I pass on the following message about GE foods that I received on a mailing
list.

Lynton
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Richard Wolfson <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
>Date: Wednesday, March 24, 1999 12:00 PM
>Subject: GEN3-24 UK Parliament, plus
>
>
>>Here is a website for the text of an excellent talk entitled
>>
>>"Debunking the Myths of Genetic Engineering in Field Crops"
>>
>>by E. Ann Clark, PhD, Plant Agriculture, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON
>>([log in to unmask])
>>
>>It was Presented to Alternatives, Kitchener, ON Canada   2 March 99
>>
>>http://www.oac.uoguelph.ca/www/CRSC/faculty/eac/myths.htm
>>
>>More essays on GE are at Dr. Clark's website,
>>http://www.oac.uoguelph.ca/www/CRSC/faculty/eac.htm
>>
>>.........
>>
>>next articles Posted Tue, 23 Mar 1999 by: Paul Davis <[log in to unmask]>,
>>who said:
>>
>>In a UK  Parliament debate on the World Trade Organisation, Monsanto came
>>under heavy fire. Their appalling research on BST, corrupt politics,
>>manipulation of vetting agencies and potential damage all came under the
>>microscope. The following speaker also pointed out that Parliament was
>>lagging behind the public, who have already 'cottoned-on' to Monsanto's
>>crooked ways.
>>
>>.............
>>
>>Monsanto blasted in UK Parliament Debate Pt 1
>>
>>Text from UK Parliament:
>>
>>Mr. Simpson, M.P.:
>>The history of Monsanto's interests in bovine somatotropin milk and
>>genetically modified crops is littered with the company buying its way into
>>public policy decisions in its favour. Last week, evidence was published to
>>show that the science on BST milk is wretched, the politics corrupt and the
>>consequences for human and environmental health potentially devastating.
>>
>>Monsanto faces a ruling either from us or from the European Union
>>collectively that says that we are deeply unhappy about removing the ban on
>>BST milk, because of the damage to livestock and the potential damage to
>>human beings.
>>
>>There are public movements against genetically modified crops. When
>>Monsanto threatens to take us and the EU to the World Trade Organisation in
>>pursuit of the free trade rights that it claims, it overlooks the fact that
>>it has systematically sought to hide from politicians and the public the
>>downside of all the magic science that it is sailing past us.
>>
>>Monsanto has failed even to conduct the necessary broader-based research on
>>environmental damage. It wants the right to pursue new monopolies in
>>monocultures that it controls and that will be fundamentally
>>self-destructive. It is an irony that, in the pursuit of free trade rights,
>>Monsanto does not happily own up to the fact that it is invoking the part
>>of the Uruguay agreement that gave it closed markets: the TRIPS agreements
>>on trade in intellectual property rights. Those agreements allow the
>>company to take out patents on the crops that it modifies and, in some
>>parts of the developing world, it slaps patents on crops that it has found.
>>Its rights to patent life are attempts to remove from common ownership
>>things that we have had since civilisation has existed. The company also
>>seeks to take away rights from democratically elected Governments to
>>protect the diversity of their environments and adequately to protect the
>>health needs of their citizens.
>>
>>If Monsanto obtains the rights to introduce the terminator technology as
>>part of any WTO ruling, it will have the right not only to take ownership
>>of life itself, but to take out a patent on death. The company says that it
>>has encountered no problems in its experiments in the United States, but
>>one needs only to look at the vast acreage of GM crops on the prairies of
>>Arizona where, apart from the Monsanto crops, the land is sterile. It has
>>been soaked in the company's herbicide. It does not have a weed problem
>>because nothing else can grow. When Monsanto is asked about the impact of
>>its actions on bio-diversity, its representatives throw up their hands and
>>say that it is not an issue for them.
>>
>>The company has manipulated the rules of the vetting agencies in a way that
>
>>is technically brilliant, but ethically corrupt and degrading for humanity.
>>We have to be prepared to make a stand against that. We easily forget, in
>>this country and in Europe, that there is no public demand for GM foods and
>>no agricultural need for them. The GM process has been driven past the
>>advisory committees on the basis that it is the science that will save
>>humanity, but it is the science that will turn bad research into huge
>>corporate profits at huge social cost.
>>
>>As a Parliament, we have been slow to catch up with the public's
>>understanding of the issue. They know, in ways that we are only beginning
>>to acknowledge, that Monsanto's claims about safety are bogus. The public
>>know now that Monsanto's research on milk was fiddled. They know that the
>>inclusion of GM soya with the rest of the soya crop was the result of
>>calculated efforts by Monsanto to discover whether the public would buy GM
>>produce if it were clearly identified. The company knew that the public
>>would not do so, and it manipulated the regulatory regime in the USA so
>>that it did not have to meet the obligation to identify it. The
>>environmental damage falls outside the terms of the monitoring agencies in
>>the USA.
>>
>>As we debate the relationship between Britain, Europe, the USA and the
>>World Trade Organisation, we must understand that people have given up
>>waiting for a parliamentary lead. There are good reasons for that: we have
>>a 200-year history of the public taking food safety disputes into our own
>>hands. It was about 200 years ago when the first of Britain's food riots
>>was caused by the adulteration of food. Farmers adulterated flour with
>>sawdust and supplied the flour as part of the workers' wages. The riots
>>were about whether anyone had the right to adulterate food in that way and
>>I say with some pride that that was the momentum behind the Rochdale
>>co-operative. The people wanted to be able to provide food that was safe
>>for themselves and their children to eat. The same is happening now in the
>>riots in India.
>>
>>The "Cremate Monsanto" campaign is not waiting for a Government lead before
>>burning the fields of GM crops that they do not want. The campaign is being
>>led by farmers and villagers who foresee the destruction of biodiversity in
>>pursuit of corporate greed. It is echoed by the coalition of developing
>>world countries who, at the Cartagena biosafety convention, said that they
>>wanted the right to say no to such produce in order to protect their
>>biodiversity. Any international trade agreement that fails to deal with
>>workers' rights or environmental and food sustainability will not be  worth
>>adhering to. Social movements in France and Canada are attempting to take
>>direct action to challenge the corporate  rights assumed by today's global
>>giants.
>>
>>We should bear in mind the public movements staking similar claims in
>>relation to genetically modified foods in today's supermarkets. If the
>>United States of America and the food corporations are to threaten us with
>>a trade war and World Trade Organisation rulings that define our actions as
>>illegal, we must reply that the British public would probably deem a trade
>>war to feed safe food to ourselves and our children a war worth fighting.
>>
>>Those who want to open up the market without ethical or safety constraints
>>are backing a horse that the public will not bet on. Rulings may go in
>>their favour, but if Monsanto and the USA win the right to dump unsafe
>>foods in United Kingdom markets, we can overrule that right with a civic
>>right to dump those products in the sea or leave them stockpiled at
>>supermarket check-outs. We can assert our right not to buy something that
>>we believe to be endangering our health, the environmental viability of our
>>country and the international sustainability of relationships in vulnerable
>>economies.
>>
>>.......
>>
>>Monsanto blasted in UK Parliament Pt 2
>>
>>Mr. Norman Baker M.P.
>>Monsanto has made itself public enemy No. 1. It has bulldozed elected
>>Governments across the world and forced its wretched products on to the
>>world's population, whether we want them or not. Monsanto must be brought
>>urgently under democratic control. If the WTO rules permit such activities,
>>they are wrong and must be changed. If we are not careful, Monsanto will
>>become the bad news story of the 21st century. The company must be stopped.
>>
>>Monsanto has deliberately refused to segregate GM and non-GM crops in order
>>to deny consumer choice--something to which all hon. Members are committed.
>>Monsanto also wishes to introduce GM crops, regardless of the possible
>>environmental consequences. We know from the Advisory Committee on Releases
>>to the Environment, other Government advisory bodies and from the EU that
>>there are significant environmental concerns about GM crops. Monsanto does
>>not want to wait: it wants to steamroller those crops through and give us
>>no alternative. When the crops are planted and problems arise, Monsanto
>>will say, "Never mind, let's deal with it now."
>>
>>The company wants to undermine alternative sources of non-GM crops. It is
>>trying to stop us buying non-GM soya from Brazil by buying up Brazil and
>>halting alternative supplies from that country. Monsanto is the antithesis
>>of democracy. It is not worried about labelling; it is trying to persuade
>>us that it is not necessary and that it is somehow a barrier to free trade.
>>What nonsense. We are entitled to know what we are buying. To be fair, the
>>Government have accepted that. They have always been committed to
>>labelling. Monsanto does not want labelling: it wants its products to carry
>>as little information as possible. It knows that if its products are
>>labelled accurately--and they are not because most GM material is not
>>labelled under the present regulations--people will not buy them, and it
>>does not want that.
>>
>>Monsanto has been forcing crops into India and onto the developing
>>countries of the third world. It has intimidated farmers in the United
>>States by hiring private investigators and then fining farmers when a
>>Monsanto seed is found in their soil.
>>
>>In this country, Monsanto has been condemned by the Advertising Standards
>>Authority, which found it guilty of making
>>
>>     "wrong . . . unproven, misleading and confusing claims"
>>
>>in a £1 million campaign.
>>
>>How does Monsanto manage to do all that? It uses the revolving door policy,
>>and makes sure that personnel from Monsanto and Government agency advisory
>>bodies frequently switch positions. Marcia Hale, the former adviser to the
>>US President, is now the director of international government affairs for
>>the Monsanto corporation. Michael Kantnor, the former secretary to the US
>>department of commerce is now a member of the Monsanto corporation board.
>>Josh King, the former director of production for White House events, is now
>>the director of global communications for the Monsanto corporation.
>>Margaret Miller, the former chemical laboratory supervisor for Monsanto, is
>>now the deputy  director of the new animal drug evaluation office in the US
>>Food and Drug Administration. We have seen confidential European Union
>>documents that have been passed to Monsanto by Dr. Nick Weber of the FDA,
>>and a former Monsanto analyst.
>>
>>Monsanto is abusing and twisting the system and getting from it as much as
>>it can. It is getting the Food and Drug Administration on board and it is
>>getting the US to fight its corner. I am in favour of free trade and the
>>World Trade Organisation, but I am not in favour of one company so using
>>its muscle and contriving matters for its own ends that the opportunity for
>>consumer choice and Government decisions by democratic bodies is
>>effectively removed.
>>
>>Dan Verakis, the public relations manager for Monsanto in the UK, has said,
>>"Everybody here hates us." I have to tell Monsanto that I hate it. It is
>>the antithesis of democracy and it needs to be stopped.
>>
>>_________________________________________________________
>>Richard Wolfson,  PhD
>>Consumer Right to Know Campaign,
>>for Mandatory Labelling and Long-term
>>Testing of all Genetically Engineered Foods,
>>500 Wilbrod Street
>>Ottawa, ON  Canada  K1N 6N2
>>tel. 613-565-8517  fax. 613-565-1596
>>email:  [log in to unmask]
>>
>>Our website, http://www.natural-law.ca/genetic/geindex.html
>>contains more information on genetic engineering as well as previous
>>genetic engineering news items.  Subscription fee to genetic engineering
>>news is $35 for 12 months, payable to "BanGEF" and mailed to the above
>>address. Or see website for details.
>>__________________________________________________________
>>__________________________________________________________
>>
>>
>>
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