGANIC FOOD RULES Several nations, including Belgium, Austria, Italy and Greece, demanded that any new rules on what constitutes organic should ensure that GM content of the product be near zero, and not the proposed 0.9 percent limit, which EU Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel argued was needed to account for accidental contamination. ------------------------------------------------------------ + BASF ADMITS DEFEAT OF GM POTATO EXPERIMENT BASF said it made the decision because of the conditions imposed in the provisional consent given by the Environmental Protection Agency. The cancellation may also have been influenced by nationwide opposition from more than 100 farm and food industry groups, resistance by TDs (members of the Irish Parliament) from all parties, two motions passed unanimously by Meath Co. Council, and the threat of further legal action on planning and constitutional grounds. + ANTI-GM ACTIVISTS ON TRIAL IN BANGKOK |