go to WASHINGTON FREE PRESS HOME (subscribe, contacts, archives, latest, etc.)
Jan/Feb 2001 issue (#49)
The Gene Giants suffered one of a number of setbacks recently, when the Genetically Engineered Food Alert (GEFA) coalition [www.gefoodalert.org] revealed that an illegal, likely allergenic variety (Cry9C) of genetically engineered (GE) corn called StarLink had been detected in Kraft taco shells.
In 1998 the Environmental Protection Agency had approved the commercial cultivation of StarLink--corn spliced with a powerful Bt toxin (bacillus thuringiensis). Developed by a subsidiary of the French-German biotech conglomerate Aventis, StarLink was approved only for animal feed because of fears that this controversial, GE variety (50 to 100 times more potent than other Bt-spliced varieties) could set off food allergies in humans.
After the GEFA lab tests were revealed, Kraft, the largest food corporation in America, was forced to recall 2.5 million boxes of the corn tacos. Then GEFA revealed that StarLink corn had been detected in other products being sold in thousands of supermarkets. Since then, some of the largest US food and animal feed processors, Kellogg, ConAgra, Archer Daniels Midland, and Tyson, either temporarily closed their grain mills or announced mandatory testing for Cry9C corn.
The StarLink scandal brought home the realization that the nation's supermarkets are filled with untested, unlabeled, GE foods. GEFA, which tested the taco shells and broke the news about StarLink, includes Friends of the Earth, Organic Consumers Association, Pesticide Action Network, Center for Food Safety, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, National Environmental Trust, and the US Public Interest Research Group.
Critics of GE food have warned for years that splicing foreign proteins into common food products, proteins which in most cases humans have never eaten before, can set off dangerous food allergies, with symptoms ranging from fever, rashes, and diarrhea to anaphylactic shock and sudden death. The FDA admits that eight percent of all US children suffer food allergies, and that the situation is growing worse. Nutritionists also warn of a suspected link between food allergies and asthma.
When the US announced that grain exporters could ship StarLink-contaminated corn to international markets, things got worse. In effect the grain cartel and the White House told America's best overseas customers: Here, take this contaminated corn. Americans are refusing to eat this stuff, Tyson Foods, the largest poultry producer in the US, won't even feed it to their chickens, but you can eat it.
The appalling lack of US government regulation and the greed of so-called Life Science corporations to rush untested, and in this case, likely dangerous products to market have now become obvious. US farmers, and even a number of large food corporations, have already begun cutting back on their use of GE seeds or food ingredients. Some 33 percent of US corn acreage was GE last year. This year it fell to 19.5 percent.
Larry Bohlen of Friends of the Earth stated, "The EPA should not allow Bt corn to be planted next year unless they can assure mill workers, farmers and rural residents that they will not develop allergies and respiratory problems. Farmers could be affected and not even know the reason why due to the EPA's failure to test for health impacts."
Meanwhile, researchers at the University of Minnesota have confirmed that Bt corn does indeed pose a major hazard to Monarch butterflies. Scientists also have warned that Monsanto's Roundup herbicide, sprayed on GE soybeans and other crops, kills off the Monarch caterpillar's sole food source, the milkweed plant.
Critics note that Bt is also killing beneficial soil microorganisms, damaging the entire soil food web, and killing beneficial insects such as lacewings and ladybugs. Scientists warn that bees and birds may be harmed by eating insects that have ingested the Bt toxin. In addition, organic farmers, who use a non-GE form of Bt spray as an emergency pest management tool, note out that crop pests (beetles, boll worms, corn borers) will inevitably develop resistance to widely cultivated Bt-spliced crops, creating superpests that will overwhelm organic farmers and make organic agriculture more difficult, if not impossible. For these reasons, Greenpeace, the Center for Food Safety, and a broad coalition of public interest groups are preparing litigation to have all GE Bt crops taken off the market.
For further developments, go to www.purefood.org .
(ENS)-A coalition of environmental and family farm activist groups is suing the corporate hog industry.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., president of the New York based Water Keeper Alliance, said corporate "hog factories" are imposing disastrous impacts on family farmers and America's ecosystems.
The Water Keepers Alliance is a coalition of citizen groups that patrol waterways in order to enforce environmental laws. Kennedy said private lawyers have to take on the corporate hog industry because government has been unable or unwilling to do so.
"Federal environmental prosecution against the meat industry has effectively ceased because Congress has eviscerated the EPA's enforcement budget, while the political clout of powerful pork producers has trumped state enforcement efforts," Kennedy said. "This collapse of environmental enforcement has allowed corporate hog factories to proliferate with huge pollution based profits."
The coalition maintains that corporate hog farms routinely violate federal and state environmental laws by discharging hog waste into the nation's waterways. This waste, which is often stored in lagoons as large as ten acres in area, typically contains a host of antibiotics, growth hormones, pesticides, and other toxic poisons. Discharges from these vast fecal lagoons have spoiled thousands of miles of rivers, aquifers, and public waterways, and have killed or hurt billions of fish.
Disease outbreaks linked to these discharges have sickened fishermen and other recreational river users with respiratory problems and a host of other afflictions, Kennedy noted. The horrific stench from industrial hog operations has made it impossible for people to live in their communities, Kennedy said.
The coalition says the fecal lagoon system utilized by most corporate hog farmers is illegal. "These are not farms, they are industrial operations and need to be held to the same standards as any other industry," said Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club.
Among the defendants is the Smithfield Foods Company, the largest hog producer and pork processor in the world.
(ENS)--The FDA has proposed a ban on fluoroquinolone antibiotic use in poultry, due to recent sharp increases in resistance to these antibiotics in Campylobacter bacteria. Abbott Laboratories has voluntarily withdrawn its fluoroquinolone product; and health, consumer, and public interest groups are pressuring the Bayer Corporation to voluntarily recall its fluoroquinolone antibiotic. The FDA says routine feeding of these drugs to poultry, to promote growth and control infection, might cause antibiotic resistance in humans. Bayer is seeking a hearing on the issue, which means the FDA's proposed ban could be blocked from taking effect for months or even years. Campylobacter is the most common cause of gastrointestinal illness acquired through food in the US.
(ENS)--Professor Bob Orskov, director of the International Feed Resource Unit in Aberdeen, Scotland, has said he would not drink milk from cows fed the genetically modified (GM) fodder maize [e.g., corn], known as Chardon LL. The biotech company Aventis wants to grow and sell Chardon LL for cattle feed. The corn has been genetically engineered to be resistant to Aventis' own herbicide. Orskov said Aventis has not tested Chardon LL on cattle, even though it is intended for their use. Instead, rats and chickens were fed a protein from oilseed rape, the same protein found in Chardon LL, according to Aventis.
(ENS)--McDonald's has announced it will stop using genetically modified (GM) animal food in seven European countries by April. Greenpeace International received a letter from McDonald's confirming that it would phase out all products fed on GM animal feed as well as the poultry sold in its German restaurants by April 2001. McDonald's then extended the commitment to Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Finland. Earlier this year McDonald's UK declared that it would only use GM free soya in its poultry production. Burger King has already pledged to offer only poultry products produced without GM feed in 2001. Germany's largest chicken producers already guarantee that the soya they use has not been genetically modified.
|
go to WASHINGTON FREE PRESS HOME |