Scientists Speak Out

• Monsanto name changed to Pharmacia, January, 2000
  
  
  
• Seattle Food Safety Declaration, November 28, 1999
  
  
  
• Consumers mop up in milk war, by George Monbiot, The Guardian, 7/22/99
  . . . The milk dispute threatened to become far bigger than the beef and banana wars. The United States has already demonstrated that it will go to extraordinary lengths to ensure that Monsanto gets what it wants.
  ... [Then] three weeks ago, Codex [Alimentarius, the United Nations food standards agency,] did something almost unprecedented. It made a decision on the basis of science, rather than politics. Safety concerns about BST, it ruled, could not be ignored. The United States was forced to drop its suit.
           The decision not to poison the 370m members of the European Union, though ignored by every newspaper and broadcaster in Britain, could prove to be one of the defining moments of the end of the 20th century. The credibility of the coercive trade regime which has threatened the sovereignty of every democratic state on earth has already been seriously challenged.
           Last year, the Multilateral Agreement on Investment, a crude attempt to enable big business to overthrow national legislation, was defeated by campaigners. This week, the World Trade Organisation failed to resolve the furious internal dispute over its next director-general, and was forced to appoint both leading candidates.
           Europe's victory sets the tone for a new round of trade talks, opening in Seattle in November. They promise to be so contentious that they could break the World Trade Organisation apart. I hope so. The WTO, established to protect weak nations from the strong, has been reduced to an oppressive instrument of American foreign policy.
  
  
  
• Fury as CIA admits spying on British environment minister, The Telegraph, 6/3/99
  Environment groups expressed alarm over the CIA's actions. Charles Secrett, director of Friends of the Earth, said: "The immediate fear is that the CIA is working hand in glove with Monsanto [the US biotechnology company] to do anything they can to force this technology down our throats whatever democratic politicians say. It would be dynamite if this file has anything about Michael Meacher's track record on genetically modified crops and foods. What business is it of the CIA's to worry about any politician's views about biotechnology products?"
  
  
  
• Art Stauss on Genetically Modified Foods, 6/3/99
  Foods that we assume to be natural foods and eat every day have been genetically engineered with the DNA of bacteria, viruses, animals, and fish. The chemical/genetic engineering industry has done this secretly over the past three years. Although the chemical/genetic engineering industry claims to have good motives and good intentions for doing this, they are essentially experimenting with the human race on a mass scale. We can eliminate these Frankenfoods now!! If you want to eliminate Frankenfoods from this world, please take action. Here's how:...
  
  
  
• biotech-L@cornell.edu: Open Forum On Biotechnology In Agriculture
  
  
  
• Questions About Genetically Modified Organisms
  An article by The Prince of Wales, 6/1/99
  What I believe the public's reaction shows is that instinctively we are nervous about tampering with Nature when we can't be sure that we know enough about all the consequences. Having followed this debate very closely for some while now, I believe that there are still a number of unanswered questions which need to be asked.
• Prince's GM attack upsets ministers / Why Prince went tabloid on GM food
  articles by Paul Waugh and Michael McCarthy, and Kathy Marks, Independent 6/2/99
  
  
  
• Britain Caught Out by Leaked Genetic Food Report, 5/99
  "The paper said the report - `Organic Farming and Gene Transfer from Genetically Modified Crops' - concluded that contamination could not be entirely stopped so acceptable levels would have to be decided upon." The crux of this goes back to Why Labeling Genetically Modified Organisms is Pointless.
  
  
  
• Sign Petition to Label Genetically Engineered Foods
  --keeping in mind the fact that we MUST BAN all further development of genetically modified organisms "until such time as the scientists themselves (free of the constraints imposed on them by greedy self-interested corporations) can prove conclusively that they have reached a level of expertise and knowledge that is needed to be sure of no danger."

        Monsanto argues that genetic engineering is necessary if the world's food supply is to keep up with human population growth. If genetically engineered crops were indeed aimed at feeding the hungry, Monsanto and others would be developing seeds that:

  • grow on substandard or marginal soils;
  • produce plants containing more high-quality protein, with increased per-acre yield, withing increasing the need for expensive machinery, chemicals, fertilizers, or water;
  • favor small farms over large;
  • are cheap and freely available; and
  • produce crops that feed people, not livestock.

        None of the genetically engineered crops now available or announced has any of these desirable characteristics.

  -- "Against The Grain" by Peter Montague,
  YES! A Journal of Positive Futures, Summer 1999, pp.46-7

  
  
  
• Food Irradiation Alert -- Last Chance To Stop Food Irradiation
  Comments To FDA Are Needed Before July 19, 1999 -- Please Publicize
  
  
  

• RACHEL'S ENVIRONMENT & HEALTH WEEKLY :
  • (04/01/01) #721 -- ENGINEERING HUMANS -- PART 2  (ASCII text)
  • (03/15/01) #720 -- ENGINEERING HUMANS -- PART 1  (ASCII text)
  • (03/01/01) #719 -- BIOTECH: THE BASICS, PART 4  (ASCII text)
  • (02/15/01) #718 -- BIOTECH: THE BASICS, PART 3  (ASCII text)
  • (02/01/01) #717 -- BIOTECH: THE BASICS, PART 2  (ASCII text)
  • (01/17/01) #716 -- BIOTECH: THE BASICS, PART 1  (ASCII text)
  • (02/25/99) #639 -- GENETICALLY ALTERING THE WORLD'S FOOD  (ASCII text)
  • (02/18/99) #638 -- AGAINST THE GRAIN, PART 2  (ASCII text)
  • (02/11/99) #637 -- AGAINST THE GRAIN  (ASCII text)
  • (10/28/98) #622 -- SEEDS OF DESTRUCTION  (ASCII text)
  
  
  
• High-Tech Killers at the Gate, WEDO News & Views, 11/98

  [I]n the final analysis, the growing controversy over the Terminator technology is not simply a matter of the U.S. government doling out gifts to giant corporations and then promoting their business overseas as globalization coups. This technology not only involves the nature of future generations of plants and crops but the very lives of millions of men, women and children, including small U.S. farmers, that the U.S.government purports to care about. Can the profit motive be justification enough for a fundamentally anti-life technology?

  
  
• Scientists' Warning about Genetically Engineered Food
  Declaration demanding a moratorium on Genetically Engineered food
  
  
  
• News from International Biosafety conference in Cartagena, Colombia, 2/99
  1. Biosafety Pact Could Hit US Trade
  2. The Biosafety Protocol Reaches into the Future of the Trading System
  3. Accord Would Be First to Target Genetically Engineered Products

• Bioethics: A Third World Issue, Dr. Vandana Shiva, July 30, 1997

• Monocultures, Monopolies, Myths and the Masculinisation of Agriculture,
  Dr. Vandana Shiva, July 1998
  
  
• Who Is Afraid Of Biosafety?
  Vandana Shiva's Response to Jimmy Carter's August 28, 1998 New York Times Corporation's article, "Who's Afraid of Genetic Engineering?"

  Biosafety is ecological safety in the Biotechnology age. It refers to the risks of "biological pollution" posed by genetically engineered organisms. The biotech industry is afraid of biosafety because it creates a responsibility system that ensures that in the case of biological pollution as in other forms of pollution, it should be the polluter who should pay. The industry has tried all means to deny citizens their right to biosafety. . . .
          Genetic engineering will not contribute to Third World food security since it has little to do with increasing yields of food. It is related more significantly to traits such as herbicide resistance which allows industry to sell more chemicals. As the Greenpeace report released at the Biosafety negotiations in Montreal revealed, Monsanto's genetically engineered potato seeds sold in Georgia had yields of only one third to one half of that expected, and pushed farmers into debt. Genetic engineering without biosafety will create destitution and hunger in the Third World. The Third World will be the real loser without biosafety, not because of it, as Mr. Carter fears. Those who respect the democratic and environmental rights of citizens and future generations and who would like to see diverse species protected and flourish, should not be afraid of biosafety and should join the global call for a strong biosafety law to protect humans and other species.

• GREED OR NEED? Genetically modified crops,
  PANOS Media Briefing 30A, 2/99  (gzip'd PDF)

  Companies are racing to claim patents on genetic materials from all over the world on which they hope to reap large profits -- in order, they argue, to fund research and innovation. But the new technologies raise many new questions of science, law, ethics and economics, and patent and intellectual property laws have not kept up. The World Trade Organisation (WTO) will be under pressure in 1999 from the agricultural biotech industry side to globalise and strengthen patent protection -- while opponents will argue that plant varieties should be excluded and new mechanisms found for sharing the benefits of genetic material with communities and farmers who may have nurtured and used it for generations.
          The debate over GM crops and their patents rages around the world, whether on farms or in law courts. Key to its resolution will be people's access to accurate, understandable information, not public relations hype or scaremongering.

  
  
• Terminator Unleashed, patenting life -- patenting death,
  by Mary Jo Olsen, 4/6/99
  policing the unauthorised use of American technology -- brought to you by Monsanto
  alternate formats:   ASCII   gzip'd PDF

  "Rather than developing technology that feeds the world, Monsanto uses genetic engineering to stop farmers from replanting seed and further develop their agricultural systems. It has spent US $18000 million to buy a company owning a patent on what has become known as Terminator Technology: seed that can be planted only once and dies in the second generation. The only aim of this technology is to force farmers back to the Monsanto shop every year, and to destroy an age-old practice of local seed saving that forms the basis of food security in our countries." -- Interpress Service

  We are indebted to Mary Jo Olsen for writing this article, bringing it to our attention, and permitting us to publish it here on rat haus reality.     --ratitor

  See Also: (local copies of articles cited in Terminator Unleashed)

  • Why Labeling Genetically Modified Organisms is Pointless",
    by Andy Savage, South Downs EarthFirst!, UK, 2/97
  • Monocultures, Monopolies, Myths and the Masculinisation of Agriculture,
    Statement by Dr. Vandana Shiva, Director
    Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology
    Workshop on "Women's Knowledge, Biotechnology and International Trade
    -- Fostering a New Dialogue into the Millenium"
    The International Conference --"Women in Agriculture"
    Washington, June 28 - July 2 1998
  
  
  
• More on Monsanto :
  • Mosanto's Washington Links, 12/98-2/99
  • Food security, genetic engineering, 12/98
    • Privatising nature itself: Monsanto
    • Warning Against Transgenic/Hybrid Seeds
  • Molly Ivins on Monsanto, 1/99
  
  
  
• Genetic Foods: Pusztai story, 2/99

  These documents also vividly cover the issue of "horizontal gene transfer" which Dr. Ho views as the main threat from releasing GE plants...threat to world ecology and health. GE processes use bits of viruses and bacteria as "vectors" - they carry the selected genes into the host, (carriers); they assure that they are turned on and stay turned on (promoters), and anti-biotic resistant strains of bacteri are used as markers in the insertion process (markers). These vectors are loaded guns. Read Mae-Wan Ho.

  
  
• Observer articles on genetically manipulated food, 2/99
  1. London Observer Comment
  2. Shops warning ordered on gene food
  3. Miracle Foods That The Public Won't Swallow

• The subject is Ethics, Natural Law, Sustainability, and Patenting Genes
  -- the very fabric of life:
  World Bank, October 3, 1995,
  Ethics and Spiritual Values and the Promotion of
  Environmentally Sustainable Development,
  "50 Years of the World Bank, Over 50 Tribes Devastated"
  by Oren Lyons
  Akwesasne Notes, Winter, 1996
  Excerpts with footnotes back to complete article
  • RACHEL'S ENVIRONMENT & HEALTH WEEKLY articles focusing on Bovine Growth Hormone (1-6) and Hormone imbalances caused by synthetic chemicals (7-11):
    1. (3/17/94) #381 -- HORMONES IN MILK: NO RIGHT TO KNOW
    2. (3/24/94) #382 -- SOME DANGERS OF HORMONES IN MILK
    3. (3/31/94) #383 -- DRUG EXPERIMENTS ON THE PUBLIC
    4. ( 4/ 7/94) #384 -- MAKING MILK: BASIC CHOICES
    5. (8/10/95) #454 -- MILK SAFETY
    6. (2/29/96) #483 -- IS BGH [Monsanto's genetically-engineered hormone] IN TROUBLE?
    7. (3/21/96) #486 -- OUR STOLEN FUTURE--PART 1
    8. (3/28/96) #487 -- OUR STOLEN FUTURE--PART 2
    9. (4/19/96) #490 -- OUR STOLEN FUTURE, PART 3: FLYING BLIND
    10. (6/20/96) #499 -- CHEMICALS AND THE BRAIN, PART 1
    11. ( 7/ 4/96) #501 -- CHEMICALS AND THE BRAIN, PART 2

  • Net Resources Relating to the Human Genome Diversity Project, 2/25/96

  • Patenting Human Genetic Material; too insane for yew? Part II (ascii), 7/6/94

 Links to Further Reading 

GM Debate

• www.grain.org - Genetic Resources Action International (GRAIN)
  An international non-governmental organisation to help further a global movement of popular action against one of the world's most pervasive threats to world food and livelihood security: genetic erosion. In English, French and Spanish.
• http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/ - Norfolk genetic Information network
• http://www.oneworld.org/guides/biotech/front.shtml
  Oneworld.net's guide to genetic engineering
• http://www.guardian.co.uk/gmdebate/0,2759,178400,00.html - Guardian GM Debate
• http://www.dmac.co.uk/gen.html - Genetix Update
• http://www.artactivist.com/artists/ - Artists for responsible genetics
• www.thecampaign.org - The Campaign to Label Genetically Engineered Foods
  Mission Statement: "To create a national grassroots consumer campaign for the purpose of lobbying Congress and the President to pass legislation that will require the labeling of genetically engineered foods in the United States."
• http://www.greenpeace.org/~geneng
  Greenpeace International: Genetic Engineering
• www.gene.ch - genetech
  Established to suppport discussions about genetic engineering and to provide information intelligible to non scientists. Patent laws are being issued making plants, animals and parts of the human body the property of single persons and companies. The new colonization of the nature and the human body isn't an issue restricted to scientists and multinational companies.
• www.checkbiotech.org
  dedicated to promoting open debate on the issues of plant biotechnology and genetically modified organisms. Sponsored by Syngenta AG, but operated independently. The news and information posted comes from a variety of sources and does not always represent industry views.

Organic Agriculture

• Organic Consumers Association - Campaigning for Food Safety, Organic Agriculture, Fair Trade & Sustainability.
• The Soil Association - Campaigning for organic food and farming and sustainable forestry.
• ORGANIC Farming Copies of "The Economics of Organic Grain and Soybean Production in the Midwestern United States" are available for $15 each from the Wallace Institute, 9200 Edmonston Rd., #117, Greenbelt, MD 20770-1551. The report is also available online at the Institute's Web site: http://www.hawiaa.org
• Natural-Products.net - Agriculture, Food, Seeds, Grains, spices, Organic Products.

Environmental Groups

• Accion Ecologica - In Spanish.
• http://www.gn.apc.org/index.html - Greennet & Intercontinental Caravan

Other Websites

• http://www.acnem.org ACNEM - Australasian College of Nutritional & Environmental Medicine
• http://www.sgr.org.uk  - Scientists for Global Responsibility - UK-based membership organisation
• http://www.psrast.org/indexeng.htm  - Physicians and Scientists for the Responsible application of Science and Technology
• http://www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex  - Natural Law Party Wessex website
• http://www.poptel.org.uk/panap  - Pan Asia Pacific (PANAP)
• International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers| Associations Rampe du Pont-Rouge, 8, CH-1213 Petit-Lancy (Switzerland) tel: + 41 22 793 22 33, fax + 41 22 793 22 38, e-mail: iuf@iuf.org - http://www.iuf.org/ president: Frank Hurt, general secretary: Ron Oswald, press officer: Peter Rossman  
• http://millennium-debate.org - Millennium Debate
• Mark Ritchie, President Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy 2105 First Ave. South Minneapolis, Minnesota 55404  USA 612-870-3400 (phone) 612-870-4846 (fax) mritchie@iatp.org     http://www.iatp.org
• http://www.currentconcerns.ch - Current Concerns is a monthly journal for `independant thought, ethical standards, and moral responsibility'
• http://www.cape.ca - Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment

• Fatal Flaws in Food Safety Assessment:
  Critique of The Joint FAO/WHO Biotechnology and Food Safety Report,
  Mae-Wan Ho and Ricarda A. Steinbrecher, 1996

• Welcome to Árpád Pusztai's Homepage
• Genetically Manipulated Plants Used for Food
  This is Thorkild's main page on the Pusztai case
  • background on events surrounding Dr. Pusztai's suspension in August 1998

• Report on Danish "Citizen Consensus Conference" on Genetically Engineered Foods, March 12-15, 1999

• Monsanto's Legal Thuggery, Adbusters Magazine, Winter 1999

• The Monsanto Files, The Ecologist, Sept-Oct 1998
• Monsanto Monitor
• Watching Monsanto -- includes Subscribe to Terminator Seed Watch list server
• Monsanto's Cremation Starts in Karnataka, Sindhanoor, India, 11/28/98

• The Prince of Wales -- Speechs: Seeds of disaster, 6/8/98
  RH the Prince of Wales, who farms organically, says the genetic modification of crops is taking mankind into realms that belong to God, and God alone.

• Rural Advancement Foundation International:
  • The Gene Giants, Masters of the Universe?, 3/99
  • Traitor Technology, The Terminator's Wider Implications, 1/99
  • How Suicide Seeds Work / Where They are Being Patented, 1/99
  • Seed Industry Consolidation: Who Owns Whom?, 7/98
  • The Human Tissue Trade; The Global Traffic and Market in Human Biomaterials, 1/30/97

• Genetic Engineering and Its Dangers,
  Compiled by Dr Ron Epstein, Philosophy Dept, College of Humanities, SF State Univ.
• Campaign To Ban Genetically Engineered Foods MAGNIFICENT Resource!
• Genetic Engineering of our Food significant, highly informative resource
• Complete Book Online: People, Plants, and Patents,
  The Impact of Intellectual Property on Trade, Plant Biodiversity, and Rural Society, 1994

• Campaign for Food Safety and Organic Consumers  (formerly Pure Food Campaign)
  • Food Irradiation
  • Mosanto Watch articles
  • Food Bytes #17: Global Resistance Against Monsanto & GE
  • Dangers Of Genetic Engineered Food
  • Cloning and Patents, The Non-Government/Corporate Perspective
  • Organic Food and Sustainable Agriculture
  • Mad Pig and Cow Disease / Creutzfeld-Jakob Disease (CJD)
  • rBGH (recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone)

• The Whole Story, "Whole Foods Fight"  (metro santa cruz, 9/3/98),
  reveals facts about the Whole Foods anti-union juggernaut & its lust for profits at all costs

• OneWorld Online guide focusing on Genetic Engineering
• Consolidation of the Seed Industry
  (subsection from "BT (Bacillus thuringiensis) Toxin Resources" page)
• Third World Network's Biotechnology/Biosafety collection of documents
• Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy's section on Food Security
• Biodiversity Resources
• The Council for Responsible Genetics
• Rethinking AIDS Website
• Clean Food, or Irradiated Dirty Food?,
  Focus on the Corporation, The Mokhiber-Weissman Column on Corporate Power
• Expert Testimony on Health Hazards of Food Irradiation
• Genetically Altered Foods listing of articles/essasy
• Greenpeace Genetic Engineering resource entry point
• Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) includes
  • Oppose Weakening The Labeling Requirements For Irradiated Food
• Genetically Engineered Foods - A Serious Health Hazard
• Magnesium Deficiency, Heart Attack & Drinking Water
• Codex Alimentarius - The International Threat To Health Freedom :
  • Codex Alimentarius - A Term You Will learn To Hate
  • USDA Prepares for an 'Unfriendly Takeover' of the Natural Foods Industry
  • The International Threat To Health Freedom

• Fingerprints today... Tomorrow DNA... Your Silence gives them Permission
  • Repeal the Fingerprint Law :
    • new site: http://www.atlantainfoguide.com/repeal/
    • old site: http://www.mcwebs.com/repeal/
  • ELECTRONIC PRIVACY INFORMATION CENTER: National ID Cards :
    http://epic.org/privacy/id_cards/
    • DOT Issues Rules to Make Drivers Licenses into National ID Card.
      The US Department of Transportation issued a proposed rule on June 16, 1998 requiring that all states issue new drivers licenses that use the SSN, and limit govt transactions to those with appoved id cards. Letter from Rep. Bob Barr (R-GA) and Ron Paul (R-TX) opposing the proposal. Barr and Paul have introduced H.R. 4217, the Freedom and Privacy Restoration Act of 1998 repeals the rules.
  • PRIVACY INTERNATIONAL: National ID Cards :
    http://www.privacy.org/pi/activities/idcard/
    • TOUCHING BIG BROTHER, How biometric technology will fuse flesh and machine
    • Identity Cards Frequently Asked Questions
    • Campaigns of Opposition to ID Cards
  • Identity Crisis: why ID cards are a solution looking for a problem (posted by a student at Oxford)
  • Smart Cards: Big Brother's Little Helpers (from THE PRIVACY COMMITTEE OF NEW SOUTH WALES)
  • The Green Paper on Identity Cards,
    A response from the Centre for Computing and Social Responsibility