Announcements in Victoria and NSW that genetically engineered (GE) crops will be allowed threaten more than just the income of Australia's farmers and food companies. There is irrefutable evidence that GE foods are unsafe to eat.  

Working with more than 30 scientists worldwide, I documented 65 health risks of GE foods. There are thousands of toxic or allergic-type reactions in humans, thousands of sick, sterile, and dead livestock, and damage to virtually every organ and system studied in lab animals.  

Government safety assessments, including those of Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ), do not identify many of the dangers, and analysis reveals that industry studies submitted to FSANZ are designed to avoid finding them.  

The process of inserting a foreign gene into a plant cell and cloning that cell into a GE crop produces hundreds of thousands of mutations throughout the DNA. Natural plant genes may be deleted or permanently turned on or off, and hundreds can change their function. This is why GE soy has less protein, an unexpected new allergen and up to seven times higher levels of a known soy allergen.  

The only human feeding study conducted on GE foods found genes had transferred into the DNA of gut bacteria and remained functional. This means that long after we stop eating a GE food, its protein may be produced continuously inside our intestines.  

Abundant Evidence to Warn People Against GE Crops

Open letter to governments, farmers and consumers around the world.

Dear friends...

We are witnessing a change in the earth's weather patterns and this has been attributed to the "overuse" of carbon related products by humans. This "overuse' came from two main fronts: population increase and more comforts for most people. These comforts include transportation, manufacturing, heating and entertaining beyond mere survival although survival is always the hiss-tone for all — louder for those who are poor and struggling.

Presently we are confronted with the enormous reality of an unavoidable climate change that may be catastrophic if we carry on our merry way... Some of us, though, are still sceptics about it all and want to carry on partying as if warming of the atmosphere was not happening... Tragic future.

The rabbit plague, the fox plague and the cane toad invasion in Australia are but very few small example of tampering with nature, beyond a certain point at which "we" lose control... And the point is sometimes very precise. All you need is to release a couple of rabbits in the wild and within a few decades, the entire country is infested with rabbits... Some people may see this as a genius act for an endless supply of cheap food, but the finely tuned ecology of a country can be wiped out very quickly. Nature cannot cope and cannot bring it's own balancing "tools" of extinction and evolution to deal with such a fast change. Some long surviving native species get wiped out. So humans poison the land to "help" solve the problem they've created... It is never solved, albeit reduced... And we blame them, those who unleashed the rabbits rather than ourselves for releasing the "poisons". We use baits and viruses to destroy the plagues. And we have not found a "cure" for the cane toad invasion yet....

But the agents of the plagues do not fully die out. The process of poisoning works to a point at which the hordes of rabbits and foxes diminish, are nearly gone (especially in our mind) but some left-over hordes become resistant to the poisons. We develop stronger poisons. We poison the land some more. Many of these dangerous poisons end up concentrating in the natural water/land/life cycle. The chain of life becomes poisoned but we still blame someone else as the business of poison-making is a "growing" booming industry.

Poisons manufactured by humans also include seemingly innocuous products such as antiseptic soaps, daily "cleaning" products that are powerful solvents, antibacterial agents, hormones, tars, industrial enzymes, interim powerful chemicals designed to make more virulent poisons, etc. The list is long and the quantities are enormous — in the thousand millions of tons... Some are products that we use more and more because we are told so by cheerful advertising, "SpruttkeinPlus kills 99.9 per cent of germs on your kitchen bench and toilet", we're prodded to buy, spray and consume...

In fact 99.9 per cent of germs are harmless and many of these are beneficial and necessary to life's cycle. But with some of the nasties, we end up with more resistant viruses and bacteria — and a host of other problems such as allergies and weird cancers. Sure, some of us can survive without being affected, but the law of averages tells us we could be next and that a proportion of the population, as small as it is, will be affected. As we multiply our species at a (sub-)exponential rate, we increase the "demand" for poisons. Advertisers and poison manufacturers rub their hands in glee.

Thus when the time comes we think we have understood, tackled and managed "global warming" inductors, we will have already tripled the potential threat — and will need to find a super double fast solution. In fact we have not hit first base yet... We have not moved.

I am not a farmer. But I know a few. Most of them have given up the intensive farming techniques, including the poisoning of the land using herbicides and insecticides. Most have given up on the monoculturalisation on their patch of the earth... We are but the guardians of our little patch, as small as our place is. Someone else will come after us and change "our" patch, with pink curtains.

So when we make the decision to use genetically modified crops, we are changing our patch in a way that will be much harder to change if it goes wrong... And it will go wrong. Nature won't help us. We should know. We had to fix the rabbit plague and we're far from a satisfactory result... And a specific virus can mutate, thus survive in a new host group... remember AIDS, jumping from monkeys to humans, apparently around the 1950s...?

Nature will be bottled up, imprisoned by our ruthless smart ways. We can, to some extent. deal with the rabbits and foxes mechanically. They can be seen and shot. We cannot deal with a genetically modified crop outbreak and contamination...

contamination will occur.

Once we release GM crops into the main stream, we're stuffed. There is no return. Only a slow or faster creep of contamination, until everything is contaminated. Some alarmed people in adjacent lands are already asking for large "buffer" zones... to stop their patch be contaminated and stay as "pure" as possible. But the problem is more complex. In some ways the minimum contamination is in the order of 1 per cent, no matter what... For some people it's a low risk, for some it is a massive number. One per cent... When many of humanity's endeavours deal with parts per million or billion, a one per cent IS a high number. But then contamination could be more than 20 per cent... towards a complete wipe out of non-contaminated crops.

Most independent research on GM food shows some dramatic chance of degrading the health of animals — thus people. Early ageing of liver have been observed many times. We will have to invent new artificial ways to maintain and prop our health. Manufacturer of "products" will rub their hands in glee. There will be lots of new problems to "solve" with lots of new products to manufacture... Pills and stuff is huge business. If you take this pill, it will counteract the early ageing of the liver onset by GM, but you will have to take this pill to stop your toenails from falling off due to the anti-ageing liver pill and you will have to take this pill against .... Pills at infinatum. Remedies for remedies. Poisons to counteract poisons...

The sponsored research is only interested in showing the bug and weed resistance added to a "commercial" benefit of the GM process. GM, designed to eliminate all other plants in the field, is Monokultur — like the Aryan Nazi fascist belief. GM uses the same concept. One is poison, the other is poisoned belief.

If no ones buys genetically modified food, there will be zero profit. And GM food would have to have draconian labels like those seen on cigarette packets... And according to some research, GM food intake can be more dangerous than smoking... But GM food or by-products should never ever reach the table... Not even be fed to animals we consume... GM should not ever ever be contemplated...

GM plants are not bred by naturally-occurring human improved selection. They are the result of gene modifications — genes being the building imprimatur of life — in which cross-species manipulations are performed in laboratories. Cross species genetic interchange does not happen in nature. Never...

A rabbit, a fox, a cane toad is still a natural being despite being out of place in Australia for example. A genetically modified crop does not happen in nature — like plutonium does not exist in a natural state — and is designed to survive in a highly poisoned environment... Welcome to the super human folly.

I have a small garden... It took me around ten years to turn it around, from an artificial fertilized, insecticide and blue snail-pellet haven, into a compost and "organic" patch. I do not use insecticides, I do not use herbicides, I do not use fertiliser, nor even natural powders such as "potash" et all. All I need essentially is ... water. Now, I have enough supply of parsley and lettuce to go around all year. We eat a lot of parsley and lettuce in our household. At least twice a day. But I do not "pick a lettuce" per say. All I do is collect enough leaves. The plants keep on growing, till they seed and make more lettuces. I started with "organic" certified seeds and at first it was a struggle, but now they breed like rabbits...

The ground was poor and full of clay... I can now grow potatoes and various other root vegetables. Bees are going nuts about the parsley and the rocket flowers at the moment. Butterflies are constant companions, as well as paper wasps. Paper wasps are the keepers. They are shy stingers unless you disturb the nests... They maintain the plant eating insect population at a very manageable level, the more insects the more wasps, the less insects, the less wasps... Except for the "stink bugs" that could infest the orange, the lime and the mandarin trees. But with these smelly bugs, I have found the best way to minimise their effect is to mechanically remove them (using sticks of wood or grasping devices) and squashing them, feeding them to the ants. The problem is managed.

There are also extraordinary battles between insects and lizards, bugs and bacteria, slugs and mould... Sure I help foil nature and grow stuff that is non-native, but nature is not poisoned, nor its core-essence — the genes — are being corrupted.

I saw a whiff of this show on a commercial network the other day... The "gardener" was amongst a few "placed" product like growth enhancers and stuff... And this fellow showed how to use "hormones stuff" to promote the growth of roots on a particular kind of plants "pups"... I have a zillion of these plants in my small garden... And whenever I transplant the "pups" I don't use hormone... Just rain water from the tanks on the dirt before planting and the plants THRIVE...

But the forces of consuming what someone wants you to use and BUY are powerful...

Let's not stuff up our planet because someone wants to make money out of us consuming products that will send us into a spin... Ban GM crops and food now... Forever... We will be sorry if we don't... Because nature can't fight back... It will let us meddle in our own destructive will till we kill ourselves with stuff. Then nature will take a few million years to clean up the mess.

In the letter above I forgot to mention "my" birds... They are not "mine", they are their own, but lots of birds in my little garden... The day I wrote the piece above I was upset. A cat, another rotten cat called "fluffy" or "Innocent", had mauled one of the birds — just for pleasure I think, as cats in the area are well fed and owners would say "oh not my kitty would do that!... he's so quiet and peaceful... He sleeps all the time."

I'm sure there would be more birds in the garden, like blue wrens and more finches, should there be no cat in the neighbourhood... The birds eat insects too and seeds, and nectar from the callistemons. When the callistemons are in flower the lorrikeets go bananas... and they can't stop talking to each other! Yapetty-yap and whistles, magpie-like, loud to make blush any women walking down the street. From time to time a fully-fed couple will cuddle each other in the dead avocado tree. The dead tree is like an open meeting point for birds. Many species, including the loud koel...

And then:
Greenhouse robs rainfall in farm belt

Deborah Smith and Mark Metherell
December 3, 2007

GLOBAL warming has caused the world's tropical regions to expand much more rapidly than predicted, raising the prospect of an even drier farm belt in southern Australia, and the spread south of diseases such as dengue fever.

As crucial talks on climate change begin at a United Nations meeting in Bali today, research reveals the tropical zone has widened by more than two degrees of latitude over the past 25 years.

----------------

I was was pointing out to in another blog (I forgot where) that someone ought to make some precise measurements on where the shifts of zones have occurred and are occurring. And here are some... two degrees... or 120 nautical miles — about 220 kilometres... Small shifts but big enough to make a few farmers worry... These shifts are ruled by the average updrafts (low pressure systems) and downdrafts (high pressure systems) boundaries.

My father had a weather book for professional pilots. I used to read it with fascination and my love of clouds has never been abated... With complex details, weather patterns, winds and clouds were explained with text, pictures and diagrams. Convection had no secrets. We used to go the local weather watch tower where the latest pressures and isobars were available... Dad explained the lot and the symbols, simply. He knew a lot. But he also looked at the signs in the sky... They would tell us of the weather for the next few days... Colour, clouds, swallows — high or low according to the insects flight patterns affected by an incoming storm...

And in the SMH too:...
Britain's birds dying out...

... Experts believe that changes in the management and type of woodland, combined with higher temperatures... etc... In some of my previous blogs I did bring attention to this problem. Including the dreaded insecticides that reduce insects for birds and the awful herbicides that kill "weeds", often the only source of seeds for wild birds. But also in some of England's countryside, the green meadow colours have been replaced by the "as far as the eye can see" ugly yellow of canola. Not many birds there...

And next to it, this:
Land biobanking will push ecology over the edge, critics fear

Wendy Frew Environment Reporter
December 3, 2007
A NSW scheme that puts a dollar value on trees and animals could push more endangered species towards the brink of extinction, say critics of the State Government's so-called "biobanking".

Regulations released last week for the controversial scheme, which allows property companies to offset or trade environmentally sensitive land for developments, have allegedly been watered down to allow areas previously considered no-go zones to be cleared.

Critics of the scheme are also worried a less stringent set of land-clearing rules are being applied to mining companies and coastal developers than to farmers.

The scheme was expected to raise red flags for some areas because they supported rare or threatened species. However, the director-general of the Department of Environment and Climate Change had been given discretion to vary those rules, said the director of the Total Environment Centre, Jeff Angel.

"It is silly to assume you can offset [things in this category] because they are irreplaceable," he said. "If you cannot find a replacement, like-for-like, that gives you some confidence, then you will push the ecological community further over the edge instead of pulling it back from the brink."
----------------

Gus: yes... we treat the "management" of the wild as if it was an election campaign, with measurements, with figures, with graphs and grand tooting that would make the devil blush. While nature ebbs and flows with weird patterns according to its errant ways, with our own twisted wisdom we clip its wings... We pigeon hole it in little boxes until another bit dies off. Buffer zones shrink daily... We manage the health of nature like doctors at the bedside of a dying person: "it's too late to call the priest..."
We claim to understand when we know barely a bit and care so little... Sure, individually we care, but our masters and their industrial diggers care more about the next buck than the next bird's nest, especially those that are in "abundant" numbers. We don't feel oblige to "protect" these... We only "protect" those we've destroyed or pushed to extinction. It gives us a warm glow: charity after the axe... Let's face it... Our masters and their industrial diggers "balance" things... They trade patches... The birds have not much say in whether they live or die, or where... Our call.

I don't know who invented the leaf-blower but he should be shot, hung by the thumbs as an urbane terrorist leader... figuratively speaking of course... A bit like the inventor of the electric clutch for the Hillman "special" automatic Minx... A nutcase! But I believe this latter fellow died prematurely in an asylum somewhere in Pommyland... His contraption was way too advanced for the mechanical controlling levers that used to get out of sync with the heat inside the belly of this lovely little car with genuine wood trims... That car used to burn batteries like no other cars. It even had a crank start, in case the battery was flat, which was always the case as soon as one stopped the engine... Oh boy, why did I buy one of these?

The leaf-blower is one of those tools that makes a meal of an easy job... Democratically speaking, it's a nuisance as it whines on and on like a politician in drone mode — on a marathon to bury you into the ground with useless national interest...

I have no idea if the professional leaf-blower person knows what he's doing. He's been ordered by the council to go and blow some leaves... Professionally, he not there to ask questions. He's been given two litres of petrol to burn on leaf-blowing and he's going to kick some leaves for two litres' worth. Up and down, up and down... possibly, since my head has gone in a tizzwhizz due to the entrapping noise coming from outside despite the double glazing, I've counted at least twelve up and twelve down the stretch — in front of my gentile abode — blowing the leaves onto the street where the flowing traffic pushes the leaves back onto the pavement... 24 times in all...

Undeterred, the professional leaf-blower comes back for another go but as soon as he's blown his visible quota of leaves out, they come back in the eddies of a naughty southerly blowing at least forty knots... Even on a hurricane day I can do a better job with a broom and a recycling bin... Sure my broom is at least three foot wide but as I push the leaves, they collect in a huddle that I can swiftly scoop and load into the bin, before the wind fights me...

But no... The fella is coming back and if the notches I engraved on my table tell an accurate story that's the 27th times he passed in front of the house, leaf-blowing his merry way... He had time to refuel his engine a few leaves ago for his second share of petrol.

27 is a good number... a magic number not like 26, which is the number Rudd has been anointed as Prime Minister of this leaf-blowing country. Lets hope 26 is a good number for a conservative middle-of-the-road lefty.

But 27 is a grand number in which 3 x 3 = 9, 9 x 3 = 27, and in which 2 + 7 = 9... How about that?

And 27 is the ruthless number that cost me winning millions on Lotto once... I had all the other winning numbers including 27... But I had 7 numbers and was too cheap to play a system seven... So guess which number I diced? 27!... Dumb dumbo... I would not be here, would I?

I even did not even get an expected packet as many other people had played the same other numbers too... But I would have been the only king with 27...

That's when I notice behind the professional leaf blower coming back for his 28th run, there is a professional leaf-blower in chief, blowing the leaves, those that came instantly back with the wind from the street — after the first leaf-blower at full-bore had passed through — into my garden where they get stuck by the ground foliage and into the corners of my driveway... Good one, cobber... 

But I guess, the two fellows are desperately awaiting the huge council vacuum cleaner that obviously is running late — possibly because the wind has created the same problem for another pair of leaf-blowers in another street.

On a quiet street and windless day, the strategy — although still far too costly in carbon credits — works like charm... The professional leaf-blowers blow the rubbish onto the middle of the road and the huge dual-drive vacuum cleaner gobbles the lot, at five miles per gallon... But there are days when one should consult the weather bureau and the traffic reports...

Actually it's not the technology that's gone mad... it's us. We replace a good efficient broom with a useless amount of blown air, that will fly dust particles back into our breathing space, and the wind will fight us until the rain comes and sticks the leaves to the pavement like glue. No blow job here...

I still mourn my little Hillman... I'm mad, sure, but not mad enough to use a leaf-blower...

Ban GM crops anyway... 

The cat killer’s trial lasted a full week. Jurors heard testimony for three days and then retired to consider Jim Stevenson’s fate. On Nov. 16, the jury returned to the courtroom and addressed the Galveston County district judge, Frank Carmona. After two days spent struggling with Stevenson’s act and the problem of cats and birds, the 12 jurors pronounced themselves hopelessly deadlocked. They simply couldn’t decide. The case was dismissed.

The war between cats and birds — and among their protectors — continues.

-------

Gus:

And did I mention the birds?

 

Topping the list is a flying ring Frisbee toy with a warning not to be thrown in the direction of other people.

There is also an award for the entire mobile phone industry for the bewildering range of fees, billing periods and rates that exist in Australia.

--------------

Gus: In my article above the leaf-blower is doing a good impression for my choice in the shonky award... Highly undemocratic, noisy, carbon-trading deficitor, and less efficient than an ordinary broom...

Raj Patel is currently a researcher at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa and a visiting scholar at the Center for African Studies, University of California, Berkeley. In his latest book, Stuffed and Starved, he explores the food system in our times. He explains some of the contradictions in an e-mail interview with R Edwin Sudhir:

What’s the basic paradox of Stuffed and Starved?

That we live in a world where there’s more produced than ever before, and yet 800 million people are starving at the same time as one billion people are overweight or obese.

Genetically modified crops may be grown in hidden locations in Britain amid fears that anti-GM campaigners are winning the battle over the controversial technology, the Guardian has learned.  

Officials at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) confirmed they are looking at a range of options to clamp down on vandalism to GM crop trials, after intense lobbying by big crop biotech companies.  

The firms have warned that trials of GM crops are becoming too expensive to conduct in Britain because of the additional costs of protecting fields from activists.  

GM Crop Trial Locations May Be Hidden From Public

useless tool... already mentioned on this site...

Then in 2004 birds started dying around the Grand Large. Tests showed it was avian botulism. "Although there was no effect on my fish, customers who had seen dead birds were wary," said Giroud. "Off my own back, just to reassure them, I sent my perfect-looking fish to the lab. I expected excellent results."

But the tests found a different, murkier poison - the fish contained PCBs between 10 and 12 times the legal safety limit. Fish from the Grand Large was banned at the end of 2005 and similar bans have progressively spread to other areas.

"This is the tip of the iceberg, the more research is done the more toxic contamination will be uncovered," said Alain Chabrolle of Frapna, a local environmental group which has campaigned on the effect of pollution in the river for decades. "There must be precise research on all possible PCBs sources, accurate maps and measures taken. The state polluted and allowed others to pollute. For decades they have put their head in the sand."

PCBs, one of the most poisonous groups of industrial compounds, were produced globally in large amounts before their danger was understood. They are still present in some industrial and electrical equipment and are difficult to dispose of safely. Trédi, an industrial waste processing plant formerly owned by the French state, sits on the Rhône 15.5 miles upstream from the Grand Large. It was supposed to limit pollution but instead emitted PCBs into the water. The plant's new owners insist they have cleaned up. But environmentalists say other sources of PCBs, such as disused factories, must be assessed. The Rhône cuts through France's biggest concentration of chemical industries.

Japanese consumers are pleading with the Australian government to ban genetically modified (GM) canola. 

The Consumers Union of Japan (CUJ), which has 1,250 organisations representing more than two million Japanese shoppers, will on Thursday meet with the Australian Embassy in Tokyo to ask for the ban. 

"We need you to keep supplying us with GM-free," CUJ spokeswoman Michiyo Koketsu said on Wednesday. 

"Eighteen countries grow GM-free canola ... but Australia is the sole exporter of GM-free canola on world markets. 

Japanese Consumers Urge Australia To Remain GM-Free

Genetically engineered foods saturate our diet today.  

In the US alone, over 80% of all processed foods contain them.

Others include grains like rice, corn and wheat; legumes like soybeans and soy products; vegetable oils, soft drinks; salad dressings; vegetables and fruits; dairy products including eggs; meat, chicken, pork and other animal products; and even infant formula plus a vast array of hidden additives and ingredients in processed foods (like in tomato sauce, ice cream, margarine and peanut butter).  

Consumers don't know what they're eating because labeling is prohibited, yet the danger is clear. Independently conducted studies show the more of these foods we eat, the greater the potential harm to our health. 

Today, consumers are kept in the dark and are part of an uncontrolled, unregulated mass human experiment the results of which are unknown.

Yet, the risks are enormous, it will take years to learn them, and when we finally know it'll be too late to reverse the damage if it's proved conclusively that genetically engineered foods harm human health as growing numbers of independent experts believe.  

Once GM seeds are introduced to an area, the genie is out of the bottle for keeps. There is nothing known to science today to reverse the contamination already spread over two-thirds of arable US farmland and heading everywhere unless checked. 

This is happening in spite of the risk because of what F. William Engdahl revealed in his powerfully important, well documented book titled "Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation."  

It's the diabolical story of how Washington and four Anglo-American agribusiness giants plan world domination by patenting animal and vegetable life forms to gain worldwide control of our food supply, make it all genetically engineered, and use it as a weapon to reward friends and punish enemies. 

Potential Health Hazards Of Genetically Modified Foods

Victoria gets ready to lift GM crop ban 

Katherine Wilson writes: 

Victoria’s ban on genetically modified (GM) food crops ends tomorrow — and following widespread media exposure of the putative health and environmental hazards of GM food, chief scientist Gustav Nossal will be joined by three scientists for a media conference to brief journalists on "Which concerns [about GM food crops] are the most justified?

Which risks can be managed and which can’t?". 

Yet tomorrow’s briefing is "vested interests masquerading as public interest science," claims Greenpeace spokesperson Louise Sales.

Comprising scientists who campaigned in support of lifting the bans, it was organised by the Australian Science Media Centre (AusSMC), which claims itself "free of bias".

But absent are any independent scientists who warn of dangers of GM food, like biochemist and nutritionist Dr Rosemary Stanton OAM, or medical scientist Professor Stephen Leeder, or epidemiologist Dr Judy Carman, or crop research scientist Dr Maartan Stapper.

There are many others. Media Manager Lyndal Gully told Crikey in an email: There was no attempt to line up a panel with a particular GM viewpoint ... [but] if scientists on the panel are more likely to end up arguing with each other rather than answering journalists’ questions, then there is a good chance that the science (that either side is trying to communicate) will be lost in the story. 

Gene Ethics director Bob Phelps said the selected scientists "are speaking way outside their area of scientific expertise." But AusSMC CEO Susannah Eliot said the panel was chosen because "they have done the research and have the knowledge-base, and they are happy to be grilled by the media." One panellist, Dr TJ Higgins, is CSIRO’s co-inventor of the ill-fated GM field pea, abandoned because it caused lung-damage when fed to mice.

His published claims that "there isn’t a single piece of evidence that [GM food is] any less safe than conventional food" reportedly prompted the ire of environmental scientist Dr Brian John, who branded these claims "a lie."

Experimental biologist Dr Arpad Puzstai also said "Most of Dr Higgins’ comments are factually incorrect ... the final refuge of the incompetent." 

Critics of second panelist Dr Chris Preston claim his published reviews ignore negative studies. Professor Rainer Mosenthin reportedly said Preston’s methods should be disregarded as they “have limited scientific value”. 

And third panelist Professor Rick Roush reportedly failed to disclose his research funding by GM companies. Allegedly as a result, Science journal revised its disclosure policy, as it is recognised that industry-funded research tends to be much more industry-favourable than independent research. Accusations don’t amount to guilt — and many anti-GM-food scientists also face public mud-slinging (including from some on this panel).

This is the problem, says AusSMC’s CEO Susannah Eliot. "The issue is so polarised it gets tricky to select a panel. Many scientists are happy to discuss the issues privately but aren’t willing to speak publicly because they don’t want to be labelled as pro- or anti-GM." 

Disclosure: Katherine Wilson’s family owns biotechnology shares, but she wrote a submission in support of a moratorium on GM food crops.

Yes John....

We are fighting some battles we should not have to fight.

Nature will not fight back

Pesticide Parkinson's link strong

There is strong evidence that exposure to pesticides significantly increases the risk of Parkinson's disease, experts believe.

It comes as another study, published in the BMC Neurology journal, has made the link to the neurological disease.

The US researchers found those exposed to pesticides had a 1.6 times higher risk after studying 600 people.

Experts said it was now highly likely pesticides played a key role - albeit in combination with other factors.

The disorder, which normally develops later in life and can affect movement and talking, is also influenced by genetic factors.

Several gene defects have been identified, but these are thought to be rare and only account for a small proportion of the 120,000 people affected by the disease in the UK.

In Lean Times, Biotech Grains Are Less Taboo By ANDREW POLLACK

Soaring food prices and global grain shortages are bringing new pressures on governments, food companies and consumers to relax their longstanding resistance to genetically engineered crops.

In Japan and South Korea, some manufacturers for the first time have begun buying genetically engineered corn for use in soft drinks, snacks and other foods. Until now, to avoid consumer backlash, the companies have paid extra to buy conventionally grown corn. But with prices having tripled in two years, it has become too expensive to be so finicky.

“We cannot afford it,” said a corn buyer at Kato Kagaku, a Japanese maker of corn starch and corn syrup.

In the United States, wheat growers and marketers, once hesitant about adopting biotechnology because they feared losing export sales, are now warming to it as a way to bolster supplies. Genetically modified crops contain genes from other organisms to make the plants resistance to insects, herbicides or disease. Opponents continue to worry that such crops have not been studied enough and that they might pose risks to health and the environment.

“I think it’s pretty clear that price and supply concerns have people thinking a little bit differently today,” said Steve Mercer, a spokesman for U.S. Wheat Associates, a federally supported cooperative that promotes American wheat abroad.

The group, which once cautioned farmers about growing biotech wheat, is working to get seed companies to restart development of genetically modified wheat and to get foreign buyers to accept it.

Even in Europe, where opposition to what the Europeans call Frankenfoods has been fiercest, some prominent government officials and business executives are calling for faster approvals of imports of genetically modified crops. They are responding in part to complaints from livestock producers, who say they might suffer a critical shortage of feed if imports are not accelerated.

-------------------

Gus: have we been sold a pup we don't want? Has this whole food saga engineered to push the GM crops... or is it a coincidence? GM crops or no GM crops the total crop production would be the same more or less, accounting for the drought stricken areas... But no, many farmers have turned  "bio-fuel" crops that are GM...

This from 2006: 

Genetically modified crops may get biofuels injection

Philip Hopkins
November 20, 2006

THE growing emphasis on biofuels in Europe could pave the way for genetically modified grains to gain acceptance, according to Australia's leading farming body.

National Farmers Federation economist Charles McElhone said the European Commission was due to make a judgement on the status of genetically modified canola early next year.

"Germany's decision in October to mandate the use of biofuels will place additional pressure on the commission to relax their current GM-free stance," he said.

 

and from Bayer...:

------------

Welcome to the Agricultural Biotechnology Council (abc) – promoting biotechnology in sustainable agriculture.

Over the next 25 years, the world will have to double its production of food to meet the requirements of a growing population. In order to meet this challenge whilst facing up to the demands of climate change, farmers will need access to a range of tools to maximise the output of our existing land whilst ensuring that the natural environment is protected, conserved and enhanced.

Agricultural biotechnology, which fuses together plant science and genetic technologies to produce genetically modified (GM) crops, will be an important way of ensuring that natural resources are used more efficiently. This is why abc believes you need to put science at the heart of agriculture and that farmers in the UK should have the choice to access this technology.

We represent the interests of companies involved in agricultural biotechnology research and the commercialisation of GM crops in the UK. We aim to create the conditions in which the UK farmers can safely and appropriately adopt this technology, for the benefit of consumers, the rural economy and the environment, thus helping to deliver a more sustainable future in agriculture.

----------------

Gus: natural environment is protected, conserved and enhanced????? natural resources are used more efficiently????? We aim to create the conditions in which the UK farmers can safely and appropriately adopt this technology, for the benefit of consumers, the rural economy and the environment, thus helping to deliver a more sustainable future in agriculture?????

Sorry folks but I have the feeling we've been tricked. What is said above to my view are gigantic lies, like the war in Iraq would be a "short" excursion and so on.

GM crops DO NOT protect, conserve or enhance(?) NATURAL ENVIRONMENTS!!!!!

HOW DOES ONE ENHANCE THE NATURAL ENVIRONMENT WITHOUT DENATURING IT?

THE BENEFIT OF CONSUMERS???? how can this be judged except by quantity of stuff that could alter health as shown by conclusive tests. Do we know what will happen in 50 years? 

The BENEFIT OF THE ENVIRONMENT????? basically engineering the possibility of "contamination" of proper naturally selected crops (organic or not) with adulterated species designed to withstand more powerful insecticides and herbicides??????...

Crap Crop. That what GM it is.

And the shortage of food worldwide may or may not have been engineered by the bio-fuel companies attached to the GM industry.... who knows but it is a fair question. Government subsidies cooked the books... The Aussie drought may have promoted this state of affairs but I have the feeling that's only the tip of an iceberg of deception... 

Designer Wedding Ideas: Find out how to look your best on your wedding day, thanks to the main event: the wedding dress.

If you want to pop in then make an appointment that’s absolutely fine if we can fit you in the day for trying your dress dress we will do that. It’s no problem at all. Here in Bridal Path we stocked dresses dresses by Stewart Parvin, which are the very classic, very straight dresses , beautifully designed, and elegantly tailored. Less is very much more to it. He is a very simplistic design and then firmly believes in the fact that they bride’s wear the dress and not the dress wear the bride. So he’s styles vary from very simple and very elegant. He works predominantly in beautiful duchess satins, gorgeous, simple, elegant fabrics. sashes sashes can be changed, polo’s can be changed before your clean lines it’s very simple, very elegant and again at the back we’ve got this gorgeous nipper then you say and we’ve got this lovely asymmetric bows which she uses which you just little bit more fun and funky and fresh and the normal they have traditional bag. This one also a new for the new season, and it&#8217 cheap discounted mother of the bride gowns cheap discounted mother of the bride gowns;s very much going back to almost the traditional style as well, but with his own fresh more than twist with the little buzz, very neat it’s very elegant. He is also offering a range of only as the satin goes as well for slightly more budget conscious brides. No attention to detail is missed see you’ve got this beautiful buttons. Stewart prides himself as well on having this internal corsets within the dress , so you can be guarantee to having a fabulous figure with Stewart dresses. They are amazing. They sense the way they stand they maximize yourself. They are wonderful. Another designer that we stocked a bride of half is Shasha by Sharon Bowen. Sharon is very, very well-known in the Northwest as the designer of fabulous, fabulous clothes, she actually done wedding dress as which have appeared on Coronation Street to. Her dress is nevertheless than theatrical, wonderful style, wonderful coat, great detail, great with color as well. She loves to use color. Hand painted laces, hand painted silks, color daffodils absolutely wonderful. This is Ruby, this is one of my favorite creations that Sharon has. It’s an absolutely gorgeous dress. It’s started like very much to say a couture piece that she did. And I love it so much that I wanted one for my Christmas wind day. So Sharon twit and twit and I think she went through about five different incarnations of the dress before she was happy to release this one to me and it’s absolutely stunning on. And of course, we can always have it done in Ivory it’s not a problem and for the last type hearty bride but it fits so beautifully on, fantastic, very dramatic trend, long white dresses really, really beautiful. Another thing that Sharon really enjoys doing is hand painting. And for us she did this beautiful, beautiful skirt embellished with crystals and hand painted. A bride can have any design, any flower painted on to her skirt. And we’ve also got the matching fantastic bodies to go with it as well which again it’s all hand painted or keyed in color wise, so it’s very simple but very, very interesting, exciting, very unique to the bride that’s just we like to and try to achieve. It’s something a detail that’s a unique to the bride for her day, and the reason we stocked underway okay, very well-known probably better known for her evening wear a beautiful, beautiful designs, very popular with celebrities. She has just this stunning ranged of bridal wear bridal wear . One of which something like this, very simple, very elegant to kimono style dress, very evocative of a vintage era. Elusive clients become quite excited with her. It’s a 20 dress for all these dress but it’ cute summer dresses for juniors s beautiful. It has this wonderful fitted belt which goes around the waist since she is UN and it just looks sensational on just very, very plain very simple just flower and you have not so — Another reminder of a favorite of mine is very simple again but very clever. Very much Amanda’s trademark use a seaming, ribboning to emphasized seams. It’s got a fabulous shaped. It’s wonderful fish style chiffon bridesmaid dresses , so it’s very full on the hips. It really fits beautifully, emphasizes the body and a neat and the knees and just placed after this gorgeous shape.

When planning a garden wedding, the wedding dress wedding dress is always a major consideration. After all, there are plenty of factors to consider when choosing the right wedding dress. Besides the personal style, you have to consider your budget, t...

For couples with a limited budget, with second-hand wedding dresses can be an option. To relieve some stress when buying a used wedding dress cocktail dresses 2011 cocktail dresses 2011, there are several things that the bride will need to consider to make the search for and purchase the perfect wedding dress Secondhand fun experience....

Beach wedding, a casual or semi-formal ceremony, always gives you a romantic feeling. Both spring and summer are great seasons for it. And you have more options for dress colors and styles of the bridesmaids dresses compared with a formal indoor bridal....

informal wedding gowns dresses informal wedding gowns dresses

It wont come as a surprise to anyone that most ladies start dreaming about the gown they will wear for their wedding long before they\'re engaged. It should go without saying that the choice of wedding dress is absolutely essential as on the big day everyone\'s eyes will be fixed on you......

wedding dresses come in various shapes, sizes, and forms and choosing the right one is important to achieving the best look. Read about these tips for choosing the right wedding dress....

Wedding dress styles are the first brides look before deciding to purchase wedding gown . If the ladies are planning to marry in 2011, then ensure that fully in the search for the best wedding dress styles for years. For about ten years dominated strapless wedding dress style is a good option. Both styles seem to be as common in 2010 and 2011, new trends long, oppression and drawings....

wedding dresses 2011

As a bride, you should make one of the most important decisions is what you will wear on your wedding day. The wedding dress plays an important role in your wedding ceremony....

&#13 casual summer dresses casual summer dresses;

&#13 shop mother of the bride dresses, formal gowns and cocktail dresses at toodress.org. find perfect dresses for prom, gowns and evening dresses for your special even;

Acquiring an ideal appearance about the big day is every single bride"s dream. And its undoubtedly important to pick a best wedding gown that is fit for your system variety. Simply because several hum......

Jewish wedding dresses are very popular in the Jewish community. Choosing the right dress for the wedding is the most sensitive issue for both the bride and groom and a traditional Jewish wedding dres......

Brides, this is your day. So if you are having problems in choosing the right dress from among the many beautiful renaissance wedding dresses , do not despair. Coming up with the renaissance theme is easy, but nobody said putting all the necessary work together is not hard. For the most part, the dilemma of a wedding is the dress....