Chancellor slammed for "cosying up to Syngenta, when he should know better"
Press Notice 8th December 2005 from GM Free Cymru
Chancellor Gordon Brown
has been heavily criticised for an unhealthy and "probably improper"
relationship with biotechnology corporation Syngenta, following revelations this
week that Syngenta boss Michael Pragnell has attended meetings at No 11 Downing
Street. Ostensibly the meetings were related to strategy discussions on
agriculture in poor countries, and involved the Smith Institute and the
"charitable" Syngenta Foundation, which exists (according to its web
site) to "improve choice" for poor communities and to promote "sustainable
innovation in agriculture." In other words, it exists to promote
biotechnology in general and GM crops in particular. Not surprisingly,
there is grave concern among NGOs that Syngenta has been given privileged access
to the Chancellor and to the Department for International Development, and that
the company has been allowed to promote its GM agenda and to seek to influence
Government policy behind closed doors.
The new DFID Agricultural
Policy paper, heavily influenced by Syngenta, shows that the Government has
shifted from a policy of supporting sustainable low-impact agriculture for local
food production towards a policy of promoting agricultural technology, GM crop
varieties, and production geared towards the marketing of crops on the
international food market.
Welsh consumer group GM Free Cymru
points out that Syngenta was the company responsible for the recent large-scale
Bt10 contamination incident, which had repercussions across the globe and which
cost European taxpayers millions of pounds. The health effects are not
known, because neither the EC nor Syngenta wants to measure them. Speaking
for GM Free Cymru, Dr Brian John said: "The kindest interpretation of that
fiasco is that Syngenta is incompetent; a more realistic interpretation is
that the corporation lied, tried to cover up the full extent of the
contamination, and placed endless obstructions in the way of the authorities
which had to deal with contaminated human and animal food. We are frankly
amazed that Gordon Brown and Hilary Benn should now be doing business with such
a complacent, arrogant and despised corporation, which has, to the best of our
knowledge, not even apologized for the disaster."
GM Free Cymru has
compiled a dossier (see below) relating to the behaviour of Syngenta during the
European "Corngate" scandal, and has pointed out that its behaviour was equally
reprehensible during an earlier GM maize scandal in New Zealand
(2000-2002). On that occasion, faced with widespread contamination by an
illegal GM maize variety, the corporation refused point blank to cooperate
with the authorities, refused to divulge either the genetic characteristics of
the GM maize or its testing methods, and refused to allow the testing laboratory
to meet the Government's investigating committee. More recently, Syngenta
has been heavily involved in what Vandana Shiva has called the "Golden Rice
Hoax"; and it has been involved in attempts to derail the Cartagena biosafety
negotiations in Montreal earlier this year. Very recently it exerted massive --
and some think improper -- pressure in Switzerland in an attempt to prevent the
Swiss people from voting for a GM moratorium in a popular referendum. In
the event, its pressure might have proved counterproductive, for 55.7% of voters
insisted that the country should remain GM free.
"If the Chancellor
has been doing deals with Syngenta behind closed doors," says Dr John, "it will
soon enough become apparent. We know what Syngenta wants -- Government
support for GM technology, assistance in promoting its interests in Africa, lax
foreign regulatory regimes, no strict liability laws covering GM contamination
incidents in the UK, and no additional tax burden on GM growers or seed
owners. It hates what has recently happened in Denmark, where new laws will
force GM companies and farmers to face up to their responsibilities. It
wants British help in heading off similar laws elsewhere in the EU. Let's
now see whether the Chancellor is genuinely interested in protecting the health
and safety of the people of Britain and the security of British farmers -- or
more interested in helping the commercial aspirations of Syngenta and
Monsanto."
ENDS
Further info: Brian John
GM Free
Cymru
Tel:
01239-820470
======================================
THE
SYNGENTA DODGY DOSSIER
GM Free Cymru has, within the
past nine months, discovered that Syngenta has been involved in a web of lies,
deceptions and obstructive corporate behaviour that would have done credit to
its competitor Monsanto. For example:
** Syngenta knew
about the contamination of Bt11 by the illegal variety called Bt10 several
months before the story was broken by "Nature" magazine (1) on 22 March 2005.
For at least four months Syngenta and the US regulatory authorities connived to
keep the contamination incident under wraps, while contaminated grain
continued to be distributed on the world market.
** The
corporation at first failed to reveal that Bt10 contains antibiotic resistance
marker genes, but then had to admit it under pressure from independent
scientists (2). It also failed to reveal that it has a different
promoter.
** The corporation pretended at first that Bt10 is
"basically identical" to Bt11, but it was later pointed out that it was
sufficiently distinctive to have been used as a "control" for the testing /
identification of Bt11. The pretence was perpetrated by DEFRA, as indicated
by a press statement which included these words: "Food or feed derived from a
mixture of Bt 11 and Bt 10 maize seeds would not reveal the two original sources
of Bt protein as they are identical." This is an unsupportable contention,
and has no scientific validity (3).
** The corporation failed
to point out that BT10 was clearly an "experimental GM variety" which never
entered the US approvals process, probably because it was found to be defective
or genetically unstable (4) (5).
** The variety has never had
its genetic "character" described in the literature, which means that even if
the EU countries had had effective import monitoring in place (which they had
not) the GM testing laboratories would not have known what they were supposed to
look for (6).
** At first Syngenta stated that "several
hundred tonnes" of contaminated maize had found its way into the food chain
(1). This was a lie, and following revelations by GM Free Cymru and other
bodies, the corporation had to admit that the real figure was around 150,000
tonnes (7). We stand by our calculation that the real figure was around
185,000 tonnes.
** Syngenta has refused to give any figures
relating to the amount of contaminated grain exported, and it has refused to
identify the countries involved. At least twelve contaminated cargoes have
been stopped at Japanese ports, and two in Ireland (8). It is a fair
assumption that other contaminated cargoes have been imported, without being
identified, through ports in other EC countries, and also in South
Korea.
** The corporation has persistently peddled the line
that all of the contaminated Bt10/Bt11 maize was intended for animal fodder and
other products incorporated into processed animal feed. However, the
Syngenta web site makes it clear that the Bt11 event (and hence Bt10 event also)
is used in "yellow field corn", which goes into a wide range of processed foods
with maize ingredients intended for human consumption
(9).
** In an Email to DEFRA, dated 5th April 2005, and
obtained by GM Free Cymru through the provisions
of the Freedom of
Information Act, Syngenta admitted that the contamination incident was
neither simple nor small in scale. It admitted that no less than five Bt10
breeding lines were involved (10).
** GM Free Cymru discovered that
as at 5th April 2005 Syngenta was still holding 19,000 sacks of Bt10 seed "in
quarantine" (10). It has never said that this seed has been destroyed, and
it is therefore quite possible that it has quietly been slipped back into the
food chain and planted as Bt11 maize.
** It has also been admitted
by the company that one of the Bt10 breeding lines "was commercialized
in a
very small amount" -- which would have been illegal even in the USA, since
consent for Bt10 lines was never requested or given
(10).
** Following the admission that a major contamination
incident had taken place, Syngenta embarked upon an energetic damage
limitation exercise. Spokesmen said over and again that the tonnage of
contaminated maize was but a minute fraction of total US maize production, and
they suggested that Bt10 maize would have been diluted evenly through the food
chain (11). This is totally dishonest. Since maize is bought in the
market place in batches and shipped to food processors in Europe, there is a
chance that some food products on supermarket shelves will have had high
concentrations of Bt10 in them.
** While regulators in Japan
and the EU attempted to establish a reliable test for Bt10 so that incoming
cargoes of maize products from the US could be monitored, Syngenta refused
absolutely to provide information about the genetic makeup of the variety which
could have enabled GM testing labs to start work. After a considerable
delay, Syngenta worked out a testing method with a company called
GeneScan in May 2005 which was suspected to have been carefully designed to
provide "false negatives" -- in other words, to ensure that shipments with low
or moderate contamination would not be identified no matter how much sampling
was done (11).
** On the political front, it has now been
established that Syngenta was very active in the Brazilian delegation that
derailed the Cartagena Protocol biosafety negotiations in Montreal in June
2005 (12). In pursuity of its corporate objectives Syngenta has been active
in Brazilian political circles for a number of years. It has also (as a
Swiss-based company) been heavily involved in the pro-GM campaign prior to the
Swiss referendum on 27 November 2005. (18)
** In the first
"Corngate" scandal in New Zealand in 2000, illegally imported GM maize seed was
planted on 178 ha of land. Mystery still surrounds the fate of the
crop. Later, when this leaked out, Syngenta refused to allow access to the
GeneScan laboratory which carried out the testing that identified the
contamination. (13)
** Syngenta has been actively involved in
the promotion of "Golden Rice" in rice-growing countries, and has used its
development and "gift" of Golden Rice 2 in its promotion and publicity work, as
flagging up its humanitarian concerns and philanthropic instincts. NGOs and
consumers and farming groups have pointed out that the Golden Rice project is a
gigantic scam which will bring virtually no benefits in terms of hunger
alleviation. (14)
** The corporation is the developer and
owner of another maize variety called Bt176 which was implicated in the deaths
of 12 cattle in Hesse, Germany, in 2001-2002.(15) Bt176 is unstable and
non-uniform, which means that it is illegal under EU law. When news of that
scandal broke, the investigations relating to the animal deaths were short-lived
and profoundly unsatisfactory, involving the mysterious disappearance of animal
tissue samples that should have been examinued. Syngenta gave the farmer partial
compensation in 2002 but refused to provide more support in making a full
investigation into the case and to recognise the GM maize as being the cause of
his problems. The corporation was then implicated in attempts to attribute the
cattle deaths to mismanagement and other factors. (16) This was classic
corporate behaviour ...............
** Syngenta is
currently involved in the acquisition of patents for "terminator technology"
around the world, in clear breach of the commitments given some years ago by the
GM multinationals that this technology would be abandoned because of the host of
biological, ecological and agricultural dangers
involved.
--------------------------------------
NOTES
(1)
"US launches probe into sales of unapproved transgenic corn", Colin
Macilwain
NATURE, 22
March 2005
http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050321/full/nature03570.html
Useful
summary of the Bt10 scandal by Jeffrey Smith, author of Seeds of
Deception:
http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5177
Bt10 likely in
human food
chain
http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5346
(2) Stray
seeds had antibiotic-resistance genes
Nature, Published online: 29 March
2005; | doi:10.1038/434548a
Colin Macilwain: "Accidental release of
genetically-modified crops sparks new
worries".
http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050328/full/434548a.html
(3) http://www.gnn.gov.uk/Content/Detail.asp?ReleaseID=153346&NewsAreaID=2
DEFRA
and FSA were informed by Syngenta of the contamination incident on 22 March
2005.
DEFRA Press Release, 23 March 2005
(4) "I have
confirmed with FDA that “BT10 never went through an FDA consultation
process. Therefore, it was never reviewed for unintended human health
effects, at least not by the U.S." Doug Gurian-Sherman,
Ph.D., Senior Scientist, Center for Food Safety, 660 Pennsylvania
Avenue, Suite 302, Washington, D.C. 20003
(5) A search of
the EC / EFSA web site reveals that BT10 had, as at 22 March 2005, never
featured in any studies or discussions. The Syngenta event Bt 10 is a
Lepadopteran toxin Cry1Ab.
Bt10 not the same as
Bt11
http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5346
(6) http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5069
Scientists
Rubbish Official Claim GM Corn is Safe / Syngenta's GM Maize Scandals
(5/4/2005)
(7) http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5073
(8) As
at December 2005 at least twelve contaminated cargoes have been identified in
Japan and Ireland, involving 34,000 tonnes in the former country and 2,500
tonnes in the latter. But in the period 2000-2003 (when most Bt10 would have
come into the food chain) a total of c 685,000 tonnes of maize and maize
products (excluding seed and popcorn) was imported by the EU from the
USA; products contaminated with Bt10 will long since have been
consumed.
http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5643
http://www.gmfreeireland.org/scandal/index.php
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~cbic/english/2005/journal0510.html
http://www.gmfreeireland.org/scandal/index.php
(9) This
type of corn is picked at a mature, predominantly starchy stage, dried to a more
hardened state, and used in a multitude of ways--as livestock feed and, after
refining, in a wide array of processed foods and drinks, from cornstarch to
whiskey (as well as in many nonfood products, such as fuel, paper, and
plastics). The full range of manufactured maize products is enormous,
including packaged sweetcorn, corn on the cob, baby food, corn oil, corn flour,
corn starch, polenta, maize meal, maize pasta, maize based snacks and tortillas
(including tortilla chips and
tacos).
(10) http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5346
(11) http://www.eurofins.com/news/specials/syngenta-pressrelease-BT10/en
http://www.syngenta.com/en/news/syng_stats_bt10.aspx
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/BT10DMA.php
Bt10
Detection Method Unacceptable
The detection method for Syngenta’s illegal GM
maize is flawed; there must now be a full disclosure of information and
access to reference material for retrospective risk assessment and risk
management. Dr. Mae-Wan Ho and Prof. Joe
Cummins
(12) http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5345
Ref
CARTAGENA PROTOCOL
LATEST:
http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5345
(13) http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3227702a10,00.html
http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5073
(14) Golden
rice
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/rice.php
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/news/failures-of-golden-rice
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7196
http://online.sfsu.edu/~rone/GEessays/goldenricehoax.html
THE
"GOLDEN RICE" HOAX -
When Public Relations replaces
Science
http://www.commondreams.org/news2005/0331-04.htm
(15)
Cows ate GM maize and
died
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/isisnews/sis21_1-5.pdf
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/CAGMMAD.php
(16)
http://www.organicconsumers.org/ge/cows121703.cfm
(17) Danish tax
on GM
crops
http://europa.eu.int/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/05/1458&format=HTML
http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5980
(18) The
Swiss referendum on
GM
http://www.syngenta.com/en/news/swiss_moratorium.aspx
http://www.checkbiotech.org/blocks/dsp_document.cfm?doc_id=11738
The
5-year moratorium is now part of the Swiss constitution
SAG and
Blueridge-Institute (www.gentechfrei.ch and www.blauen-institut.ch)
Press
release/background
information
29.11.2005
http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6001
http://www.swissinfo.org/sen/swissinfo.html?siteSect=107&sid=6270253&cKey=1133103805000
========================
FOR
FURTHER INFORMATION ON THE MEETING AT 11 DOWNING STREET, AND THE MANNER IN WHICH
THE GOVERNMENT HAS BEEN SEDUCED INTO SUPPORTING THE SYNGENTA CORPORATE
AGENDA, SEE ALSO:
New Labour love-fest on GMOs
from Eco
Soundings by John Vidal
The Guardian, December 7,
2005
http://society.guardian.co.uk/societyguardian/story/0,7843,1659447,00.html
Benn
defends aid for GM crops
John Vidal, environment editor
The Guardian,
December 8,
2005
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/development/story/0,15709,1661841,00.html
http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6021