Fw: #743: New Threat to Indigenous People

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: =======================Electronic Edition==================

: . .

: . RACHEL'S ENVIRONMENT & HEALTH NEWS #743 .

: . ---January 31, 2002--- .

: . HEADLINES: .

: . NEW THREAT TO INDIGENOUS PEOPLE .

: . ========== .

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:

: NEW THREAT TO INDIGENOUS PEOPLE

:

: The survival of indigenous people, within the U.S. and across

: the globe, is being directly threatened by genetic engineering

: (GE) of food crops.

:

: In September, 2001, scientists discovered genetically engineered

: (GE) corn at 15 locations in the state of Oaxaca, deep in

: southern Mexico, a country that has outlawed the commercial use

: of all genetically engineered crops.[1] No one knows how it got

: there.

:

: In the U.S., genetically engineered corn has been grown

: commercially since 1996 and 26 percent of all U.S. corn acreage

: is now genetically engineered. The remote region of Oaxaca where

: the illegal GE corn was discovered is considered the heartland

: of corn diversity in the world. Scientists had hoped to keep

: Oaxaca's rich diversity of corn uncontaminated by GE strains

: because Oaxaca retains the wealth of genetic varieties developed

: during 5500 years of indigenous corn cultivation. Scientists now

: say that aggressive forms of GE corn, let loose in Oaxaca, may

: drive native species to extinction, causing the loss of

: irreplaceable cultivars.

:

: It is unclear whether the GE corn was carried deep into Mexico

: by birds, or was intentionally spread there by corporations or

: governments promoting GE crops.

:

: All genetically engineered varieties of corn are owned and

: patented by transnational corporations. The only legal way to

: acquire such seeds is to purchase them from the corporation

: holding the patent. Such patents are called " intellectual

: property " and their enforcement under international law has been

: a major goal of " free trade " agreements in recent years. The

: World Trade Organization (WTO) contains strict protections for

: Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs), and patented

: forms of life, such as GE crops, are explicitly covered by

: TRIPs.

:

: Under WTO rules, national governments are required to protect

: the intellectual property rights of corporations. In the U.S.

: and Canada, farmers have complained that they have become

: victims of gene drift, or genetic pollution, as GE crops have

: drifted across property lines, contaminating non-GE crops with

: patented GE varieties. Genetic drift of GE crops to non-GE

: fields has, in fact, been well documented and even the GE

: corporations and their regulators in government acknowledge that

: it is a serious problem. Now, however, Monsanto, a leading

: supplier of GE seeds, has cleverly turned the tables on the

: alleged victims of genetic pollution by suing them for stealing

: Monsanto's patented genes. In the first case that came to trial,

: in Canada in 2001, Monsanto sued Percy Schmeiser, an organic

: farmer who complained of genetic pollution. Monsanto said that

: after 40 years of growing crops organically, Mr. Schmeiser had a

: change of heart and decided to raise a genetically-engineered

: crop by stealing Monsanto's patented genes. Monsanto won and

: Schmeiser must pay. With this important victory in the bank,

: Monsanto now has similar lawsuits pending against farmers in

: North Dakota, South Dakota, Indiana, and Louisiana.[2] Thus

: farmers that fall victim to genetic pollution may find

: themselves sued for violating the intellectual property rights

: of a corporation and be forced to compensate the genetic

: polluter.

:

: The purpose of patenting seeds is to prevent seed saving -- the

: ancient indigenous practice of keeping seeds from this year's

: crop to grow next year's crop. Farmers who purchase GE seeds

: sign contracts requiring -- under penalty of law -- that they

: not save seed from one crop to the next. Thus farmers who employ

: GE seeds must purchase new seed year after year, making them

: dependent upon whatever transnational corporation owns the

: patent. Farmers who can't afford to buy seed each year will

: simply not be allowed to grow a crop. In free-market societies,

: such displaced farmers are free to move to a city where they are

: free to be unemployed.

:

: Today's GE crops can't guarantee that farmers won't save seeds.

: Corporations intent on preventing seed-saving must hire agents

: to travel from farm to farm, reporting any unlicensed crops.

: Such monitoring is expensive.

:

: To avoid the need for monitoring, and to gain 100 percent

: control over farmers, the GE corporations have developed a new

: technology -- terminator genes. Terminator genes prevent a crop

: from reproducing itself unless certain " protector " chemicals are

: applied to the crop. Any farmer using terminator seeds must buy

: the " protector " chemicals each year. As terminator technology

: spreads around the world, it will end indigenous agriculture,

: and much biodiversity as well. An estimated 1.4 billion

: indigenous people currently grow their own crops for

: subsistence, worldwide.[3] In many instances, their land is

: being eyed for corporate " development " and GE crop technology

: offers a legal way to separate indigenous people from their

: land.

:

: The ETC Group (www.etcgroup.org) of Winnipeg, Canada, revealed

: last week that two of the world's largest genetic engineering

: firms -- DuPont and Syngenta (formerly Astrazeneca) -- during

: 2001 were awarded new patents on " terminator " seeds, engineered

: for sterility. In 1999, Syngenta's (then Astrazeneca's) Research

: and Development Director claimed that all work on terminator

: technology had ceased in 1992, but the ETC Group found that the

: Director was either mistaken or dissembling: Syngenta's latest

: terminator patent was applied for March 22, 1997 and awarded May

: 8, 2001.

:

: " Terminator [technology] is a real and present danger for

: global food security and biodiversity -- governments and civil

: society cannot afford to let 'suicide seeds' slip beneath their

: radar, " said Hope Shand, Research Director of the ETC Group.[4]

:

: Despite the grim social consequences that seem likely to follow

: the widespread adoption of genetically engineered crops, few

: scientists have questioned the safety of the technology itself.

: The major GE corporations have insisted for 15 years that their

: technology is thoroughly understood, reliable, and safe, and

: government regulators have agreed (or at least remained silent).

:

: Now a new report, released this month, asserts that the

: scientific theory underpinning the genetic engineering industry

: is dangerously outdated and wrong.[5] The new report, by Dr.

: Barry Commoner of Queens College, City University of New York,

: says, " The genetically engineered crops now being grown

: represent a massive uncontrolled experiment whose outcome is

: inherently unpredictable. The results could be catastrophic, "

: the report says.

:

: At present, 68 percent of U.S. soybean acreage, 26 percent of

: our corn acreage, and more than 69 percent of our cotton acreage

: have been genetically engineered. " [A] ny artificially altered

: genetic system, given the magnitude of our ignorance, must

: sooner or later give rise to unintended, potentially disastrous,

: consequences, " says the new report.

:

: The safety assurances of the genetic engineering industry are

: based on the scientific premise that one gene controls one

: characteristic. If this is true, then removing a gene from one

: species and inserting it into a new species will give the new

: species one new characteristic, no more and no less.

:

: Unfortunately the theory that a single gene controls a single

: characteristic, while it may have seemed true 40 years ago, is

: known to be wrong today:

:

: 1) Genes are composed of segments of DNA, a long molecule coiled

: up within each cell's nucleus.

:

: 2) The 40-year old theory (developed by Francis Crick, who, with

: , discovered DNA in 1953), says that DNA strictly

: controls the production of RNA which in turn strictly controls

: the creation of proteins which give rise to specific inherited

: characteristics. Because DNA is the same in all creatures, this

: theory says that a gene will produce a particular protein (and a

: particular characteristic) no matter what species it finds

: itself in -- thus making it possible for the genetic engineering

: corporations to claim that inserting genes from one species to

: another will not lead to any surprises or dangerous side

: effects.

:

: 3) It was -- of all things -- the Human Genome Project that

: revealed most starkly that Crick's theory was wrong. There are

: about 100,000 different proteins in a human and, if Crick were

: right, there should be 100,000 genes to produce these proteins.

: However, the Human Genome Project announced last February that

: humans have only about 30,000 genes. (See many articles in

: SCIENCE Feb. 16, 2001.) Thus there must be something more than

: mere genes controlling the development of proteins and the

: resulting characteristics.

:

: 4) Actually, scientists had known for many years (since 1981 in

: the case of human genes) that after DNA creates RNA, the RNA can

: split into several parts, giving rise to several different

: proteins and several different characteristics. This is called

: " alternative splicing. " By 1989 more than 200 scientific papers

: had been published describing alternative splicing.

:

: 5) As cells split and reproduce themselves, their DNA molecule

: also reproduces itself, but sometimes errors occur in in DNA

: reproduction. Special proteins repair these errors of

: reproduction, so genetic inheritance is not simply a matter of

: genes -- it's a matter of interaction between genes and repair

: proteins. Will these complex interactions always work reliably

: and identically when a gene is placed into the entirely new

: environment of a different species?

:

: 6) Proteins function as they do because of two characteristics:

: they have a specific chemical (molecular) make-up, and they are

: physically folded into a particular shape. The Crick theory

: assumes that a particular gene always gives rise to a single

: protein that is chemically identical and is identically folded.

: However, scientists now know that proteins get folded in a

: particular way by the presence of additional " chaperone "

: proteins. More protein-gene interactions.

:

: 7) Furthermore, during the 1980s, in searching for the causes of

: fatal " mad cow " disease, scientists made the startling discovery

: that some proteins can reproduce themselves without involving

: any DNA whatever -- an impossibility according to the Crick

: theory. These proteins are now called " prions " and, as Dr.

: Commoner points out, they reveal that processes far removed from

: the Crick theory are at work in molecular genetics and can give

: rise to fatal disease.

:

: Thus the basic theory underlying genetic engineering of crops is

: quite wrong. Single genes are important, but they do not

: invariably give rise to a single characteristic in an organism.

: A gene's action is modified by alternative splicing, by proteins

: that repair errors in reproduction, and by the chaperones that

: fold the final protein into its active shape. In nature, such a

: system works reliably within a species because it has been

: tested and refined for thousands of years. But when a single

: gene is removed from its familiar surroundings and transplanted

: into an alien species, the new host's system is likely to be

: " disrupted in unspecified, imprecise, and inherently

: unpredictable ways, " the Commoner report concludes. In practice

: these disruptions are revealed by the vast number of failures

: that occur whenever a gene transplant is attempted.

:

: Most ominously, the report points out, Monsanto Corporation

: acknowledged in 2000 that its genetically modified soybeans

: contained some extra fragments of a transferred gene. Despite

: this, the company announced that it expected " no new proteins "

: to appear in the GE soybeans. Then during 2001, Belgian

: researchers announced that the soybean's own DNA had been

: scrambled during the insertion of the new gene. " The abnormal

: DNA was large enough to produce a new protein, a potentially

: harmful protein, " Dr. Commoner concludes.

:

: Thus genetically engineered crops threaten not only the

: agricultural systems and the cultural survival of all indigenous

: people, but also the food security and safety of all people

: everywhere.

:

: ==========

:

: [1] Carol Kaesuk Yoon, " Genetic Modification Taints Corn in

: Mexico, " NEW YORK TIMES October 2, 2001, pg. unknown. Available

: at www.nytimes.com for a fee.

:

: [2] R. Moeller, GMO LIABILITY THREATS FOR FARMERS (St.

: , Minn.: Farmers' Legal Action Group, Inc., November 2001).

: Available in PDF format at www.iatp.org.

:

: [3] Pat Roy Mooney, THE ETC CENTURY; EROSION, TECHNOLOGICAL

: TRANSFORMATION, AND CORPORATE CONCENTRATION IN THE 21ST CENTURY

: (Winnipeg, Canada: The ETC Group, 2001); available in PDF: http://-

: www.rafi.org/documents/other_etccentury.pdf. The ETC Group

: (formerly RAFI, the Rural Advancement Foundation International)

: can be reached at 478 River Avenue, Suite 200, Winnipeg, MB R3L

: 0C8 Canada; Tel: (204) 453-5259, Fax: (204) 284-7871. This

: report is " MUST READ " for all activists.

:

: [4] News Release: " Sterile Harvest:New Crop of Terminator Patents

: Threatens Food Sovereignty, " January 31, 2002. Available in PDF:

: http://www.etcgroup.org/documents/new_termpatent_jan2002.pdf

:

: [5] Barry Commoner, " Unraveling the DNA Myth, " HARPER'S MAGAZINE

: (February 2002), pgs. 39-47.

:

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