By Common Ground staff

Vermont puts GM liability on corporations

Spread GE-free zones

Concerned consumers from around the world were inspired last month by the historic vote in Mendocino County, California that banned the production of genetically engineered crops and animals.

Mendocino is the first county in the US to implement such a ban. Residents voted for the GE ban despite the biotech industry spending more than $500,000 on a non-stop barrage of misleading advertising and disinformation. For a grassroots report on this victory see www.organicconsumers.org/ge/mendocino031104.cfm

Sign petition for GM labeling

There are no laws in Canada requiring mandatory labeling of genetically modified foods because of industry fears of increased production costs and reduced trading ease with other non-GMF-labeling nations such as the US. 

Citizens of several European nations, Japan, China, Australia and New Zealand have succeeded in achieving mandatory labeling of GMF. Why is it not yet happening here? In late 2004, voluntary GMF labeling will be allowed in Canada, but remember, this is still just voluntary. Canadian packaging is labeled in two languages, including nutritional content, so what is the big deal about labeling GMOs? For more information and to sign an online petition visit http://growmoregreen.free.fr

What the numbers mean on produce

Here’s some useful information from the Health Action Network Society. The sticker numbers on produce can be valuable when shopping because they often reveal the method by which the product was grown.

A label with four digits indicates conventionally grown food. Five digits starting with an eight is food that is genetically modified and five digits starting with a nine is for organically grown food.

The numbers are not totally accurate however as there are no official standards and code numbers entered are often only a best guess of the person doing the coding. Maybe we should demand standards. See www.hans.org

On Wednesday, April 21, Western Canada Wilderness Committee will present a free night of celebration at the Planetarium for the three-year anniversary of the creation of the 72,000-hectare South Chilcotin Mountains Provincial Park. WCWC will also present details of its campaign to halt the mining industry from having 20 percent of the park removed from protection so it can be explored for minerals. More at On Wednesday, April 21, Western Canada Wilderness Committee will present a free night of celebration at the Planetarium for the three-year anniversary of the creation of the 72,000-hectare South Chilcotin Mountains Provincial Park.

Starting at 7 pm, Jay MacArthur of the BC Mountaineering Club will show an array of slides and describe wilderness hiking opportunities in the park, which is located just 100 kilometres north of Whistler. Dr Tom Perry will speak of the 80 year long campaign for the creation of the park.

Joe Foy will describe the current lobbying efforts by the BC mining industry, backed by mining giant Teck Cominco to have the park downsized by 20 percent to allow for mineral exploration and the determined campaign by WCWC and others to save the park from the mining lobby. For more information about the fight to save the South Chilcotin Mountains Park phone the committee at 604 683-8220 or go to www.wildernesscommittee.org

Fluoride pollution alert

A fluoride pollution video is now viewable on the internet. It is a brief, very informative video narrated by well-known CBC veteran anchorman Stanley Burke and is available to watch online at http://fluoridealert.org/videos

Independent BC MLA fighting mad cow stupidity

Prince George MLA Paul Nettleton, kicked out of the Liberal party for opposing privatizing parts of BC Hydro, is fighting for ranching constituents on mad cow disease.

In a recently released position paper presented in the Legislature, Nettleton asked why Canada is still allowing the feeding of cattle blood products to cattle when it is banned in both the UK and US as a dangerous practice.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency and the federal agriculture minister were asked the same questions but Nettleton has received no replies so far.

What is the current and accepted science on curbing and controlling BSE, as discovered by hard hit countries in Europe, including the UK? A cattle-to-cattle feed ban and a one-in-four cattle-testing program, although superior to Canadian and US measures, has still proven inadequate to fully halt BSE in Europe, as noted by the 763 new cases found in the UK in 2003 for example.

One hundred percent testing of all slaughter cattle needs to be seriously considered if we are to save the beef industry in Canada. In the UK, through the process of biomagnification, it took only one BSE cow to infect more than 2 million cattle and kill 153 people so far. Biomagnification is the process by which toxicants, in this case TSE, the transmissible prions, build up or multiply in each successive link in the food chain.

One hundred percent testing would ensure the opening of the Japanese and European Union markets to Canada.  Also, country of origin would no longer be a problem if we tested every animal.  The US would then have to choose to go with full testing or lose markets indefinitely.

Cattle blood products are still being fed to cattle in Canada. Blood and spleen samples of infected cattle have shown BSE prions as have some meat samples. I am still pressing for a complete ban on animal content in any and all animal feed in the human food chain as I have been doing since May of 2003.

The US has banned the use of cattle blood in cattle feed. Canada has not. That’s an issue for both the BC minister of agriculture and the federal minister to address! Also in Europe the BSE commission is now considering banning the use of tallow in milk replacer. Another BSE high risk factor that needs to be addressed is the advanced deboning procedures employed to maximize meat volume.

Scientists are now certain that the two original Alberta cows with BSE had the same prion configurations as that of over 2 million BSE cattle in the UK. More than 500 purebred UK cattle were imported to North America during the time that BSE was spreading but no one knew what it was. All but a handful of those cattle disappeared for lack of records. They would have entered the food chain, both human and cattle, and the BSE infection from that time is still infecting North America.

Japan and South Korea want all US and Canadian cattle tested for BSE, and the safety of US beef exports assured before they will resume importing.

The US is resisting full testing for BSE, erroneously stating for example that the value of the beef product to Japan would not justify the cost of testing each animal. Does Canada want to follow on this path, placing cost and politics ahead of public safety? Does Canada want to follow the US example of concealing research evidence in an attempt to open the borders of Canada and Mexico in order to justify to Europe that the North American crisis is over. Is this the kind of help Canada wants from the US department of agriculture, whereby borders are opened based on falsified or incomplete research?  Bending science to make it fit a policy or political decision is at the least unethical and further endangers the industry and the consumer.

US Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman is a former food industry lawyer and lobbyist, and has representatives of the National Cattleman’s Beef Association and other industry groups among her top staff members, the New York Times reports.  It was a senior scientist at the US department of agriculture who blew the whistle on the department’s attempts, through top officials, to pressure USDA scientists to prematurely declare a food product safe before it was scientifically confirmed. The samples tested are miniscule compared to the 35 million head of cattle slaughtered annually in the US.

Secretary Veneman went against the department’s scientists in declaring that all US testing was completed in August of 2003, and recommended that the ban be lifted on boneless beef from Canada, likewise, contaminated food products from China and Mexico.

Her decisions were quickly reversed after an outcry from the agriculture department scientists and other responsible authorities in the US. Political expediency and market pressure should not be allowed to override public safety. No government is above these tactics and should be brought to task.

The USDA now claims to have completed its mad cow testing, but the completeness or thoroughness of this has been called into question by many experts and critics. The US beef industry is worried about the public perception and only wants good news to go out to the beef consumer, restaurants and food outlets, so there is considerable pressure on government to keep the details of its mad cow beef recall secret. The USDA even issued a memorandum to the department of health requiring secrecy, which officials signed, preventing public access to details of beef recalls.

Funding needs to be allocated for research and development of a BSE test that can be conducted on living animals. In the meantime, there are alternative and more efficient testing methods available that the USDA is dragging its heels on considering, due to the political and industry pressure to close the books on the whole BSE issue. Dr Stanley Prusiner of the University of California, the Nobel Prize winner who explained the cause of mad cow, has produced a rapid mad cow test which the USDA is now reluctantly considering. His is not the only rapid test available. The industry is beginning to move in that direction also, and is actively seeking methods whereby it can do the testing. Some are underway already, against the wishes of the USDA.

As a layman researching this, I am beginning to understand the complexity and magnitude of the problem. The actual risk to the public of contracting Crutzfeldt-Jakob disease from BSE that resides primarily in the brain and spinal cord of infected cattle is minimal, but certainly not zero. The problem is allowing it to proliferate through denial and ignoring the science. Certain ethnic groups in the US and Canada insist on purchasing and consuming animal parts such as cow brains which are high risk.

So, is the BC minister of agriculture correct in stating that BSE is primarily a federal problem or a matter to be settled between Ottawa and Washington alone?

No, the situation is no longer North American in scope. It requires a universal solution, with all points of view considered, and with the public fully informed. A transparent process that will restore confidence in the industry.

Why am I involved? Because ranchers and producers in my constituency and throughout BC deserve fair and equitable treatment and assistance that will help them towards recovery, because people are more important than politics. Ranching is a heritage industry in BC that must not be allowed to vanish or diminish due to officials abrogating their responsibilities until it becomes too late to make a difference.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency and the federal agriculture minister were asked the same questions but Nettleton has received no replies so far.

Auditor general critical of CFIA on GE crops

March 30 Auditor General Sheila Fraser released her findings on a review of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s regulatory apparatus for biotechnology. It is highly critical of the CFIA’s regulation of GE crops.

The report of the auditor general confirms what environmental and organic groups have been saying for years, that the CFIA is failing badly when it comes to the regulation of GE crops. The light that the auditor general has shone on the failure of biotechnology regulation in Canada provides some useful transparency in a system that is not taking into account serious issues with GE crops. 

According to Fraser, the CFIA “has not adequately developed or implemented procedures to ensure quality and consistency in its evaluations of applications for unconfined release of plants with novel traits. The agency lacked sufficient documentary evidence to show how it evaluates the potential long-term environmental effects of plants with novel traits.” www.oag-bvg.gc.ca

UK halts first attempt to grow commercial GM crop

In a huge blow to the genetically modified food lobby, Bayer Cropscience has given up attempts to grow commercial GM maize in Britain.

The decision, blamed by the company on government restrictions, means no GM crop will be grown commercially in the UK in 2005 and raises questions about the future of GM in the country. Bayer, Monsanto and other biotech companies refused to accept liability for accidental environmental release of GM plants which the government was demanding.

The German biotechnology company later announced that its maize variety Chardon LL, which was to be developed as cattle feed, had been left “economically non-viable” because of conditions set by Environment Secretary Margaret Beckett when she gave limited approval to the growing of the crop.

A spokesman for the department for the environment, food and rural affairs said: “We do not apologize for the fact there is a tough EU-wide regulatory regime on GMs. This is a commercial decision made by Bayer and they have decided to withdraw their application, [which means] there will not be any commercial cultivation of GM crops in 2005 in the UK. “In the current climate in the EU, with member states’ strong views on these matters, there’s little prospect of any GM crops coming forward for consideration in the near future. We always said it would be for the market to decide [the future of GM].”

There were suggestions that GM crops were unlikely to be grown in the UK until 2008, when GM oil seed rape may be approved for cultivation.

Bayer’s decision will be seen as a huge win for former environment minister Michael Meacher and green groups.

Chardon LL, which Bayer had wanted to commercially grow, was developed for approval in 1999. It is already grown in the Netherlands.

A Bayer spokesman confirmed the imminent withdrawal of its application to  grow in the UK. The company told The Financial Times the UK’s tough GM regulatory regime could jeopardize the industry. It said:

“New regulations should enable GM crops to be grown in the UK - not disable  future attempts to grow them.”

Chardon LL gained approval after trials showed it caused less damage to wildlife than its conventional equivalent, but ministers have not yet decided rules for mixing GM and non-GM crops and what compensation might be paid for contamination by GM pollen.

Bayer said: “These uncertainties and undefined timelines will make this five-year-old variety economically unviable.”

Only three weeks ago in parliament, Ms Beckett controversially announced her decision to allow Bayer to go ahead with its maize project. The decision came after 15 years of field trials and four years of farm-scale evaluations. Ms Beckett told the Commons the GM maize could be grown as soon as next year and said non-GM farmers who suffered financial losses because of crop contamination would be compensated by the industry, not the taxpayer.

At the time, Mr Meacher said: “This is the wrong decision. It is driven by the commercial interests of the big biotech companies and, no doubt, pressure from the White House.” http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/environment/story.jsp?story=506810

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/3584763.stm

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