June
1999
A Bad Month for
the Gene Giants
By Ronnie Cummins and Ben Lilliston
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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, 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.
An international meeting of entomologists in Basel, Switzerland in March
was told that genetically engineered (GE) Bt crops are exuding 10 to 20
times the amount of toxins contained in conventional Bt sprays, and are
harming beneficial insects (such as ladybugs and lacewings) and soil microorganisms,
which may be harming insect-eating bird populations. The scientists called
for a moratorium on commercial planting of Bt crops. Meanwhile, a small
farm supply and seed dealer in Iowa 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
U.S. Patent Office since 1985 are illegal because Congress never intended
that key food crops be patented. According to the Wall Street Journal
(March 3), the lawsuit “places at risk much of the billions of dollars
in investments by companies such as Monsanto Co., Dupont Co., and Novartis.”
Poll results announced March 11 in the Scottish 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 published a five-year study in
which they condemned the “unethical” practices of U.S. and transnational
biotech corporations. Again on the same day, the Consumers Union of Japan
(CUJ) issued a report on increasing anti-GE food activities in Japan.
The CUJ announced that 2,300 of Japan’s 3,300 local government assemblies
have 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.
Another major GE food safety controversy erupted in the U.K. on March
12, when researchers at the York Nutritional Laboratory announced that
soy food allergies among the British public unexpectedly rose 50 percent
in 1998, coinciding with a large increase in imported foods from the U.S.
containing genetically engineered soybeans. Last year, Monsanto’s
Roundup Ready soybeans constituted 32 percent of the U.S. soybean crop.
Scientists have warned for years that if foreign proteins (most of which
have never been consumed by humans) are gene-spliced into common foods
an epidemic of food allergies could occur. In the U.S., 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. Allergic reactions typically occur
only some time after the subject is sensitized by initial exposure to
the allergen.”
In early March, grain export giant Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) announced
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 also announced that they were postponing commercial
planting of GE Liberty Link soybeans in the U.S. 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 U.S. annual soy
exports. Up until now the U.S. has been able to export shipments of unlabeled,
non-segregated soybeans worth $2.5 billion to the EU every year, as well
as $1 billion to Japan.
On March 15, leading French non-governmental organizations (NGOs), including
Greenpeace and Ecoropa, called for the French government to follow the
lead of the U.K. and Denmark and impose a national ban on the planting
of all GE crops. Etienne Vernet of Ecoropa told Reuters that the French
public wanted “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
beets and 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 U.S. 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.
Genetic Pollution
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.
Late in March, Amazon tribal leaders, wearing shell necklaces and bird
feathers, carried out a protest at the U.S. Patent Office in Washington,
D.C., demanding a revocation of a “bio-pirated” patent granted
to 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.
The U.S. mass media are finally starting to wake up to the controversy
over genetically engineered foods and crops. In recent months objective,
even hard-hitting, investigative articles have started to appear in the
New York Times, the Washington Post, and other magazines
and papers. Even national TV networks, especially CNN and ABC News, 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. 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 grassroots mass movement—anti-GE, anti-industrial agriculture,
pro-organic, pro-sustainable—is starting to develop.
Ronnie Cummins is Director, Campaign for Food Safety/Organic
Consumers Association. He can be reached at: 860 Hwy 61, Little Marais,
Minnesota 55614. Tel.: 218-226-4164, Fax: 218-226-4157, email: mailto:alliance@mr.net
Web: http://www.purefood.org/ and
http://www.icta.org/
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