permaculture

["Lawrence F. London, Jr." <lfl@intrex.net>]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [SANET-MG] transgenic pollution a global model
Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2004 13:54:46 -0500
From: jcummins <jcummins@UWO.CA>
To: SANET-MG@LISTS.IFAS.UFL.EDU

Can organic agriculture survive genetic pollution?
US to Rubber Stamp Transgene Contamination as Global Model (21/12/2004)

"FDA's new proposal has nothing to do with food safety, it's designed to
provide biotech companies with legal cover for contaminating the food
supply with experimental biotech traits."

FDA Commissioner Lester Crawford described the proposed policy as "a
high priority for the Administration and the industry, to enhance public
confidence, avoid product recalls, and provide an international model"
for similar policies around the world.
---

US to Rubber Stamp Transgene Contamination

US set to approve contamination of food supply with unauthorised test crops.

Mae-Wan Ho and Sam Burcher report

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) published a proposal on 24
November 2004 to allow experimental GM crops grown on 'test' sites to
legally enter the food chain. The proposal is open for comment until 24
January 2005.

The FDA proposal came in response to a 2002 Bush administration
initiative in the wake of widespread contamination of US food supplies
and exports in 2000 with unauthorised Starlink GM corn, which continued
to be detected in the US grain supply and in food shipments to Bolivia,
Japan and South Korea as recently as autumn 2003.

FDA Commissioner Lester Crawford described the proposed policy as "a
high priority for the Administration and the industry, to enhance public
confidence, avoid product recalls, and provide an international model"
for similar policies around the world.

The new policy sets out loose "safety assessment" guidelines under which
a company may voluntarily consult with the FDA to have its experimental
GM crop material deemed "acceptable" as a food contaminant.

The "safety assessment" consists of paperwork and two inadequate tests
that the FDA estimates will take companies just 20 hours to complete;
and does not include animal feeding trials or tests for unintended
effects caused by genetic modification. This would then give biotech
companies the legal cover to allow their experimental GM crops to enter
the US food supply. The US biotechnology and grain industries are
already calling on the US government to "vigorously promote global
adoption" of this policy.

It is already virtually impossible to test for the presence of
experimental GM food crops in foods imported from or processed in the
US, because over two-thirds of US field trials of experimental GM crops
involve one or more genes classified as confidential which therefore
cannot be detected.

Bill Freese, research analyst with Friends of the Earth (US) said,
"FDA's new proposal has nothing to do with food safety, it's designed to
provide biotech companies with legal cover for contaminating the food
supply with experimental biotech traits. Such contamination has happened
in the past and has cost biotech companies more than $1billion." Aside
from Starlink, another experimental GM corn containing a pharmaceutical
sprouted in a field of soya one year after the trial crop had been
harvested. ProdiGene, the makers of the GM corn, paid out millions of
dollars in damages and a $250 000 fine, although the product never
reached the food chain.

Adrian Bebb of Friends of the Earth Europe added: "Because of the
secrecy behind experiments in the United States, no one - not food
companies, not even governments - will be able to test food products or
food imports for contamination because they won’t know what to test for.
This will leave consumers worldwide exposed to new risks from
genetically modified foods."

Those experiments that are known to the public include crops with
radically altered nutritional content for use as animal feed or
anti-fungal compounds that resemble food allergens. Others include crops
engineered to be resistant to chemical herbicides, produce their own
insecticides or have sterile pollen or seeds. The FDA is also
considering a similar proposal to allow residues from experimental
pharmaceutical crops to enter the food chain. (See Ban Plant-based
Transgenic Pharmaceuticals www.i-sis.org.uk/Banpharmcrops.php).

Juan Lopez from Friends of the Earth International said: "The Bush
Administration, with the active support of the biotechnology industry,
is about to force their untested genetically modified experiments into
the world’s food supply. This proposal should be ringing alarm bells in
every consumer, every food company and every food agency of the planet."

In line with the same policy proposal, Prof. Joe Cummins at the
University of Western Ontario points out, "USDA [US Department of
Agriculture], which regulates organic certification, has proclaimed that
organic food crops polluted with modified genes from wind-borne pollen
released from neighbouring farms will still be certified as organic
food." (See "GM sugar beet gone sour", ISIS report, 9 December 2005,
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/GMSBGS.php).
More information at Friends of the Earth International Action Alert:
http://www.foei.org/cyberaction/fda.html

Submit your comments by 24 January 2005.
Through the FDA website (Docket ID”2004D-03692) at
www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/oc/dockets/comments/commentsmain.cfm?EC_DOCUMENT_ID=543&SUBTYP=NEXT&CID=&AGENCY=FDA
Or send written comments, referencing Docket ID2004D-0369 to FDA
Commissioner
Division of Dockets Management (HFA-305), Food and Drug Administration,
5630 Fishers Lane, Room 1061, Rockville, MD20852, USA

Sources
FDA release of the policy was announced at:
http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/ANSWERS/2004/ANS01327.html
FDA’s draft policy is available at:
http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/bioprgui.htm.
FOE Press release. Anger over US plans to allow GM contamination on
food, Nov 23
http://foe,co.uk/resource/press_releases/anger_over_us_plans_to_all_23112004
Bad seeds, Crop Choice News 24 Aug. 2004
http://www.cropchoice.com/leadstry39e0-2.html?recid=2720
FoE briefing paper: www.foei.org/publications/pdfs/contamination.pdf