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Date: Wed, 15 Dec 1999 20:06:46 -0500
From: Richard Wolfson GEN12-15
By Environment Correspondent Alex Kirby
BBC News Service,
Tuesday, 14 December, 1999,
Sections:
'Landmark allegations'
'Products safe' - Monsanto
Treble damages
Failure to regulate
In what is believed to be the first legal challenge of its kind to the biotechnology industry, Monsanto and other companies are to face action in a US court.
A lawsuit alleges that Monsanto has formed a global cartel with "other biotech companies named as co-conspirators". It is brought by a legal consortium headed by a New York law firm, Cohen, Milstein, Hausfeld and Toll.
The firm has not so far named the other companies it is accusing of belonging to the alleged cartel.
It is arguing that the alleged cartel has "forced genetically-modified [GM] seeds onto the market at fixed prices without sufficient testing for safety to human health and the environment".
The lawsuit alleges "violations of US anti-trust law, public nuisance, deceptive trade practices and breach of implied warranty".
It also includes what the firm describes as "landmark allegations" that Monsanto "violated customary international law".
Monsanto said it would fight the lawsuit. "We're people who use these products, too. We're not going to introduce something into the market that is unsafe for families," said David Snively, an attorney for the company.
Monsanto said it spent tens of millions of dollars and years to field test each new plant variety for safety.
And although fewer than a dozen companies dominate the development and sales of GM seeds, there is fierce competition among them, Mr Snively said.
The consortium bringing the lawsuit is working with environment and development groups, including the National Family Farm Coalition and the Foundation on Economic Trends.
The lawsuit, to be filed in the US district court for the District of Columbia, is a class action, which means the plaintiffs will receive nothing if they lose. But it is thought likely to open the door to future legal action.
The plaintiffs say they are seeking "treble damages for anti-trust violations, compensatory and punitive damages, and injunctions compelling Monsanto to sufficiently test GM seeds and crops for human health and environmental safety, and an end to the operation of Monsanto's cartel".
Cohen, Milstein, Hausfeld and Toll have links with several foreign law firms, including the British legal practice Mishcon de Reya. BBC News Online has been told it is likely that the US lawsuit will lead to a similar action in the British courts.
Andrew Simms, of the London-based New Economics Foundation, told BBC News Online: "The World Trade Organisation meeting in Seattle was chaos".
"That was because many people feel the world is being organised for a wealthy minority regardless of the consequences for anyone else. This lawsuit is evidence of that feeling.
"And regulation has not caught up with the reality of the global market place. Unless regulators do get to grips with it, people will be left to cope with anything that a handful of corporate cartels wishes to dump on them."
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Date: Wed, 15 Dec 1999 20:06:46 -0500
From: Richard Wolfson GEN12-15
By Aya Takada, Tuesday December 14, 3:30 am Eastern Time
TOKYO, Dec 14 (Reuters) - Japan's health ministry said on Tuesday it would not approve any more genetically modified foods pending the introduction of tighter regulations next April.
Under the new procedures it will be mandatory for suppliers of GM foods to pass the ministry's safety checks and the import of foods containing unapproved genetically modified organisms (GMOs) will be banned.
The rules are being tightened in response to criticism by consumers who say the current system, whereby suppliers seek approval under the ministry's food safety guidelines on a voluntary basis, is too lax.
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Date: Wed, 15 Dec 1999 20:06:46 -0500
From: Richard Wolfson GEN12-15
Julian Borger in Washington Wednesday December 15, 1999
http://www.newsunlimited.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,114482,00.html
Vital medical research aimed at developing screening methods and cures for congenital diseases is being stifled by the rush to patent human genes and the corporate use of those patents to maximise profits.
A poll of American laboratory directors found that a quarter of them had received letters from lawyers acting for biotechnology companies ordering them to stop carrying out clinical tests designed to spot early warning signs for Alzheimer's disease, breast cancer and an array of other disorders.
Although the sharpest impact on scientific research has been witnessed in the US, under World Trade Organisation rules many of the patents are applicable worldwide. They could inhibit ground-breaking studies in Britain and other scientific centres.
So great is the perceived threat to medical research that a group of American doctors and scientists have issued a protest saying: "The use of patents or exorbitant licensing fees to prevent physicians and clinical laboratories from performing genetic tests limits access to medical care, jeopardises the quality of medical care, and unreasonably raises its cost."
According to the survey, carried out by researchers in California and Pennsylvania, half the laboratories questioned said they had stopped work on developing screening because they knew a patent had been licensed or was pending.
Some of the research scientists who pioneered work on isolating and identifying genetic deformities linked to serious diseases are now saying the pace of research and the spread of ideas has been stultified by the fear of being sued by patent licence holders.
"I've been at conferences where we have been addressed by patent lawyers and told to stop showing our colleagues our notebooks, or think twice about submitting an abstract at a meeting," said Jonathan King, a genetic researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "It's a common experience at scientific meetings for people to withhold information because they have a patent pending. Progress is being slowed down."
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next article posted by Jim McNulty jim@niall7.demon.co.uk
By Lucette Lagnado,
The Wall Street Journal,
Dec. 14 , 1999
http://msnbc.com/news/346214.asp?cp1=1
Elizabeth Wilcox, who runs a consortium of small family philanthropies in Oakland, Calif., wasn't particularly interested in the controversy surrounding bioengineered food until she heard Nell Newman speak in October.
Ms. Wilcox decided to recommend that money from her foundation, Common Counsel, go to antibiotechnology causes she had largely ignored.
MS. NEWMAN, THE DAUGHTER of actor Paul Newman and head of the organic division of Newman's Own Inc., spoke to foundation chiefs gathered near Monterey, Calif., to discuss funding environmental causes. She shared her concerns about the potential polluting effects of genetically modified seeds, noting that she tries to ensure that Newman’s Own tortilla chips are free of bioengineered ingredients.
Inspired by Ms. Newman, Ms. Wilcox decided to recommend that money from her foundation, Common Counsel, go to antibiotechnology causes she had largely ignored.
"REALLY SCARY"
"We are seeking to inform and counterweigh the momentum of the market," Ms. Wilcox says. "We talk about creating the perfect food, and the perfect body, and you don’t want to cry eugenics, but this issue is really scary."
Serious money is starting to flow to the antibiotech movement in the U.S., even amid debate over whether the opposition is mostly about a scientific threat, an aversion to big business or a wariness of the unknown. ...
NEW TYPE OF DONOR
The funds to attack bioengineered food, as well as biotechnology in general, are still coming in fitfully and are modest compared with the millions of dollars producers of genetically modified seeds have pledged for their own public-relations offensive. But what is striking is the number and nature of the donors that have begun to take notice and dive in — from Ms. Wilcox's small Common Counsel fund to the mighty Rockefeller Foundation. Some are explicitly backing the antibiotechnology movement; others, such as the Rockefeller Foundation, are taking more measured steps that, nonetheless, could spell trouble for the companies behind genetically modified seed.
"A few years ago, few foundations could even spell biotechnology," says Pat Mooney, an influential Canadian antibiotech activist. "Now we find it has gone from small organizations to midsize foundations that are not the radical hippie types."
Gordon Conway, president of the Rockefeller Foundation, says he is earmarking $3 million for a broad new effort that will, pending board approval, include: funding a mediation and conflict-resolution firm to study how warring factions can be brought together; funding consumer activists who want strict labeling of products containing genetically modified ingredients, which the biotech industry opposes; supporting bioethicists to study the ethical implications of bioengineered food (as well as other biotech issues such as cloning); and sponsoring a global "dialogue" about genetically modified food geared mainly toward giving the opposition a public forum.
A HOT ISSUE
"There is a buzz," says Amy Lyons, program executive at the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Fund, a San Francisco foundation with a $368 million endowment. "It is one of these hot issues" in the foundation world, she says. The fund awards the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize, which is aimed at grassroots environmentalists.
for full text, see http://msnbc.com/news/346214.asp?cp1=1
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Date: Wed, 15 Dec 1999 20:06:46 -0500
From: Richard Wolfson GEN12-15
By Philip Brasher, The Associated Press, From ABC News:
W A S H I N G T O N, Dec. 15 – Opponents of genetically engineered food are trying a new tactic in their battle to curb the spread of biotech crops – a lawsuit that accuses Monsanto Co. of conspiring to control the world's seed trade.
The class-action suit, filed yesterday in U.S. District Court in Washington on behalf of six farmers, also accuses Monsanto and other seed companies of rushing the crops to market without adequately studying their effects on health and the environment.
Jeremy Rifkin, a prominent anti-biotech activist who recruited a team of nine law firms to handle the suit, said he wants to "refocus the global debate" over genetic engineering to "corporate abuse of power" by the companies that developed the crops.
... The suit alleges that Monsanto, using its biotechnology patents, coordinated with other biotech companies such as DuPont to fix prices and force farmers into using genetically engineered seed. The lawsuit also alleges there is "substantial uncertainty" as to whether the crops are safe.
The companies control the spread of the technology by patenting the seeds and then leasing them to growers, rather than selling them, to prevent the farmers from reproducing the seeds. Farmers are charged a special fee to cover the cost of developing the technology. Five farmers in Indiana and Iowa, including a husband and wife, and one in France are listed as plaintiffs, but the lawsuit was filed on behalf of all farmers who have bought biotech seed. The National Farm Coalition, a left-leaning group opposed to biotechnology, helped develop the suit.
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Date: Wed, 15 Dec 1999 20:06:46 -0500
From: Richard Wolfson GEN12-15
By Greg Frost, Wednesday December 15, 1999
PARIS, Dec 15 (Reuters) - A French farmer named in a class action lawsuit against Monsanto Co (NYSE:MTC - news) said he blames the life-sciences giant's involvement in genetically modified (GM) crops for miring him in a legal dispute dating back to 1997.
Patrick de Kochko, an organic farmer in southwest France and the only non-American named plaintiff in the lawsuit, said the lawyers who filed the landmark antitrust suit against Monsanto on Tuesday asked him to join as a plaintiff because of legal problems over his 1996 soybean crop.
De Kochko said he believes a unit of Monsanto sold him soybean seeds containing GM material, which then contaminated his crop and made it difficult for him to market his soybeans. The lawyers were looking for someone who had experienced damages because de Kochko said in a telephone interview with Reuters. I'm just a modest peasant...(but) the principle that disturbs me is that people create these things which then escape into the environment and then he said.
** NOTICE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed for research and educational purposes only. **
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Date: Fri, 17 Dec 1999 15:09:19 -0500
From: Richard Wolfson GEN12-16
Related Article Monsanto Bars Selling of Seeds Made Infertile (Oct. 5, 1999)
By DAVID BARBOZA, New York Times, December 15, 1999
Some of the nation's most prominent antitrust lawyers filed a class-action lawsuit against the Monsanto Company Tuesday, accusing it of rushing genetically engineered seeds to the marketplace without properly testing them for safety and of forming an international cartel that conspired to control the world's market in corn and soybean seeds.
The lawsuit, which was filed in Federal District Court in Washington on behalf of six farmers, is the latest skirmish in the debate over the use of bioengineered seeds, which are popular among American farmers but troubling to consumers in Europe and environmental groups who contend that they are potentially dangerous to humans and the environment.
The suit, which contends that Monsanto is at the hub of an international conspiracy to control a large part of the world's seed supply, was brought on behalf of a coalition of small farmers and farm groups that accused Monsanto of giving farmers false and fraudulent guarantees about the safety and marketability of a new breed of bio-engineered seeds.
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Date: Fri, 17 Dec 1999 15:09:19 -0500
From: Richard Wolfson GEN12-16
PARIS, Reuters [WN] via NewsEdge Corporation, Dec 15, 1999
The environmental activist
whose group backed a class action lawsuit filed against Monsanto Co Jeremy Rifkin, head of the Foundation on Economic Trends, compared the
lawsuit filed on Tuesday against Monsanto to the U.S. government's
anti-trust case against software giant Microsoft "There are many instances in new, controversial areas of law where issues
are first raised by the private sector. That does not mean the Justice
Department could not join (the lawsuit at a later date)," Rifkin said at a
news conference here.
"Let me just say it would not surprise me if this (lawsuit) were
broadened," he added.
However, Rifkin declined to comment on whether the plaintiffs had spoken
with the Justice Department about its joining the lawsuit, and referred all
such questions to the lawyers handling the case in Washington.
The lawsuit, which was brought at Rifkin's urging and which names a group
of Iowa, Indiana and French farmers as plaintiffs, accuses Monsanto of
rushing genetically altered seeds to market without first ensuring they
were safe for consumers and the environment.
ANTI-COMPETITIVE PRACTICES CLAIMED
The complaint also accuses the life sciences giant of violating anti-trust
law, saying its patented genes had given it too much control over how
staple crops are used.
Monsanto denied the charges and said it would fight the lawsuit.
"Monsanto has created a global cartel in which it is the hub and other
companies are the spokes," Rifkin said.
"Through various anti-competitive practices, it seeks to control world
production of agriculture and food, with particular concentration on power
over seeds," he said.
Date: Fri, 17 Dec 1999 15:09:19 -0500 Farmers in Class Action vs. Monsanto
By John Schwartz,
Washington Post Staff Writer,
Wednesday, December 15, 1999; Page E01 Crops made resistant to pests still do better with chemicals
FARMERS may need to douse their fields with yet more pesticides to get the
best out of genetically modified plants. At least, that's the implication
of patent applications filed by Novartis of Basle in Switzerland, one of
the leading companies in the field.
The applications (WO 99/35910 and WO 99/35913) were filed after scientists
at Novartis realised that a wide spectrum of insect pests was attacking Bt
maize, its major GM crop. Genes inserted into the maize enable it to make
the Bt toxin, a bacterial protein that kills European corn borer larvae.
These larvae chew their way into the stems of young maize plants and can
kill them before they get established.
But many GM plants that saw off the borer larvae were later attacked by
sap-sucking insects. "Bt toxin has a rather narrow spectrum of activity, so
you don't get control of all pests," says Walter Smolders, head of patents
at Novartis Seeds.
To find a way round the problem, Novartis scientists tried applying
different combinations of the company's pesticides to the Bt maize. ...
Given that agribiotech firms have consistently argued that GM crops will
reduce pesticide use, Novartis's patent applications are sure to be seized
upon by groups that oppose the technology.
Date: Fri, 17 Dec 1999 15:09:19 -0500 Excellent BBC news real video report at
http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/560000/video/_564983_sackur2100_vi.ram
According to the Financial Times:
"The lawsuit, although filed on Tuesday in US federal court, targets
worldwide operations of Monsanto, making it the first global legal
challenge to the spread of GM crops...
.......The law firms, led by Cohen, Milstein, Hausfeld and Toll, are not
only challenging the very US regulatory system under which dozens of GM
crops have already been approved for release. They are also suing for
millions of dollars in damages on behalf of farmers in the US and abroad
who, they claim, are unable to market their "miracle" GM crops."
** NOTICE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is
distributed for research and educational purposes only. **
Date: 13 Dec 1999 10:13:30 U Date: 13 Dec 1999 12:59:05 U CHICAGO, Reuters [WN] via NewsEdge Corporation
As
directors of Monsanto Co. "Clearly a merger partner would be their first choice, but
their lack of success in finding a suitor has put them in a
position to consider spinning off the drug business," said
William Fiala, chemical industry analyst for Edward Jones.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that directors of
Monsanto, the maker of both the herbicide Roundup and
the blockbuster arthritis drug Celebrex, would discuss at
Friday's meeting whether to break up the company in
order to unleash its robust but overshadowed
pharmaceutical unit.
A spokeswoman for St. Louis-based Monsanto said the
board session is a regularly scheduled monthly meeting,
but declined comment on the agenda or on the published
report.
"If those issues were not on the agenda, I would be
astonished and frankly disappointed," said A.G. Edwards
analyst Alex Hittle. "Do you sell? Do you split or stay the
course?"
Monsanto's share price has fallen since its proposed
acquisition by American Home Products Corp. On Friday, Monsanto rose $1.75 to $44 on the New York
Stock Exchange.
Monsanto was also said to be in merger talks with Novartis
AG The flagging share price – despite the huge success of
Celebrex – is the source of the pressure to act, analysts
said. But in addition to shareholder pressure, top
managers are feeling the hit to their own accounts.
Executives are heavily compensated in stock options and
therefore are even more motivated to take action, Hittle
said.
Monsanto's pharmaceutical unit, Searle, is particularly
attractive to other drug companies. Celebrex had the best
new-product launch ever, with first-year sales topping $1
billion, beating even anti-impotence drug Viagra.
Celebrex is carrying the drug unit now, and analysts said
three to four years from now it will still be the unit's key
product, though possibly with additional uses. A
partnership is almost necessary for Searle to compete in
the long run, especially amid a round of global
consolidation in the pharmaceutical industry, analysts
said.
That partnership – likely in the form of a merger – would
be much easier if Searle were flying solo, analysts said.
Monsanto as a whole is not as attractive to suitors,
because of the two units' different markets.
The agribusiness segment is most well known for its
herbicide Roundup and its genetically modified seeds.
Recently, however, genetically modified crops have
sparked protests around the world because of
environmental and health safety concerns. While the U.S.
Food and Drug Administration and other regulators have
approved the use of the seeds, critics contend there has
not been enough long-term research.
In addition, weakness over the last couple of years in the
farm economy has held back Monsanto's agriculture
business.
Nonetheless, if the units are separated, tax regulations
would likely prohibit mergers for one to two years.
"A year or two down the road, both businesses would be
takeover candidates, without a doubt," Fiala said.
((Chicago newsroom, 312 408 8787, fax 312 922 6657,
chicago.equities.newsroom@reuters.com) REUTERS
Date: 13 Dec 1999 13:51:08 U The biggest scientific society in the world, the American Chemical
Society, has recently published this item in its big-circulation weekly
Chemical and Engineering News
By KELLYN S. BETTS,
From section ENVIRONMENTAL NEWS Now that millions of tests have been conducted in
response to escalating worldwide concern over
genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in food, it
is increasingly clear that GMO contamination of
conventionally grown food is a serious issue.
Ultimately, it may trigger legal action.
GMO testing has increased astronomically in
recent months, and it now happens "quite often"
that farmers are surprised to learn that crops they
grew in the United States from non-GMO seeds test
positive for GMOs when they reach Europe, said John
Fagan, founder of Genetic ID of Fairfield, Iowa.
Genetic ID became the world's first laboratory to
offer GMO testing in 1996 and now licenses its
nearly foolproof method for detecting GMOs, which
is based on the "TaqMan" DNA testing technique, to
laboratories around the world.
[SDI Trait]Nine GMO food
crops are currently grown in the United States, including
soybeans, corn, canola, tomatoes, and potatoes.
GMO versions of quite a few other crops, most
notably wheat, are in the works. The GMOs in most
of these crops can only be detected by DNA testing,
which must be conducted in a laboratory and costs
$200-$400. But Monsanto's Roundup Ready soybeans
can also be identified by a $5.75 protein-based
test being sold by Strategic Diagnostics Inc.
(SDI), of Newark, Del., which produces results in
3-5 minutes.
See Table 1, Genetically engineered foods and crops
approved for sale in the United States
SDI began offering its tests this spring and
has already sold millions of them, said Joe
Dautlick, the company's marketing manager. By this
month, SDI also expects to be offering tests
capable of identifying GMO corn. Although there are
13 varieties of GMO corn and SDI is only planning
to offer tests that will be able to detect four of
the most popular Bt and Liberty Link varieties,
Dautlick expects them to be very popular.
The European Union, Japan, South Korea,
Australia, and New Zealand have all passed or are
considering laws requiring that food containing
GMOs be labeled. But almost all GMO testing is
conducted by and for businesses that demand proof
the commodities they are buying contain no
detectable GMOs. Even in the United States, where
the official policy holds that GMO food is
nutritionally identical to conventional food and
therefore requires no label, some prominent U.S.
food manufacturers have pledged not to include GMO
ingredients in their lines. These include the
leading manufacturers of baby food, Gerber and
Heinz, as well as pet food maker Iams and a wide
variety of health food companies. U.S. Agricultural
Secretary Dan Glickman has also encouraged the food
industry to voluntarily label GMO food.
One of the reasons that the pace of testing
has skyrocketed in recent months is because
businesses want to avoid embarrassment. Gerber made
its no-GMO vow after Greenpeace used DNA testing to
show that the company's dry cereal baby food
contained GMOs, for example. Other companies who
have promised GMO-free food have had their claims
refuted by testing.
Much of the GMO contamination that such tests
reveal can be traced to practices that fail to
preserve the identity of non-GMO crops, Dautlick
said. Commodities like soybeans, corn, and canola
travel along a complex and convoluted path from the
farm field to their ultimate destination on a
consumer's table, passing through a series of grain
elevators, transport trucks, ocean barges, ports,
and food companies. Because many businesses in
Germany and Japan require that products be
certified to contain less than 0.1% or even 0.01%
of GMOs, careless practices like not properly
cleaning out a weighing bin can lead to
contamination. People involved in moving these
products "don't want to get stung," so they have
begun testing at many points along the way,
Dautlick said.
But even if standardized practices for
handling non-GMO crops were instituted worldwide
tomorrow, they would not solve all of the GMO food
contamination problems, according to Fagan. Genetic
ID's testing has documented that GMO contamination
of conventionally grown crops occurs when
wind-blown pollen from GMO corn and canola crops in
nearby fields cross-pollinates with non-GMO corn or
canola, he said. (This is not much of a threat for
plants like soybeans that self-pollinate.) Genetic
ID has also amassed proof that seeds sold as
non-GMO by seed companies are in fact contaminated
with GMOs.
Terra Prima, a company that sells organic corn
chips, used DNA testing to prove that corn grown by
a certified organic farmer in Texas was
contaminated by cross-pollination from a nearby
field where Bt corn was grown. The company was
forced to destroy $87,000 worth of its chips
because the contamination did not come to light
until after the corn was made into chips; it is a
plaintiff in a lawsuit filed against EPA this
February alleging that the agency registered
genetically engineered crops without adequately
considering their health and environmental impacts.
In addition to the cases he has documented, Fagan
believes there are many other cases where non-GMO
corn and canola crops became contaminated by
cross-pollination from GMO crops.
Pollen can easily travel beyond the "refuges"
of non-GMO crops that EPA suggests farmers plant to
inhibit the development of insect resistance to the
Bt toxin, according to research conducted by the
British Broadcasting Company in conjunction with
Friends of the Earth. They employed a German
laboratory to conduct DNA testing that showed
pollen from a GMO canola field ended up 2.8 miles
away in a bee hive. Greenpeace also conducted a
test in Germany last October that documented corn
pollen's drift into a neighboring field, said
Charles Margulis, a campaigner with Greenpeace.
Genetic drift in which pollen from one kind of
plant is taken up by another plant, creating a new
kind of hybrid, is also a concern, Margulis said.
The United Kingdom's National Institute of
Agricultural Botany reported in April that a hybrid
"super weed" my have been created after canola
pollen was taken up by wild turnips growing nearby.
Some of these hybrid plants have proven to be
resistant to the herbicide for which the canola was
engineered to be resistant.
Genetic ID's scientists became convinced that
GMO corn seeds were mixed in with conventional
seeds after they tested products from four major
seed companies. They obtained five large samples of
each of five different conventional seed varieties
from each company, Fagan said. What Genetic ID
found after conducting its tests-which are
considered the most accurate method for detecting
GMOs because they involve triple-checking for the
presence of GMO DNA-was that all of the varieties
of allegedly non-GMO seeds from each company
contained between 0.01% and 1% GMOs, Fagan said.
Though Genetic ID refuses to divulge the
identity of the companies whose seeds were tested,
farmers are already concerned about the purity of
the seed stock and many are sending their seeds to
be tested before they plant, Fagan said. Genetic ID
has contacted the offending seed manufacturers and
is offering to conduct the testing necessary to
certify that their seed lots are GMO-free,
according to a company spokesperson. Last summer, a
European affiliate of Pioneer Hi-Bred International
acknowledged that it sold conventional corn seed
that was contaminated with GMOs.
Ultimately, this evidence of how
conventionally grown crops are being contaminated
by windborne pollen and how seeds are falsely
labeled as being non-GMO could give organic farmers
grounds for a class-action lawsuit, said Michael
Hansen, a research associate with the Consumer
Policy Institute. The basis of such a suit could be
the toxic trespass laws passed by many states to
provide citizens with legal recourse against anyone
who introduces toxins into the environment, Hansen
said.
------------------------------------- Date: 13 Dec 1999 14:39:03 U New York Newsdesk (212) 859-1700)) REUTERS,
[WN] via NewsEdge Corporation
Monsanto Co. The report said the life sciences firm was considering such
alternatives under pressure from Wall Street.
A decision is not likely to be announced Friday, but there
is a consensus on the board to unveil a decision in the
next few days, the report said.
Some Monsanto officials are still hoping that a wealthy
partner might still emerge for the company as a whole,
and the company is still in talks with at least one other
party about a possible merger, the Journal said.
Date: 13 Dec 1999 18:15:52 U If you'd like some chilling insight into the USDA thought on biotech, read:
"Regulating the Products of Biotechnology," by Sally L. McCammon, Science Advisor to the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service of USDA. The URL is: This first sentence in this article declares that USDA's role is to promote biotechnology, and that decisions about biotechnology must be "science based", implying that other criteria for decisions (ethical, cultural, consumer choice) are irrational. Clearly USDA has no plans to consult with us, ill-educated and superstitious
bumpkins, to determine what constitutes "acceptable risk".
"If genetically engineered organisms are to gain greater acceptance, decisions that address concerns associated with the application of
biotechnology to agriculture must be science-based. Science ... must assure a rational basis
for decision-making."
As expected, the article states that USDA is using the assertion put forward by the National Academy of Sciences in 1987 that "any risks from the products of biotechnology are the same in kind as those of similar products." But it goes much further. Ms. McCammon, the USDA's Science Advisor, contends
that: "Advances in biotechnology ... have increased (emphasis added) the ability of regulators to scrutinize product safety." This is not only a re-statement of the myth that recombinant DNA techniques
are
"more precise" than conventional breeding, but implies that they actually create an organism which is better understood than the parent organism. Think of it: we know more about Bt corn than we do about
conventional
corn. We know more about a potato with genes from an African clawed toad than
we do about an ordinary potato. Finally, we see the astonishing result of the policies which consider this most powerful technology to be risk-free and which consider the public's views irrelevant. Ms. McCammon proudly states that of 5,000 permits which USDA has evaluated for testing of GEOs at 22,000 sites, no petitions have been
denied.
--------------------------------------------- Date: 14 Dec 1999 13:22:13 U Forwarded by Doris Reller/Chicago/National
Association of Realtors on 12/14/99 12:24 PM ---------------------------
Doris Reller
12/14/99 12:18 PM
To: Nestle<
consumersv@neodata.com> Subject: RE: Your e-mail (Document link: Doris Reller)
Thank you for your email. Since you use and will continue to use genetically
modified ingredients, I will no longer purchase your products for myself
and my family. My family's safety is too important to me, I will spend a
little more for organic foods.
Sincerely,
Doris Reller
consumersv@neodata.com on 12/13/99 11:39:58 PM
Ref Number: 1166702128
Doris Reller Dear Doris Reller:
Thank you for contacting us regarding genetically modified ingredients. We
welcome questions and comments from our consumers regarding our products.
Nestle as the world's leading Food Company recognizes the contribution of gene
technology to the improvement of the quality and nutritional value of our food
as well to increase food production.
Nestle supports responsible applications of gene technology in food production
when safety for the consumer and the environment are scientifically confirmed,
and positive effects for health and/or agricultural practice and productivity
can be demonstrated.
In countries where public opinion rejects ingredients derived from genetically
modified crops, even though food legislation permits their use, Nestle
respects
the consumers' preferences and will provide its customers, in as far
technically possible, with products that do not contain these ingredients.
Nestle will continue to use ingredients derived from genetically modified
crops
where we have complete confidence in their safety and where they are generally
accepted by consumers.
For more information regarding genetically modified ingredients, you may want
to contact the following:
Grocery Manufacturers of America (GMA) We appreciate your interest in our products.
Sincerely, Susan Franklin Date: 14 Dec 1999 07:47:11 U Thanks Hendrik
Hendrik sez: Makes no sense? That can be helped... just a moment, please...
Or words like "welfare bum" or "leech" come to mind? Sorry, wrong movie... :-)
Try this, for a change:
French author VIVIANE FORRESTER's book L'horreur Economique (The Economic
Horror) has just been published in an English edition. The 1996 book is
already a huge bestseller in France, Germany, Italy, Japan and South
America, and reviewers predict that it set to become the biggest economics
bestseller since
Das Kapital.
The 72-year old author has become a heroine in France where unemployment
now stands at more than 12%. Young jobless have taken to photocopying pages
from L'horreur - notably those passages decrying the culture of shame
attached to unemployment - and sticking them up on job centre walls. The
author's effigy can also be found at the front of workers' marches, with
banners quoting from her book.
International financier George Soros was so impressed with L'horreur that
he arranged to meet with the author in Paris. The book has also been
discussed by the Mexican parliament, and politicians in Peru have invited
the author to lecture in Latin America.
This official interest has come despite the author's argument that there is
a conspiracy by "those who control economic power" to "hide from the
workers the truth that they are no longer needed by the capitalist system"
and that we are witnessing "the end of employment as we have known it."
In this special feature, The Jobs Letter profiles Viviane Forrester and
gives an essential summary of her views on the future of work.
Forrester's thesis is that employment as we have known it for three
centuries throughout the West, has had its day and is becoming less
plausible by the year as a way of distributing wealth.
L'horreur also attacks the present policies of Western governments as it
makes ever more desperate attempts to keep the jobs-and- wages system
alive. Forrester cites the constant downsizing of ever larger numbers of
the working and, now, middle classes; the steady attrition,
internationally, of welfare and union rights; and the growing
destabilisation of those in work, let alone of the unemployed.
All this has created an employment and unemployment (and underemployment)
culture that is not merely stressful, regrettable and unpleasant but has
also, according to Forrester, "spawned an economic world that is an
obscenity, an affront to human nature" and, in the words of the book's
title, a "horror".
"My book has brought me in touch with the powerful as well as the poor, and
there is this strong feeling among political elites that you must not tell
the people the truth about today's economic realities; that they just can't
take it.
"In fact, I found the opposite: people aren't, in fact, afraid ... but they
are indignant. They're not stupid, they can see what's going on, and the
thing that really angers them is denial. Indeed, it's surprising how many
people have told me that reading my book has actually reduced their
anxieties ...
"Waiters, bankers, housewives, taxi drivers, students, young unemployed ...
I've had exactly the same thoughts you wrote in your book
myself, for years. But it wasn't until I read L'horreur that I even
realised I'd been thinking them - let alone started taking such ideas
seriously' ... "
For examples, she points to the desperate rush of French unemployed
applying for the Contrat Emploi Solidarite jobs which pay half the
guaranteed minimum wage, and are only part-time. Or those on workfare
programmes in the US who are paid a third of union rates and have benefits
docked if they are late for "work". Or those in Britain whose special
economic horror is to have achieved invisibility - the "economically
inactive" who don't even count as unemployed for statistical purposes.
Forrester: "The feeling that we must prove ourselves useful to society, or
at least to the market economy, is rooted in the value system of a world
which no longer exists. As we are unlikely ever to have a culture of full
employment again, we need to stop basing our identities, individually and
communally, around the idea of employment. First and foremost, the new
millennium calls out for a new culture, with a new social structure which
is not centred on paid employment ..."
The liberal French economist Alain Minc, who is also chairman of Le Monde,
has described the book a "rubbish". He recently told Forrester: "Your book
is a talented opinion poll. It is a publishing success because it plays on
people's fears. But it would have sold far fewer copies if it had been
signed by [Communist party leader] Robert Hue..."
Minc argues that the prosperous French workers and their unions have
refused to trade some of their benefits for wider employment. Minc: "Since
1973, average purchasing power has risen by 40 per cent in real terms in
France. If we had accepted a rise of only 35 per cent, there would be a
million more jobs..."
Minc nevertheless concedes that Forrester has articulated a popular feeling
which, for him, demonstrates "the confusion in society at large about
current economic developments..."
Date: 14 Dec 1999 07:47:11 U "The Economic Horror" For the first time in history, the vast majority of human beings are no
longer indispensable to the small number of those who run the world
economy. The economy is increasingly wrapped up in pure speculation. The
working masses and their cost are becoming superfluous. In other words,
there is something worse than actually being exploited - and that is no
longer to be even worth exploiting!
In democratic countries there is an urgent need for vigilance. It is often
claimed that the industrial age, when a regular wage provided the means of
subsistence, can somehow be patched up. But those days are over.
Wage-earning is disappearing and the panoply of temporary doles and
allowances designed to replace it is shrinking, something that is nothing
less than criminal.
It goes hand in hand with the fear felt by the privileged who still have a
paid job and are afraid of losing it. I maintain that this shame and this
fear ought to be quoted on the stock exchange, because they are major
inputs in profit. Once upon a time people pilloried the alienation caused
by work. Today falling labour costs contribute to the profits of big
companies, whose favourite management tool is sacking workers; when they do
this, their stock market value soars.
When people talk about society's "movers and shakers", they aren't talking
about the bulk of their country's population but about business leaders who
relocate at the drop of a hat. Politicians make jobs their priority, but
the Stock Exchange is delighted whenever a big industrial complex fires
workers and gets worried whenever there's the slightest improvement in the
unemployment figures. I wanted to draw people's attention to this paradox.
A company's stock market quotation depends largely on labour costs, and
profit is generated in the last analysis by reducing the numbers of those
who have a job.
Young people live in a society which still regards salaried employment as
the only acceptable, honest and lawful way of life, but most of them are
deprived of the opportunity to achieve this. In deprived inner city areas
this is a major problem.
At the same time I often meet young people with armfuls of degrees who are
out of work. What inexcusable waste! For generations study was young
people's initiation into social life. I admire young people today because
they go on with their studies fully aware that they are running the risk of
rejection by society.
I am neither against the globalization of exchanges, nor the emergence of
new technologies. Such an attitude would be absurd. But I am against their
being taken over by a tiny minority of economic power centres, often in
private hands, whereas entire populations are excluded from social
progress. I am against the globalization of rejection and poverty and for
the globalization of well-being.
The Jobs Letter – an essential information and media watch on jobs,
employment, unemployment, the future of work, and related economic and
education issues.
The Jobs Research Trust – a not-for-profit Charitable Trust constituted in
1994 to develop and distribute information that will help our communities
create more jobs and reduce unemployment and poverty in New Zealand.
Our internet website at
contains our back issues and key papers, and hotlinks to other internet
resources.
Richard Wolfson, PhD Our website,
http://www.natural-law.ca/genetic/geindex.html
contains more information on genetic engineering as well as
previous genetic engineering news items.
Subscription fee to genetic engineering
news is $35 (USD for those outside Canada) for 12 months, payable to
"BanGEF" and mailed to the above address. Or see website for details.
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From: Richard Wolfson GEN12-16
New Scientist: Keep that spray
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-12/15/189l-121599-idx.html
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From: Richard Wolfson GEN12-16
US Federal Court Lawsuit First Global Legal Challenge to GM crops
This complaint plus media reports can be viewed at the website of lawfirm:
Cohen, Milstein, Hausfeld, and Toll
http://www.cmht.com
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From: "Rich & Ericka Dana"
doodles@netins.net
From: Debbie Ortman - Organic consumers Assoc.
Updated 12/99 US Government Emails/addresses/contact information
President
President William J. Clinton,The White House,1600 Pennsylvania
Ave.,Washington, DC 20500,
Environmental Protection Agency - EPA
United States Deptartment of Agriculture - USDA
Food and Drug Administration - FDA
Health and Human Services - HHS
Office Management and Budget
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From:
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Monsanto board meets as investors look for action
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From: Robert Mann
robt_m@talk.co.nz
Growing evidence of widespread GMO contamination
December 1,1999/ Volume33, Issue23/ pp.484 A-485
© Copyright © 1999 American Chemical Society
Strategic Diagnostics' low-cost tests provide a fast way to detect GMOs in soybeans and corn. Photo courtesy Strategic Diagnostics, Inc.
Robt Mann
P O Box 28878 Remuera, Auckland 1005, New Zealand
(9) 524 2949
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From:
jim@niall7.demon.co.uk
Monsanto to discuss breaking up the company
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From:
Judy_Kew@greenbuilder.com (Judy Kew)
USDA Science Advisor's Skewed Thinking
http://www.usia.gov/journals/ites/1099/ijee/bio-mccammon-2.htm
Green Homes For Sale:
http://www.greenbuilder.com/realestate
Green Building Pros:
http://www.greenbuilder.com/directory
Calendar:
http://www.greenbuilder.com/calendar
Bookstore:
http://www.greenbuilder.com/bookstore
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From:
dreller@realtors.org
Nestle's Answer
cc:
To:
cc:
bcc: Doris Reller/Chicago/National Association of Realtors)
Subject: RE: Your e-mail
430 N Michigan Ave
Chicago, IL 60611-4002
1010 Wisconsin Ave NW Suite 900
Washington, DC 20007
(202) 337-9400
or
International Food Information Council (IFIC) - (202) 296-6540
or
National Food Processors Association (NFPA) - (202) 637-8060
Consumer Services
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From: MichaelP
papadop@peak.org
About three years ago, on the occasion of a public event at the Uiversity
of Victoria (Canada), i heard Robert Theobald say, "I am for full
unemployment". And i couldn't agree more...
VIVIANE FORRESTER's book L'horreur Economique
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From: MichaelP
papadop@peak.org
Viviane Forrester on a Profound Change
by Viviane Forrester,
(pub 1999 by Blackwell ) ISBN 0-745-61994-0
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0745619940/thejobsresearctr
C R E D I T S
edited by Vivian Hutchinson for the Jobs Research Trust
P.O.Box 428,
New Plymouth, New Zealand
phone 06-753-4434 fax 06-759-4648
Internet address –
jobs.research@jobsletter.org.nz
Consumer Right to Know Campaign,
for Mandatory Labelling and Long-term
Testing of all Genetically Engineered Foods,
500 Wilbrod Street
Ottawa, ON Canada K1N 6N2
tel. 613-565-8517 fax. 613-565-1596
email:
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