NOFA/Massachusetts Social Action Center

Genetic Engineering News

New Study Shows GM Corn Causes Liver and Kidney Toxicity
A study by Professor Gilles Eric Seralini, a governmental expert in GM from the University of Caen in France, has been released showing that Monsanto used incomplete data to obtain approval of its GM corn and that laboratory rats fed with a GM corn produced by Monsanto show kidney and liver toxicity. ?The study, published in the journal "Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology", analyzed results of safety tests submitted by Monsanto when the company was seeking authorization to market its GM corn MON863. The data shows that MON863 has significant health risks associated with it. Source: http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7637
http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7638
Abstract of the study: http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7650

Judge Orders Immediate Halt To Sales Of GM Alfalfa Seed
A federal judge has ordered an immediate halt to sales of GM alfalfa seed. The ruling by US District Judge Charles Breyer follows his February decision that the US Dept of Agriculture had not fulfilled a requirement to prepare a full environmental impact statement before approving the crop's commercial release in June 2005. The preliminary injunction ordered by Judge Charles Breyer in the Federal Northern District of California today follows his ruling last month finding that USDA violated national environmental laws by approving GE alfalfa without a full Environmental Impact Statement.
Monsanto and Forage Genetics, the developers of the GE alfalfa seed, argued against the injunction. But while Monsanto and its allies claimed that delaying the sale or planting of their GE seed would harm farmers, the judge found otherwise. "Disappointment in the delay to their switch to Roundup Ready alfalfa is not an interest which outweighs the potential environmental harm…" posed by the GE crop, he wrote. Source:?http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7630,
http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7530, Center for Food Safety press release, March 12

Key Monsanto Patent Rejected
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has rejected a key patent in Monsanto's Roundup Ready arsenal, possibly stripping the agribusiness giant of its power to license the technology to farmers. St. Louis-based Monsanto has the right to appeal the decision or try to reach a compromise by reducing the breadth of the patent. It has 60 days to respond. The patent is one of four Monsanto patents the nonprofit Public Patent Foundation asked the patent office to review last fall, alleging they were granted without merit.

"The patents don't deserve to exist because Monsanto didn't come up with something new or unobvious," said Dan Ravicher, executive director. The rejection -- while not a revocation -- "casts a substantial cloud of doubt on Monsanto. They will be less successful in their efforts to sue," Ravicher said. The company requires farmers to sign a licensing agreement saying they will not save Monsanto's seed for future planting. It has sued a number of producers in high-profile cases, including several in the Mid-South, for licensing breaches.
Source: http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7595

Federal Court Orders Halt to New Field Trials of GMOs, Past Trials on Genetically Engineered Creeping Bentgrass Ruled Illegal

Washington, DC - In a decision broadly affecting field trials of genetically engineered crops a federal district judge ruled February 5 that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) must halt approval of all new field trials until more rigorous environmental reviews are conducted. Citing potential threats to the environment, Judge Harold Kennedy found in favor of the Center for Food Safety that USDA's past approvals of field trials of herbicide tolerant, genetically engineered bentgrass were illegal.

"This is a significant victory. The decision requires far more thorough oversight of the environmental impact of these crops, " stated Joseph Mendelson, legal director of the Center for Food Safety. "The Court was clearly concerned that the agency has put our nation's environment at risk by exempting many of these field trials from environmental review. That's why the judge made the decision broadly apply to all future field trials of genetically engineered crops." Mendelson continued.
Source: Center for Food Safety press release, February 6

California Rice Commission Spurns Biotech Rice
On March 14 the California Rice Commission called for a moratorium on experimental plantings of GM rice in the state, saying federal controls meant to keep such varieties from contaminating commercial rice are inadequate. "We have to protect our industry at all costs," said Keith Davis, a Marysville-area rice farmer who is chairman of a group that has been reviewing the industry's genetic-engineering policy over the past several months. The decision by the 40-member group meeting in Colusa was driven largely by concerns that the contamination of the state's rice supplies with even a tiny amount of genetically engineered material could devastate sales to touchy export markets such as Japan and South Korea. The commission represents the state's roughly 1,000 rice farmers and processors.

As much as 40 percent of California's $200 million to $400 million annual rice harvest is sent overseas. Nearly all of the state's rice grows in the Sacramento Valley, where it is the most widely planted crop. Two still-unsolved contamination incidents in the past eight months elsewhere in the country have demonstrated the market hazards. Last summer, a rice variety containing a gene for herbicide tolerance was found in commercial rice in several Southern states. Futures prices for long-grain rice plunged as European importers demanded that each shipment be tested. Some other countries banned U.S. rice altogether. And on March 4, the U.S. Department of Agriculture issued what amounted to a recall for the seed of a popular type of rice grown in the South because it was found to have been contaminated with genetic material not approved for human consumption. Board members say it was this incident that led to the decision.
Source:?http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7646, Sacramento Bee, March 15??

Hawaii House of Representatives Prohibits Outdoor Planting of GMO Coffee
On Tuesday March 6, 2007 the Hawaii State House of Representatives passed HB1577 which prohibits the outdoor planting and outdoor field trials of GMO coffee in the state of Hawaii. It allows for research in an environmentally controlled facility. The vote on the House floor was 45 ayes and 4 nos with 2 excused. This comes on the tails of the historic vote last month in the Hawaii Senate passing SB 958, a ten-year ban on the planting and research on taro, the Native Hawaiian staple crop and the revered ancestor of the Hawaiian people.

"The coffee bill HB1577 is a reasonable, fair and prudent bill, which will help to protect the vibrant Hawaii coffee industry from the contamination that other crops in the U.S. have been affected with." Says Una Greenaway, from the Coaliton to Protect Hawaii Coffee and an organic Kona coffee farmer. "We applaud the foresight of the Hawaii State Representatives to behave in a proactive manner to control the risks that could devastate an industry's markets. The coffee industry in Hawaii, is a 175 year old industry. There are over 600 small family farms in Kona alone that could be affected. We say mahalo (thank you) to the legislature."
Source: Email from Hawaii Seed, March 6

Mexico Stopping Rice Imports at the Border
Mexican officials have stopped rice shipments at the border and are asking for certification that the grain is free of the unapproved LL Rice 601 strain, which contaminated the US commercial supply last year. Mexico is currently the largest export market for US rice. In 2006, U.S. rice exports to Mexico were valued at a record $205 million. It is estimated that 63 percent of the value of U.S. rice imports have been affected by the LLRICE601 variety.

The contaminated rice has been found in rice supplies throughout the southern U.S., and the LLRICE601 contamination scandal, discovered in August 2006, has been the worst crisis for the U.S. rice industry in recent memory. The USA Rice Federation adopted an emergency plan to keep the contamination from next year's harvest, although the bulk of the 2006 harvest is yet to be sold. With the discovery last week of further unidentified contamination, the USDA has taken the unprecedented step of ordering a ban on sales and planting of contaminated rice seed and the uprooting of rice that has already been planted.
Source: http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7642, Greenpeace press release, March 15

Dutch Council Of State Orders Destruction Of BASF GM Potato Trial
The Council of State in the Netherlands has ruled in an appeal by Greenpeace that the field trials of BASF had been illegally permitted by the Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning, and Environment (VROM) and destroyed the permits immediately. The court decision was based on the grounds that 1) these potatoes had been insufficiently tested in a controlled environment (like a greenhouse or laboratory) to be release in the open, and 2) the Ministry had not been able to do a proper environmental effect assessment (as required) since BASF had failed to provide information specific enough for this purpose on the location of the trial sites. Source:?http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7635 ??

Non-GMO Label Announced

Natural food industry leader Whole Foods, as well as five other producers announced last week that they would seek a new certification for their products, "non-GMO verified," in the hopes that it will become a voluntary industry standard for GM-free goods. A non-profit group called the Non-GMO Project runs the program, and the testing is conducted by an outside lab called Genetic ID.

Albert Straus, owner of the Straus Family Creamery in the small northern California town of Marshall, helped start the group when he found that nearly 6% of the organic corn feed he received from suppliers was contaminated by genetically modified (GM) organisms. To root out the genetically modified corn, Straus spent several months and about $10,000 testing, re-testing and tracing back his products: from his own dairy's milk, to other dairies that supply some of his milk, to the brokers who sell them feed, to their mills that grind the corn, to farmers who grow it. To put the GM-free label on his ice cream, Straus will have to trace the chickens that provided the egg yolks, the grain used in the alcohol that carries his vanilla extract and the soy lecithin used as an emulsifier for his chocolate chips.
Source: www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1599110,00.html

Monsanto, Solae Joint Forces For Omega-3 From GM Soy
Monsanto and the DuPont-owned Solae Company have announced a collaboration over the development of omega-3 from genetically-modified soy beans, which could speed up the availability of the healthy ingredient from new non-marine sources. The companies are not committing to a time-line for the introduction of the first fruits of the collaboration, but the spokesperson told NutraIngredients-USA.com that it is fair to expect it within the next five years. The technology involves genetic modification of soy seeds. However Solae says this is the first time that genetic modification has been used with the end of delivering health benefits to consumers. In the past, the goal has been to deliver benefits to farmers in the form of increased yields or disease resistance. Consumer awareness of the health benefits of omega-3 has sky-rocketed in recent years as the scientific evidence stacks up. Industry experts predict that the market for omega-3 products could be worth as much as $7bn by 2011. But there are concerns over the sustainability of fish sources, as well as the amount of fish oil available to the nutrition industry as demand for crude fish oil from the aquaculture industry increases.
Source: http://www.nutraingredients-usa.com/news/ng.asp?n=74827&m=2niu314&c=ygonxcyvsuqokio

Farmers Warned Not To Graze Cattle On Bt Cotton
A notice issued to farmers by the Animal Husbandry officials of Adilabad district, India, marks the first occasion that Indian officials have admitted the toxic effects of Bt cotton on animals: "It has come to our notice that in several blocks of the district, animals are falling sick after grazing on Bt cotton fields ... because of a yet-unidentified toxic material in these plants, it has come to our notice that animals which are grazing on these fields are exhibiting symptoms like shivers, convulsions, running nose, bloat, bloody diarrhea etc., and are dying. Therefore, we appeal to farmers not to graze their animals on Bt cotton fields..."
Source: ?http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7614 http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7596

Planned Merger Angers Black Farmers
A national black farmers group says a proposed merger between Monsanto Co. and Delta and Pine Land will create a monopoly and force black farmers out of the business. Delta and Pine Land operates the largest and longest-running private cottonseed breeding program in the world while Monsanto, one of the world's largest agricultural products companies, makes Roundup, the world's best-selling herbicide.
The deal, still awaiting U.S. Department of Justice approval, would mean a monopoly on the market, and seed prices would shoot up, said John Boyd Jr., president of the National Black Farmers Association. "There is literally no competition for cottonseed, soybean seed and corn seed, genetically engineered." The association represents 80,000 members, predominantly small planters.
Source: http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070223/BIZ/ 702230375/1005, http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/

Uganda To Introduce GM Bananas
Uganda could soon introduce GM bananas after a successful GM sweet banana variety proved resistant to pests and diseases, according to an article in The East African. Geoffrey Arinaitwe, the Ugandan scientist who developed the GM banana featured in the article, is part of a group based in Belgium who have been responsible for a series of attempts to massively hype GM bananas, but each time their claims have been expertly debunked. ?Source: http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7558

Genetic Roulette Is New Jeffrey Smith Book
Genetic Roulette: The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Foods is a new book from the author of Seeds of Deception. ?Former UK government environment minister Michael Meacher says, "This is the authentic book on genetic modification that the world has been waiting for . . . The case presented is absolutely a smoking shotgun that should stop in its tracks any dabbling with GM foods, whether by individual families, food companies, or indeed nations." ?GMO experts Arpad Pusztai and Susan Bardocz write, "Jeffrey Smith's Genetic Roulette destroys the myth that genetically modified organisms are safe and will give sleepless nights to uncritical supporters of GMOs . . . It is a real treasure and the most important GMO source book for policy makers, scientists, and the public." ?
Source: http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7615

This page was last modified on January 21, 2008 at 5:17:35 PM.