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WEEKLY WATCH number 213 (21/4/2007)

from Claire Robinson, WEEKLY WATCH editor
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Dear all:

This week in Greece - a country where every single one of its 54 prefectures has declared itself a GM-free zone, the government is reported to have banned 16 more types of GM corn from being imported, bringing the total to 47. Greece made the move despite the EU Commission's approval of GMOs in the face of opposition from a majority of EU member states. (EUROPE)

And in yet another warning to rice exporting nations, the Greek government is also reported to have blocked the import of 88 tons of Chinese rice due to GM contamination (EUROPE). In China, as in the US, allowing GM rice trials has opened the door to widespread GM contamination and lost exports.

The UK's Science Media Centre has been up to its old tricks again, this time priming journalists with claims that only GM and intensive farming can save the world from food shortages. The SMC's latest shenanigans came at the same time that LobbyWatch published a powerful complaint from an investigative journalist about the SMC and its director, Fiona Fox. (LOBBYWATCH)

It's ironic that one of the major claims to come out of this week's SMC media briefing is that with the new competition between crops grown for biofuels and crops grown for food, we have to use GM to get more food out of the same land. Apart from the lie that GM increases yield, the push for biofuels has of course been keenly encouraged by the GM industry. Create a problem, then offer the "solution" -- a brilliant business strategy, particularly when it's pushed for you by obliging third parties. (LOBBYWATCH)

Talking of which, don't miss our report about the scientists at Broom's Barn research centre in the UK, who've come up with a cunning plan to show that the research that some years ago proved that GM sugar beet was bad for the environment, now proves that, er, it's good for the environment! Broom's Barn scientists have a long history of collusion with industry. (EUROPE)

We also have some great QUOTES OF THE WEEK from former GM scientists who are telling it like it is.

Claire [email protected]
www.gmwatch.org / www.lobbywatch.org

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CONTENTS
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QUOTES OF THE WEEK
ASIA
AUSTRALASIA
THE AMERICAS
AFRICA
EUROPE
LOBBYWATCH
BP-BERKELEY DEAL
NEW FILMS ON GM
CAMPAIGNS OF THE WEEK

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QUOTES OF THE WEEK
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+ SCIENCE FOR SALE AT UC BERKELEY
A UC Davis professor speaking about the impact on academic colleagues of the lucrative "consulting" contracts, patent royalties etc. that accompanied the last biotech "revolution" in the universities: "It's like the invasion of the body snatchers. You take one look in their eyes and realize they are gone."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7770

See also BP-BERKELEY DEAL below.

+ GM SCIENTISTS PUSH GM TO SAVE CAREERS, SAYS BIOTECHNOLOGIST
From an article on the application by New Zealand's public research institute Crop and Food Research to field-test GM brassicas, quoting biotechnologist Dr Elvira Dommisse, who herself worked on the early stages of Crop and Food's GM experiments (EXCERPT):

Some scientists were not keen on GE work but were afraid to talk out about it for fear of losing funding on which jobs depended.

[Dr Dommisse said:] "New Zealand has invested quite heavily in it. As a scientist, once you narrow down into GE your skills are very much in that area, you can't just say, 'I don't like this area any more, I'll zip over to plant breeding instead'.

"You have to try to push it - 'we have got this GE stuff, what are we going to do with it now? We have to keep getting our salaries for the next 10 years, get funding that will keep this project going'.

"If you can get a 10-year bloc of funding, you are home and hosed."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7760

+ INTERVIEW WITH FORMER GM SCIENTIST ON GM POTATO TRIALS
From an interview with Ken Hayes, who's previously researched and developed GM plants, on the forthcoming GM potato trials in the UK:

"... because of this random insertion of the gene, there's always going to be an element of uncertainty as to how that gene will react to being expressed in the new plant and that could lead to things like allergic reactions to toxicity when we consume the plants. And then also how that gene would then interact if it was to cross-fertilise with another plant ...

Interestingly, when I was preparing for this interview, I was having a quick look in some science journals for articles about risks with GM, and it turned out there were so many more articles written about opinion pieces and comments on GM without any experimental basis to them, and it just seems that there's a real lack of experimental data into the risks of GM in our food.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7762

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ASIA
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+ BIO COMMENDS U.S. TRADE REP FOR U.S.-KOREA TRADE AGREEMENT
GM industry body BIO has issued a statement commending the US Trade Representative for brokering a free trade deal with South Korea. This is bound to be a further embarrassment to the S. Korean government, which had denied reports that the US had forced concessions out of it on GMOs in return for a favorable deal on Korean textiles. But the government's own internal documents make clear that it did compromise on safety to get the US deal, which is why BIO's so delighted.

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