Bayer faces lawsuits over GMO rice
Reuters News Service, August 30, 2006 (USA)

Bayer CropScience, a unit of Bayer AG, now faces a total of three lawsuits claiming its GM rice contaminated the US long grain rice supply [and] seeking damages to compensate farmers for falling rice prices.
The US Agriculture Department announced Aug. 18 that trace amounts of an unapproved GMO variety engineered by Bayer CropScience were found in rice storage bins in Arkansas and Missouri.
USDA said there was no health or environmental risk. But Japan has suspended imports of US long grain rice and the 25-nation European Union will allow into its stores only long grain rice that is certified free of the unapproved strain.
The latest suit seeks US$275,000 per plaintiff plus punitive damages, Janet Keller, spokeswoman for the law firm, said. "We fully anticipate more farmers to become involved," she said.
Since the announcement of the contamination, rice futures at the Chicago Board of Trade have fallen about 85 cents per hundredweight, or about 9 percent, on worries that exports would be affected.
The tainting of rice supplies reminded many traders of an incident in the fall of 2000, when a biotech corn called StarLink, approved for use only as animal feed, was found in the food chain. This sparked a nationwide recall of taco shells and corn products foods from grocery shelves.
US officials are still investigating how the GM rice ended up in the commercial supply.
Full item: http://www.GEinfo.org.nz/092006/01.html

Gene-tweaked grass on loose
The Oregonian, September 5, 2006 (USA)

Discovery of GM bentgrass in the wild in Central Oregon - the first known transgenic crop escape in the United States - has fulfilled critics' warnings and raised the threat of contaminating the state's nation-leading grass seed crop.
Corvallis scientists discovered two years ago that the experimental Madras crop had sent pollen more than a dozen miles away. Their latest finding that the modified plants had crossed with wild grasses outside a buffer area designed to prevent the escape of seeds and pollen is due out in Molecular Ecology.
"Exactly the things we were most worried about seem to be true," said Jim Diamond, former chairman of the Sierra Club's Genetic Engineering Committee.
The creeping bentgrass strain, developed in partnership between Scotts Miracle-Gro Co. and Monsanto Co., is designed to resist the herbicide Roundup, the world's most widely used plant-killer. Golf courses could plant the seed and keep other grass varieties in check by spraying Roundup.
Jim King, a Scotts spokesman, said the study's conclusions weren't surprising.
"The fact that nature kind of took its course was exactly what you would have expected to happen," King said.
For grass seed growers such as Donald Wirth, an invasion of hard-to-kill bentgrass in his ryegrass or fescue fields could spell catastrophe. Wirth worries that bentgrass, unlike Roundup-resistant strains of corn or soybeans, can remain dormant in soil for more than a decade and spring up. "These cultivated crops will quit growing after a year or two, but bentgrass would be there forever," he said.
Full item: http://www.GEinfo.org.nz/092006/02.html

Judge: Corners cut with biotech crop permits
Associated Press, August 15, 2006 (Hawaii)

A federal judge has ruled that US agriculture officials violated environmental laws in permitting four companies to plant GM crops in Hawaii to produce experimental drugs.
US District Judge Michael Seabright said the Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service flouted both the Endangered Species Act and National Environmental Policy Act by not conducting preliminary environmental reviews before issuing the planting permits.
"APHIS's utter disregard for this simple investigation requirement, especially given the extraordinary number of endangered and threatened plants and animals in Hawaii, constitutes an unequivocal violation of a clear congressional mandate," Seabright said. [He] said the service skipped the mandatory step under the Endangered Species Act of gathering information about local listed species and critical habitats.
The service did not review the impacts of the crop projects or clearly explain in advance why it might be exempt from the requirement, making the decision to issue the permits "arbitrary and capricious," Seabright said.
Full item: http://www.GEinfo.org.nz/092006/03.html

Gene-altered rice from China found in EU
Reuters, September 5, 2006 (EU)

EU consumers may be at risk from unauthorized GM rice [from] China after a biotech strain was found in products sold in three EU countries, two leading environment groups said.
The rice, modified to resist certain insects, was supposed to be used only in field trials, and not approved for commercial growing due to concerns over its safety.
"The presence of unauthorized GMOs in food in the EU is illegal. It is the responsibility of operators to ensure that they do not place on the market food which does not comply with EU law," Commission spokeswoman Barbara Helfferich said.
"It is shocking that illegal contamination [of] GM rice has occurred for the second time in three weeks," Friends of the Earth's GMO campaigner Adrian Bebb said.
Full item: http://www.GEinfo.org.nz/092006/04.html

EC supports Argentina in Monsanto battle
MarketWatch (DowJones), August 10, 2006 (EU)

Argentina has obtained an opinion letter from the EC supporting the country's argument that soybean byproducts aren't covered under EU patents held by Monsanto Co.
In recent months, Monsanto has gotten EU customs officials to temporarily detain a number of Argentine soybean meal shipments to prove that the ships' contents were derived from Monsanto-made soybean seeds, caus[ing] delays and increased costs to importers, leading both importers and exporters in Europe and Argentina to complain about the way Monsanto has trying to resolve its dispute with the Argentine government.
The opinion letter by the European Commission's legal experts found that EU law governing the protection of biotech inventions doesn't extend to derivatives of patented products, an EU official in Brussels said.
Full item: http://www.GEinfo.org.nz/092006/05.html

Custom-built pathogens raise bioterror fears
Washington Post, July 31, 2006 (USA)

In 2002, molecular geneticist Eckard Wimmer startled the scientific world by creating the first live, fully artificial virus in [his] small laboratory at the State University of New York. Wimmer intended to sound a warning, to show that science had crossed a threshold into an era in which genetically altered and made-from-scratch germ weapons were feasible. In the four years since, other scientists have made advances faster than Wimmer imagined possible.
Oversight of controversial experiments remains voluntary and sporadic in many universities and private labs in the US, and occurs even more rarely overseas. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has declined so far to police the booming gene-synthesis industry, which churns out made-to-order DNA to sell to scientists.
"All it would take for advanced bioweapons development," Charles E. Allen, chief intelligence officer for the Department of Homeland Security said, "is one skilled scientist and modest equipment - an activity we are unlikely to detect in advance."
Full item: http://www.GEinfo.org.nz/092006/06.html

Bedroom biotech
The Economist, August 31, 2006 (Online)

Many a computer business has started in a garage or a teenager's bedroom. So, though, has many a computer virus. And where computing led, biotechnology may follow. As genetic information multiplies and the cost of hardware falls, biohackers are emerging.
Using second-hand equipment a basic home-biotech lab could probably be put together for less than $50,000.
The hordes of biology graduates leaving university hoping to become biotechnology start-up millionaires are the most likely to be tempted by homebrewed biotechnology. They are trained scientists who, for the most part, take the same precautions at home as they would in a university or industrial laboratory. Websites such as DNAhack.com and magazines such as Biotech Hobbyist serve as guides to basic biotech procedures.
If the trend persists, ethical issues and definite penalties for wrongdoing will probably be taught alongside practical techniques. The excitement of playing with the latest technology is hard to tame - but like any dangerous beast, it is best approached not with fear but with caution and a plan.
Full item: http://www.GEinfo.org.nz/092006/07.html

Industry still not ready for biotech wheat
Farm Futures, September 6 2006 (USA)

Segregating biotech and non-biotech wheat supplies in marketing channels is still a major stumbling block in market acceptance of GM wheat, according to an updated analysis from Iowa State University grain market analyst Bob Wisner.
US soybean meal exports to the EU have dropped to almost economically insignificant levels. "Loss of the corn export market and the sharp downward trend in US soybean exports to EU are strong cautions to the wheat industry that GM issues should be taken seriously," Wisner says.
Full item: http://www.GEinfo.org.nz/092006/08.html