From gmwatch.
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PRESS RELEASE: Sierra Club and OCA urge President Obama to halt a huge
experiment
April 15 2009
Contact:
*Laurel Hopwood, Chair, Sierra Club Genetic Engineering Action Team
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*Neil Carman, Ph.D., scientific advisor to Sierra Club GEAT 512-472-1767
*Ronnie Cummins, Director, Organic Consumers Association 218-226-4164
The Sierra Club and the Organic Consumers Association call on President
Obama to halt a huge experiment on the ecosystem and its inhabitants
In light of the recent ruling by U.S.D.A. Secretary Tom Vilsack to approve
the release of inadequately tested genetically engineered sugar beets into
the ecosystem, Sierra Club today sent a letter to President Obama calling
for a change from the previous administration. The Sierra Club has
submitted numerous extensive science-based comments to the U.S.D.A. regarding the
release of genetically manipulated (GM) crops, only to have these critical
issues fall on deaf ears at the USDA.
Laurel Hopwood, Chair of Sierra Club's Genetic Engineering Action Team,
explains, "This past decade we are seeing new releases into the environment
that we have never before seen on this planet. Genetic engineering involves
the artificial transfer of genes from one organism into another, made by
crashing through the protective species barrier. These new life forms are
spreading their GM traits on a massive scale, an event unprecedented in the 3.8
billion year history of life on this planet."
Neil Carman, Ph.D., scientific advisor for Sierra Club's Genetic
Engineering Action Team, explains, "The ecosystem is not a dumping ground for
untested GM crops. Mandatory environmental impact statements must be performed
for every ecosystem into which any new GM crop is to be introduced, as
required by the National Environmental Policy Act. To the dismay of the American
public, the U.S.D.A. continues to fail to prepare Environmental Impact
Statements."
The Organic Consumers Association agrees that the risks posed by the
current trajectory of genetic engineering in the fields of agriculture are
profound. Ronnie Cummins, Director of the Organic Consumers Association laments,
"Pollen blowing in the wind or carried by pollinator species transfer
genetically engineered traits to organic crops, posing enormous dilemmas for
organic farmers."
Cummins adds, "The American people aren't the only guinea pigs in this
huge, untested experiment. Mr. Vilsack intends to play GM promoter when he
leads a delegation to the upcoming G8 meeting at talks to reduce world hunger.
Gene technologies will destroy the diversity and the sustainable
agricultural systems that farmers have developed for millennia and will thus
undermine the capacity for those in developing countries to feed themselves."
Until rigorous research is conducted to identify and address the long term
impacts of GMOs, such organisms should not be released into the
environment. Sierra Club, with 1.3 million members and supporters, and the Organic
Consumer Association, with 850,000 network members, urge President Obama to
keep his word to protect the land and food for the people of the world.
Sierra Club's letter to President Obama:
http://www.sierraclub.org/biotech/whatsnew/whatsnew_2009-04-13.asp
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