Date: Tue, 20 Apr 1999 17:54:56 -0700
From: "Daniel J. Bronk" DanielJohn@worldnet.att.net

A long and valuable newletter below . . . for those that value the food you eat. After all, you are what you eat.

Print it off, and read it at your leisure. Valuable info on what is being done to insure our food supply from those that wish to control us from food.

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Campaign for Food Safety is happy to announce our formal affiliation with the Center for Food Safety in Washington,D.C. Beginning with this issue we are changing the name of Food Bytes to CFS News (Campaign for Food Safety News).

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ISSUE #18: Global Action Intensifies Against Monsanto & the Gene Giants (Information on Global Days of Action April 15-30 at end of this issue.)

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Monsanto and the Gene Giants suffered through another disastrous 45 days from March to mid-April. If the biotech industry thought that the worst of their public relations nightmares were over (see Food Bytes #12, 13, 15, &17), they were wrong. By the ides of March, even the most stalwart promoters of Frankenfoods, the grain cartels and the Clinton administration, were showing signs of strain. Among the most notable developments:

* At an international meeting of entomologists (scientists who study insects), in Basel Switzerland in March, experts warned that genetically engineered (GE) Bt crops are exuding 10-20 times the amount of toxins contained in conventional (non-GE) Bt sprays, and are harming beneficial insects (such as ladybugs/ladybirds and lacewings) and soil micro-organisms, and may likely be harming insect-eating bird populations. The scientists called for a moratorium on commercial planting of Bt crops. Worldwide in1998 there were 19.3 million acres of Bt crops under cultivation (representing 28% of all GE crops), including 45% of the US cotton crop, 25% of the corn, and 3.5% of the potatoes. For further information on the Basel meeting contact fkoechlin@datacom.ch For info on the Center forFood Safety & Greenpeace lawsuit filed in the US Feb. 18 to remove Bt crops from the market see www.icta.org.

* Attorneys from the Center for Food Safety are contributing to a strategic, precedent-setting seed patenting lawsuit in US federal court. A small farm supply and seed dealer in Iowa, Marvin Redenius, is suing Pioneer Hi-Bred International (the largest seed company in the world, now being bought out by Dupont), claiming that agricultural seed and biotechnology patents issued by the US Patent Office since 1985 are illegal because the US Congress never intended that key food crops be patented. Traditionally the US Congress has held that seed companies have a right to use one another's seed for breeding purposes and that farmers have the right to save and replant seeds. According to the March 3 Wall StreetJournal, "Biotech Industry Shivers at Threat to Seed Patents" the law suit has thrown Monsanto and the other biotech corporations into a panic. As the WSJ puts it the lawsuit "places at risk much of the billions of dollars in investments by companies such as Monsanto Co., Dupont Co., and Novartis."Stay tuned for further developments.

* British poll results announced March 11 in the Daily Record found that "nine out of 10 shoppers would switch supermarkets to avoid genetically modified (GM) food," and would be willing to travel "up to double the distance" to a supermarket which banned gene-foods. On the same day the Church of Scotland issued a five-year study in which they condemned the "unethical" practices of US and transnational biotech corporations. Donald Bruce, Church spokesperson, stated in the Aberdeen Press and Journal: "There is indignation from people that they are not being given a choice. It smacks of imperialism--but instead of a Boston TeaParty, this time we could have a Rotterdam Soya Bean Fest with soya and maize dumped into the North Sea."

* On March 11, leading scientists and activists from over a dozen nations (Europe, North America, Japan, Malaysia, Bangladesh, India) meeting at a"Biodevastation" conference in India vowed to "bring down" Monsanto and the other biotechnology transnationals and build a global mass movement for sustainable and organic agriculture. Ronnie Cummins summed up the battle that civil society faces at a well-attended press event in New Delhi: "We stand on the edge of a Biotech Century where a runaway technology wielded by Monsanto and other transnationals threaten food security and biodiversity in both the North and the South." The India "Biodevastation 2"conference was organized by Dr. Vandana Shiva, as a follow-up to lastyear's "Biodevastation 1" conference in St. Louis (see Food Bytes # 11). OnMay 19-20 in Seattle, Washington the Edmonds Institute will be sponsoring"Biodevastation 3," which will coincide with the annual convention acrosstown of America's trade association of genetic engineering corporations,BIO (Biotechnology Industry Organization). For further details on Biodevastation 3, contact Beth Burrows at beb@igc.apc.org.

* On March 11, the Consumers Union of Japan issued a report on increasing anti-GE food activities in Japan. The CUJ announced that 2300 of Japan's 3300 local government assemblies have now called on the Tokyo government to require mandatory labeling of GE foods. In addition two million Japanese consumers have signed a petition to the government on GE labeling. Despite mounting public concern, Tokyo has already approved the importation of 22 GE foods and six food additives. The CUJ and other citizen groups are especially alarmed about GE industry plans to grow gene-altered rice inJapan--where nine million tons are consumed annually. For more info contact nishoren@jca.ax.apc.org. On March 14, the Los Angeles Times ran a major story entitled "Japanese Choke on American Biofood," in which they noted increasing alarm by US authorities over growing Japanese opposition to $11 billion of unlabeled American food exports, much of it containing genetically engineered ingredients. The LAT story called attention to a 1997 government survey in which 80% of Japanese consumers expressed "reservations" about GE foods, with 92.5% supporting mandatory labeling.

* Another major GE food safety controversy erupted in the UK on March 12, when researchers at the York Nutritional Laboratory announced that soy food allergies among the British public unexpectedly rose 50% in 1998, coinciding with a large increase in imported foods from the US containing genetically engineered soybeans. Last year Monsanto's Roundup Ready soybeans constituted 32% of the US soybean crop. Scientists have warned for years that foreign proteins, most of which have never been consumed by humans, gene-spliced into common foods could set off an epidemic of food allergies. In the US, eight percent of children, and two percent of adults already suffer from food allergies--with symptoms ranging from mild unpleasantness to sudden death. British biotech expert Dr. Mae-Won Ho of the Open University has warned that Monsanto's RRS soybeans could pose serious food allergy problems. As Ho stated in a legal affidavit last August, Monsanto's RRS soybeans: "contain genes from a virus, a soil bacterium and from a petunia (plant), none of which have been in our food before... The soil bacterium, Agrobacterium sp. (CP4EPSPS)... is unlike any other protein that humans have eaten. And there is no reliable method for predicting its allergenic potential. Allergic reactions typically occur only some time after the subject is sensitized by initial exposure to the allergen."

* The newspaper, the Independent, reported on March 14 that the UK government had entered into secret negotiations with biotech companies for a voluntary three-year ban on growing GE crops in Britain. The Independent noted that the Tony Blair government was wary of forcing Monsanto and the other biotech companies into an involuntary ban for fear of trade reprisals by the US. And on March 17, the giant Sainsbury's supermarket chain in the UK announced that they were joining forces with six other leading EU grocery chains--Marks and Spencer (UK); Carrefour (France); Effelunga(Italy); Migros (Switzerland); Delhaize (Belgium), and Superquinn (Ireland)--to form a consortium to buy non-GE foods and food ingredients. This move, characterized by the EU business association Eurocommerce as "very significant," comes in response to increasing consumer demands for a ban on GE foods. Other major chains and food and beverage producers in theEU (Asda, Iceland, and Waitrose in the UK; Unilever in Germany; 90% of all supermarkets in Austria; Carlsberg beer in Denmark; among many others) have already announced bans on GE products.

* The UK New Scientist stated in its 2/29 issue that increasing demands for certified GE-free soya, corn, and rapeseed (canola) oil are bringing world market prices down in most cases to within 6-10% of the price of conventional (co-mingled) grains and oils. This in turn has alarmed American grain exporters and agribusiness representatives, who have begun to warn US farmers that "intense opposition" to GE foods in the EU and Japan threatens the US export market and may soon lead to requirements for crop segregation, GE residue testing, and labeling. At the National Grain and Feed Association convention in San Francisco on March 20, according to Reuters, farmers were warned that despite pressure from the US government on the EU, Japan, and other nations for open markets and no GE labeling, opposition to GE crops around the world was increasing. (See the CFS websitewww.purefood.org for more information).

* In a related development, grain export giant Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) announced in early March a program for segregation and extensive marketing of GE-free "identity preserved" soybeans. ADM emphasized that their new GE-free soybean program was in response to global "customer demand." In this context of increasing public controversy and market volatility, German biotech company AgrEvo announced in mid-March that they were postponing commercial planting of GE Liberty Link soybeans in the USA because of the lack of "import clearances" or approvals in overseas markets. The American Soybean Association said they approved of AgrEvo's precautionary move, voicing concern about the loss of $4.5 billion in US annual soy exports. Upuntil now the US has been able to export shipments of unlabeled, non-segregated soybeans worth $2.5 billion to the EU every year, as well as$1billion to Japan.

* The heavily indentured US scientific establishment--personified in this case by the National Academy of Sciences--announced in March that it would set up an "expert panel" to evaluate cuurent EPA regulations on GE crops (such as Bt crops) containing their own pesticides. After publishing the proposed list of scientists who would make up this NAS "expert panel" (almost all of whom are rabid supporters of genetic engineering), the NAS came under heavy fire from public interest groups such as the Consumers Union, the Union of Concerned Scientists, Greenpeace, the Pesticide Action Network, RAFI, and the Campaign for Food Safety. In response the NAS has made overtures to a well-known biotech critic, Dr. Rebecca Goldburg, to be added to the panel. Of course this token gesture is not enough. Until the proposed expert panelists publicly reveal their ties to the biotech industry, and the panel is reconstituted with at least 90% of scientists being truly "objective," the NAS advisory panel will continue to be criticized for what it is, a "scientific greenwash" of a dangerous and currently out-of-control technology.

* On March 15 leading French non-governmental organizations (NGOs), including Greenpeace and Ecoropa, called for the French government to follow the lead of the UK and Denmark and impose a national ban on the planting of all GE crops. Etienne Vernet of Ecoropa told Reuters that the French public demand "a moratorium on all types of genetically modified food for three to five years." In response to growing public pressure, the French government recently implemented a ban on growing transgenic beetsand rapeseed. Other EU nations with partial or comprehensive bans on growing or importing GE crops include Austria, Greece, and Luxembourg. GE crops are also banned in Norway. On April 1, the Greece government announced a ban on planting GE crops and vowed to join with other EU nations to prevent further approvals of GE foods. EU authorities have rejected all new applications for GE products since April 1998, much to the chagrin of the US government and biotech transnationals. Four biotech applications are currently deadlocked--a Monsanto corn, a Zeneca tomato, and two Monsanto Bt cotton applications. On March 22, a leading Spanish farmers organization, COAG, with 200,000 members, called for a complete moratorium on GE foods and crops.

* South Korean students and environmentalists occupied and blockaded a government-funded biotech greenhouse on March 12. Hanging a large banner and chaining themselves to the entrance, activists told the Korean presst hat they wanted an immediate ban on the cultivation or importation of GE foods and crops. Before being arrested by police, a demonstrator told the media: "We're here today to let the government and those researchers involved know how the public feels about their incompetence, arrogance, and lack of responsibility." Since December 1998--facing mounting public pressure--the South Korean government has begun developing national regulations for mandatory labeling of GE foods and crops. On March 25 the Malaysian government directed an advisory committee to come up with a draft for national biosafety legislation within three months. For further info on anti-biotech and safe food activism in the Asia and Pacific region see the Pesticide Action Network's web site www.poptel.org.uk/panap/.

* On March 16, Brazil's main commercial newspaper, Gazeta Mercantil, reported that Monsanto had withdrawn its patent applications for five varieties of Roundup Ready soybeans. Although Monsanto said its withdrawal was merely for "technical" reasons, Gazeta Mercantil pointed out that Monsanto is losing the biotech debate in Brazil. Among recent reverses for Monsanto: a statement by SBPC, the national association of scientists, as well as Brazilian consumer protection agencies, opposing RRS; a ban on growing RRS soybeans in the large soya-growing state of Rio Grande do Sul; and the decision of the enforcement agency of the Environment Ministry, IBAMA, to join Greenpeace and the NGO IDEC in a court battle to ban RRS soybeans. Meanwhile Brazil continues to export increasing quantities of GE-free soybeans to the EU, in effect taking market share away from the US. With 160 million people, Brazil represents the most strategic market for GE production and consumption in Latin America. In a related development, informed sources have told CFS News that the government of Chile--stung by criticisms that it sided with the US in the recent sabotage of a Biosafety Protocol treaty in Colombia--has begun deliberations to develop a set of mandatory labeling regulations for GE foods.

* On March 21 an official scientific advisory panel in the EU recommended a continuation of Europe's ban on Monsanto's controversial recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH or rBST), a GE hormone injected into 5% of dairy cows in the US to force them to give more milk. The panel warned that the milk from cows injected with rBGH contains up to 4-5 times the levels of a potent chemical hormone messenger called IGF-1, which has been linked to increased human risks for prostate, breast, and colon cancer. The US is the only country in the industrialized world to have approved rBGH, despite widespread consumer opposition and continuing charges of conflict of interest in the FDA. For information on the Center for Food Safety legal petition to have rBGH banned in the US see www.icta.org On a related note award-winning US TV journalists Steve Wilson and Jane Akre's lawsuit against Fox TV (who fired them last year after they produced a hard-hitting series on rBGH for Fox TV) begins on May 10 in Tampa, Florida. Seewww.foxbghsuit.com

* The Wisconsin State Journal revealed on March 24 that a Wisconsin-based organic food manufacturer, Prima Terra, had located the source of "genetic pollution" in a shipment of 80,000 bags of organic corn chips which were destroyed in Holland earlier this year after "testing positive" for traces of GE corn. According to Prima Terra, one of its suppliers, an organic corn farmer in Texas, was the victim of genetic drift, after GE corn pollen blew onto the farm's certified organic corn fields from a neighboring farm. Genetically altered corn pollen can travel for miles in the wind and integrate its DNA into the genome of conventional plants.

* According to 3/30 posting on the internet by ASEED, the EU youth activist network, Hungarian authorities have at least temporarily denied permission for Monsanto, AgrEvo, and Novartis to conduct field tests of GE corn and sugar beets. Anti-GE public awareness and activism are slowly but steadily increasing in Hungary and Eastern Europe. For further information contact ASEED aseedeur@antenna.nl

* The English folk band "Seize The Day" have released a new song on the internet called "Food 'n' Health 'n' Hope, "a scathing satirical attack on Monsanto. To hear the song, copy it, and distribute it, copyright free, tune your internet browser to www.seizetheday.org.

* In late-March Amazon tribal leaders, wearing shell necklaces and bird feathers, carried out a protest at the US Patent Office in Washington,D.C., demanding a revocation of a "bio-pirated" patent granted to US scientists for a traditional medicine and hallucinogenic plant called Ayahuasca. According to a March 31 article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch by Bill Lambrecht, universities and biotech companies such as Monsanto are finding it harder and harder to "bioprospect" in indigenous areas due to increasing opposition by Native groups.

* In a major, perhaps precedent-setting victory for the anti-GE movement in Britain, UK prosecutors on March 29 dropped all charges against two defendants, Jacklyn Sheedy and Liz Snook, who were on trial for destroying a test plot of AgrEvo's GE corn last year. The AgrEvo test site threatened to contaminate a field of organic corn planted nearby. According to informed sources, the prosecution and the British government feared that if the two campaigners were put on trial they would likely have been found innocent by the jury, thereby setting a "dangerous" precedent for those contemplating future direct action. Sheedy and Snook faced up to ten years in prison for "conspiracy to commit criminal damage." And in a related development, an Irish judge on April 1 granted probation to six of seven activists accused of destroying a test plot of Monsanto's GE sugar beets last June in County Wexford. Meanwhile in early April a 1700 square meter test plot of GE rapeseed was sprayed with pesticides and destroyed by activists in Giessen, Germany. This was the fourth time since 1997 that this particular test site had been destroyed.

* Portugal's Burger King restaurants announced a ban on GE foods on April 7. A number of major UK fast-food chains (McDonald's, Burger King, and Kentucky Fried Chicken) made similar announcements in February. Informed sources have told CFS News that even McDonald's USA has the jitters over GE--with McD's franchise owners in Wisconsin and Minnesota telling potato processors and their growers not to deliver Monsanto's Bt potatoes to them. Farmers also report that Monsanto's miracle Bt potatoes aren't doing that well in the fields, with Minnesota potato growers complaining the mutant Bt spuds won't germinate until the temperature hits 50 degrees Fahrenheit, as opposed to 40 degrees for conventional varieties.

* On April 8 biotech and anti-organic propagandist Dennis Avery of theHudson Institute (see Food Bytes #16) got a pie in the face as he wasdelivering a lecture on biotechnology at Grinnell College in Iowa.According to a press release, the Central Iowa Anarchist (CIA) cell of theBiotic Baking Brigade carried out "Operation Avery's Savory" as a "responseto Avery's shameless and flagrant support of biotechnology and industrialfactory farming." A week earlier in Somerset, England, Novartis PR manSteve Smith was hit by a custard pie at a meeting on GE foods. As Smithrushed to the toilet to gain his composure, he was creamed by yet anothercustard pie.

* The US mass media are finally starting to wake up to the controversy over genetically engineered foods and crops. Beginning last Oct. 25, when the New York Times Sunday Magazine ran a major feature story, "Playing God in the Garden," critical of Monsanto and ag biotech, the American news blackout appears to have lifted--at least partially. In recent months objective, and even a few hard-hitting investigative articles, have started to appear in the NYT; the Washington Post (a series by Rick Weiss); the St.Louis Post-Dispatch, headquarters for Monsanto (an excellent series of articles by Bill Lambrecht); the Los Angeles Times; Harpers magazine; the Christian Science Monitor; Penthouse magazine; E magazine; and other magazines and papers. Even national TV networks, especially CNN and ABC News (November 9 and December 15, 1998) have started to begin to address the issue. In addition the progressive media--the Nation, Mother Jones, the Progressive, the Progressive Populist, Earth Island Journal, Multinational Monitor, among others--and community radio stations have recently begun to publish and broadcast articles on the GE controversy. In Canada ag biotech media coverage has been more widespread than the US, partly as a result of the major national debate over rBGH. With increased media coverage in North America there is now a steadily increasing awareness on the part of the general public, as well as a number of hopeful signs that a new grass rootsmass movement--anti-GE, anti-industrial agriculture, pro-organic, pro-sustainable--is starting to develop.

* Global Days of Action Against Monsanto and Genetic Engineering April15-30. For the fourth year in a row we at the Campaign for Food Safety are serving as an international clearinghouse for the Global Days of Action (GDA). In 1996-98 the GDA have helped to stimulate coordinated global protests and actions, generate significant media coverage, and strengthen global solidarity and campaign capacity. This year of course nearly everyday has now become a Global Day of Action, at least in places like Western Europe and India. GDA 1999 will try to place a major focus on the Monsanto corporation. To spearhead the growing global opposition to Monsanto, genetic engineering, and industrial agriculture, we at CFS--along with our NGO allies--recently have coordinated a series of US and international conference calls as well as international activist meetings in Cuernavaca, Mexico and New Delhi, India. So far we know of planned GDA (and Earth DayWeek) activities scheduled for the following countries and local areas:

USA: A variety of teach-ins, street theater, and leafletting/petitioning activities are scheduled, especially around the week of Earth Day April 22. Over 125 natural food stores in 75 cities and towns are participating in a petition drive in support of the Center for Food Safety lawsuit (filed May 27, 1998--see Food Bytes #9) to have all GE foods and crops taken off the market, as well as to head off industry and government attempts to eliminate mandatory labeling requirements for irradiated foods. For CFS petition materials contact our Duluth, Minnesota office at safefood@cp.duluth.mn.us A partial list of other USA GDA/Earth Day actions includes:

* Seattle, WA; Austin, TX; Santa Cruz, CA--April 22--contact National Campaign to Label GE Food craig@craigwinters.com

* Boston, MA--April 17-24 contact jasonab@mediaone.net

* St. Louis, MO Protest at Monsanto's Shareholders Meeting 4/23 and other events contact T4shea@aol.com

* Burlington, VT and Amherst, MA--contact briant@earth.goddard.edu

* Cleveland, OH--April 22 contact es004@cleveland.freenet.edu

* Chicago, IL--April 17 teach-in hpcoop@hpcoop.org

* San Francisco, CA--(supermarket actions April 18) contact: hexterminators@artactivist.com

* Boulder, CO--Alliance for Democracy activists conference "Challenging Corporate Control of Food and Agriculture" April 29 contact avkrebs@earthlink.net

A partial list of other nations and contacts for GDA 1999 include thefollowing:

* France--action on April 22 in Paris-- contact ecoropa@magic.fr

* UK--actions in 12 cities on April 17 by Genetix Snowball contact holly@gn.apc.org Additional actions planned as well by other UK groups April 15-30 India--actions planned--contact vshiva@giasdl01.vsnl.net.in

* Japan--actions planned--contact mika@mb.kcom.ne.jp Malaysia--contact Jennifer Mourin panap@panap.mo.my

* Australia--contact Bob Phelps afcgenet@peg.apc.org

* Canada--contact Tony Clarke tclarke@web.net

Please email us other events & activities taking place during GDA April 15-30. And finally let us resolve to make every day a Global Day of Action Against Genetic Engineering and Industrial Agriculture.

End of CFS News #18 (Campaign for Food Safety News) April 16, 1999 (formerly called Food Bytes)

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Ronnie Cummins, Director
Campaign for Food Safety/Organic Consumers Association
860 Hwy 61
Little Marais,
Minnesota 55614
Telephone: 218-226-4164
Fax: 218-226-4157
email: alliance@mr.net
URL: http://www.purefood.org

Affiliated with the Center for Food Safety (Washington, D.C.) http://www.icta.org
and the Organic Consumers Association http://www.organicconsumers.org

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