WEEKLY WATCH number 222
from WEEKLY WATCH editor, Claire Robinson
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Dear all:

I can't resist a patriotic cheer this week for the brave Brits who decontaminated the last remaining GM trial in the UK (EUROPE).

And don't miss new research on organics from an unlikely source, the USDA, which shows that organic farming is better for the soil than conventional no-till and is more profitable than conventional farming (ORGANICS RESEARCH FROM USDA).

Due to technical problems, some of you may not have received GM Watch's MONTHLY REVIEW No. 46. If so, be sure to check it out at
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8089

Claire
www.gmwatch.org / www.lobbywatch.org

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CONTENTS
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EUROPE
THE AMERICAS
ASIA
AFRICA
CLONING
LOBBYWATCH
REGULATION
ORGANICS RESEARCH FROM USDA
NEW BOOK / INTERVIEW
FLAWED TECHNOLOGY

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EUROPE
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+ PROTESTERS DECONTAMINATE UK'S LAST REMAINING GM POTATO TRIAL
During the night of 6 July, a group of activists scaled the security fences and destroyed the crop of GM potatoes at Girton, near Cambridge. The site is Britain's last remaining GM trial site. The potato plants were already flowering, spreading genetic contamination into the surrounding countryside. A similar trial planned in Hull was abandoned earlier this year after a strong campaign and massive concern from nearby farmers. With the destruction of the Cambridge crop, Britain is once again GM free.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8087

+ GM CROP PROTEST BRINGS COURT FINE
Two protesters involved in an earlier demonstration against the growing of GM crops have appeared in court following incidents during a protest picnic at the GM test site in Cambridge.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8081
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8075

+ EU MASHES GM POTATO PLAN
The European Union's council of ministers has delivered a serious blow to biotech companies' ambitions to roll out GM crops across the region by postponing a decision on the 'commercial optimisation' of BASF's Amflora 'genetically optimised potato'. The German EU presidency apparently canned a European Commission proposal to release the Amflora when it became clear that 'a bloc of countries led by Austria, Greece, and Luxembourg would vote against it'.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8075

+ GM MAIZE AND BARLEY TRASHED IN GERMANY
Parts of a GM maize trial in Forchheim, Germany have been destroyed by activists. Parts of a GM barley trial on land belonging to the University of Giessen have also been destroyed.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8076

+ EFSA FAILS TO PROTECT EU CITIZENS FROM RISKY GM MAIZE
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has missed an opportunity to recover its credibility as regulator of GM authorisations in Europe. The authority dismissed the call for further independent investigations into a Monsanto maize (MON863, approved for sale in the EU), the subject of a scientific peer-reviewed study by French research body CRIIGEN which highlighted negative impacts suffered by rats during feeding trials. The authors of the study warned that to disregard the signs of toxicity in the liver and kidney of the test animals would pose a danger to human and animal health.

EFSA's refusal to re-open the file on MON863 in the light of this study is consistent with the authority's stubborn refusal to assess GM applications in a balanced way. Since it was established in 2002, EFSA has rubber-stamped every GM application. It relies solely on data from agro-chemical companies, disregards long-term health and environmental impacts, and dismisses divergent scientific opinions.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8092

Note that one of the scientifically unsupportable arguments EFSA uses to dismiss CRIIGEN's study is that the observed effects are negligible since they are not proportional between the two doses (11 and 33% of GMO in the diet), and that they varied by sex. As CRIIGEN points out, these are significant departures from scientific principles. For instance, in the case of endocrine disruption, effects may not be proportional for different doses, and are rarely identical in males and females! See CRIIGEN's answers to EFSA's critique of its MON 863 study:
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8093

+ MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE FOR SPANISH FARMER JOSEP PAMIES
On 13 September 2003 about fifty members of the Assemblea Pagesa and the Transgenics Fora platform went to an experimental field where the GM maize BT176 was being grown. They symbolically cut a small quantity of the corn. A group of 13 people then went to the Lleida town hall to present the authorities with a petition protesting against unmonitored GM experimentation. They at all times acted peacefully.

A year later, Josep Pamies, the leader of the Slow Food Convivium in Balaguer, Catalonia, was accused by an agent of the Spanish Guardia of attempted and actual bodily harm to persons in authority. Pamies' defence proved the charges to be unfounded since a medical examination showed that the physical harm reported by the agent had been inflicted prior to 2003.

On 25 June 2007