BioDemocracy News #40 (39 was accidently sent before, not 40)

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BioDemocracy News #40: The Death of Frankenfoods (August 2002)

By: Ronnie Cummins, Organic Consumers Association

www.organicconsumers.org

_________________

 

The Death of Frankenfoods: Nailing the Coffin Shut

 

Quotes of the Month:

 

" Beggars can't be choosers. " An unnamed State Department official,

commenting on Zimbabwe and other nations' resistance to accepting

shipments of US food aid containing genetically engineered

ingredients. Washington Post 8/2/02

 

" Mandatory labeling will only frighten consumers. Labeling implies

that biotechnology products are unsafe. " Tommy Thompson, US Secretary

of Health and Human Services. Associated Press 6/10/02

_________________

Frankenstein is Dead

 

Contrary to the claims of a literal army of public relations flacks,

indentured politicians, and scientists, the first wave of genetically

engineered (GE) foods and crops have apparently suffered a fatal

hemorrhage. Future historians will likely record Tuesday, July 30,

2002 as the beginning of the end, the day of irreversible decline for

Monsanto and the Gene Giants. On that day, facing mounting global

opposition from farmers, consumers, and even major US food

transnationals such as General Mills, Monsanto was forced to announce

that they were backing off " indefinitely " from plans to commercialize

herbicide-resistant Roundup Ready wheat, the most important new

billion-dollar crop in the biotech pipeline. Previously, Monsanto had

promised Wall Street that the first GE wheat would hit the market in

2003. Earlier this year, facing heavy opposition, they pushed the date

back to 2005.

 

Now Monsanto's highly-touted GE wheat joins the growing list of

obituaries of Frankenfoods and crops: the Flavr Savr tomato (RIP

1996); the Endless Summer tomato (RIP 1996); Bt potatoes (RIP 2001);

GE flax (RIP 2001); herbicide-resistant sugar beets (RIP 2000); and

StarLink corn (RIP 2000). Other controversial crops such as GE rice

have been put on indefinite hold. Monsanto's controversial recombinant

Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH) has been banned in every major

industrialized nation except for the US, Mexico, and Brazil.

Recombinant pig growth hormone (rPGH) has been approved in only one

industrialized nation, Australia. Other biotech crops, including

squash and zucchini, are grown by so few farmers that it's difficult

to determine if they are even commercially available.

 

For the first time, major US food corporations, like their EU and

Asian counterparts, are telling the biotech industry to back off. As

Austin Sullivan, senior vice-president of General Mills told the

Chicago Tribune June 28, " Candidly we have told the biotech industry

that we are in a perilous situation. " When asked why General Mills and

other large food makers don't just stop using genetically engineered

ingredients altogether, since consumers don't want them, Sullivan

admitted, " That's a question we ask ourselves from time to time. "

Shortly before Monsanto's latest capitulation, a large EU grain miller

bluntly told wheat industry leaders that his company would " stop

buying US or Canadian wheat at once " if GE wheat was allowed on the

market. Other leading EU, Japanese, and US buyers have echoed the same

sentiment. Farmers in the US and Canada have also made it clear that

bringing GE wheat to market would lead to a billion dollar meltdown in

North American wheat exports. Desperately trying to downplay its

defeat and prevent its stock from falling even further, Monsanto

characterized their surrender on wheat as a " delay " until sometime

beyond 2005, when consumers and industry are ready to accept

gene-altered wheat, and strict grain industry segregation procedures

are in place. But as Monsanto, and even Wall Street, now recognize,

consumers are never going to accept GE wheat. Frankenwheat, for all

practical purposes is dead. RIP. The Bush administration, for PR

reasons, may still try to approve it for commercialization, but it

will never be sold on the market.

http://www.organicconsumers.org/gefood/gewheat0802.cfm

 

Compounding this crushing blow to Monsanto and the biotech industry,

whose earnings and stock value since the first of the year have

plummeted, a US Federal District court in Maine approved a settlement

July 29 that prohibits a major factory fish farm, Heritage Salmon,

from bringing its GE salmon onto the market. The Maine ruling,

resulting from a lawsuit filed by the US Public Interest Research

Group (USPIRG) and the National Environmental Law Center, sets an

important legal precedent that threatens to block any future

commercialization of GE fish--until now the second most important

biotech blockbuster being readied for market. The Maine court

settlement will likely impact future legislative deliberations as

well, such as the recent debate in the California legislature on a

moratorium for GE fish.

http://www.organicconsumers.org/gefood/frankenfishban.cfm

 

Cutting off Frankenstein's Life Support

 

Of course BioDemocracy News and groups like Greenpeace have been

charting Frankenfood's slow but steady global decline for several

years. Leading up to agbiotech's late-July disasters were a series of

other significant blows:

 

.. On July 3, the European Parliament moved to tighten labeling

requirements for genetically engineered foods, lowering the threshold

triggering mandatory labeling from one percent to one-half of one

percent and declaring zero tolerance for shipments of conventional

food containing GE ingredients not approved for sale in Europe. US

bureaucrats in Brussels complained that the labeling requirements

" will seriously impair trade in agricultural biotech products, " while

the pro-biotech US Farm Bureau characterized the move as " a slap in

the face. " Few analysts believe that the US will actually follow

through on its often-repeated threat to use the World Trade

Organization (WTO) to challenge the EU's labeling laws, since this

move would set off a trade war that could destroy the WTO.

http://www.organicconsumers.org/gefood/euvote070502.cfm

 

.. According to the recent Greenpeace report " Risky Prospects, " more

than 35 countries have laws in place or planned which require the

mandatory labeling of food containing GE ingredients, or else laws

which restrict the import of some gene-foods. These countries comprise

more than half the world's population. Although the Bush

administration adamantly opposes labeling, recognizing that this will

be the death of agbiotech, major polls conducted last year by Rutgers

University and ABC News both found that 90% of American consumers

support GE labels. Even in Texas, Bush's home turf, a 2001 poll

carried out by Texas A & M University found that 90% of Texans want

mandatory labeling, and that 60% " strongly supported " labels.

http://www.organicconsumers.org/gefood/greenpeace032802.cfm

 

.. Monsanto announced, June 12, that its second largest customer for GE

soybean seeds, Argentina, was bankrupt, and that its soybean farmers

would no longer be able to receive seeds on credit. With this

announcement, Monsanto was also forced to admit to investors that its

global profits would decline by as much as 20% this year. Over the

past three years, Argentina has become the world's second largest

producer of GE crops (their only crop being Roundup Ready soybeans),

accounting for more than 16% of all global GE acreage-largely due to

Monsanto selling GE soybeans on credit, as well as offering the beans

at bargain basement prices. Argentina's economic meltdown means that

global acreage of GE crops will level off and start to decrease this

year, contrary to claims made earlier by Monsanto and the USDA.

http://www.organicconsumers.org/monsanto/argentina070302.cfm

 

.. For the first time in US history, voters at the state level will get

a chance to vote on mandatory labeling for GE foods. On July 23,

Oregon's Secretary of State announced that a ballot initiative

organized by anti-biotech activists, Oregon Concerned Citizens for

Safe Foods, www.labelgefoods.org has successfully gathered almost

100,000 signatures from the state's 3.3 million residents-more than

enough to place it on the ballot November 5. Although powerful biotech

and agribusiness lobbies such as the Farm Bureau, the Grocery

Manufacturers of America, and the Biotechnology Industry Organization

have vowed to defeat the initiative, the basic fact is that 90% or

more of US consumers have consistently supported mandatory labeling of

GE foods. According to Jean Wilkenson of the Oregon Farm Bureau, an

agribusiness front group, industry views the measure as " an attempt to

stop all biotechnology by running up costs. " If Oregon voters pass the

initiative, anti-GE campaigners have vowed to place similar measures

on the ballot in a dozen states, including Colorado, Washington, and

California.

http://www.organicconsumers.org/gefood/orlabeling072502.cfm

 

.. On June 8, the Organic Consumers Association, Greenpeace, and the

Genetic Engineering Action Network carried out coordinated protests in

over 100 cities against US supermarkets, pressuring major grocery

chains such as Shaw's, Safeway, Food Emporium, Food Lion, Publix, and

Albertson's to remove all GE ingredients from their brand name

products. Coalition spokespeople pointed out that three major natural

food supermarkets, Whole Foods, Wild Oats, and Trader Joe's, with

combined sales of over five billion dollars, have already responded to

consumer pressure and gone GE-free for their house brands, while even

larger chains such as Shaw's and Safeway are coming under grassroots

pressure to do the same. An even larger GE-Free Markets national

mobilization is planned for several hundred US cities the week of

October 30.

http://www.organicconsumers.org/supermarket/protests0608.cfm

 

.. Last spring activists from the OCA and the Genetically Engineered

Food Alert leafleted and protested outside supermarkets in 200 US

cities, part of a national campaign against Kraft and other food

giants. On Earth Day, GEFA activists staged a protest outside Kraft's

annual shareholders meeting in East Hanover, NJ. Similar protests in

200 cities are planned for Oct. 5-12. www.gefoodalert.org

 

Good Science Displacing Mad Science

 

For the past decade, biotech's mad scientists have been telling

consumers not to worry about Frankenstein foods. They tell us GE crops

such as Bt corn are non-allergenic and safe for human health and the

environment. They say bovine growth hormone (rBGH) injected into dairy

cows doesn't increase your risk of getting cancer. Gene-altered

mutants are the same ( " substantially equivalent " ), they say, as

traditional foods. Gene-splicing is an exact procedure, sort of like

laser surgery. Gene transfer or genetic pollution is nothing to worry

about. Antibiotic resistant marker genes, embedded in nearly all

Frankenfoods, pose no health risks. They say GE companies like

Monsanto, Syngenta, Dow, Dupont, Bayer, and BASF are not just bottom

line companies, obsessed by quarterly profit reports, stock options,

and stock prices. The real bottom line of the Gene Giants is to help

feed the world, eliminate the use of toxic chemicals in agriculture,

and make us all healthier and happier.

 

For five years BioDemocracy News and the website of the Organic

Consumers Association www.organicconsumers.org have had another story

to tell. The biotech industry and governments have done almost no

safety testing of GE foods. No serious animal feeding studies (with

the exception of Dr. Arpad Pusztai's experiments in Scotland in

1996-98, which found that GE potatoes devestated lab rats) have been

carried out. No volunteer human feeding studies have been conducted

(except for the rather alarming British study described below).

Obvious risks like human allergenicity to foreign proteins spliced

into GE foods, and transfer of antibiotic resistant genes into the

human gut have been, for the most part, ignored. Millions of acres of

GE crops are spreading genetic pollution, creating superweeds and

pests, disrupting the balance between pests and natural predators, and

killing butterflies and beneficial soil microorganisms. The more we

learn about Frankenfoods and crops, the scarier they appear.

 

As recent developments show, good science is starting to undermine the

credibility of mad science. Even mainstream, pro-biotech institutions

like the National Academy of Sciences in the US, or publications such

as New Scientist and Nature Biotechnology, are starting to speak out

against the dangers of rushing headlong into risky territory like

biopharming--gene-splicing drugs, vaccines, and industrial chemicals

into common food plants such as corn, which in turn spread pollen

throughout the environment. In an unprecedented move, even the Bush

Administration's own Food and Drug administration is finding the need

to tone down its rhetoric-no doubt preparing to insulate itself from

the massive liability lawsuits which loom on the horizon after

biopharms pollute the human food chain or after every variety of Bt

corn turns out to be allergenic, not just the StarLink variety. Among

the most significant scientific revelations over the past three months

are the following:

 

.. Frankengenes are getting into the human gut. On July 17, the British

Food Safety Standards Agency released a scientific study indicating

that herbicide resistance genes from Roundup Ready soybeans have been

found in the bacteria of the small intestines of three out of seven

people in an experimental feeding test who consumed a soy burger and a

soy milkshake containing Monsanto's GE soybeans, the most commonly

used GE food ingredient in the world. The biotech industry has long

maintained that gene-altered material is destroyed during digestion

and that engineered DNA will not combine with bacteria found in the

human gut. The British study, conducted by researchers at Newcastle

University, has set off alarm bells throughout the medical

establishment. If the antibiotic resistant marker (ARM) genes found in

most gene-foods (such as kanamycin in herbicide resistant soybeans and

ampicillin in Bt corn) are getting into the human gut and combining

with preexisting bacteria, which this study suggests, then doctors and

their patients may find that serious infections no longer respond to

antibiotics. The findings are especially worrisome for infants and

children, as well as those with compromised immune systems, whose

digestive systems are weaker and more permeable than mature, healthy

adults. In 1999, the prestigious British Medical Association called

for a global moratorium on GE foods and crops, citing, among other

risks, the threat of antibiotic resistance marker genes combining with

bacteria in the human gut. Even the World Health Organization and the

rabidly pro-biotech American Medical Association have called for a

phase-out of ARMs in GE foods.

http://www.organicconsumers.org/gefood/gegut071802.cfm

http://www.organicconsumers.org/gefood/gmdnainHumans.cfm

 

.. Biopharming is out of control. Friends of the Earth and the

Genetically Engineered Food Alert (GEFA) coalition released an

explosive report on July 16, which revealed that secret biopharm crop

experiments are being carried out at over 300 undisclosed locations

across the US. On these farms, powerful pharmaceutical drugs,

vaccines, viruses (some related to the AIDS virus), and industrial

chemicals, gene-spliced into common food plants, are being grown in

the open environment. In at least 200 test plots, powerful drugs and

chemicals have been genetically engineered into corn, a plant

notorious for spreading its pollen (and its altered genes) far and

wide. As Larry Bohlen of Friends of the Earth warned: " Just one

mistake by a biotech company and we'll be eating other people's

prescription drugs in our corn flakes. The USDA must prohibit the

planting of food crops engineered with drugs and chemicals. " Even

pro-biotech scientists in the journal Nature Biotechnology recently

warned that " current gene containment strategies cannot work in the

field, " and that potent biopharm chemicals could end up in the food

supply. ProdiGene, the industry leader in biopharming, has predicted

that millions of acres of US corn will be laced with drugs and

industrial chemical by the year 2010. But of course one incident like

the StarLink corn contamination crisis will likely spell the end of

biopharming. http://www.organicconsumers.org/patent/biopharm071802.cfm

 

.. All varieties of Bt corn are likely allergenic, not just the

StarLink corn variety. As Friends of the Earth and the other members

of the Organic Consumers Association's GEFA coalition have pointed

out, StarLink is similar in composition and characteristics to other

Bt varieties grown on millions of acres in the US. As indicated in

recent issues of BioDemocracy News, there is mounting evidence that Bt

corn may be harming the immune and digestive systems of animals and

humans. http://www.crganicconsumers.org/newsletter/biodnews37.cfm

 

.. As Dr. Michael Hansen of the Consumers Union told a gathering of

farmers and academics in Mexico August 2, " There is increasing

evidence-from both epidemiological studies and lab studies-that the

various Bt endotoxins-including those from maize, cotton, and

potatoes-may have adverse effects on the immune system and/or may be

human allergens. " Michael Hansen, " Bt Crops: Inadequate Testing, "

Lecture delivered at Universidad Autonoma, Chapingo, Mexico 8/2/02.

 

.. Pesticide residues on GE corn and soybeans may be carcinogenic. A

chemical component of Monsanto's Roundup Ready herbicide, sprayed on

millions of acres of herbicide resistant soybeans and corn, has been

linked to increased risks for cancer. Recently the World Health

Organization issued a warning that a potent nerve toxin and

carcinogen, also linked to birth defects in animals and humans, was

turning up in a variety of vegetables. At first the WHO suggested that

the presence of the chemical, acrylamide, probably arose from cooking

the vegetables at high heat. Now according to a Canadian scientific

expert, Dr. Joe Cummins, another, perhaps even more basic explanation

is that the acrylamide in foods is actually a residue of a surfactant,

or chemical additive, routinely used to enhance the effectiveness and

reduce spray drift of a number of herbicides including Monsanto's

Roundup herbicide, the most widely-used pesticide in the world.

According to Cummins, frying foods containing acrylamide residues

would then likely increase their concentration even more. This is yet

more bad news for Monsanto, who derived 70% of their profits last year

from sales of Roundup herbicide. It's also bad news for the animal

feed and meat industry, since non-organically raised animals are now

ingesting record amounts of Roundup (and acrylamide) residues in the

soybean hulls and other soy and corn-based feeds they are consuming.

http://www.organicconsumers.org/monsanto/acrylamide.cfm

 

.. Gene-splicing foods is imprecise and unpredictable. In a recent

paper circulating on the internet, Professor David Schubert of the

Salk Institute in San Diego, California, points out that the current

crude and imprecise nature of gene-splicing foreign DNA into common

foods is inherently troubling and potentially dangerous because (1)

introducing the same gene into two different cell types or body parts

in an organism can cause very different proteins to be produced, with

radically different activity; (2) introducing new genes into cells

significantly disrupts inter-cellular activity and processes; and (3)

introduction of foreign genes can produce new biomolecules which can

be toxic or carcinogenic. Recent advances in gene chip technology are

enabling scientists such as Schubert to quantitatively measure

cellular disruption caused by gene-splicing. In one experiment, the

introduction of a foreign gene caused a disruption of a full 5% of all

genes in single-cell bacteria. In layperson's terms this means that

15,000 of the 300,000 genes in a plant could be disrupted by a single

routine act of gene-splicing. This means that plant genes could be

turned off, amplified, or turned up more, either producing more or

fewer proteins (some of which are beneficial to humans, some of which

are toxic) and chemical activity.

http://www.organicconsumers.org/gefood/gmfoodrisks0702.cfm

 

 

Frankenstein Rising: Nailing the Coffin Shut

 

Frankenstein appears to be mortally wounded, but of course this beast

has the ability to rise from his coffin unless we nail the lid shut.

Farmers and consumers, joined by a number of brave scientists, have

now, for the first time in modern history, stopped a new and dangerous

technology dead in its tracks. Public acceptance and farmer use of

agricultural biotechnology has peaked and is now moving down in a slow

but inevitable decline. No new blockbuster Frankenfoods or crops are

likely to gain approval for commercialization on the global market.

Those already approved (such as Bt corn) will come under increasing

pressure as scientific evidence mounts that they are dangerous for

human health and the environment, and as labeling becomes mandatory in

most nations. This is ground for celebration and reason for hope. The

battle against genetically engineered foods and crops over the past

decade has shown that the global Civil Society can stand up to

transnational corporations and indentured science and government and

literally change the dynamics of the marketplace, alter public

perceptions, and eventually transform public policies. Congratulations

to all of you. This is our common victory.

 

We've turned the tide of the battle, but there are still major tasks

that lie ahead. Specifically we need (1) mandatory safety testing and

labeling of all GE foods and crops in all nations, especially the

United States, Canada, and Argentina, where 96% of all GE crops are

produced; (2) marketplace pressure campaigns for removal of all GE

soy, corn, canola, and cottonseed from animal feeds; (3) pressure on

major clothing companies to stop using gene-altered cotton in their

garments; (4) pressure on major supermarket chains and food makers,

especially in North America, to remove all GE ingredients from their

brand name products; and finally (5) continuing public education and

pressure to prevent new Frankenfoods and crops (animals, fish, pharm

drugs, lawn grass, trees) and human genetic engineering from being

commercialized.

 

In North America we have a special obligation, and now an opportunity,

to do what our counterparts in Europe, Japan, and other nations have

already done: to put so much pressure on major supermarket chains like

Shaw's, Safeway, and Loblaw's (Canada), and food and beverage giants

like Starbucks and Kraft, that they voluntarily ban the use of GE

ingredients in their products.

 

Although it has taken Greenpeace, the Organic Consumers Association,

and allied US activists several years to gather the resources and

volunteers to take on the major supermarket chains and put the heat on

food giants such as Kraft/Philip Morris in hundreds of cities at the

same time, activists are confident that marketplace pressure from this

point on will snowball until a critical mass is achieved. As Simon

Harris of the OCA put it at a recent activist gathering in Minnesota,

" The dominos are starting to fall. First, Trader Joe's supermarkets, a

major regional chain removed GE ingredients from their store line

brands. Now we see even a much larger company, General Mills, telling

the Gene Giants they don't want GMOs (genetically modified organisms)

in their products. Over the fall we will be gathering momentum in

hundreds of cities. Shaw's supermarkets in New England will be the

next to fall, but gradually even the largest companies like Safeway

and Kraft, are going to face the kind of pressure that has broken

their support for GMOs in Europe. " Meanwhile activists in Europe and

the rest of the world have begun positioning themselves to go after

the jugular vein of Frankencrops--corn, soy, canola, and cottonseeds

in animal feed--which is where 80% or more of the world's GE crops are

now funneled. Analysts estimate that 30% of all animal feed in the EU,

the world's largest agricultural market, is already GE-free.

 

Join the OCA for Nationwide Protests and Leafleting Events this Fall

 

The Organic Consumers Association needs the help of volunteers in the

US, Canada, and Mexico to drive Frankenfoods off the market. If you

are willing to help us leaflet a Starbucks café in your community

(Starbucks Global Week of Action September 21-28, 2002); pressure

Kraft outside supermarkets (Oct. 5-12); or leaflet and protest outside

Shaw's, Safeway, and other major supermarket chains (October

26-November 2) please send an email to campaign

 

Organic Communities Exchange: Join an OCA Eco-Tour to Chiapas

 

In addition the OCA is sponsoring a second delegation or eco-tour to

Chiapas, Mexico Oct. 29-November 5, entitled Organic Communities

Exchange. The delegation, limited to 15 people, will meet with organic

farmers, women's organic garden projects, Fair Trade coffee coops,

biodiversity activists, and autonomous indigenous communities. Besides

getting a close look at the politics of food and biodiversity in the

highlands of Mexico, tour group members will have the unique

opportunity to learn about and celebrate one of the most important

cultural events in Mexico: The Day of the Dead (Nov. 1). The OCA

guarantees this will be an enjoyable, inspirational, and unforgettable

travel experience. Costs for the seven-day trip will be $800 (airfare

not included). To reserve your spot, since space is limited, send a

$400 deposit check to the Organic Consumers Association, 6101 Cliff

Estate Road, Little Marais, MN 55614. Or else call 218-226-4164 or

email mexicotrip

 

Frankenstein is dead. But the coffin lid still rattles. Say tuned to

BioDemocracy News and www.organicconsumers.org for the latest news and

developments.