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| Organic Consumers Newsletter |
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Frankenfight Round Two: Get Ready for the Next Generation of GE Foods and Crops Evidence continues to mount that the First Wave of genetically engineered (GE) foods and crops (recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone, herbicide-resistant, virus-spliced, and Bt-spliced crops) are in serious trouble. Although the Gene Giants are struggling harder than ever to keep up appearances, mounting global opposition to Frankenfoods--and adverse reports from the lab and fields--signal the beginning of the end for the first generation of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs). Although critics and campaigners still find ourselves fully occupied in slowing down and reversing the First Wave of mutant crops, the international balance of forces are starting to tip in our favor. Among the favorable signs are the following: * Increasing global opposition to GE foods and crops, including now North America. Almost 90% of gene-crops are currently produced in the US and Canada. While major foreign export markets for GE-tainted foods and seeds continue, slowly but surely, to close down (Europe, Japan, South Korea, Brazil) consumer opposition in Canada and the US increases month by month--in spite of, or perhaps even partly because of, the multi million dollar PR campaign being waged by agbiotech interests. Latest industry-funded polls show 59% of Canadians flatly opposed to GE foods, while 51% in the US say the same thing--with the overwhelming majority in both countries expressing mounting concern over the lack of safety-testing and labeling. In Europe up to 70% adamantly oppose GMOs, while 82% of Japanese are opposed. In response North American farmers are already starting to cut back on major GE crops--corn, soybeans, and canola. Latest July USDA estimates show a 20% drop in GE corn acreage and a 6% drop in soybeans, while Canada analysts predict a 10% reduction in GE canola. * Leading food companies and supermarket chains all over the world, fearing the growing consumer backlash, are removing, or else preparing to remove, GE ingredients from their brand-name products. As soon as giant supermarket chains and global meat and fish companies ban GE grains and animal feeds--a basically irreversible process already well underway--the global market for American corn and soya will collapse. Although there was only a 6% drop in US farmers planting Roundup Ready soybeans this year, by next year we can expect major reductions. * Adverse reports from the lab and fields. As predicted for years by biotech critics: canola superweeds have appeared in Canada; Bt crops are damaging beneficial insects and soil microorganisms, promoting pest resistance, and disrupting ecological balances so that previous minor pests like Stink Bugs on cotton are proliferating; increased IGF-1 levels in rBGH-derived milk is posing higher cancer risks; herbicide-resistant soybeans are decreasing yields and causing farmers to use 2-5 times more herbicides than conventional farmers; antibiotic-resistant genes (found in all GE foods) are transferring "horizontally" from Frankenfoods into the bacteria of the digestive tract, so that animals and humans ingesting GMOs are likely incubating ever more virulent pathogens; and Cauliflower Mosaic Viral Promoters (found in almost all GE foods) are likely setting off hazardous biochemical reactions in our bodies. For more information on GE hazards see the Organic Consumers Association website <www.purefood.org> and its links. A recent Wall Street report showed little enthusiasm on the part of investors for purchasing Monsanto's stock. Leading life science corporations like Pharmacia & Upjohn, Novartis, Dupont, and Aventis are either decreasing planned agbiotech investments or else spinning off their agbiotech divisions. In short prospects have dimmed for the Biotech Century. But don't worry the gene engineers tell us, even if you haven't liked the Cafe Biotech menu thus far, you'll just love the second generation of GMOs currently being cooked up in our labs, test plots, fish tanks, and tree farms. A look at the propaganda and activities of the Gene Giants reveal a simple yet sinister five-year plan: * Distract consumers from worrying about the ever more obvious hazards of the first generation of GE foods and crops by dazzling them with tales of how the next generation of GMOs will (1) feed the starving masses; (2) nourish and vaccinate the poor; (3) make foods, even junk foods, more nutritious; and (4) solve the problems created by the unsustainable practices of the global timber, paper, and fishing industries. * Delay or derail strict national and international regulation of GMOs based upon the precautionary principle by cutting "backdoor deals" among the bureaucrats of the largest G-8 and OECD nations. Create further delays by prolonging endless debate at World Trade Organization meetings or the Codex Alimentarius. * By the time the Gene Giants delay regulations and distract the public for 3-5 years, GMOs and GMO contamination in the environment will be so pervasive that the public will become fatalistic. By then the second generation of GMOs will be on the market and the Luddites and anti-globalization campaigners will have been divided, coopted, or defeated. The only way we can stop this diabolical plan from succeeding is by waging a protracted battle on two fronts. While stepping up our resistance to the First Wave of Frankenfoods and crops and literally driving them off the market, we must simultaneously start to educate and mobilize the global grassroots against the forthcoming Second Wave of GMOs. For a start let's take a critical look at GE functional foods, trees, and fish. Gene-Altered "Functional Foods" --Dubious Benefits and Human Health Risks One of the central myths propagated by agbiotech over the past few years is that GE crops will increase farm productivity and feed the world's 800 million hungry people. But as respected anti-hunger organizations like Oxfam, Christian Aid, and Food First, and experts like Vandana Shiva have revealed, this claim is nothing more than a lie <www.purefood.org/ge/gerice.cfm> and <www.purefood.org/Corp/tenreasons.cfm>. The world already produces twice as much food as necessary to provide all six billion of us with a nutritious and adequate diet now. Sensing that many people are no longer swallowing the "GE Will Feed the World" myth, the Gene Giants have had to modify their tune. Now they say that new gene-altered "functional foods" being readied for market will be fortified with vitamins, spliced with disease-fighting capabilities, or altered so as to be less fatty and healthier. The flagship product of GE functional foods is the so-called vitamin A enhanced "Golden Rice,'' bankrolled to the tune of $100 million by the Rockefeller Foundation and offered by the GE Giants as a "gift" to the developing world. Unfortunately this miracle rice is a hoax, and likely a dangerous hoax as well. First of all poor people have vitamin A or Beta-Carotene deficiencies, not because there's something wrong with the non-genetically engineered rice they're eating, but because they don't have the money or resources to eat a well-rounded diet with lots of green and yellow vegetables, fruits, and fish. Even if Golden Rice will actually grow in the real world in diverse terrain and climates (an open question since so far it's only been grown in the lab), for poverty-stricken people unable to afford much more than rice it's not going to solve their nutritional problems. The insidious consequence of Golden Rice and related myths of other GE functional foods is that it may delay or indefinitely distract the world community from getting to the root of the problem-- i.e. poverty and injustice. Wasting billions of dollars subsidizing research on GE crops is worse than misguided, it's literally criminal. Land reform, poverty reduction, and sustainable/organic agriculture are the solution to world hunger, not genetic engineering. Second of all genetically engineered rice (and other functional foods) will still contain potentially hazardous GE constructs such as viral promoters (derived from the Cauliflower Mosaic Virus) and, most likely, antibiotic-resistant marker genes as well. In addition scientists warn that over consuming Vitamin A can be dangerous for pregnant women, young children, people with liver disease, diabetics, and people with hyperthyroid conditions. How do the gene engineers propose to regulate the dose of Beta-Carotene that people will be ingesting with a diet composed primarily of Golden Rice? And of course similar hazards arise when you look at other vitamin-enhanced GE foods in the pipeline such as soybeans and other grains or vegetables. Even scarier is the notion of dosing people with indeterminant amounts of live vaccines or medicines gene-spliced into their food. Not to mention the ecological consequences of drug or vaccine-spliced plants spreading their mutant characterists into non-GE crop varieties or related species via genetic pollution. Promoting Healthier Junk Foods While 800 million people in the world suffer severe health problems from being malnourished, another 800 million people, mainly in the industrialized North, suffer from obesity--closely related to the public over consumption of junk foods, meat, and animal products. Here again the Gene Giants tell us they've got a solution, namely genetically engineered junk foods and factory-farmed meat (french fries, cooking oil, beef, pork, margarine) which are lower in fats or calories. But as food activists from <www.corporatewatch.org> in Britain point out, the next generation of Frankenfoods are mainly "about making basically unhealthy food (such as chips and crisps) a little bit healthier... But even if they were to work as is claimed in the corporate PR, these foods are in reality completely unnecessary when judged against the benefits of a truly healthy and balanced diet. Instead, by convincing consumers that unhealthy, fatty foods are nutritious, these new crops might instead lead to a deterioration in people's health." Genetically Engineered Tree Farms: The "Final Solution" to Global Deforestation Forestry and pulp paper production is now one of the largest and most lucrative industries in the world, with an estimated value of the world's timber harvest annually of $400 billion. Unfortunately for the planet and its living creatures, corporate greed and unsustainable forestry practices have caused massive deforestation and devastation to the planet's biodiversity and carrying capacity. Confronted with rapidly accelerating environmental damage and species extinction, and now undeniable global climate disruption, a growing segment of the public have become alarmed and concerned. As a consequence the large transnational timber and paper corporations, such as International Paper, Weyerhauser, Boise-Cascade, UPM-Kymmene (formerly Champion International), and Mitsubishi, along with the oil, auto, and utilities industries, find themselves under increasing public scrutiny and pressure. Sensing a major business opportunity, Monsanto and the Gene Giants have sat down and begun negotiating with the world's largest timber and paper companies (as well as the other major greenhouse gas/climate disruption culprits, the oil, auto, and utilities companies) and have come up with a "final solution"--plant billions of fast growing, herbicide-resistant, fiber-altered GE trees on tree plantations all over the globe. This way transnational corporations will be able to produce more timber and paper for the voracious global market (without changing current forestry or paper industry practices), soak up some of the climate-disrupting CO2 greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (faster-growing trees on vast tree plantations will soak up more CO2), and reduce toxic pollution in the paper industry. Down the road the biotech lobby also promise us pest-resistant fruit trees and even tastier and more nutritious fruit. All this may sound rather nifty at first, until you start to think about some of the downsides of gambling with the future of our trees, of tampering with the genetic structure and life cycle of the world's forests. For example: * GE tree plantations will replace biologically diverse forests with fast-growing, herbicide-resistant identical trees planted in even rows with no "competing" plants growing underneath them. Native forests will be logged and replaced by corporate tree plantations even faster than they are now, since GE trees will grow much faster and will be able to be sprayed with world record amounts of toxic herbicides such as Monsanto's Roundup. * Trees produce enormous amounts of pollen, which can travel up to hundreds of miles. Trees also distribute their genetic material through seed dispersal, regeneration from roots, runners and suckers--not to mention horizontal gene transfer to fungi, bacteria, and viruses. Normal trees will inevitably cross with GE mutants (herbicide resistant, fiber-altered, or Bt-spliced trees), creating "supertrees" which will crowd out natural forests. This in turn will kill off beneficial insects, decrease the food available for wildlife, and force tree pests into adjacent natural forest areas where they will wreak havoc. * Fast-growing GE trees (which can grow more than three feet a month and can be harvested in four years) use up tremendous quantities of water and will kill off other trees and plants by depleting the water table. In addition the leaves from Bt-spliced trees will create toxic soil conditions, undermining the entire soil food web and natural systems of composting on the forest floor. * Scientists warn that the enormous quantities of pollen generated by Bt-spliced and other GE trees will likely cause major allergic reactions in humans. * GE trees patented by Dow, Novartis, and other companies altered to produce less lignin (the substance in the cell walls of trees and plants that makes them strong and stiff) will cross-pollinate will trees and other organisms and cause major alterations in the forest ecosystem. * Timber and paper corporations promoting low-lignin trees say that pulp paper processing will be able to use less chlorine and toxic chemicals in dealing with GE trees--obscuring the fact that there are already commercially viable non-timber low-lignin plants that we should be using to produce paper products (hemp, kenap, and residues from food crops) instead of trees. Turning to low-lignin GE trees will also cover up the fact that pulp and paper companies are deliberating poisoning the environment by refusing to upgrade their mills with new technology that could enable them to avoid using chlorine and other toxic chemicals and then discharging their dioxin-laden wastes into the air and water. * GE companies are planning to use Terminator or Terminator-like technologies to produce GE trees which are sterile, thereby not only making the trees grow faster but also giving them a monopoly over their patented gene-altered tree varieties. Given the imprecision of gene-splicing, the intricate, little understood, and long-term evolution of trees in relation to changing climatic conditions, and the inherent instability of the genome of genetically engineered trees these Terminator traits will inevitable contaminate "normal" trees all over the world. As one British newspaper, the Daily Telegraph put it: "Terminator trees, genetically engineered never to flower, could ensure a silent spring in the forests of the future. Such trees will grow faster than before, but will be devoid of the bees, butterflies, moths, birds, and squirrels which depend on pollen, seed, and nectar." If all this sounds less than reassuring, how about herbicide-resistant genetically enginered grass for lawns and golf courses, a new product line being readied for mass commercialization in the United States? See <www.purefood.org/patent/grass.cfm> Frankenfish: How to Make the Global Fish and Marine Life Crisis Even Worse Industrial-style commercial fishing and environmental pollution are slowly but surely killing off all of the fish and other marine life in our oceans and surface waters. Rather than make the transnational fish corporations change their practices (almost a third of all fish caught by factory fishing boats are killed and then tossed overboard for example), and stop factory farms and industry from polluting our waterways, the Gene Engineers and factory-style fish farms have a "better idea"--genetically engineered Frankenfish. Building upon the bottom line unsustainable practices of industrial fish and shrimp farms (feeding antibiotics and rendered animal protein to fish, allowing caged fish to escape and kill off native wild species, polluting delicate wetlands and fish breeding areas, using up more fish protein to feed captive fish than is produced by the full-grown fish, etc.), the proponents of GE fish tell us they'll help feed the world by producing faster-growing, disease-resistant mutants in gigantic tanks and fish nets. Like GE trees, Frankenfish are being highly touted and promoted. For consumers, restaurants, and fish farmers the idea of a GE Atlantic salmon which grows twice as fast or six times faster than a normal salmon might sound like a good idea. But this GE blue revolution in aquaculture, which Canadian and US officials may possibly approve for commercialization as soon as next year, has its downside. Consider these hazards: * GE fish will inevitably escape from confinement, just as millions of fish from commercial fish farms already do every year. Once out of confinement fast-growing GE fish eat more and will will consume food needed by native species. GE fish will carry viruses or other diseases that can ravage native populations. * As the New York Times (May 1, 2000) reports, recent studies ( A Purdue University Study published in the Nov. 1999 Proceedings of the National Academy of Science) show that native fish will more readily breed with giant Frankenfish than they will with their own native breed. Over the short run this means that Frankenfish will breed and multiply while native species will die out. Of course over time these mutant breeds will likely be unable to adapt to changing environmental conditions and then they too will die out. "In addition," the Times points out, "there is the possibility of unpredictable environmental disruptions, like those that occur when non-native species invade ecosystems, as the zebra mussels have the Hudson River." GE fish companies argue that their new Frankenfish will be sterile, so you don't have to worry about them interbreeding with wild relatives. But even the proponents of GE fish admit there's no way that companies can guarantee 100% sterility in their Frankenfish, not to mention the frightening possibility that these sterility traits could be inadvertently transferred to native species. * Scientists warn that increased levels of growth hormones in GE fish could be hazardous to humans. Certainly fish whose altered genetic structure makes them constantly pump out unnatural levels of growth hormones will be genetically weakened and more susceptible to disease. To protect and maximize their investments in these fast-growing but sickly mutants, fish farmers will need to feed these fish more antibiotics and rendered animal protein in their feed. This in turn will mean more antibiotic residues in fish that consumers eat, as well as more antibiotics in our surface waters and waste systems. Some scientists warn that since fish, like mammals, produce prion proteins, feeding hormone-supercharged GE fish additional rendered animal protein could conceivably cause fish to produced malformed prion proteins--thereby causing a Mad Cow-like disease to emerge in fish. * Green salmon. Genetically engineering fish is inherently unpredictable. GE fish have been born with grotesquely deformed heads and gill flaps, with descendants of some GE fish showing deformities, even if the parent fish had appeared to be normal. One batch of young GE salmon were pale green instead of the normal brown color of young salmon and rather than turning pink as they matured remained green. The Second Wave of genetically modified organisms--so-called functional foods, GE trees, and GE fish--promise to be just as bad as the First Wave of agbiotech Frankenfoods and crops that consumers and campaigners worldwide are trying to drive off the market now. So as we step up the attack on the First Wave of GE foods and crops we must simultaneously begin to launch a preemptive strike against the Second Wave which is rapidly bearing down on us. Stay tuned to our website <www.purefood.org> and BioDemocracy News for the latest developments. ### Ronnie Cummins Organic Consumers Association 6114 Hwy 61 Little Marais, Mn. 55614 Tel. 218-226-4164 Fax 218-226-4157 email: [email protected] http://www.purefood.org To subscribe to the OCA's free electronic newsletter, BioDemocracy News/Organic View, go to the OCA website <www.purefood.org> or send an email to: [email protected] with the simple message: subscribe
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