Lifting bans may trigger legal landslide
SBS, November 29, 2007 (Australia)

The lifting of bans on GM canola in NSW and Victoria will trigger a landslide of lawsuits from producers, Australia's largest organic farming body said.
The NSW and Victorian governments this week ended bans on GM canola crops, which are resistant to the widely used pesticide glyphosate.
The warning follows concerns from the nation's largest publicly-listed food company that the axing of the bans will damage Australian exports to Europe.
"Goodman Fielder is of the view that, in a world of ever-increasing globalisation, Australia's status as a GM-free crop producer gives the country an essential international advantage that it would be counter-productive to place in jeopardy," chief executive Peter Margin wrote to state premiers and ministers for agriculture.
"It is our view that the alleged economic advantages of growing GM crops will be more than negated by our weakened market positioning and inevitable lower financial returns..."In this context it should be emphasised that European markets continue to be reliant on non-GM crops and that these markets would be expected to be closed to Australian grain should our current non-GM status change."
Full item: http://www.GEinfo.org.nz/122007/01.html

GMO rice caused $1.2 bln in damages
Reuters, November 5, 2007 (USA)

Trace amounts of GM varieties of rice that were found commingled in the US rice supply in 2006 caused more than $1.2 billion in damages and additional costs, the environmental group Greenpeace International said on Monday.
US rice exports fell sharply after Bayer CropScience reported that trace amounts of its LibertyLink rice variety LLRICE601 were found in a widely grown variety of US rice called Cheniere. Later, a second variety was found to be contaminated.
The discovery of GMO-tainted rice triggered the largest financial and marketing disaster in the history of the US rice industry, according to Greenpeace. At least 30 countries were affected by the contamination and many closed their markets to US rice, including major importers such as the European Union and the Philippines.
The overall cost to the industry included losses of up to $253 million from food-product recalls in Europe, US export losses of $254 million in the 2006/07 crop year and future export losses of $445 million, Greenpeace said.
David Coia of trade group USA Rice Federation said "It's certainly the most significant event in the history of the US rice industry."
Full item: http://www.GEinfo.org.nz/122007/02.html

France suspends GMO seed use
Reuters, December 6, 2007 (France)

France formally suspended the commercial use of GMO seeds in the country until early February and ordered a safety study. The French agriculture ministry said it had charged a new committee with assessing the environmental and health implications of using GMO seeds reliant on the MON 810 technology developed by Monsanto. 'As a result, there is a need to suspend the end-use of MON 810 maize seeds and related sales while awaiting the results of this mission,' it said in a circular.
Full item: http://www.GEinfo.org.nz/122007/03.html

Do escaped transgenes persist in nature?
Molecular Ecology (Abstract), October 29, 2007

The existence of transgenic hybrids resulting from transgene escape from GM crops to wild or weedy relatives is well documented but the fate of the transgene over time in recipient wild species populations is still relatively unknown. This is the first report of the persistence and apparent introgression, i.e. stable incorporation of genes from one differentiated gene pool into another, of an herbicide resistance transgene from Brassica napus into the gene pool of its weedy relative, Brassica rapa, monitored under natural commercial field conditions.
These observations confirm the persistence of the HR trait over time. Persistence occurred over a 6-year period, in the absence of herbicide selection pressure (with the exception of possible exposure to glyphosate in 2002), and in spite of the fitness cost associated with hybridization.
Science News: http://www.GEinfo.org.nz/122007/04.html

Low-dose exposure and immunogenicity of transgenic maize
Environmental Health Perspectives (Synopsis). November 8, 2007

Minute quantities of a bacterial protein inserted in corn provoke immune reactions in mice. The protein is added to increase the effectiveness of plant-based transgenic vaccines. Eating extremely small amounts of LT-B several times over less than a month caused exposed mice to develop immune reactions to the protein.
The results indicate that special care will be needed with transgenic corn to reduce exposure to workers and the public if this protein is used commercially in corn or other food crops, to avoid unwanted immune responses in people and decreased effectiveness of oral vaccines that use the protein.
Science News: http://www.GEinfo.org.nz/122007/05.html

Lawyers dispute patents on animals and plants
The Chronicle (Duke University), November 12, 2007 (USA)

Apples and oranges may soon be patented - unless lawmakers and researchers learn more about the ethics of plant and animal use. That was one message from the Animals and Bioengineering Conference, held at the School of Law. The conference brought together attorneys, judges, scientists and ethicists to discuss the use of GMOs in commercial and research settings.
Judge Michel Bastarache, puisne justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, criticized the court for the decisions of the Monsanto Canada Inc. v. Schmeiser case, which he said implies that a higher lifeform is patentable.
"The [Canadian] Patent Office has always held that higher-life forms are not patentable, for over 100 years" Bastarache said. "The ruling introduces indirectly a new obsession rule ... [that] the infusion of every seed or speck of pollen in the crop of someone else, renders Monsanto a co-owner of every plant."
He noted that the patents are used for commercial exploitation, rather than to better the world through inventions.
Full item: http://www.GEinfo.org.nz/122007/06.html

Scotts to pay $500,000 fine
over biotech bentgrass

Reuters, November 27, 2007 (USA)
The Scotts Co. will pay a $500,000 fine over allegations that it failed to comply with US rules for field-testing a GE variety of grass used on lawns, athletic fields and golf courses, the US Agriculture Department said on Monday.
An APHIS spokeswoman said the allegations included failure by Scotts to follow proper equipment-cleaning procedures and to have all required buffer zones around the GE crop to prevent mixing with traditional crops.
In addition, APHIS alleged Scotts failed to prevent bentgrass (modified to resist Monsanto weed killers) or its offspring from persisting in the environment following a field trial in Oregon in 2003.
The government instructed Scotts in 2004 to locate and remove any accidentally released bentgrass to address past allegations that the company failed to notify APHIS of the problem. Since then, there have been more findings of the genetically engineered crop in the environment.
A US district judge ruled in February the Agriculture Department must conduct a more thorough review of applications for field trials of GE crops to determine if they pose a threat to the environment.
Full item: http://www.GEinfo.org.nz/122007/07.html

One step closer to GE humans
AlterNet, October 19, 2007

In October, the Nobel Prize for biology went to three scientists whose talent and persistence gave us "knockout mice", the GE lab animals widely used by researchers to model and study human diseases.
The new Nobel laureate, Mario Capecchi, like his former mentor James Watson (currently embroiled in controversy after making a series of racist remarks in the UK Sunday Times), has spoken enthusiastically of using the genetic science he's helped advance to engineer biologically enhanced children.
The prospect of a renewed, high-tech eugenics is extraordinarily controversial, but it is not just a fantasy. It is coming ever closer to technical plausibility, and for a disturbing number of influential scientists and eccentric futurists, it is an agenda. At an UCLA conference in 1998, Watson, Capecchi, and other prominent scientists gathered to strategize about how to make it "acceptable" to the public.
The conferees were quite explicit. Watson - hardly known for his shyness or tact - proclaimed to the audience of nearly a thousand, "If we could make better human beings by knowing how to add genes, why shouldn't we do it?"
Princeton mouse biologist turned futurist Lee Silver, has elaborated on this frankly eugenic vision. Silver eagerly imagines a future in which the appearance, personality, cognitive abilities, and sensory capacities of children become products of genetic modification. Silver acknowledges that the costs of such procedures would limit their widespread adoption, and predicts that over time society would segregate into castes that he dubs the "GenRich" and the "Naturals."
Full item: http://www.GEinfo.org.nz/122007/09.html