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Pro-transgenic meet to propagate GM crops

November 24
Times of India

CALCUTTA - Farmers, scientists and policy makers will get together in a pro-transgenic crops meet here on December 8 to deliberate on what is hindering the entry of genetically modified (GM) products into India and find ways to reach cutting-edge plant biotechnology to the masses.

The meet, which holds national significance since India is yet to allow entry of GM crops, would have top-ranking scientists addressing the need for such crops to enhance production and nutrition value in developing countries as also risks and intellectual property rights (IPR) related issues.

The "stakeholders' dialogue on 'Agricultural biotechnology: Biosafety and economic implications' would be the fourth in a series of meets jointly organized by the Tata Energy Research Institute (TERI) in collaboration with the Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Indian Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR) and state science and technology departments.

"Plant biotechnology has a high potential of increasing crop productivity and is an effective means to meet the ever-increasing demand of human population," Ashok Chaudhury, TERI research associate in charge of the meet said on Thursday.

"However, in the recent past there have been protests against the consumption of GM food around the world," he said. But the risks of plant biotechnology had been far too exaggerated, he added.

"As an intelligent society, we ought to be able to rationalize the risks based on scientific data and make sensible decisions that are beneficial for Indian farmers," Dr A. Lahiri Majumdar, head of the Center for Plant Molecular Biology (CPMB) at Bose Institute and chairperson of technical session of the workshop said.

With ICAR, DBT and the National Academy of Agriculture Sciences (NAAS) propagating the need for entry of GM crops into India, many private groups like Monsanto and Novartis were also backing up the cause, Chaudhury said.

In the backdrop of a pro-GM stand of the US and anti-GM views of Europe, Indian scientists, researchers, policy makers, NGOs, progressive farmers, industrialists and government representatives have been feeling an increasing need to come together on a common platform and discuss the benefits, risks and IPR related issues of transgenic research.

"The workshop will address a gamut of issues like prospects for nutritional improvement of crops, relevance of transgenics for Indian agriculture, their public acceptance, industry perspective and icar intiatives to bring the technology to the country," he said.

Dr R.A. Mashelkar, director general of CSIR, Dr Meher Engineer, director of Bose Institute, Prof Asis Datta, vice-chancellor of JNU, Dr Vibha Dhawan, dean of bioresources and biotechnology division of Indian Energy Research Institue (IERI), Dr S.B. Rao of DBT, Dr S.K Sen of IIT, Kharagpur and Malathi Lakshmikumaran, TERI fellow of bioresources and biotechnology division would be among the prominent scientists attending the meet.

New Zealand veterinarians warn against going GM-free

November 24
Reuters

WELLINGTON - New Zealand farming will suffer if the country goes GM (genetically modified) free, the NZ Veterinary Association said yesterday.

The inquiry will examine the pros and cons of genetic modification across the spectrum

GM technology is already a valuable part of human and veterinary medicine, Veterinary Association chief executive Murray Gibb said in a statement.

"It is essential that New Zealand's animal-based industries have access to these products," he said, adding diminished access would have serious consequences for animal health and welfare.

"Overseas perceptions of animal welfare standards in New Zealand are very important to our trade and this must be protected," Gibb said.

The inquiry will recommend any changes to the current legislative, regulatory, policy or institutional arrangements for addressing genetic modification technologies and products in New Zealand.

Company says tracing problem corn may take weeks

November 24
Reuters

It might take weeks to figure out how the insect-killing trait in genetically altered StarLink corn migrated into a variety of corn that was not supposed to be genetically modified, according to the Garst Seed Company, the producer of the corn.

Garst, which announced on Tuesday that it had encountered the biological mystery while testing samples of corn seed marketed as early as 1998, said it might also take weeks to sort out how widespread the problem was and whether any of the corn had made it into the food chain.

Garst's announcement was just the latest twist in a biotechnology controversy that began in September with the discovery that small amounts of corn from StarLink crops, which were supposed to be sold only for animal feed or industrial use, had shown up in taco shells and other food products.

StarLink corn, which was invented by Aventis CropScience, the agricultural division of the Aventis Corporation, contains a gene that produces a protein called Cry9c, which is toxic to corn borers and related insects. StarLink has no known health effects on humans, and similar toxins are widely used in agriculture. But the Environmental Protection Agency decided in 1997 that Aventis's technology should be kept out of human food because laboratory tests indicated that the protein might cause food allergies.

Biotechnology critics jumped on the unauthorized spread this year of StarLink into the food chain as proof of how hard genetically engineered traits are to segregate once they are in the agricultural marketplace. Many critics argue that much of the technology should be banned until stricter controls and better assessments of any potential long-range effects are in place.

Garst's announcement this week opened up a new front in the battle by suggesting that breakdowns in segregation can come even before the seed reaches the farmer.

"This blows a lot of assumptions out of the water," said Margaret Mellon, senior scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington. "How do you regulate risks that manifest themselves even before the product is out there?"

The new controversy involves a strain of corn called 8481 that Garst bred for growing conditions in the heart of the Midwest.

One version of the corn sold in 1998 had the StarLink trait but the other, known as 8481IT, did not. Or so Garst thought. After a few farmers complained that tests showed their supposedly unmodified 8481 carried the StarLink gene, Garst began investigating and concluded that small amounts of StarLink had apparently made their way into 8481IT seed grown in 1997 for the 1998 market.

Garst said it did not know whether the transfer came during pollination as the seed was being grown or through mixing of seeds after harvest. Garst said there was no sign of a similar problem in 8481IT it raised in 1999 or 2000 but that some of the 1998 supply had been stored and sold in those years.

A bit of the 1998 supply might be on the market this year, as well, said Jeffrey W. Lacina, a spokesman for Garst, which is based in Slater, Iowa. But Garst is carefully screening all seed it is selling for the 2001 planting season to make sure that none of it contains the StarLink gene, Mr. Lacina said on Wednesday. Indeed, Garst said its push to make sure that this year's products are pure and to contact anyone who bought 8481 in the past is keeping it from tracking down what happened in 1997 as rapidly as it would like.

The Agriculture Department responded swiftly to Garst's announcement by calling for a meeting on Monday of industry representatives, researchers, policy experts and economists to discuss Garst's findings and the appropriate response. But Garst's timeline for gathering crucial data on the cause and scope of the problem suggests it may be hard to reach any conclusions.

The new controversy is also certain to be felt on Tuesday in Washington when the Environmental Protection Agency holds a meeting on Aventis's petition for an agency ruling that StarLink corn can be accepted in food for the next four years. One of the arguments is that so much of the StarLink corn has been accounted for and directed to permitted uses since the controversy erupted that whatever is left will not be enough to present a food-allergy threat.

The entire 2000 StarLink crop amounted to less than one-half of 1 percent of the nation's corn harvest. Aventis has withdrawn its registration for StarLink, and no new StarLink crops are to be planted in 2001.

A ruling allowing whatever StarLink is in the food chain to simply pass through might save millions of dollars in testing and food recalls. But critics say the 8481 developments this week raise new questions about how far beyond the StarLink crops themselves the potential risks run.

Germany meets biotech firms on restricting GM food

November 24
Reuters

Berlin - The German government held a second day of talks with senior biotechnology industry officials on Friday, hoping to forge an agreement on the planting of genetically modified (GM) crops until 2003, sources said.

``The aim of these talks is to find a common way forward, which reflects the people's fears and the needs of industry,'' government sources said at the talks.

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has called for a voluntary suspension of planting so the government can investigate the environmental impact amid consumer concerns about GM food.

``Politicians and industry both bear the responsibility of ensuring that consumers' concerns are heard,'' the sources added.

GM crops contain genes from other organisms to render them resistant to diseases and herbicides and to increase yields.

The government has said biotech firms could introduce GM plants as part of a research program in 2003.

It added that the state would increase funding for research, into the effects of GM crops, to 50 million marks ($21.54 million) over the next three years.

Industry is keen for a deal before the next sowing early in 2001.

The talks under the chairmanship of Chancellery head Frank-Walter Steinmeier include senior representatives of firms such as Aventis CropScience and Kleniwanzlebener Saatzucht AG .

A government spokesman said the talks, which began on Thursday, would continue next month.

Public opinion 'not a good GM guide'

November 23
New Zealand Herald

A United States bioethicist told the Royal Commission on Genetic Modification in Wellington yesterday that public opinion should not be the basis of society's ethical decisions.

Gary Comstock, Iowa State University bioethics program coordinator, had been asked by Greenpeace cross-examiner Duncan Currie whether people should have the right, if they wished, to be able to avoid genetically modified products.

"One hundred and fifty years ago, people said women shouldn't hold property or vote. This was a view held even by women.

"They were wrong. The fact that people have an opinion is totally irrelevant to ethics."

Earlier, Professor Comstock had told the hearing that developed countries had an obligation to help less developed states.

Widespread anti-GM sentiments could, by shutting down research establishments in the countries that could afford the technology, indirectly deprive the needy.

He also said that although ethnic minority concerns about the technology should be heeded, the question became "more difficult" if such concerns disadvantaged people "in other parts of the globe."

In other submissions, Federated Farmers said it was important that New Zealand farmers had choice in order to meet market demands.

Farmers had the right to determine what technologies they used.

The Government's role was to set the legislative framework, "not to intervene by seeking to anticipate market demands."

Putting his own example, Australian Cotton Industry Council chairman Peter Corish said he was able, by using GM products available at present, to reduce the use of pesticide and the exposure of his family, his staff and the environment to that pesticide, to reduce labor costs and to grow cotton on organic principles.

Federated Farmers vice-president Thomas Lambie, an organic dairy farmer, said organic production could co-exist with conventional and GM production.

An earlier submission by Agcarm, the Association for Agricultural, Chemical and Animal Remedies Manufacturers, argued strongly for the protection of research data.

Gaining approval to introduce a modified organism, it said, required the production to authorities of a "package" of data, relating to a wide range of subject, from allergenicity and toxicity research to risk assessments and containments.

Such data packages could cost well in excess of $100 million to generate and were of considerable commercial value.

Biotech revolution could give Montreal a big boost

November 23
Montreal Gazette

Just as computer technology has revolutionized life over the past few decades, biological technology is poised to be the revolutionary technology of the coming century.

At least that's the view of two specialists from the industry: Ken Lawless, executive director of the Ottawa Life Sciences Council and Burleigh Trevor-Deutsch, a bioethicist at the University of Ottawa and industry consultant. The two spoke yesterday at a Conference Board of Canada conference on managing change.

There is certainly evidence that seems to support the view that biological technologies - or life sciences as they are usually known - will be the next big thing. The biotech industry is growing four times faster than the Canadian economy as a whole and commercial applications are popping up in important growth areas from environmental management to disease diagnosis and treatments that are increasingly important to the big, aging baby-boom generation.

The growth of the life-science industry is being driven by the marriage of several leading-edge technologies, Lawless explains.

Where microchip technology meets biology, you have chips that do instant analysis of DNA or blood samples.

Where telecommunications meets medical technology, doctors gain the ability to diagnose and sometimes even treat medical conditions from thousands of miles away.

Where computers meet biology, it becomes possible to scan huge databases instantly, compressing the time it takes to do research.

Where radiology meets biotechnology, researchers can fasten radioactive isotopes to specific antibodies, sending precise doses of radiation straight to cancer cells, with little impact on healthy tissue.

Lawless believes that biological technologies represent a potential market worth $550 billion or more.

This market would take in everything from improved agricultural seeds and animal husbandry to revolutionary industrial processes to custom-designed pharmaceuticals that could be targeted precisely to those who were most likely to benefit and least likely to suffer side-effects.

And as it happens, the advent of an economy largely driven by biological technologies could be a boon for Canada.

Trevor-Deutsch cites a federal study that ranked Canada second in the world in the number of companies using biotechnology. And Montreal, of course, is the leading center in the country for such activities, with growing secondary centers in Ottawa, Toronto, Calgary and Halifax.

But there are also serious pitfalls to be negotiated, warns Trevor-Deutsch. The public fear of genetically modified "frankenfoods" points to an urgent need for industry to anticipate public concerns and to deal with them before they harden into rejection of new biological technologies.

The fears are reasonable and predictable, he notes, because people are always likely to be upset by a risk they don't understand and perhaps weren't aware of until they had already been exposed to it. In contrast, people learn to be quite comfortable running well-known, comprehensible risks because they can control their risk exposure.

The problem is that the biotechnology industry includes a large number of cash-poor start-up companies that are under powerful pressure to show results, which can conflict with ethical concerns like informing the public of risks.

Of the 282 biotechnology companies in Canada, nearly three-quarters are small concerns that employ fewer than 50, with most still struggling to develop a commercial product. Trevor-Deutsch suggests that institutional investors or acquirers of such companies must learn to examine not only the profit outlook but also any risks that would emerge from an ethics audit.

And beyond the new ethical awareness, there are other challenges facing the industry. Canada's overburdened regulatory machinery means that it takes twice as long as it ideally should to approve a new medical therapy, not because federal officials are dragging their feet, but because they are starved for resources, says Lawless.

This robs the country of economic benefits because it discourages domestic development of innovations.

And the same educational bottleneck that has hampered the growth of Canadian information-technology companies is beginning to crop up in the life sciences. Canada's poorly funded universities simply can't keep up with the demand for highly educated, specialized scientists and engineers.

In Ottawa alone, estimates Lawless, the shortage will be serious enough within three years that half the masters' level graduates and two-thirds of the PhDs will have to be attracted from outside the region.

Disaster of the day: Aventis corn monster

November 22
Forbes.com

Take or leave previous comparisons between genetically-modified foods and Frankenstein. But Aventis CropScience certainly must feel like it accidentally created a monster with its insect-resistant biotech corn, StarLink. The StarLink corn, like any good monster, seems impossible to control.

Now the gene that makes the corn insect-resistant is turning up in non-StarLink seeds. This after parent company Aventis, based in France, announced last week that it wants cast off the Research Triangle Park, N.C., Cropscience division.

``It's just more negative news regarding the whole genetically-modified crop situation,'' says Chase H&Q analyst Frank Mitsch. ``It's not terribly surprising that you would see some cross-pollination going on between seeds. That's how you end up with hybrids in the first place.''

The StarLink corn, which is genetically engineered to produce a natural insecticide called Bt, led to a spate of food recalls when it wound up in corn supplies earlier this year. Unlike other Bt corn, StarLink is not approved for human consumption by the government because there is a slight chance that some people may be allergic to the insect-killing protein it contains, called CRY9C.

The CRY9C protein is showing up in foods that it wasn't supposed to be in and in seeds that never bore the StarLink name. Aventis' own tests found the protein in seeds made by Iowa's Garst Seed Company. This not only means that the StarLink brand corn is mixing with human food, but that the genes that make the corn insect resistant spread into another variety of corn seed at least once.

Corn seed distributors like Garst were supposed to follow stringent standards to ensure that only StarLink corn would contain the gene. It is not known how the gene wound up in non-StarLink Garst seed. ``We're not speculating at this point,'' says Jeff Lacina, public relations manager at Garst Seed.

Part of the problem, according to Margaret Smith, an associate professor of plant genetics at Cornell University, is that small amounts of genetic contamination that wouldn't normally matter are suddenly considered very important when the contaminant is genetically modified. Current buffers between fields, she says, could not ensure that there would be absolutely no contamination.

``If there's one plant that's got a slightly different pollen that blew in,'' says Smith, ``that's normally not going to be very detectible. Our ability to detect contamination with a genetically-engineered gene has outstripped our ability to know what that contamination means.''

Mitsch believes that agricultural companies like Aventis are capable of controlling the genes they sell. ``Clearly,'' Mitsch says, ``the industry will work toward policing themselves if they are not policed by regulatory agencies. And clearly the public will have something to say about this if they don't want genetically-modified foods in the food chain.''

The biggest losers might not be large agricultural companies but small organic farmers. If pollen carrying genetically-modified genes mixes with an organic farmer's crop, his corn can no longer be sold to organic distributors. ``We've been extremely concerned about pollen drift and unintended contamination,'' says Robert Scowcroft, executive director of the Organic Farming Research Foundation.

Aventis CropScience declined comment.

Dismay at official backing for GM crop trials

November 22
Irish Times

The Government's interdepartmental committee on biotechnology favors developing the controversial technology here and recommends that genetically modified crop trials continue and that Government agencies encourage cultivation of GM crops.

The report's findings have caused dismay amongst environmental groups opposed to the technology, particularly as applied to crops and foods.

The committee was formed in March last year in response to public disquiet about the spread of GM foods. It was asked to develop a coordinated Government position on biotechnology and to come up with recommendations on a range of issues including better public information, tougher labeling and new regulations.

The group was chaired by Mr Ronald Long, assistant secretary in the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment. For this reason the report was introduced by the Tánaiste, Ms Harney, the Department's Minister.

The group included senior officials from the Departments of Environment and Local Government; Agriculture, Food and Rural Development; Health and Children; and also from the Food Safety Authority of Ireland.

The document is unashamedly pro-biotech in both tone and conclusions. It states that the risks of applying the technology should be neither minimized nor magnified but adds that it will be a "critical source of economic growth" in the future and of considerable importance to Ireland.

"These benefits - and the economic and other costs of missing out on them - must be considered alongside the possible risks," it states. It strongly advocates a "positive but precautionary approach" to GM issues at EU level and at international forums.

Two key findings, that GM crop trials should continue here and that Government Departments should encourage the introduction of modified commercial crops, have caused particular disquiet among the technology's opponents.

The report balances its positive view of biotechnology with a wide range of recommendations on strengthening regulatory controls on GM technology and building up scientific testing and assessment capabilities.

It calls for detailed protocols governing GM crop trials, prepared by the Environmental Protection Agency with the Department of Agriculture, Food and Rural Development.

It strongly advises that much greater efforts should go into informing the public by information and public consultation.

The full document, Inter-Departmental Group on Modern Biotechnology Report, is available from the Government Publications Sales Office.

It is also published in full on the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment's web site, http://www.entemp.ie/publications.htm

USDA doesn't know how StarLink tainted 1998 corn

November 21
Reuters

The discovery that StarLink bio-corn contaminated another variety of corn in 1998 may be due to either drifting pollen in the field or careless handling of the seed, the U.S. Agriculture Department said on Tuesday.

The worrisome new incident prompted the USDA to call a special meeting on Monday with department scientists, economists, policymakers as well as representatives of the U.S. food and grain industries.

StarLink, made by Aventis SA, is at the center of an unprecedented flap over U.S. bio-engineered crops. Since StarLink was discovered in taco shells in late September, more than 300 kinds of chips and flour have been recalled, food processors' production lines have been disrupted, and Japan and other key buyers of U.S. corn have put purchases on hold.

StarLink, which went on the market in 1998, is allowed in livestock feed but U.S. regulators barred it from human food because of unanswered questions about allergic reactions.

Aventis announced on Tuesday that it found some of the same Cry9C protein -- the key component of StarLink corn -- in another variety of 1998 corn seed produced by Garst Seed Co. of Iowa.

Aventis said it did not know how the contamination occurred two years ago. Under Aventis licensing agreements, Garst and other corn seed producers must meet quality standards and use the Cry9C technology only in varieties sold as StarLink.

DRIFTING POLLEN OR MISHANDLING?

Government officials said they had little information.

``At this point, we don't yet know exactly what happened and how,'' said USDA spokesman Andy Solomon.

``The question here is, was it gene flow or mishandling during production and distribution by this one company that caused this?'' he added.

Gene flow, which can occur as pollen from corn plants is blown into other fields, has long been a worry of environmentalists and organic farmers.

Anti-biotech groups have urged the federal government to tighten restrictions on gene-spliced crops, and at the very least require much bigger buffer zones to protect other plant species. Currently, the Environmental Protection Agency requires a 660-foot buffer around fields of StarLink corn.

Another possible cause of the contamination could be careless handling of the corn seed at some point in its production, bagging or marketing. Hybrid seed corn must be meticulously segregated and handled to preserve its identity.

Garst, based in Slater, Iowa, said in a statement that the Cry9C protein was found in ``limited quantities'' of a single, corn hybrid produced by the company in 1998. The company said it discovered the StarLink protein through on-going seed testing procedures.

Garst said its tests showed no sign of the Cry9C protein in 1999 or 2000 crops of the same corn variety.

USDA UNSURE OF ADDITIONAL STEPS

The USDA said it planned no immediate action, but would meet with industry officials on Monday to analyze the incident. The meeting will help determine ``what additional steps, if any'' the government or industry needs to take, Solomon said.

After StarLink was discovered in taco shells, the government prodded Aventis into launching a $100 million buy-back program to collect as much of the current harvest as possible. Although StarLink was grown on less than 1 percent of all U.S. corn fields, it was commingled with much larger quantities of corn.

The Cry9C protein was engineered into StarLink to protect the young corn plant from destructive pests.

The discovery of the protein in another kind of corn seed was seized on by anti-biotech activists as evidence that Aventis and other makers cannot keep control of new gene-spliced varieties.

``It shows the potential for human exposure to this is not just from the StarLink corn that has yet to be accounted for in this year's harvest,'' said Charles Margulis, a biotech expert with Greenpeace. ``Clearly, Aventis doesn't have any idea how much is really out there, and how much consumers may be exposed to this''

Greenpeace is one of two dozen members of a coalition of environmental and consumer groups that wants the government to temporarily halt approvals of new bio-crops or initiate strict tests for human and environmental safety.

Aventis has presented the government with new scientific data that it says proves StarLink is no threat to human health. The Environmental Protection Agency will hold a meeting next week to analyze the data and help determine if StarLink should be given temporary approval as human food.