Translate:  http://www.babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish

Report from: Korea-Japan Joint Resolution Against GM Wheat

To: Wheat Farmers and Traders of the USA and Canada:
We, consolidated consumers of wheat products and organic farmers of Korea and Japan, are strongly against GM wheat that contains not only Roundup-Ready herbicide-resistant protein but also antibiotics and the virus protein CaMV, all of them having potential of harming human health and causing irreversible damage to the whole of nature, of which we are part.

We will never eat even one piece of such grain, nor will we allow one bit to reach our lands. Please stop using GM wheat and keep using conventional non-GM wheat, the variety that we have accepted and enjoyed. If any news that GM wheat is commercially grown reaches us, we win launch a massive rally to replace wheat with staple rice for any purpose of grain use.

We sincerely wish you would take our voice into consideration when you make the choice of whether to go with GM wheat or conventional non-GM wheat.
--The Coalition of Farmers and Consumers against GM Food in Japan

A two-year-old Japanese study has now made it into an English translation. This document from the Health Ministry of Japan ought to rattle a few cages and cause Cheney-Stokes palpitations in the breasts of scientists, both the perpetrators of fraud and the dupes who bought into the fiction being purveyed as science.

In the Japanese report MONSANTO's dangerous logic may take this one-two punch without distress, but literate farmers will recoil if they pause to follow the trail Japanese scientists have marked with iron-clad clarity.

Briefly, the desire to harvest more bins and bushels has prompted scientists to install a toxin into the bean itself via the agency of genetic engineering. With systemic resistance in tow, low-input cultivation and cropping could be simplified. To achieve this goal, MONSANTO created a soybean mutant resistant to their bestseller, the organophosphate Roundup. Glyphosate is the effective ingredient in Roundup.

The resistant strains developed seriously hampered enzymatic activity of ESPS (5-enolpyruvylshikimate-3-phosphate synthase) The technical nature of the development does not need to detain us. Suffice it to say that one of the enzymes works to synthesize the aromatic amino acids tyrosine, phenylalanine and tryptophan, for which reason the soybean failed to thrive.

GENETIC ENGINEERING
Genetic engineering was the rage at the time of the initial experiments. The idea was to breed unlike species at the molecular level, this technology having developed in the wake of Watson and Crick's modeling of DNA in 1953.

The company scientists found a microorganism in glyphosate factory sewage. It was a soil bacterium capable of synthesizing aromatic amino acids in the presence of glyphosate. The resultant product was quite different from nature's blueprint. It took a powerful protein from a cauliflower virus to make the gene insert perform. Additionally, a signal peptide carries the necessary protein to the locus of the enzyme. These few notes are necessarily an aside, perhaps a bow to the ingenious craft of the engineer. But the mix of genes from several unrelated plants assumes understanding of a natural system so complex that no computer in the world could handle even a fraction of the information contained within a blade of grass.

The genetically modified soybean has never existed in nature. It appropriated the genetic material of the bean and tampered with it in defiance of natural evolution. The Japanese study tells us that "239 (17.51 percent) nucleotides out of 1,365 total were manually converted into different bases . . . in order for the protein synthetic machinery of the soybean cell to decipher the bacterial gene across the species barrier."

All this is interesting, a bit esoteric, and possibly a broadside designed to confuse the grower and hand off convincing evidence that Norman Borlaug is right, the world has to have genetic engineering and greater profits for the brilliant redesigners of nature.

The Japanese paper said, "It is with good reason that genetically modified plants are called Frankenstein plants in Europe."

ARE THEY SAFE?
According to the FDA, modified beans are as safe as those designed by natural evolution. Are they?

For field tests, soybeans were grown without herbicides. The Roundup Ready soybean is usually sprayed with Roundup. "It was a surprise to find that both the genetically modified soybean 40-3-2 strain and the parent strain, A5403, used for field tests were not sprayed with Roundup herbicide in their cultivation. What MONSANTO has produced with Roundup application was a minimal amount, enough to test glyphosate residues in the harvested forage. Several tons of soybeans used in safety assessments were not produced with Roundup. The reason is not stated in the documents."

Based on such data, the Japanese study asserts, it is not possible to assess the safety of soybeans that human beings and animals consume on the premise that glyphosate is missing, this when the toxin is used to inhibit plant enzyme ESPS and its effects on other metabolic pathways.

One conclusion flows logically from the facts. Test results based on a product other than the one that is marketed are worthless.

The protein analyzed was from E. coli, not from RR soybeans. The protein expressed in the bioengineered product does not have the same amino acid sequence as the soil bacterium from which the gene was harvested. There is the matter of "post-transnational modification after expression," the Japanese study said. In short, the whole procedure can run amok. Apparently it has, as on-scene sow breeding experiences in Iowa have revealed. The Japanese study noted that "amino acid sequence" was not determined.

"What MONSANTO has sequenced was only 15 amino acids from N-terminal of the protein that was expressed in E. coli. The rest of the sequence was an assumption from the nucleotide sequence of the bacterial DNA. They determined only 33 percent of an expected total of 455 amino acids that the protein is not of soybean."

Further: "The real sequence of CP4ESPS protein in the soybean we are eating is still unknown."

Further: "Acute toxicity tests on rats are also carried out by the protein expressed in E. coli." What MONSANTO says in the application document is that extracting large amounts of CP4ESPS protein from soybeans is difficult. The Japanese find this a poor excuse. The paper goes on to define the proper procedure. The papers filed with the U.S. government stand accused of conjectural science, science converted to the needs of a corporation that apparently sees science as malleable.

"The experiments described are fundamentally invalid," the report concludes. Yet the business of genetic engineering was loaded into American agriculture with hardly a single reference to the American constituency that the government was obligated to consult.

ANIMAL TESTS
There were animal tests using cows, chickens, rats, catfish and quail. All seem to have been inadequate. Toasted soybeans were fed to only 10 rats in each group for 28 days. Cross-generation or chronic toxicity was not measured by such a limited scope. Even so, weight and welfare of kidneys, liver, etc., exhibited differences. Short-term tests of untoasted soybeans did not exhibit a difference between GMOs and natural, and this became a peg on which hangs the claim of "no difference." The statistical differences were evident just the same, the Japanese say, but were ignored:

Even with these far-from-satisfactory experiments, the data for body and organ weight of liver, kidney and testicles show obvious differences in the male rats between both groups, wild strain A5403 and bio-engineered strain 40-3-2 soybean.

The groups fed raw soybeans showed no difference, but the male group fed toasted soybean 40-3-2 exhibited 6.7 percent lower body weight than the A5403-fed group and 13 percent less than the group fed commercial feed mix at the end of test period of 28 days. Although this difference is described as statistically significant in the data sheet, the conclusion ignores these results and states that "no statistical significance is observed."

The experiments are far from satisfactory in terms of both the samples and the statistical method used. Our group transcribed all raw data and redid the statistical analysis using the Turkey multiple method. The result again showed the apparent growth obstacle for body and kidney weight in male rats fed with toasted 40-3-2 soybean. We wondered why there is no such difference in the female rats group. The answer to this question seemed to be the amount of feed intake: where males took 25 to 30 grams/day, female rats took only 18 to 20grams/day (approximately 70 percent of male intake). It is highly possible that female rats would also show significant growth difference if the experiment were conducted on a much larger scale and with a longer feeding period.

TOASTING, ETC.
Much of this report has been abstracted in depth to make it readable for the average farmer. The conclusion needs no explanation, for it speaks with damning finality:

We found a highly intentional misinterpretation in ignoring obvious differences between the A5403 and 40-3-2 hybrids in the documents. Raw soybeans showed no difference in the analysis between genes modified 30-4-2 and non-modified A5403 soybeans. Difference is observed in toasted soybeans. Besides such main components as water, protein, fat, fiber and ash, trypsin-inhibitor, lectin and urease, which are called harmful physiologically, active substances as feed are detected in the analysis. Urease is used as an indicator of protein denaturation by heat treatment.

Obvious differences appeared after toasting at actual feed processing conditions (108 C for 30 minutes). While the concentrations of total protein and potassium were not changed, the concentrations of trypsin-inhibitor, urease and lectin are significantly higher in the toasted glyphosate-tolerant bean 30-4-2 compared to that of the A5403 normal bean. These physiologically active substances remained active even after heat treatment in the genetically modified soybean, whereas those of the herbicide-sensitive normal bean were easily denatured and inactivated. The high activity of these elements does not usually satisfy as feed.

This result prompted MONSANTO to claim that "the modified soybeans were not toasted sufficiently in the experiment," and they returned and asked for retreatment of the sample by the Texas A&M laboratory that processed the beans. MONSANTO ordered the condition of retoast at 220 C for 25minutes, which is considerably higher than normal processing of 100 C for 10 minutes. Retoasting, however, further widened the difference in activity between the two strains. The hybrid 61-67-1, another genetically modified soybean inserted with bacterial CP4EPSPS, showed a high heat-resistant property.

Scientists would usually conclude in such a case that there was substantial difference between the two types, but MONSANTO concluded that the second toasting was still not enough. In the end, they toasted twice further and finally got the result they wanted, i.e., all proteins were denatured and inactivated. With this result, they concluded that genetically modified and non-modified soybeans have equivalent properties.

No protein can withstand repeated heat treatment and stay active. This is a common knowledge of protein chemistry. The results at normal feed-processing conditions is required - no more, no less. MONSANTO based their conclusions on the presumption that "they can't be different" and their economic need that "they shouldn't be different." Their translation of the experiment is based on a desired-outcome attitude and not at all scientific. The English-language report did not show analysis data of the third and fourth heat treatments, but the summary report in Japanesehas a graph, as if there were data, showing the final loss of activity, stating, "The data from insufficient heat treatments is not adopted" and "No substantial difference observed." If one reviews only the summary volume in Japanese and does not look into the English data, one would be ushered to the conclusion "safe."

However, we found in the first and the second analyses data a fact indicative of regular heat treatment. Granulated soybean, when heated, loses weight as water and other volatile components evaporate, and as a result, relative concentration of non-volatile substance such as total protein and ash increases. The data shows clearly that the modified 40-3-6 and 61-67-1 and the non-modified A5403 have gone through same level of heat treatment. The decrease of water content also certifies this fact.

MONSANTO concluded that the residual herbicide in a crop increases, therefore the safety standard should be slackened. Adopting the Roundup-tolerant soybean would increase the herbicide concentration in the soybean plants and seeds, because the herbicide is directly sprayed on the plant by post-emergence application before harvest. MONSANTO studied in detail the results of changing factors such as spraying times, the concentration of the active ingredient, glyphosate, the duration of harvest after spraying, and growing locations.

The data show clearly that the concentration of glyphosate and AMPA (a degraded metabolite of glyphosate) in forage and hay increase greatly by post-emergence application of the herbicide compared to that of conventional pre-emergence application, although the residual concentration in the plant differed from place to place.

The largest value of the combined glyphosate and AMPA was 40.187 ppm in forage, considerably higher than the U.S. safety standard at the time of application to FDA and USDA (1994) of 15 ppm in forage and hay. The maximum combined concentration of glyphosate and AMPA in soybean seed was 13.178 ppm, less than the 20 ppm U.S. standard at that time. The concentration of residual glyphosate increased in accordance with the application, from two to three times. As a result, cultivating Roundup ready soybeans may sometimes violate U.S. safety standards

We found a surprising statement in the document to address this problem. In its conclusion, MONSANTO says that "The maximum combined glyphosate and AMPA residue level of approximately 40 ppm in soybean forage resulting from these new uses exceeds the currently established tolerance of 15 ppm. Therefore, an increase in the combined glyphosate and AMPA tolerance for residues in soybean forage will be requested." They know very well that adoption of an herbicide-tolerant crop took precedence over safety standards. In fact, the U.S. tolerance standard of combined glyphosate and AMPA in soybean forage was changed to 100 ppm after they approved the genetically engineered soybean.

As for the Japanese government, they revised the safety standard of combined glyphosate and AMPA in soybean seed from 6 ppm to 20 ppm in April 2000 at the request of the U.S. government. Japan could thus import soybeans from the United States without violation of the law.

Thus, MONSANTO, in their rush to verify safety, patchworked the results of experiments and analyses that are as full of holes as an incomplete puzzle. Their product was asserted safe through manipulation of experimental results. Even more troubling, rather than trying to meet legal safety standards, they requested - and were granted - the revision of these standards to fit their needs

We have managed to find facts showing inadequate and incomplete safety assessment in the application document by MONSANTO, even though our work was limited and took place under difficult conditions. The process of genetic recombination and the results of other animal experiments remain uninspected by us.

TEST OF REASON
The matter of genetically modified canola is being tested in Canada's high court. The U.S. courts have handed down incredible decisions, most of which carry out a reversal as greatly denounced as the Dred Scott ruling. For now it is up to the American farmer to shun GMOs. The Japanese seem to have taken the position that they want to see what happens to a generation of Americans before they rush to judgment.

The original paper cited, abstracted, and quoted above is titled "Fraudulent Conclusion: Facts Found by Inspection of the Safety Assessment of GM Roundup Tolerant Soybean, MONSANTO's Dangerous Logic as Seen in the Application Documents Submitted to the Health Ministry of Japan." The credit line reads, Masaharu Kawata, Assistant Professor, School of Science, Nagoya University, Japan. A subtitle says, "What Is Herbicide-Resistant Soybean by MONSANTO?"

CONCLUSION: GM food is VERY DANGEROUS.
*--*--*--*
LINK:
web:  http://www.bhopal.net,
web:  http://www.bibleplus.org/health/ms_lupus.htm,
web:  http://www.percyschmeiser.com,
web:  http://www.livingnutrition.com,
web:  http://www.vegparadise.com/heirloom.html,
web:  http://www.notmilk.com, web:  http://www.nomilk.com,
web:  http://www.foodfirst.org,
web:  http://www.wellbeingjournal.com,
web:  http://www.resistanceisfertile.com,
web:  http://www.connectotel.com/gmfood,
web:  http://www.non-gm-farmers.com,
web:  http://www.organicconsumers.org,
web:  http://www.geneticsaction.org.uk,
web:  http://www.pan-uk.org,
web:  http://www.natural-law-party.org.uk,
web:  http://www.gefoodalert.org,
web:  http://www.safe-food.org,
web:  http://www.truefoodnow.org,
web:  http://www.geaction.org,
web:  http://www.gefree.org,
web:  http://ngin.tripod.com,
web:  http://eco.gn.apc.org/pubs/stop_gmo.html,
web:  http://www.ourstolenfuture.org,
web:  http://www.factoryfarm.org,
web:  http://www.fiveyearfreeze.org,
web:  http://www.tilth.org,
web:  http://www.bastyr.edu,
web:  http://www.healthmasters.com,
web:  http://www.genevar.com.au/seedsavers/resources/35.html,
web:  http://manila.indymedia.org/index.php?action=newswire&parentview=3697,

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~~}American Chemical Pesticides are devastating children worldwide-  http://www.bhopal.net, web:  http://www.bhopal.net,,
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The Coming Plagues by Laurie Garrett
Bible Cure by Doctor Reginald B. Cherry ( http://www.bn.com)
Immunotics by Doctor Robert Roundtree
Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal by Eric Schlosser
Fateful Harvest : The True Story of a Small Town, a Global Industry, and a Toxic Secret by Duff Wilson

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THE POOR DON'T NEED GM FOODS The East African Standard (Nairobi, Kenya), by Ng'ang'a bugua
Writing on this page last Saturday, Bill Carmichael argued that the rich and "sanctimonious members of Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth" are opposed to genetically modified (GM) foods because they have never known hunger. By extension, he inferred that the poor people (particularly in developing countries) should be happy with - and hence welcome - GM foods because these will put paid to their perennial "sensations" of hunger. Although I am unlikely to beat Carmichael senseless with rolled up copies of The Ecologist magazine, I beg to differ.

I believe that the poor, more than the rich, have all the reasons to be wary of GM foods.

At the advent of the agrarian revolution, it was widely believed that the introduction of new farming techniques would free serfs, sharecroppers and peasants from the throes of want and hunger. The argument advanced by nobles and land-owners then was that the peasants no longer needed to rely on the vagaries of nature or hunting and gathering to put food on the table. The agrarian revolution, it was said, had come to free the poor from hunger. The truth of the matter is that it did not.

On the contrary, it led to the further enslavement of the poor and the increase in the wealth of the land-owning class, a phenomenon that in the 17th and 18th centuries inspired great social and political revolutions from the Far East to the Wild West. These revolutions had two broad aims - to topple the oppressive socio-economic regime that had been nurtured by land lords and nobles and also ensure the redistribution of land resources. Of course, the ultimate goal was to free the serf from the bondage he had had to endure. However, the gains made in this respect were later reversed by the industrial revolution.

In later years, the introduction of pesticides and "drought-resistant" crops was hoisted on the same arguments, yet the poor remained hungry while the wealthy belched all the more. Surprisingly, the same arguments that were used to support these oppressive systems are now being advanced in favour of GM foods despite the lessons from history.

GM will not come to the aid of the poor. Rather, it will be a godsend to the mercantile class who, having realised that natural foods are something of a novelty, will cash in on this and hike the prices of unmodified (or naturally occurring) foods and crops. Because the demand for food will remain high, the law of supply and demand will be enforced irrespective of whether GM foods are available. This is happening locally and abroad. In Kenya, upmarket retail outlets specialising in non-GM foods sell the products at prohibitive prices. In Europe and America, the cost of naturally occurring foods - including greens and grains - has drastically gone up in recent years, thanks to the introduction of GM foods. That means that were such a system to be introduced on a large scale in developing countries, the foufou, matoke, unga and sukuma wiki that have nourished millions of poor children will be beyond their parents' means.

They may have access to GM foods, but also at a cost. Granted, GM foods will take a shorter time to grow compared to other forms of food crops. But where this is being done, many of the people who consume GM foods are developing ailments that are directly attributable to what they eat. In many developed countries, for instance, cancer and obesity are considered as leading causes of death - even among the young generation. Governments may not admit it, but these diseases have to do with GM foods particularly hamburgers made from synthetic beef and chips from GM potatoes. A research conducted recently, and whose findings were published in

The Independent last month, showed that there were high levels of cancer-causing chemicals in such products as chips, crisps and other snacks that are popular with the urban middle class.

True, the largest population of the poor in Africa lives in rural areas. But because they have limited access to GM foods, the incidence of cancer or obesity - as caused by GM foods - is relatively low. As such, to introduce such foods to the rural poor on a large scale will mean that government spending on health will have to go up - and this, at a time when the health systems in developing countries are strained beyond capacity. It has also been argued that this new scientific "advancement" will eradicate "world hunger". The truth of the matter, at least in my view, is that as it is, the international community has within its grasp the capacity to eradicate "world hunger". But because the political will is lacking, the available resources cannot be put to that end primarily because it will upset the status quo.

Many governments and their private agencies, in a bid to appear benevolent, will only give alms and food aid to starving populations only when the media show that it is a catastrophe of biblical proportions. It happened in Ethiopia in 1984 and in Afghanistan early this year. Significantly, this "aid" precludes the institutionalisation of long-term measures to eradicate hunger and poverty. We do not need GM foods to eradicate hunger,, all we need is a commitment.

Tracing the genetic map of a grain of rice may be a scientific breakthrough, but it will remain a political weapon to be wielded in the face of the poor, not a ticket to free them from what Carmichael calls "sensations of hunger."

So far, there has been a healthy scepticism about GM foods but more still needs to be done to put them away from the tables of the poor. I am here reminded of the naive bourgeoisie girl who, during the French Revolution of 1776, asked her mother why the workers were revolting.
It is because they don't have bread, the mother said. "Why not give them cake?" she wondered. That, to me, captures the predicament of the poor as far as GM foods are concerned
"~"
It's wicked, when there is such an excess of non-GM food aid available, for GM to be forced on countries for reasons of GM politics... if there is an area where anger needs to be harnessed it is here."
UK Environment Minister, Michael Meacher, speaking at a briefing of British parliamentarians, November 27, 2002
"~"
"..there is no shortage of non-GMO foods which could be offered to Zambia by public and private donors. To a large extent, this 'crisis' has been manufactured (might I say, 'engineered') by those looking for a new source of traction in the evolving global debate over agricultural biotechnology. To use the needs of Zambians to score 'political points' on behalf of biotechnology strikes many as unethical and indeed shameless. "
Dr Chuck Benbrook, a leading US agronomist and former Executive Director of the Board on Agriculture for the US National Academy of Sciences
"~"
The countries of Southern Africa are in the midst of a devastating crisis in which as many as 14 million people in the region are at risk of starvation.

The U.S. has the ability to supply non-GM food but has declined to do so even though several African governments, including Zambia, have made repeated requests. USAID has dismissed their concerns as "ideological" while an unnamed US state department official recently said, "beggars can't be choosers."

But eating GM or starving is a false dilemma. Hundreds of thousands of tonnes of non-GM grain are available, both in America and elsewhere, and it should be sent to where it's needed most. Instead the Bush Administration is exploiting famine in Africa in an effort to support America's biotech industry.

It's just the latest twist in a long and cynical marketing campaign and it's one to which not only African countries are objecting. In early 2003 India officially refused GM food aid from the US citing environmental, human and animal health considerations.
"~"
"Two leading international environment and development groups accused the US yesterday of manipulating the southern African food crisis to benefit their GM food interests and of using the UN to distribute domestic food surpluses which could not otherwise find a market... Greenpeace and Actionaid also accused the US government's overseas aid body [USAID] of offering only GM food when conventional foods were available."
US 'dumping unsold GM food on Africa', The Guardian, October 7, 2002
"~"
"Whilst getting food to hungry people is paramount, the threat of starvation should not be used as a bargaining chip for the introduction of GM technology. African governments and civil society organisations have raised legitimate concerns about GM. They worry about its safety for health and the environment, how it is controlled and by whom and about the impact of GM on the future livelihoods of their citizens. These concerns should be addressed, not ridden over roughshod."
Donald Mavunduse, ActionAid's Emergencies Programme Adviser
ACTIONAID SPEAKS OUT ON GM FOOD AID
"~"
"This looks like morbid folly, like a dangerous game played with the lives of starving people for political gain. This is precisely true. The US government has been playing this game for well over a decade,, the famine in Southern Africa provides merely the latest instalment."
Dr Raj Patel, Another Poisoned Chalice in Africa
"~"
"The US says it cannot provide guaranteed GM-free maize [to governments requesting it in Southern Africa] because there is no requirement in place to separate GM and non-GM grains in the US. Strange that a 2001 American Corn Growers Association survey showed that more than 50% of US elevators can and do segregate GM and non-GM grains. The US position is one of choice, not necessity."
"BETTER DEAD THAN GM FED?" by GRAIN (‘Seedling’, October 2002)
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"If the aid agencies had cash rather than maize they could resolve the crisis without touching GM, said Guy Scott, a former Zambian agriculture minister. 'But it is the official policy of USAid (the US agency for international development) to promote GM."
Zambians starve as food aid lies rejected, The Guardian , Thursday October 17, 2002
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The USAID website candidly states: "The principal beneficiary of America's foreign assistance programs has always been the United States. Close to 80% of the USAID contracts and grants go directly to American firms. Foreign assistance programs have helped create major markets for agricultural goods, created new markets for American industrial exports and meant hundreds of thousands of jobs for Americans."
Download the Greenpeace report on USAID and GM food aid
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"Asked if people were going 'too far' by saying that gene-altered humanitarian exports were part of a strategy to spread the crops around the world, [Neil E. Harl, a professor of economics at Iowa State University] said: 'I'm not sure that is going too far.' "
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"The hope of the industry is that over time the market is so flooded [with GMOs] that there's nothing you can do about it. You just sort of surrender."
Don Westfall, biotech industry consultant and vice-president of Promar International, Toronto Star, January 9 2001
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"It is unconscionable that the U.S. administration would use the threat of mass starvation as means to promote products that potentially carry a wide range of health and environmental risks... Yet all some folks in the U.S. government and business communities can think of is how to make even more money off their suffering,"
James Clancy, president of Canada's National Union of Public and General Employees
"NUPGE condemns famine exploitation to sell GM foods", NUPGE, October 9 2002
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"The USA wants to see its corporations control life's most basic resources, including seeds, food crops and water. Unfortunately for southern Africa, the drought plays right into this unprincipled strategy."
Dr. Lawrence J. Goodwin of The Africa Faith & Justice Network, a USA-based NGO comprised of Catholic religious and social justice groups, quoted in AFJN DENOUNCES IMPOSING GM FOOD AID ON AFRICA

Keep our country strong like a rock. Please ban all GM foods from our country. Please refrain from purchasing or consuming any product containing GM materials. Thank you.

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