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Thursday, November 03 2005 @ 12:52 PM PST |
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 Nanotech, Genetically Modified Crop News Spotlights Regulatory Gaps
Original Article from OMB Watch
New evidence of long-term persistence of genetically modified crops and new concerns about gaps in monitoring of nanotechnology underscore the risks from failing to embed the Precautionary Principle in regulatory policy.
The first of the two developments is the stunning revelation from a British study that genetically modified crops "contaminate the countryside for up to 15 years after they have been harvested," according to the British newspaper The Independent. Researchers studied five sites across the UK in which genetically modified oilseed rape had been cultivated for one season but later turned over to conventional crops. The researchers found that the GM crops persisted in those fields years after they had been harvested: there were, on average, two GM rape plants per square meter nine years later and one plant per square meter 15 years later.
The second major development is a pair of announcements of gaps in the monitoring of nanoparticles at a recent Environmental Protection Agency nanotechnology workshop held Oct. 26-28, as reported by BNA's Daily Report for Executives:
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Thursday, November 03 2005 @ 12:04 PM PST |
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Most Offspring Died When Mother Rats Ate GM Soy
By Jeffrey M. Smith
The Russian scientist planned a simple experiment to see if eating genetically modified (GM) soy might influence offspring. What she got, however, was an astounding result that may threaten a multi-billion dollar industry.
Irina Ermakova, a leading scientist at the Institute of Higher Nervous Activity and Neurophysiology of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), added GM soy flour (5-7 grams) to the diet of female rats. Other females were fed non-GM soy or no soy at all. The experimental diet began two weeks before the rats conceived and continued through pregnancy and nursing.
Ermakova's first surprise came when her pregnant rats started giving birth. Some pups from GM-fed mothers were quite a bit smaller. After 2 weeks, 36% of them weighed less than 20 grams compared to about 6% from the other groups (see photo below).
(Photo of two rats from the Russian study, showing stunted growth - the larger rat, 19 days old, is from the control group; the smaller rat, 20 days old, is from the "GM soy" group.)
But the real shock came when the rats started dying. Within three weeks, 25 of the 45 (55.6%) rats from the GM soy group died compared to only 3 of 33 (9%) from the non-GM soy group and 3 of 44 (6.8%) from the non-soy controls.
Ermakova preserved several major organs from the mother rats and offspring, drew up designs for a detailed organ analysis, created plans to repeat and expand the feeding trial, and promptly ran out of research money. The $70,000 needed was not expected to arrive for a year. Therefore, when she was invited to present her research at a symposium organized by the National Association for Genetic Security, Ermakova wrote "PRELIMINARY STUDIES" on the top of her paper. She presented it on October 10, 2005 at a session devoted to the risks of GM food.
Her findings are hardly welcome by an industry already steeped in controversy.
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Monday, October 17 2005 @ 09:30 AM PDT |
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One-Fifth of Human Genes Have Been Patented, Study Reveals
Stefan Lovgren for National Geographic News
October 13, 2005 Original Article
A new study shows that 20 percent of human genes have been patented in
the
United States, primarily by private firms and universities.
The study, which is reported this week in the journal Science, is the
first
time that a detailed map has been created to match patents to specific
physical locations on the human genome.
Researchers can patent genes because they are potentially valuable
research
tools, useful in diagnostic tests or to discover and produce new drugs.
"It might come as a surprise to many people that in the U.S. patent
system
human DNA is treated like other natural chemical products," said Fiona
Murray, a business and science professor at the Massachusetts Institute
of
Technology in Cambridge, and a co-author of the study.
"An isolated DNA sequence can be patented in the same manner that a new
medicine, purified from a plant, could be patented if an inventor
identifies a [new] application."
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Sunday, October 16 2005 @ 03:29 PM PDT |
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 Farmers Move to End Terminator
by Sanjay Suri
Original Article
LONDON, Oct 11 (IPS) -
A group of Peruvian indigenous farmers have prepared an extensively researched counter to a Canadian move to revive 'terminator' seeds.
Terminator seeds work only once. For a new crop, farmers would have to go back to sellers. These seeds that do not regenerate like normal seeds would work hugely to the advantage of corporations, to the detriment of farmers.
A United Nations moratorium at present blocks commercialisation of terminator seeds. But a group of countries led by Canada have challenged the UN safety regulation. This has led the Convention on Biological Diversity based in Montreal to open new discussions on relaxing the moratorium on such seeds.
One of the strongest counters to the move so far has come not from experts and officials but by Peruvian, says Michel Pimbert from the London-based International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) that promotes sustainable development at local levels.
After monitoring cultivation methods, about 70 indigenous leaders representing 26 Andean and Amazon communities met in a mountain village last month over two days to collate their findings and assess the damage that could be caused by terminator seeds.
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Sunday, October 09 2005 @ 02:51 PM PDT |
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 GM crop 'ruins fields for 15 years'
By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor
Published: 09 October 2005
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/environment/article318238.ece
GM crops contaminate the countryside for up to 15 years after they have been harvested, startling new government research shows.
The findings cast a cloud over the prospects of growing the modified crops in Britain, suggesting that farmers who try them out for one season will find fields blighted for a decade and a half.
Financed by GM companies and Margaret Beckett's Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the report effectively torpedoes the Government's strategy for introducing GM oilseed rape to this country.
Ministers have stipulated that the crops should not be grown until rules are worked out to enable them to "co-exist" with conventional ones. But the research shows that this is effectively impossible.
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Sunday, October 09 2005 @ 09:25 AM PDT |
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Misuse of gene-altered crops can cause problem
By Rachel MelcerST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH Original Article 10/09/2005
Two Missouri farmers are providing Monsanto Co. and a University of Missouri scientist with a cautionary tale: Misuse Monsanto's Roundup Ready weed-control system, and you're likely to create a stronger weed.
On two separate soybean fields in the northwest part of the state, scientists have found common waterhemp, also known as pigweed, that shows signs of resisting glyphosate herbicide. Creve Coeur-based Monsanto sells glyphosate as Roundup.
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Friday, October 07 2005 @ 09:55 AM PDT |
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Scientists Confirm Failures of Bt-Crops:
Ineffective against insect pests, harmful to health and biodiversity, yield drag, pest resistance.
by Dr. Mae-Wan Ho
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/SCFOBTC.php
A fully referenced version of this paper is posted on ISIS members' website. Details here http://www.i-sis.org.uk/membership.php
Farmers were first
Scientific studies from many countries have now backed up what farmers have known for years, that Bt crops – genetically engineered with Bt toxin proteins from the soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis targeted at insect pests - often failed to protect against pest attacks, and have other problems as well.
Scientists in India, China and the United States found that the levels of Bt toxin produced by Bt crops vary substantially in different parts of the plant and in the course of the growing season, and are often insufficient to kill the targeted pests. This could lead to greater use of pesticides, and accelerate the evolution of pest resistance to the Bt toxin. Pest resistance to a Bt toxin has indeed arisen in the field in Australia.
The Bt toxins are a family of similar Cry proteins identified by numbers and letters. Each Cry protein differs somewhat in amino acid sequence and targets specific pests.
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Friday, September 30 2005 @ 07:20 AM PDT |
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 Experts maintain "co-existence" of GM and GM-free crops is biologically impossible
Leading experts maintain that it is biologically impossible for GM and GM-free crops to co-exist, at a conference organised by Consumers International (CI) and Regione Emilia-Romagna. Ignacio Chapela, Associate Professor at University of California-Berkeley, told CI: ""Co-existence" might be a convenient thing to have politically or commercially but biologically it is an impossibility. For most GMOs the problem of contamination arises immediately: within one generation you have escaping genes."
Ignacio Chapela was one of fourteen experts speaking at a conference '"Co-existence", contamination, and GM-free zones: Jeopardising consumer choice?' in Bologna, Italy on 9 September 2005. Speeches mostly tackled problems with GM contamination and how to legally and technically maintain GM-free agriculture.
Angelika Hilbeck, ETH - Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, told the conference: "trying to prevent GMO contamination starts with the seeds; you want to make sure you get uncontaminated seeds. This is the origin of everything - from there on the contamination multiplies. For example, in Canada it is hardly possible to get GM-free canola seeds any more. Even the seed stock has been contaminated at this point."
Benedikt Haerlin, Director of Save our Seeds and Foundation on Future Farming, told CI: "[the term] "co-existence" as used by industry means that those rejecting GMOs have to accept a so-called minimum level of GM contamination."
David Cuming, GM Campaigns Manager, Consumers International says: "Listening to the experts it is apparent that contamination will occur if GM crops are planted alongside GM-free crops. Governments must take urgent measures to stop GMO contamination to ensure that GM-free food remains widely available to all consumers."
Click here to read speeches, exclusive interviews, and other resources about GMO contamination, "co-existence " and GM-free zones.
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Thursday, September 29 2005 @ 05:53 PM PDT |
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GM Oilseed survives longer in soil - new blow to EU coexistence plans
New research [1] has found that GM oilseed rape could contaminate non-GM crops 15 years after it was grown - longer than previously thought. This represent a major set back to plans to commercialise the crop and EU plans to introduce coexistence rules for growing GM and non-GM crops.
The research [2] looked at how long oilseed rape seeds can survive in the soil and then germinate after they were spilt at harvest. Previously it was thought that GM oilseed seed would persist in the soil for ten years [3]. However the new research on 5 sites across the England and Scotland predicts that one in twenty spilt seeds could survive in the soil for 9 years and 1% could still germinate fifteen years after the GM crop was harvested. The researchers found that some crops dropped 10,000 seeds per square metre (3575 per square metre average) compared with a normal sowing rate for oilseed rape of just 100 seeds per square metre.
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Friday, September 23 2005 @ 09:52 AM PDT |
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National Farmers Union: GMOs not the silver bullet that'll solve agriculture's problems
The Charlottetown Guardian, September 23, 2005
[Via Agnet]
Danny Hendricken, district director of the National Farmers Union, writes to address some of the points that Eddy Dykerman made in his article 'GMOs can benefit the farmer, society and the environment' (The Guardian, Sept. 19, 2005).
GMOs are not the silver bullet we are seeking to reverse or resolve the problems associated with industrial agriculture (soil degradation and unacceptable low farm incomes, to mention a few).
When are we finally going to come to the realization that when we try to manipulate and control nature, we lose? Early in our education system we were taught that altering our environment in even the slightest manner would have grave consequences on the entire animal kingdom. But here we are today genetically changing plants in a manner that could never happen naturally.
The scientists and the companies that have developed this technology believe that it is preposterous that anyone would question the legitimacy of their research.
Our governments constantly tell us that they make decisions regarding the introduction of new GM foods on the basis of 'sound science'. So Canadians should ask: How sound is the science on human health risks posed by GM foods? How many peer-reviewed papers on the health effects of GM foods have been published in academic journals?
Hendricken says that as of 2003, there existed only 10 such papers. And only five of those studies are independent (not 'performed more or less in collaboration with private companies'). And all five of these independent studies report adverse effects from feeding GM foods to lab animals. These are the findings of a 2003 study by Dr. Ian Pryme and Dr. Rolf Lembcke published in the journal Nutrition and Health.
In the U.S., the most recent look at the question of pesticide use is by Dr. Charles Benbrook in his paper entitled 'Genetically Engineered Crops and Pesticide Use in the United States: The First Nine Years'. Benbrook finds that since 1996 " ... GE crops ... have increased corn, soybean, and cotton pesticide use by 122.4 million pounds, or about four per cent." Further, the rate of increase is increasing - peaking at over 16 per cent in 2004.
It is important to remember that no commercially grown crop has been genetically modified for higher yield. The two most common modifications are resistance to glyphosate (often called 'herbicide tolerant' or 'HT'; or 'Roundup Ready', after the most popular brand of glyphosate) and the expression of the Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) insecticide. Neither of these modifications directly increases yield. The implication is that they can increase yield indirectly - by reducing weed or insect pressures. There is no evidence, however, that GM seeds increase yields, either directly or indirectly.
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