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Concerns raised about GM wheat crops

July 23
CBC

REGINA -- Some Canadian grain farmers and health activists have called on the federal government to prevent the introduction of genetically modified wheat.

Several Canadian groups have written a letter to the prime minister with their request.

The letter says consumers are concerned about food safety, regulations and environmental damage.

It also says some farmers and the grain industry are concerned that GM wheat could hurt their market and Canada's reputation for quality wheat.

The letter will be signed by several groups, including the Canadian Wheat Board, the Council of Canadians and the Canadian Health Coalition.

"It seems as if (Agriculture) Canada and some private companies are proceeding with this genetically modified wheat," said Sinclair Harrison, president of the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities.

Harrison notes test plots of GM wheat are being grown in Saskatchewan.

The letter points out not all the signatories agree with all the concerns raised.

But they do agree the federal government should prevent the introduction of GM wheat into Canada unless the concerns of farmers, industry and consumers are adequately addressed.

EU discusses biotech food labeling

July 23
AP

BRUSSELS, Belgium -- The European Union's head office wants to allow foods with trace amounts of genetically altered ingredients to escape new labeling requirements, an idea criticized Monday by some politicians and consumer groups.

The proposals, to be taken up by the European Commission on Wednesday, would expand tracing and labeling requirements as part of a push to end the EU moratorium that has angered U.S. exporters and hamstrings European biotech companies.

However, one article in the draft would exempt products that may have picked up trace amounts of genetically modified material during harvesting, transport or processing.

The exact level has yet to be determined but may be ``no higher than 1 percent,'' according to the draft seen by The Associated Press.

Producers also must be able to show that the traces were ``technically unavoidable,'' and the material must have been approved in a third country for use in food.

German Environment Minister Renate Kunast attacked that idea Monday during a visit to Brussels, insisting the current system of ``zero tolerance'' was the safest course.

EU officials call that an impossibly unrealistic goal in today's mechanized food-processing industry.

The United States currently does not require any labels for products with gene-altered ingredients.

But genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, are highly unpopular in Europe, where they are often referred to as ``Frankenstein foods'' in news headlines.

Despite assurances from producers, surveys show most Europeans see them as a health hazard, and recent scares about mad cow and foot and mouth diseases have only heightened sensitivity to food safety.

The Commission's proposed new rules for GMOs would tighten regulations in one area to require labeling even if genetically altered material can no longer be detected.

Current regulations do not require labeling in cases such as, for example, where oil made from genetically altered corn or soybeans is used for cooking another product and the proteins and DNA are broken down by high temperatures.

EU Health Commissioner David Byrne is backing labeling in such cases despite resistance from industry groups, according to an EU source who spoke on condition of anonymity.

``It's the only way we think consumers will have confidence,'' the source said.

Jim Murray, director of the European Consumers Organization, called the proposals ``overall a good thing,'' although he expressed hesitancy about allowing trace amounts of GMOs to go unlabeled.

``We're prepared to look at it,'' he said, adding that a final judgment depended on how the proposal develops when it is sent to the European Parliament and national governments for approval.

That process will probably take a year or more, meaning no new rules until 2003 at the earliest.

The Commission's proposals are intended to implement rules approved in February by the European Parliament that would enable the lifting of a 3-year-old moratorium on approving new GMOs in Europe.

Commission officials say the ban has led to Europe's biotech industry falling behind that of the United States and exposed the EU to industry lawsuits.

However, several EU governments want provisions in the new rules to hold GMO makers liable for any damages they may cause to public health or the environment with such organisms.

That means the moratorium may well remain in effect, since EU governments would have to sign off on any new product the proposed new European Food Agency clears for approval.

Those who remain opposed - France, Italy, Denmark, Austria, Luxembourg and Greece - have enough votes to block them.

Debate rooted in biotech trees

Genetic changes disrupt nature, protesters claim

July 23
Seattle Post-Intelligencer

STEVENSON -- Activists who want to stop the release of genetically engineered trees protested outside the Skamania Lodge yesterday as scientists arrived in preparation for a meeting on forest biotechnology.

The two organizers of the conference have been the targets of so-called "eco-terrorism" in the Pacific Northwest by members of the shadowy Earth Liberation Front.

Yesterday, about 50 peaceful protesters blew whistles and held signs, occasionally confronting scientists about the wisdom of genetically engineering the forests.

"Genetic engineering is not just an extension of traditional breeding, as some of these scientists keep saying," said Mark Des Marets, an organizer of the protest and a member of a Portland-based group called Northwest Resistance Against Genetic Engineering. "This is going to be very disruptive to the ecosystem."

Toby Bradshaw, a University of Washington geneticist who studies altered poplar trees, said, "It's clear that there needs to be an informed public debate on this." Bradshaw's lab was set on fire May 21 by people claiming to represent the ELF.

"We'd like to bring together all the different perspectives and see if we can all agree on a set of recommendations," said Bradshaw, who noted that strong critics of biotech have been invited to speak at the meeting. "As scientists, we're naïve enough to think reason can prevail."

Steve Strauss, an Oregon State University researcher who genetically alters poplar trees, had his test plots of poplar trees cut down or killed in similar dark-of-night protests. Strauss and Bradshaw organized the tree biotech meeting before the attacks.

On the same day Bradshaw's lab was torched, a poplar farm in Clatskanie, Ore., affiliated with Strauss' work was also set on fire at the same time in the early morning by means of a similar incendiary device. Federal law-enforcement officials say they have suspects in the arson cases.

Trees are new to the public debate on genetic engineering, say those on all sides of the issue. While genetically engineered food crops have received a significant amount of attention, the use of biotechnology in the forest has been largely ignored.

That changed with the simultaneous arson attacks on the UW's Center for Urban Horticulture and at the Clatskanie poplar farm. The ELF actions brought widespread public attention to tree biotechnology -- a welcome turn of events for the activists, even if they condemned the violent means of accomplishing it.

"Scientists need to recognize that their research can have social and political effects," Des Marets said. Before the well-publicized attacks by ELF, he said, the scientific community and biotech industry had demonstrated little interest in a real dialogue.

Hal Salwasser, a keynote speaker for last night's opening ceremony and dean of forestry at OSU, agreed with Des Marets that the scientific community has not done enough to encourage a public dialogue on the risks and benefits of biotechnology.

"That's one of the reasons for this conference," Salwasser said. "We've got to deal with the safety concerns."

This isn't a debate about whether or not to mess with nature, Salwasser contended, but about how best to mess with it.

"That's not a question for science," he said. It's a social, political and ethical question with no easy answer. The pressure on natural resources is intensifying as the planet's population swells, he said, and doing nothing will only guarantee more environmental devastation.

Both Bradshaw and Des Marets say they want to protect and preserve the crucial ecological role of the natural tree. They just couldn't disagree more on how to do that.

There may be no more powerful symbol of nature than a tree. Most trees are still truly wild creatures. Cows aren't wild. Corn isn't even close to its natural "wild type," but a genetic mutant created by thousands of years of selective breeding.

But trees have stubbornly resisted human domestication. Even the trees constrained by timber companies to grow uniformly in plantation forests retain most of their wild and unruly characteristics. But this is also what makes them so inefficient to grow as a harvestable crop.

"If we can increase the productivity of the trees used by industry, we can take some pressure off the (natural) forests," Bradshaw said.

Bradshaw works with poplars because they are among the more agreeable to genetic manipulation. He's looking into altering the trees' genes to see if he can get them to grow faster, repel pests and maybe adopt some specific characteristics desired by certain industries (fewer branches and knots for structural wood; better chemical composition to reduce the use of chemical processing in paper production).

Genetic engineering, Bradshaw said, could help the environment by making a clear distinction between trees grown for industrial use and the trees we grow for our natural forests.

Baloney, say Des Marets and other critics of the technology.

Academics in this field get most of their research money from industry, they say, arguing that all of these attempts to present their science as a tool for protecting the environment or helping poor farmers is just window dressing.

"Trees are very complex organisms," said Des Marets, noting that some trees have a genome (entire genetic code) that is eight times bigger than the human genome.

Scientists don't know enough about genetics yet to predict what will happen when a new gene is introduced into an organism, Des Marets said. Because of the unpredictable nature of genetic engineering, Des Marets said, many researchers try to allay concerns by engineering their experimental trees to be sterile -- so bad genes don't spread in pollen or seeds.

If this works, he said, these genetically engineered forests will be a "biological desert" that can no longer provide the seeds, cones and pollen that birds, insects and others in the ecosystem depend upon. But it won't work, Des Marets contended, noting a German study of aspens showed scientists still don't know how to control reproduction.

In the aspen study, he said, the trees were engineered to delay flowering -- reproducing -- so they would be harvested before they could spread their genes. The trees actually flowered earlier than they would have naturally, Des Marets said.

Bradshaw said he's not arguing there's no risk to genetic engineering. He's not claiming scientists are totally in control of what they are doing.

That's not the way science -- or the world in general -- works.

If we simply want to protect biodiversity, he said, we should abandon all our farms and go back to our hunter-gathering approach toward food and natural resources.

"Do we think having everyone out there harvesting seeds, nuts and wood would be good for the environment?" Bradshaw said.

The question, he contended, is what is the best use of biotechnology given the goals of sustainable forestry, biodiversity and the many other social and political goals related to forest economics.

"As we move forward with domestication in forestry, we'd like to avoid the mistakes we've made with our approach to agriculture," he said.

Biotechnology is just a tool, Bradshaw said, that we can use for good or for ill.

Up to 30 farms earmarked for GM crop trials

July 23
Ananova

A new round of genetically modified crop trials is set to start in four weeks at up to 30 farm sites across Britain.

Sowing of GM oilseed rape is expected from August 20 until mid-September in locations which include a site near a problem-hit GM crop trial where ministers were forced to apologize for Government mistakes.

Separation distances between trial sites and nearby fields remain at 50 meters for conventional oilseed rape varieties despite concern from environmental campaigners over GM pollen contaminating neighboring crops.

A separation distance of 200 meters will apply where organic oilseed rape is grown near the GM trial sites, but pollen transfer cannot be ruled out completely, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said.

Peter Riley from Friends of the Earth said: "Oilseed rape pollen travels miles and neighboring crops could be cross-pollinated, leaving farmers the problem of selling a contaminated crop."

In May, environment minister Michael Meacher was forced to apologize for failing to consult local farmers over a GM crop trial in Low Burnham, north Lincolnshire, 15 miles from a new trial site at North Kelsey.

The Low Burnham site was also wrongly identified on a map.

Scientist confronts protesters, criticizes tactics

July 23
AP

STEVENSON, Wash. -- The organizer of a conference on genetically engineered trees is condemning the way activists protest the concept.

Steven Strauss, an Oregon State University forest science professor, helped organize the meeting of researchers and timber industry executives.

And he had harsh words for the radical environmental group Earth Liberation Front.

Members of the underground group recently torched a research laboratory run by fellow researcher H.D. "Toby" Bradshaw, a plant geneticist at the University of Washington.

Three plots of Strauss' genetically engineered trees were also vandalized in March, but the group never claimed responsibility for that.

"If it weren't for the ELF, you would be welcome," Strauss told protesters outside the conference on Sunday.

"With ELF, if you speak out, you might get blown up or burned up. There's a lot of people doing things in the world that I don't like, but I don't blow them up," he said.

Craig Rosebraugh, a Portland-based spokesman for the ELF, said Strauss was right to feel threatened, contending peaceful protests were accomplishing nothing.

"If we're serious about stopping genetic engineering, then the tactics of eco-sabotage are critical," he said.

The protesters claim genetically engineered trees pose a risk to normal trees because their pollen will make its way into native forests and degrade them. They also say genetically modified pollen can causes severe allergic reactions in humans.

They say scientists are creating "Frankentrees" that could wreak havoc on natural ecosystems.

Proponents of transgenic tree research say it could reduce chemical pollution and help save native forests.

Strauss and Bradshaw said they hoped the conference will move the focus on transgenic tree research beyond publicity about acts of eco-sabotage to a more rational discussion.

"We want for the public and the politicians who ultimately will have to make these decisions to have the best possible scientific information from which to work," Bradshaw said.

Hal Salwasser, dean of Oregon State's College of Forestry, said demand for wood products is expected to increase by 20 percent in the next 20 years. He said "industrial strength forestry," including genetically engineered trees, likely will be the answer to that demand.

"It's not a question of whether we will have genetically modified organisms, it's only a question of who will set the ground rules and how it's done," Salwasser said.

Salwasser added that he had no patience with the protesters gathered outside.

"I don't know how to have a dialogue with someone who wants to stop the world while they get off," he said.

Biotech splits firm's personality

July 19
Western Producer (Canada)

It must be strange living the double life of a Monsanto official these days.

The grouchy giant of public opinion has caused a shift in the company's corporate behavior. The global backlash against agricultural biotechnology has seen Monsanto dumped by its corporate parent, some of its present products threatened and its future products under assault.

It leaves company officials in the position of believing in, being inspired by and celebrating the company`s biotech virility, while having to treat their products like a potentially toxic substance.

This was the position officials were in recently when agricultural journalists were invited to tour some of Monsanto`s Roundup Ready wheat, which is growing in tiny plots in secret locations across the Prairies.

``We have to show that we`re doing the right things, following the right steps,`` said Monsanto Canada spokesperson Trish Jordan.

She admitted it is sometimes wearing to have to talk about the company`s innovations as if they could be dangerous.

``It`s unfortunate from some perspectives because it can send the wrong message to the public,`` said Jordan.

``But maybe it`s the price we have to pay.``

The locations are secret for a reason. In Europe, protesters have sought and destroyed test plots of biotech crops. Canadian activists haven`t followed suit, and biotech crops are already grown on millions of acres across the country. But with the issue heating up, Monsanto is playing it safe.

If some of the seeds somehow got off of the field and into people`s hands there could be a panicked reaction, as happened when a few packages of sterile, biotech flax – CDC Triffid – were passed around by a researcher.

That`s another potential controversy Monsanto would like to avoid.

Here in this field grow a few rows of Roundup Ready wheat. It looks much like the rest of the wheat growing on farms across the Prairies. Monsanto officials take pains to fully describe how careful they are with these test plots to make sure none of the pollen or seed escapes into farmers` wheat fields.

Most of the wheat plots are plowed down before the plants go into flower, so there is no chance of pollen drift.

The plants that are allowed to mature are carefully quarantined and disposed of by an industrial waste company, or buried in double wrapped bags deep in the ground.

While growing, the test plants are surrounded by a 30 metre crop-free zone plus a ring of canola or corn plants that would stop any pollen that managed to make it beyond the wheat patch.

At the start of this day, Jordan presented what she said was a ``new pledge`` from a ``new company.``

She said Monsanto is committed to having a dialogue with the public about its products, that it would show respect for people`s views and concerns, that the company would be open about its plans, what it was doing and what it was discovering, and that it would share the benefits of its new products with farmers and society.

It`s a new approach that was laid out by Hendrik Verfaillie, the president and chief executive officer of Monsanto, soon after the company was cut loose from its corporate parent in 2000. It`s part of a speech that`s reprinted in an illustrated booklet the company gives out at media briefings.

In it, Verfaillie admits Monsanto caused a lot of its own troubles.

``We were blinded by our own enthusiasm,`` he said.

``We missed the fact that this technology raises major issues for people, issues of ethics, of choice, of trust, even of democracy and globalization.``

So when it comes to introducing Roundup Ready wheat in the United States and Canada, Monsanto has reached out to farmers, the media and the public in an attempt to dispel its former aloof image.

Officials have toured the farm belt giving presentations to farmers. Company spokespeople quickly return reporters` phone calls and speak openly of what the company is doing.

They are effusive about what they see as benefits of the ``technology,`` and reassuring about how they are ensuring this innovation is controlled.

Whether this change in approach will win over the public is yet to be seen.

But with Roundup Ready wheat heading quickly toward the marketplace, company officials are hoping it`s enough to stop anyone from ripping out the rails.

``If this is what it takes to move it ahead, then that`s what we have to do,`` said Jordan.

Health: Bid to approve modified corn assailed

July 17
IPS

WASHINGTON -- Hundreds of food products have been withdrawn from US stores since StarLink genetically modified corn was discovered in them. Now, to the consternation of critics, the company that manufactured the corn for animal feed is asking the government to approve it for human consumption.

At consultations organized by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Tuesday, public health and environmental advocates said government regulators simply do not have enough information to act on the company's request.

''The government investigation has been rushed and is incomplete,'' said Bill Freese, senior policy analyst with Friends of the Earth. ''And the studies that have been done are flawed.''

The EPA had asked that medical facilities be monitored for reports of allergic reactions to StarLink but these have not been completed. But the company, Aventis BioCrop, ''and the government have dragged their feet,'' added Jane Rissler, senior staff scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists. Consequently, ''neither has provided the data.''

EPA officials said last year they were unconvinced of StarLink's safety. On Tuesday, they declined to comment on the corn's chances of winning approval pending the actual decision, which is expected next week.

With roughly a week remaining before the government is expected to rule on the petition for approval, critics said, the dearth of hard facts means that Aventis cannot prove that StarLink is safe for human consumption. The company, however, said its critics, likewise, couldn't prove that its bio-engineered product is unsafe.

The US Food and Drug Administration had not cleared StarLink as fit for humans to consume, citing potential allergic reactions. Instead, the modified yellow corn was supposed to be fed only to animals. But it has been detected in some 300 products and more than 200 people have reported adverse reactions ranging from rashes to nausea, to diarrhea.

StarLink is genetically altered to contain the plant pesticide Bacillus thuringienis, or Bt, making it highly resistant to pests. The corn's discovery in human foodstuffs - including white corn products previously considered effectively quarantined from the yellow StarLink, prompted Aventis to take it off the market and to put on hold export plans pending a full assessment of the corn.

That assessment was to have included a thorough study of risks to children and others particularly vulnerable to food allergies but, said critics, this also has not been done.

Aventis has argued that there is no need to apply a 'special safety factor' for infants and children, because they eat less and therefore would have limited exposure to StarLink.

Rebecca Goldburg, a senior scientist at the non-governmental organization Environmental Defense, said that argument falls short of standards mandated by law.

''In the case of food allergy, an extra margin of safety is clearly warranted since infants and children are clearly far more susceptible to developing food allergies than are adults,'' she told officials.

StarLink is grown only in the United States but because it has found its way into human foodstuffs, critics said, tens of millions of people here and overseas may have exposed to it without their knowledge.

Traces of StarLink were recently discovered in white corn by federal regulators after officials received a complaint from Keith Finger, a doctor living in Florida.

Last year, Finger had reported suffering an allergic reaction to yellow corn products tainted with StarLink. In February, he reported a milder reaction after eating white corn chips.

Finger was one of more than 200 people who reported that they had suffered allergic reactions to yellow corn products possibly tainted with StarLink last year.

Last month, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said that its tests of Finger and others had failed to uncover antibodies that would have confirmed that StarLink had caused their allergic reactions.

In response, Finger sought to find out once and for all if StarLink was really causing the allergic reactions. On Tuesday, he told of how he obtained StarLink corn and ingested it in the presence of doctors.

''Three to four hours later I was itching and developed hives,'' Finger recalled. ''Then doctors insisted on injecting me with Benadryl to stop the reaction," he added, referring to a common anti-histamine.

A video of Finger's experiment was shown Tuesday to the EPA panel.

''I'm not against bio-engineering but we have to have government accountability if we think something is going to be harmful,'' Finger said.

According to Goldburg at Environmental Defense, the results of the CDC investigation do not prove that the modified corn variety will not cause allergies.

''The CDC study involved a very small group of people and, very importantly, was not designed to identify people who are most likely to suffer allergies'' to StarLink, she said.

''Until all the data is in, the government should not approve StarLink,'' added Freese, from Friends of the Earth.