FYI - posted by Ericka Dana ---------- From: Laurel Hopwood <[log in to unmask]> Reply-To: Biotech Forum <[log in to unmask]> Date: Wed, 13 Mar 2002 17:27:57 -0500 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: GE crops produce superweed British Debate on GE Crops Continues THE DAILY TELEGRAPH (LONDON) March 2, 2002 Genetically modified crops are now interbreeding to produce a chemically resistant super-weed By ZAC GOLDSMITH edited According to this article, two years ago, you would have been hard-pressed to find a single scientist willing to express doubts about the safety or usefulness of genetic engineering. That would have been career suicide and the few scientists who stepped out of line were swiftly punished. More than a handful lost their jobs. Not so today. Complacency has given way to caution, even panic, that the establishment may have got it all wrong. No longer can the industry guarantee that the modified genes won't cross the species barrier - they have, as studies show. No longer can it pretend GM crops can be contained in their fields. They can't. Research in Canada and Mexico, as well as in the UK, has shown that genes travel miles from their sites. Very carefully, organisations such as English Nature and even the Royal Society are revising their positions. English Nature announced last month that unintended breeding between different GM varieties is leading to super-weeds that could dominate agricultural systems and require a new generation of toxic chemicals to deal with them. The Royal Society, previously one of the biggest voices in favour of GM, has warned of "unpredicted harmful changes" to food ingredients as a result of genetic manipulation and suggests the British regulatory system would be unlikely to detect problems in time. Sound advice. For if they are wrong and the sceptical British housewife has been right all along, then the fall-out could be vast. A few years ago, reports were circulated that the US Environmental Protection Agency had given a German company approval to begin testing a genetically modified soil bacterium at Oregon State University. Designed to break down waste vegetation and produce ethanol as a by-product, it was a tremendous success. But when students added the processed waste to normal, living soil and planted seeds, there were unexpected results. The seeds sprouted, but immediately died. The GM bacterium had out-competed soil fungi, essential to plant growth, and rendered the soil effectively dead. Worse, the students discovered that the bacterium could survive and replicate. According to David Suzuki, Canada's pre-eminent geneticist: "The genetically engineered Klebsiella could have ended all plant life on this continent. The implications of this single case are nothing short of terrifying." Had the Oregon students not done their research properly, the bacterium would have been approved for commercial use, with unthinkable consequences. Today, the industry's strategy is more sinister and involves placing friendly scientists on international, and supposedly independent, scientific committees. In a leaked report, stamped "company confidential", one company boasts of its success at influencing the composition of UN food-safety committees. There is a feeling today that we don't have to heed nature's laws. For the first time in human history, our relationship with nature is based not on learning to adapt to her many ways, but on adapting her many ways to our short-term requirements. It is a game we can only lose, for there is no surer indication that a civilisation is in decline than when it loses the power to discriminate between good and bad change. Zac Goldsmith is the editor of 'The Ecologist' (http://www. theecologist.org). - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - For SC email list T-and-C, send: GET TERMS-AND-CONDITIONS.CURRENT to [log in to unmask] - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - To get off the IOWA-TOPICS list, send any message to: [log in to unmask]