MONSANTO meets with ACTIVISTS

From: "S.Wilson/F.Moola" <fmoola@sprint.ca>
To: "evan fraser" <efraser@interchange.ubc.ca>, "bg593" <bg593@freenet.carleton.ca>, "Sustainable Maritimes" <sust-mar@chebucto.ns.ca>
Date: Tue, 29 Jun 1999 22:59:50 -0300
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----
>>Fearful of a public backlash that might drive the biotech industry into
>>oblivion, Monsanto is reaching out to its critics.
>>
>>Last week, Jeremy Rifkin, the biotech critic, flew to Monsanto's world
>>headquarters in St. Louis to address something called the World Business
>>Council for Sustainable Development.
>>
>>According to a report in the New York Times, the multinational giants
>>wanted Rifkin to help them "paint a portrait of the biotechnology
>>landscape of the year 2030 and how it evolved."
>>
>>Also last week, Gordon Conway, president of the Rockefeller Foundation,
>>met with Monsanto's directors in Washington, D.C. to persuade them to drop
>>the terminator gene. It used to be that farmers would plant seed, the crop
>>would come up and be harvested, except for a handful of plants, which the
>>farmer would let go to seed, and save that seed for next year's planting.
>>With the terminator gene, the crop comes up, but there are no seeds. So
>>the farmer has to go to Monsanto to buy more seed.
>>
>>Conway told Dow Jones Newswires he is worried that the backlash over the
>>terminator gene, which is years from reaching the commercial stage, is
>>damaging public support for crop biotechnology in general, which might
>>slow research that could benefit poor farmers overseas.  "We have a lot of
>>people to feed and biotechnology is one of the answers," said Conway.
>>
>>Whatever you feel about citizens of conscience meeting with corporations
>>to seek to persuade them to do the right thing, (and we are not of one
>>mind on this), it is clear that the biotech industry is in a panic over
>>its beloved high-tech future.
>>
>>The masses in Europe are in full revolt over the issue (with the Prince of
>>Wales leading the charge against the corporatist Labor Party in the UK).
>>And a lawsuit that the mainstream press has largely ignored -- a lawsuit
>>that threatens the well-being of Monsanto, Norvartis and other biotech
>>firms -- is making its way through the courts.
>>
>>In May 1998, a number of public interest groups sued the Food and Drug
>>Administration (FDA), alleging that the agency violated federal law by
>>allowing biotech foods onto the market without first adequately testing
>>the foods for safety and then without adequately labelling those foods so
>>that consumers know whether, for example, they are eating fish genes
>>spliced into their tomato sauce.
>>
>>The federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act incorporates the precautionary
>>principle -- a new food additive is presumed unsafe until established safe
>>through standard scientific procedures. But the FDA ruled in 1992 that
>>genetically engineered foods are not new food additives.
>>
>>In the FDA's critical 1992 statement of policy on biotech foods -- the
>>policy that opened the floodgates that allowed biotech foods to pour into
>>the marketplace -- the FDA claims that it was "not aware of any
>>information showing that foods derived by these new [biotech] methods
>>differ from other foods in any meaningful or uniform way."
>>
>>In fact, internal reports and memos obtained during the course of
>>discovery for the lawsuit reveal the FDA's own scientists warned that
>>foods produced through recombinant DNA technology entail different risks
>>than do their conventionally produced counterparts.
>>
>>But these scientists were consistently disregarded by the bureaucrats who
>>approved the agency's current policy of treating bioengineered foods the
>>same as natural foods that have been changed by conventional breeding
>>practices.
>>
>>"There is a profound difference between the types of unexpected effects
>>from traditional breeding and genetic engineering which is just glanced
>>over in this document," warned Dr. Louis Priybl of the FDA's Microbiology
>>Group in criticizing a 1992 FDA draft policy paper on the issue.
>>
>>Dr. Linda Kayl, an FDA compliance officer, complained that the FDA was
>>"trying to fit a square peg into a round hole" by concluding that "there
>>is no difference between foods modified by genetic engineering and foods
>>modified by traditional breeding practices."
>>
>>"The processes of genetic engineering and traditional breeding are
>>different, and according to the technical experts in the agency, they lead
>>to different risks," Kayl said.
>>
>>Kayl and other FDA scientists recommended that genetically engineered
>>foods undergo special testing. To no avail.
>>
>>So, Americans are now eating genetically engineered foods. And for the
>>most part, they don't know it.
>>
>>The main genetically engineered crops in the United States are soy, corn,
>>canola, cotton, potatoes, papayas, and raddichio.  (You might say -- hey,
>>I don't eat cotton. But cottonseed oil is in many vegetable oil blends,
>>which are in many processed foods.)
>>
>>It has been estimated that corn and soy alone are in 70 to 80 percent of
>>U.S. processed foods. And since 40 percent of this season's soybean crop
>>and 30 percent of the corn crop have been genetically engineered, you are
>>probably eating genetically engineered foods, whether you like it, or know
>>it, or not.
>>
>>Steven Druker, the executive director of the Iowa City-based Alliance for
>>Bio-Integrity, is the driving force behind the lawsuit against the FDA.
>>
>>The lawsuit has received little media publicity since being filed last
>>year, but Druker predicts that when the American people learn the details
>>of the FDA's deception, we'll see an earthquake of public reaction against
>>biotech foods.
>>
>>"The FDA has been intentionally unleashing a host of potentially harmful
>>foods onto American dinner tables in blatant violation of U.S. law,"
>>Druker told us. "And they have been covering up the fact that they have
>>been acting so wrongly. I don't like that. And most people who learn the
>>facts do not like it."
>>
>>Bon appetit.
>>
>>Russell Mokhiber is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate Crime
>>Reporter. Robert Weissman is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based
>>Multinational Monitor. They are co-authors of Corporate Predators: The
>>Hunt for MegaProfits and the Attack on Democracy, Common Courage Press,
>>1999, http://www.corporatepredators.org.
>>
>>(c) Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman
>>Focus on the Corporation is a weekly column written by Russell Mokhiber
>>and Robert Weissman. Please feel free to forward the column to friends or
>>repost the column on other lists. If you would like to post the column on
>>a web site or publish it in print format, we ask that you first contact us
>>(russell@essential.org or rob@essential.org).
>>
>>Focus on the Corporation is distributed to individuals on the listserve
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>>
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>>
>>Focus on the Corporation columns are posted at
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>>
>>Postings on corp-focus are limited to the columns. If you would like to
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>>rob@essential.org.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>***********************************************************
>>
>>Saskatchewan Eco Network
>>#203-115 2nd Ave. North
>>Saskatoon, SK
>>S7K 2B1
>>
>>phone: (306) 652-1275
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>>email: sen@link.ca
>>
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>>
>>
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