US firms 'tried to lie' over GM crops, says EU

[T_i_B]

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/environment/story.jsp?story=453124

American biotech companies tried to lie to Europe in an attempt to force genetically modified crops upon them, Margot Wallström, the European environment commissioner, said yesterday.

Far from developing GM crops to solve the problem of starvation in the world, as they claimed, the biotech companies did so to "solve starvation amongst their shareholders", said the European Union's leading green politician.

Speaking to journalists in London, the 49-year-old Swede followed her broadside over GM with an attack on the US over the so-called ghost fleet of rusting and polluted American ships being sent to Britain for dismantling, saying they should be kept in America.

She further suggested that the US government had been putting pressure on Russia not to ratify the Kyoto protocol.

[ConcernedCanuk]

1. "Tried to lie. . " - she's being polited - They DID lie - suprised, eh ?

. Bet you're NOT. !!

. From the Article:

. Her comments raise the political stakes before the publication on Thursday of Britain's farm-scale trials of GM crops, which may provide evidence of environmental damage that could lead to the crops being banned.

At a lunch with journalists, the commissioner spoke of the "legitimate concerns of European citizens and farmers and other groups about the effects of GM crops on human health and the environment".

Asked if US biotech companies had chosen the wrong products to introduce into Europe - meaning crops that were modified to take more powerful weedkillers, rather than give any other benefit - she replied: "Of course they have. Absolutely. They have to face that. They have to realise that they have chosen the completely wrong approach from the beginning.

"They tried to lie to people, and they tried to force it upon people. It's the wrong approach. You cannot force it upon Europe. So I hope they have learnt a lesson from this, especially when they now try to argue that this will solve the problems of starvation in the world and so on. But come on ... it was to solve starvation amongst shareholders, not the developing world."

YESSSSSsssss !!

GO Gurl, need a team of people like that, Jane Goodal, et al.

we already know BFEE & Cohorts are only concerned with one thing:



Just My Humble Canadian Opinion
. :dunce: .

[Paschall]

2. French beekeepers recently burned hives...

...in front of the Environment Ministry to protest the use of Ranger pesticide, one of the culprits in the GM crop/super-pesticide tango.

Certain regions in France are now unable to produce honey and beeswax because Ranger is so prevalent.

[AP]

8. If it's true that the British report makes GM crops look bad, you're going

to have to ask yourself two things. Was Bush hoping that Blair would be gone before this report came out. And, are you better off with a Blair who is going to be more sensitive to doing the right thing about GM crops, and other issues, or with some stupid Tory PM.

[muriel_volestrangler]

10. What does Blair think 'the right thing' is?

Blair adviser attacks Labour GM crops 'fix'

A key scientific adviser to Tony Blair has launched the most damaging attack yet on the Prime Minister's attempts to persuade the public to accept genetically modified crops.

Sir Tom Blundell, a Labour supporter appointed by Blair to chair the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution in 1998, has effectively accused ministers of a fix.

In a three-page letter leaked to the Observer, Blundell condemns ministerial efforts to have an independent scientific review of GM technology as 'artificial'. He warns that this will be completed before a public debate has even started.

His comments will encourage critics who claim Blair has already decided to introduce the GM crops into Britain's countryside. As a result of growing public disquiet, Ministers agreed last summer to launch a national public debate as well as an independent scientific and economic review of the technology.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4647391-102279,00.html

[AP]

11. We'll see what the report says, eh?

I'm not going to trust the media's take on this. We'll see what policy evolves from thie debate.

You can be sure the Tories wouldn't think twice about GM crops. If the labour government ends up on the good side of this issue, even though Blair had to position him at the middle, I'm still going to have to give Blair credit for having a government that came to the right result.

And if he ends up with bad policy, I'm going to pray for more progressive leaders, but I'm not going to fool myself into thinking the world would be a better place with Blair gone and a Tory running the show.

[JohnyCanuck]

9. I'll be emailing this article to Canada's Minister of Agriculture.

There was a segment on a CBC Newsworld newscast last night about Monsanto trying to push GM wheat on Canadian farmers. The wheat was engineered to be resistant to the weedkiller Roundup. Canadian farmers and the Canadian Wheat Board (responsible for worldwide marketing of Canadian wheat) are concerned that there is not a market for GM wheat and if Canada's non-GM wheat becomes contaminated by the GM wheat Canada could loose some important markets. Monsanto is claiming that the non-GM wheat and the GM wheat can be kept separate from harvest to storage to shipping without cross contamination and at minimal expense. The farmers aren't buying it. They're concerned that they'll get stuck paying the increased costs of a separate handling system for GM wheat and if there is a mixup at the grain silos or in shipping and GM product accidentally contaminates the non-GM wheat, they could loose their customers. This doesn't even take into account environmentalists concerns about cross pollination while the crops are in the fields.

If you are interested, here's a link to the Newsworld newscast:

http://media.cbc.ca:8080/ramgen/cbc.ca/national/real/thenational.rm

Link should work at least until 21:00 or so Eastern Tuesday Oct 14. The report on the GM wheat controversy occurs halfway into the newscast at the above link and runs for approx 30 min.

[ConcernedCanuk]

3. Related Article:How GM crop trials were rigged -

. .

Ministers knew of the environmental dangers, but the tests were designed not to focus on this.

. . In truth the GM trials, whose results will be reported on Thursday, were always more political than scientific. And their impact - despite being the biggest experiments of their kind conducted anywhere in the world - will be felt most in Whitehall, Westminster and the often disconcertingly plush offices of the big environmental pressure groups.

Their establishment, in 1999, was a political act. Michael Meacher, the then environment minister who was already developing doubts about the technology, pulled off a remarkably skilful coup in getting all sides to agree to them and thus postpone the introduction of commercial GM crops until the results were in.

At the time, several modified crops were ready to be grown in Britain and Tony Blair would have been happy to give them the go-ahead. But English Nature, the Government's wildlife watchdog, was raising concerns about their effects on the environment. And a furious public row was mounting with several newspapers - led by The Independent on Sunday - campaigning for a delay.

Mr Meacher agrees that "the purpose behind the tests was to buy time". But everyone gladly went along with this. Industry and government believed that if the heat could be taken out of the issue for a few years the public would stop worrying and learn to love the technology.

In classic Whitehall fashion, the tests - on GM maize, oilseed rape, and sugar beet - were fixed in a way that everyone thought would enable the technology to pass them. Everyone knew, even then, that the main danger to the environment from GM crops was that they would cross-pollinate with nearby plants. So the trials were deliberately designed not to focus on this.



SCARY Stuff - lots more - -

[Judi Lynn]

4. Great article. It's good news when people stand up to the @$$####$.

The wrong people are definitely running things here.

Everyone knows it.

[cprise]

5. They would engineer corn that looked like a lightbulb

...and screw you with it if they could.

[gratuitous]

6. Boy, wouldn't this be nice stateside?

An informed, rational debate on genetically modified foods and bovine growth hormone and related issues that wasn't bought-and-paid-for by Monsanto and the other industrial giants that are lined up to profit from these things? It won't happen of cuss, but wouldn't it be nice?

[AP]

7. This is EXACTLY the point I've been trying to make

Monsanto/ConAra/ADM & the US gov't are so intent on spinning GM crops as solutions to hunger. What they're really aboout is suicide genes and tied products, which is really about ending subsistence farming and ensuring bigger and bigger profit margins. What they're doing is the equivalent of the Big Three automakers buying up commuter rail tracks and paving over them and building buildings in their paths.

Only in Europe where Monsanto/ConAgra/ADM do NOT control the terms and the terminology of the debate, do you even here anyone talking honestly about the economic/business model aspects of this issue.