from Claire Robinson, WEEKLY WATCH editor
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Dear all

Welcome to WW54 bringing you all the latest news in brief on the GM issue.

GM Watch's new directory on the massive and deceptive PR push behind GM foods has come under fire from two leading UK scientists, Prof Derek Burke CBE and Prof Sir Peter Lachmann FRS, in an article published by The Scientist.
http://www.biomedcentral.com/news/20040108/01

Burke accuses GM Watch of mud-slinging while Lachmann says GM Watch is a "rude and aggressive" organisation that bends the truth to suit its agenda. GM Watch, Lachmann claims, typifies a backward-looking anti-scientific movement that undermines progress and results in "dead people and starving populations" in the developing world.

The implication (shared by the Nuffield report, of which Burke was an author) is that it is a moral imperative to massively support GM crops for the sake of the poor. But these GM promotors are not part of the poor world: quite the reverse, as the Indian trade and policy analyst, Devinder Sharma, points out in a powerful new commentary. (see VOICE FROM THE SOUTH)

Sharma accuses pro-GM scientists like Lachmann and Burke - and Burke is one of those he singles out - of using the hungry to commandeer huge resources for an unproven and risky technology, when those resources could be far better used directly assisting the hungry. There is surplus food a-plenty in India, Sharma points out, but not the money to get it to the hungry.

A tiny self-interested elite is trying to create the illusion that their interests are synonymous with the welfare of the poor. But these scientists' real concern, Sharma says, is to earmark funds in advance for GM crop research - something that assists their own future and that of their children, rather than that of the hungry and the children of the poor. In fact, they are being robbed of whatever little they have under the cover of "feeding the world".

Read VOICE FROM THE SOUTH and the new introduction to the GM Watch directory, and judge for yourself who is honourable and who is right - the likes of Devinder Sharma or the likes of Lachmann and Burke.

The Biotech Brigade: An Introduction
http://www.lobbywatch.org/p1temp.asp?pid=26&page=1

Claire    [email protected]
www.ngin.org.uk

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CONTENTS
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SETBACKS TO THE GM LOBBY
OTHER HIGHLIGHTS OF THE WEEK
VOICE FROM THE SOUTH: DEVINDER SHARMA
HEADLINES OF THE WEEK
SUBSCRIPTIONS

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SETBACKS TO THE GM LOBBY
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+ MONSANTO DELAYS REGISTRY OF ROUNDUP READY WHEAT
Monsanto Canada won't ask an advisory body to consider any of the company's controversial Roundup Ready wheat varieties for registration in 2004, making it impossible for GM wheat to be introduced this year even if the crop passes other regulatory hurdles. Monsanto does not intend to bring forward any current lines for recommendation at the Prairie Regional Recommending Committee on Grains' (PRRCG) 2004 annual meeting in Saskatoon next month.

Approval by the committee is one step Monsanto must eventually pass in order to introduce the wheat. Roundup Ready wheat also still needs regulatory approval from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, Health Canada and the Pest Management Regulatory Agency before it can be introduced commercially in Canada. Those applications have been before the federal government for a year.
http://www.cropchoice.com/leadstry.asp?recid=2319
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=2201

+ 70% OF AMERICANS ALLERGIC TO GMOS
A group of Russian scientists is going to request President Putin to impose a temporary moratorium on GMOs, Alexander Baranov, a research officer of the Institute of Development Biology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, announced at a press conference. He said the measure is necessary until all possible risks and effects of GMOs on the environment and people's health are fully researched. The scientist mentioned that according to the results of investigations conducted by scientist in Sweden and the USA, 8 percent of people in Sweden and 70 percent of people in the USA proved to be allergic to GMOs.

In Russia the number of people with marked symptoms of allergy increased by three times over the past three years. It is possible that this development was caused by GM food and organisms that are widely traded across Russia, Baranov indicated.

According to Baranov, the Grain Union of Russia has recently submitted to the government a bill that envisages legalization of GMOs in Russia. It is therefore necessary to develop and approve a bill on biological safety as soon as possible, and provide access to GMO-related information, the expert concluded.
http://www.rbcnews.com/free/20031211190732.shtml

+ GM CROPS LINKED TO RISE IN PESTICIDE USE

A story in the Guardian, drawing on a recent report by US agronomist Dr Charles Benbrook, says that eight years of planting GM maize, cotton and soya beans in the US has significantly increased the amount of herbicides and pesticides used.

The most comprehensive study yet made of chemical use on genetically modified crops draws on US government data collected since commercialisation of the crops began. It appear