Monsanto delays registry of Roundup Ready wheat

January 3
National Post (Canada)

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 genetically modified wheat to be introduced this year even if the crop passes other regulatory hurdles. Monsanto has completed the required three years of field testing for several lines of its Roundup Ready wheat, which is engineered to withstand doses of the herbicide Roundup. However, 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. The PRRCG formally meets once a year to make recommendations on which newly developed varieties of grain the Canadian Food Inspection Agency's registration office should approve. 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.

The food labeling tangle

The FDA should set clear rules to help consumers make informed decisions

January 3
Los Angeles Times editorial

A genetically engineered hormone to boost milk production in cows won Food and Drug Administration approval 10 years ago, but the dairy-consuming public still hasn't fully bought the idea. That's largely why milk labeled organic has been one of the fastest-growing segments of the food market.

Because the FDA never set clear labeling rules for this food staple, confusion has tangled courts and consumers ever since. It's time to end the mess, and in a simple way that helps customers make up their own minds.

Monsanto Corp., maker of recombinant bovine somatotropin or rBST, is intent on changing public perceptions of its product. The FDA found that milk from cows given the hormone showed no measurable effect on human health. So Monsanto is suing a Maine dairy that is among many advertising their milk as having "no artificial growth hormones." The dairy's wording implies that milk from rBST cows is inferior, Monsanto says, violating FDA rules that prohibit such claims.

It does no such thing. The dairies are not creating consumer attitudes toward rBST, though they're certainly taking advantage of existing concerns. Polls show that people want to know about artificial hormones and antibiotics used to produce milk. Some accept unsubstantiated claims that the hormone's use could lead to health problems in humans. Others worry about a more valid concern that the hormone causes more udder infections, thus requiring more use of antibiotics, which can contribute to drug-resistant bacteria. Consumers Union opposes its use. Canada and the European Union ban it, but because of its effect on cows, not humans.

The FDA didn't help matters 10 years ago when it set up mushy labeling rules, allowing states to set their own labeling laws but pushing for disclaimers along the lines of "No significant difference has been shown between milk derived from rBST-treated and non-rBST-treated cows."

Food purchasers want to make informed decisions. Were the cattle for their beef fed a vegetarian diet? Is that salmon wild or farmed? Were pesticides used in the orange groves, or artificial hormones in the dairy? The FDA should encourage giving consumers the information to form their own judgments, not cloud the issue and crowd the courts through arcane and unclear rules.

Monsanto says no GM wheat in 2004

January 3
Saskatchewan News Network

REGINA -- Monsanto Canada won't ask an advisory body to consider any of the company's Roundup Ready wheat varieties for registration in 2004, making it impossible for genetically modified wheat to be introduced this year even if the crop passes other regulatory hurdles.

Monsanto has completed the required three years of field testing for several lines of its Roundup Ready wheat, which is engineered to withstand doses of the herbicide Roundup.

However, 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.

"The decision not to bring forward any of our current lines for recommendation was made after extensive review and discussion with both internal and external stakeholders, and is in keeping with the milestones we have set for the responsible and positive introduction of Roundup Ready wheat," stated the Dec. 8 update to stakeholders.

The PRRCG formally meets once a year to make recommendations on which newly developed varieties of grain the Canadian Food Inspection Agency's registration office should approve.

Approval by the committee is one step Monsanto must eventually pass in order to introduce the wheat. In a separate process, Roundup Ready wheat 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.

Monsanto Canada spokesperson Trish Jordan said Friday that regulatory approval is only one step and on the road to a commercial release of the wheat.

Jordan said Monsanto is committed to meeting certain milestones, such as making sure there is market acceptance and an appropriate grain handling system, before launching the product on the market.

But the issue of Roundup Ready wheat has been contentious. Opponents range from environmentalists concerned about genetically modified food to marketers worried that GM grain won't be accepted by buyers abroad.

And while the introduction of Roundup Ready wheat "isn't imminent," the company's decision not to ask for variety recommendation in 2004 has no commercial impact on the project, Jordan said. "This is a project we're moving forward with carefully and responsibly," she said.

A spokesperson for the Canadian Wheat Board -- which opposes the introduction of genetically modified wheat due to lack of market acceptance -- called Monsanto's decision appropriate. But Rheal Cenerini said the board will continue to lobby the federal government to include a cost-benefit analysis in the registration process for genetically modified wheat.

"(The decision) doesn't change their plans and it doesn't change ours, in the sense that we continue to work with the federal government to try to make sure that the registration process takes into account farmers' financial interests," he said.

Author disputes safety of non-organic food

January 3
Daily Herald (Chicago)

Check the ingredient label of your favorite snack cracker, cereal or soda and it's likely you'll find some form of soy, corn or canola listed.

If it's not labeled organic, it's also probable those foods contain genetically modified ingredients. About 70 percent of the items on American grocery store shelves now contain genetically modified ingredients, according to the Grocery Manufacturers of America.

Some seeds are genetically altered to make the plants resistant to certain herbicides used by farmers. Others are modified to produce their own pesticides to kill bugs that destroy crops.

The policies of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration support industry claims that genetically modified foods are essentially the same as their traditional counterparts.

Jeffrey M. Smith isn't so sure.

The activist and author of "Seeds of Deception" will be in Naperville and Bloomingdale next week to discuss his concerns about the dangers of biotechnology, industry influence and the U.S. government's decision not to label the new foods.

"These foods should never have been approved," Smith said, adding that most Americans don't realize they eat genetically modified food daily.

Smith, who lives in Iowa, has been actively opposing genetically modified foods for about 10 years. He travels the country giving lectures and recently returned from Brazil, where he discussed modified food policies with government leaders.

Unlike the United States, many countries, including Japan, Australia and the European Union, have strict import and labeling rules for genetically modified foods.

Smith also hopes to put a copy of his book in the hands of world leaders around the globe to educate them on what he believes are potential hazards of genetically modified foods.

Environmentalists are especially concerned about the potential long-term impact of genetically modified crops on nature. Smith will focus his remarks on the potential effects on human health.

"We're in the infant stages of understanding what we're doing," he said.

Industry officials maintain that a single gene can be changed with little impact to the rest of a plant's DNA. But Smith said changing one gene can alter up to 5 percent of the DNA in a plant, he said. How those shifts will affect the human body in the long term has yet to be determined, he said.

"There hasn't been a significant study of the health risks of crops on the market," Smith said.

Elwood Richard, president of NOW Foods, said his company is happy to host one of Smith's appearances because increasing public awareness of the issue is vitally important.

"So many people, when they see what is happening, they just give up and say, 'I'm going to go live in the mountains and grow my own food,'" Richard said.

He acknowledged the fight against genetically modified foods is an uphill battle.

Richard's company, which operates the Fruitful Yield health food store chain, has about 500 employees. By comparison, St. Louis-based Monsanto, one of the largest producers of genetically modified seeds, has thousands of employees and millions of dollars to spend on public relations each year, Richard said.

"We still keep plugging away," he said.

Smith said he also intends to continue fighting biotechnology. While many who attend his lectures already buy organic and avoid genetically modified foods, he said he doesn't feel he's preaching to the choir.

"I consider it arming the choir," Smith said. "I am totally confident we're going to win this. The more people understand about genetically modified foods the less they trust them."

Mendocino new biotech battlefield

January 3
Sacramento Bee

A grass-roots effort to ban genetically engineered crops has thrust Mendocino County into a nationwide power struggle over who gets to make the rules for biotech plants.

The first lawsuit attempting to slow down the proposed ban failed this week. But it promises to be only the beginning of legal arguments over the county's March 2 ballot Measure H -- the first of its kind in the country and one that takes advantage of a void in public policy.

At issue is whether local or state governments can set stricter biotech policies than the federal government and the degree to which they can set their own rules where federal standards do not exist.

Historically, California has done little to regulate biotech crops even though it has ample reason to do so: It is the nation's largest farm state, the center of its organic food production and one of the most popular states for field-testing genetically modified crops.

Co-owners of an organic brew pub in Mendocino County are aiming to change that locally with Measure H, which they started as a pre-emptive strike against the spread of biotech into the county's crops, such as wine grapes.

Precedents set in left-leaning Mendocino are being watched closely by organic activists eyeing copycat measures elsewhere.

"You may be able to find counties around the country that would be interested in this kind of thing, so it has some real national implications," said Michael T. Roberts, director of the National Agriculture Law Center.

Also watching closely is the state's major farm chemical trade group, the California Plant Health Association, whose members include international biotech giants such as Monsanto, Bayer CropScience and Dow AgroSciences.

Those companies joined others to spend more than $5 million in 2002 to defeat an Oregon ballot measure that would have required labeling of genetically modified foods sold there.

"It's just bad policy for a county to regulate crops in this manner," association President Steven Beckley said of the proposed biotech ban. "If it's Mendocino County today, it could be some other county tomorrow."

Beckley said the association will decide in the coming weeks how far it will go to stop the initiative, but a spokeswoman said the association hired a company to "take the temperature" in Mendocino.

Several county residents have reported getting polling phone calls that seem to push a pro-biotech agenda. The crop association spokeswoman said she did not know whether that was an association poll.

A few days before Christmas, the crop association took its first legal swipe at the ballot measure, filing a lawsuit aimed at deleting sections of voters' pamphlet arguments submitted by supporters of the biotech crop ban.

For instance, they tried to remove a section that said organic farmers would lose organic certification if biotech genes polluted their crops. Federal rules currently provide leeway for unintentional contamination.

However, the lawsuit failed Monday when a county judge said the language in question was no more misleading than the statements offered against the ban -- for instance, that the ballot measure would subject backyard gardens to government review.

Supporters of the measure were quick to paint the legal challenge as an attempt by unprincipled mega-corporations -- outsiders -- to undermine the local democratic process.

"They don't live here. They don't work here or own farms here," said measure creator Els Cooperrider, owner of the Ukiah Brewing Co., in a press statement after the court victory.

Several federal laws and three federal agencies regulate various aspects of biotech crops. However, federal regulators have shied away from regulating -- or even monitoring -- biotech plants after they are approved for consumers.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture declined to say how it views local efforts like Mendocino's.

The result is a checkerboard of state and local policies, most of which attempt to protect the biotechnology industry. In 2001-02, the Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology found 158 pieces of legislation on agricultural biotechnology introduced in 39 states.

Approximately 30 states passed legislation prohibiting destruction of biotech fields. Only a handful legislated more complex matters such as who is liable when biotech genes drift into non-biotech crops.

"Liability issues ... are good examples of the kind of real world issues that ... states are increasingly having to look at," said Michael Rodemeyer, executive director of the Pew Initiative, a nonpartisan research group in Washington, D.C.

Rodemeyer said it's not clear whether states can set stricter environmental standards for biotech crops than the federal government, although California commonly does that with potential environmental threats such as farm chemicals.

Lack of clarity at the state level means that Mendocino is free to make its own rules, according to Frank Zotter Jr., Mendocino County's chief deputy counsel.

"There is currently a vigorous debate about the safety and potential impacts of genetically modified organisms in the food supply," Zotter said in a legal analysis of Measure H for Mendocino County supervisors.

"It would not be irrational for a community to take the step of prohibiting such activity pending further study or until higher echelons of government choose to allow such activity despite local regulation," he said.

The California Plant Health Association argues that Measure H could give the county an economic advantage over places that haven't banned genetically engineered crops. That, it claims, violates federal laws concerning free interstate commerce.

In a nine-page legal analysis submitted to Mendocino supervisors, the association's Beckley also said the proposal violates sections of the federal Plant Protection Act, which regulates biotech plants, and the U.S. Constitution, which gives federal law authority over states.

Consistent federal support for biotechnology, he said, means that anti-biotech efforts "would be an obstacle to congressional objectives."

Despite such assertions, Allen Cooperrider, who with wife Els started the Measure H drive, remains confident that the proposed ban is legally sound.

Political reality erodes that confidence some, however. Pressure from the farm chemical lobby could draw the state Legislature into an issue it has largely avoided, which Cooperrider worries could undermine Mendocino's attempt to create a biotech-free haven.

Biotech fish that glow draw little fanfare in local debut

January 1
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

The new face of biotechnology is darting around a fish tank at Clayton Pet Emporium off South Hanley Road.

The GloFish, a new form of the tropical zebra danio, is the first genetically modified pet to be sold. Coral genes spliced into its genome give its white and black skin a fluorescent reddish-pink glow under ultraviolet light.

GloFish are for sale now at several local pet shops for $9 each, though national distribution will begin Monday.

The firm marketing the fish hopes the creature, invented by scientists in Singapore, will raise positive awareness of genetically modified organisms. So far, local pet stores that carry the fish report modest interest in GloFish, tepid sales and little outcry.

But the fish has caused quite a stir in California. There, the state Fish and Game Commission slapped strict regulations on "transgenic aquatic animals" in February, and refused to make an exception to allow the pet fish to be sold.

But in 49 states, GloFish can drift through the piecemeal framework of regulation with little review.

Dr. Jim Diamond, a retired physician in California who chairs the Sierra Club's committee on genetic engineering, said he worries about new exotic species getting loose and damaging the environment. The lax regulation of the inch-and-a-half-long fish, he said, could set an alarming precedent. "If you're not prepared to regulate that, how can you regulate at all?" he asked.

Experts say chances are extremely low that the zebra danio, found naturally in Asian tropical freshwaters, could survive in cooler American waters, with or without its newfound luminescence. For some though, any possibility that the fish could take hold - and potentially affect existing fish populations - is too great.

"I would not say that genetic engineering is OK if you show there's no damage, because I don't believe that there's a way you could show there's no danger," said Don Fitz, a spokesman for the St. Louis Green Party.

Purdue University geneticist William Muir focuses his research on how new species interact. He agrees that it's "impossible to prove a negative" and show that a particular animal product won't have some effect on the environment.

But that hasn't stopped him from running the numbers. Last year, Muir found that the tropical danio wouldn't survive very long in American waters. But work two years before showed that a Japanese medaka fish, genetically modified to grow rapidly, would have a mating advantage and quickly crowd out a natural fish population.

That finding led some to question fast-growing genetically modified salmon, which the Food and Drug Administration is considering for approval for commercial growing and sale.

The issue of exotic species invading aquatic habitats has particular resonance among local outdoorsmen and conservationists. Introduced to American waters as an ornamental fish more than two centuries ago, Asian species of carp have come to dominate local waters, upset ecosystems and cause general havoc. The silver carp jumps into motorboats and can injure fishermen.

That experience, along with other reservations, leads Missouri B.A.S.S. Federation President George Thomlinson to call for better regulation of new species of fish that could enter state waters - especially genetically modified ones.

"Carp's been here forever, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't learn from our mistake," said Thomlinson, whose group serves as an umbrella for 60 bass clubs.

On the state level in Illinois and Missouri, regulation of genetically modified pets is all but nonexistent. In California, companies can petition for exemptions from restrictions on genetically modified fish, if they show the new animals safe for human health or state waters.

No such step is required here. "Sometimes we don't know what aquarium fish are in the pet shops," said Steve Eder, fisheries division administrator at the Missouri Department of Conservation, which conducts sporadic inspections of pet shops.

In Illinois, the Department of Agriculture regulates licensed pet stores but relies largely on federal guidelines.

Critics question whether the federal government has a handle on the problem. The FDA chose not to regulate GloFish, though a spokesman said the agency had "consulted with" the Environmental Protection Agency. No law or rule requires the agency to investigate future genetically modified pets.

The Washington-based nonprofit Center for Food Safety has questioned whether the FDA is qualified to make ecological judgments.

Executives behind GloFish say they consulted more than two dozen scientists on the question of environmental safety, even hiring a biologist to ensure the safety of any college students who might ingest the fish to try to glow.

Alan Blake, chief executive officer of Yorktown Technologies, an Austin, Texas, firm that is selling the GloFish, said that most scientists who conducted the analyses for the firm were not paid.

Muir, the Purdue geneticist, fears that future firms will not be as seemingly responsible, and could exploit what amounts to a regulatory loophole for pets. "If they make a colored carp, they will sell like hotcakes - and they will get loose," he said.

That is the overriding concern for activists as they shift their focus to genetically enhanced fast-growing salmon, which are grown in pens along the ocean coast. Batches of 50,000 fish or more at one time can escape from the pens.

The firm that is hoping to sell the salmon is Aqua Bounty Technologies, based outside Boston. It plans to sterilize the salmon eggs with pressure shocks, though fish grown in land-based "secured facilities" will not all be sterilized.

Muir said that a small number of fish are likely to stay fertile regardless of the efforts, and data thus far suggest that the genetically modified salmon would have no mating advantage over salmon in the ocean, and would probably be eliminated in the sea.

Wellspring Cafe in Springfield, Mo., is among many restaurants nationwide that have pledged not to serve the salmon even if the FDA clears it for sale. Chef John Manion at Mas, a Latino eatery in Chicago, said he too would refuse genetically modified fish, calling the new salmon "not a natural product."

Cheryl Hammond, chair of the executive committee of the eastern Missouri group of the Sierra Club, adds larger ethical concerns to the environmental worries. She questions "whether it's appropriate to modify the genes of an animal purely for human entertainment."

In an op-ed essay in the San Francisco Chronicle, a commissioner on the California panel that banned GloFish said that while state scientists said the fish were safe, "it was a decision based on values . . . where a transgenic organism can help feed the hungry, heal the sick or clean up the environment, the benefits may justify some level of risk."

Others point out that the GloFish technology is a particularly humane way to tint fish. Some in the aquarium fish industry use outlandish - some would say cruel - techniques to spruce up ornamental fish. Painted Glass Tetras are colored with a dye injected into the spine with a needle. Albino Oscars are painted by hand. African Cichlids are fed colored food.

No need to paint baby GloFish - they glitter pink just like their GloParents.

"They're exactly like the regular danios. The only difference is that they're spazzing out in the blue light," said Danny Zinna, a salesman at the Clayton store.

Others are skeptical.

"They're too expensive and they're not what they're cracked up to be," said Tessie Offner, a cashier at Pet Marketplace in St. Louis.

Chris Hoelscher, owner of Midwest Marine Life in Glen Carbon, said a number of customers have been disappointed after coming to the store in hopes of buying the new style of fish.

"They change their minds once they see the actual fish," Hoelscher said. "It doesn't glow. Neon Tetras look a lot better."