We're all in the same boat

Thank you for the insightful excerpt from your new book and for your commentaries during the Pope's trip to the Middle East.

I realize that this was a translation from the Italian, but I didn't understand the point about how clericalism would be taken to greater levels by assigning a married man as a pastor of a parish.

I also did not understand the point about the two procedures that the Holy See does for a bishop.

Could someone clarify these points for me?

Actually, I thought that Cardinal Martini's comments here were quite balanced and careful.

colinlavergne@gmail.com

WORLD ACCORDING TO MONSANTO

HELPING AFRICA by SELLING SEEDS EVERY YEAR
AGAIN AND AGAIN TO GUARANTEE RECURRING PROFITS
WITH HELP FROM ROME AND THE VATICAN.

TEN GOOD reasons why we don’t need GM foods
http://www.bangmfood.org/images/stories/10reasons.pdf

1. GM foods won’t solve the food crisis
2. GM crops do not increase yield potential
3. GM crops increase pesticide use
4. There are better ways to feed the world
5. Other farm technologies are more successful
6. GM foods have not been shown to be safe to eat
7. Stealth GMOs in animal feed — without consumers’ consent
8. No one is monitoring the impact of GM foods on health
9. GM and non-GM cannot co-exist
10. We can’t trust GM companies

“Let's be clear. As of this year [2008], there are no commercialized GM crops that inherently increase yield.Similarly, there are no GM crops on the market that were engineered to resist drought, reduce fertilizer pollution or save soil. Not one.”
— Dr Doug Gurian-Sherman, former biotech specialist for the US Environmental Protection Agency and former advisor on GM to the US Food and Drug Administration

“If some people are allowed to choose to grow, sell and consume GM foods, soon nobody will be able to choose food, or a biosphere, free of GM. It’s a one way choice,like the introduction of rabbits or cane toads to Australia;
once it’s made, it can’t be reversed.”
— Roger Levett, specialist in sustainable development

“The promise was that you could use less chemicals and produce a greater yield. But let me tell you none of this is true.”
— Bill Christison, President of the US National Family Farm Coalition

“Farmers are being sued for having GMOs on their property that they did not buy, do not want, will not use and cannot sell.”
— Tom Wiley, North Dakota farmer

The charge sheet is horrifying, inexorable and convincing. The multinational firm Monsanto, which sells 90 per cent of genetically modified organisms (GMO), lies on a massive scale to many people and even the whole planet with great success.

That’s the power that money and the apparently unlimited support of the United States government bestows.

***************************************************************************

You already know all that if you’ve watched Marie-Monique Robin's extraordinary documentary, ‘The World According to Monsanto’.”

— Le Monde.

BOOK: The World According to Monsanto (Hardcover)by Marie-Monique Robin,New Press (August 1, 2009) ISBN-10: 1595584269, ISBN-13: 978-1595584267

DVD: The World According to Monsanto ( Le Monde selon Monsanto ) ( Monsanto, mit Gift und Gene ) [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.0 Import - France ]

GENETIC MANIPULATION IS NOT NECESSARY TO COMBINE HIGH YIELD AND HIGH NUTRITIONAL VALUE

according to:

Michael Frei and Klaus Becker
Institute of Animal Production in the Tropics and Subtropics (480B)
Department of Aquaculture Systems and Animal Nutrition
University of Hohenheim
D-70599 Stuttgart
GERMANY

"The diversity of such favorable nutritional characteristics is not represented in the most widespread HYVs currently prevailing in Asian rice cultivation. These have been developed mainly to optimize the quantitative yields, and not the nutritional value. The high nutritional quality of rice landraces can form a solid basis for changing priorities in rice breeding, putting more emphasis on the grain nutritional value. Modern conventional breeding techniques,including molecular marker-assisted selection, may be very useful in accelerating the development of more nutritious rice varieties. Combining high yields and high grain nutritional value thus appears to be possible without any genetic manipulation."

"The current prevalence of milled rice on the market reduces the rice’s nutritional value and essentially turns it into a simple carbohydrate food. Therefore, in addition to developing more nutritious varieties, awareness of the benefits of eating brown rice should be raised among rice consumers. Such a combined approach would ultimately result in a sustainable enhancement of the essential nutrient supply in rice-based diets."

inst480@uni-hohenheim.de
http://www.troz.uni-hohenheim.de/Download/troz_pdf/ReportTropenzentrum04...
http://www.greenpeace.org/raw/content/usa/press-center/reports4/rice-bio...

"D'Agostino also insisted that anti-abortion forces have been misrepresented. "Contrary to how they're usually presented, opponents of abortion are not people who want to send women who have abortions to jail at all costs, or who want to see the doctors who help them at trial. They're rather people who are convinced that it's essential, not only for moral reasons but also for social reasons, that human life -- including prenatal life -- be recognized for its intrinsic value, and, as a result, be respected and protected," he wrote.

"In that regard, D'Agostino argued that if Obama's desire to reduce the actual number of abortions is to be meaningful, and not just verbal, he must acknowledge that the legalization of abortion has "strongly attenuated" the respect for prenatal human life in advanced nations." Why doesn't D'Agostino and the prolife movement present this argument to the former President GW Bush who prolifers voted in twice specifically for their cause and which nothing was delivered to them?

President Obama is doing much more than GW Bush and the Republican Party ever did with regard to respect for life, so I fail to understand the objection to this President and not the Bush Administration's policies which did more to harm a lot of people born and unborn.

As if the pro-choice forces have not been misrepresented by the prolifers with a constant barrage of attacks and character assassination. As well, D'Agostino and prolifers in general do not ever acknowledge that making abortion illegal will cause abortions to be performed in back alleys and the mother will also die or possibly not be able to ever have any children born over the rest of her life as a result. There is no room for someone who has had an abortion to come to terms with their choice over the course of their life. Do their lives count for anything to Prolifers? It doesn't seem so. Why must President Obama acknowledge something, but prolifers continue to not acknowledge the obvious immoral repercussions of illegalizing abortion?

If it is true what D'Agostino says that prolifers are "people who are convinced that it's essential, not only for moral reasons but also for social reasons, that human life--including prenatal life==be recognized for its intrinsic value, and, as a result, be respected and protected" then why is that prolifers are against supporting financially aiding women with prenatal care and helping them afterwards with the care of that child that they say they want to "protect?" There is no discussion from Pro-life forces to actively seek remedies for teens and mothers who are caught in poverty or abuse, yet they seem to always vote for candidates whose economic policies are to aide the wealthy and create more poor.

Why is that?

Why is it that they seem to think that outlawing abortion is a solution? If it is outlawed then what in the world do Pro-lifers think logically would happen to those who break the law? Do pro-lifers think that people will not be jailed just as for other crimes? Do prolifers really understand the consequences of their words and actions?

Here is a moral question: Does a thief steal even when it is against the law? Are there even justifiable reasons for someone who is hungry to steal from a farmer's field? If you were starving and entered into the farmer's field the law says you must starve and obey the law. But there is another law and that is of survival and the will and desire to live. Would you starve yourself or would you obey the law? Wouldn't starving yourself be another evil and the result be your own death? To obey the law would be preferable to your own suicide?

Jomo Kenyatta (The late Kenyan leader) had made the observation,

that when the missionaries arrived, the Africans had the land and the missionaries had the Bible.

"They (the Missionaries) taught us (the Africans) to pray with our eyes closed. When we opened our eyes, they had the land and we had the Bible,"

"GOLDEN RICE"!!!

"GOLD" for the GMO companies like MONSANTO

"RICE" for the poor STARVING AFRICANS in CAMEROUN

Of course, it must be "WUNDERBAR" for VATICAN and

Ingo Potrykus, the inventor of "golden rice"

"HAIL TO THE CHIEF"

In my limited experience, that doesn't do justice to reality.

The REALITY is that

Terminator Technology

Terminator would be a GM tool with enormous power. A plant patent is restricted to 20 years but, once released, Terminator may be forever. The technology owner would retain exclusive control of the chemicals and genetic techniques necessary to restore fertility in the seeds created for sale. Melvin Oliver of the USDA who first conceived of Terminator said, "The new technique is to protect US technology and seed patents." Seed company Delta & Pine Land is now glasshouse testing what they aptly named their "Technology Protection System". Monsanto now owns Delta. The US government's commitment to project power around the world on behalf of corporations was confirmed by George Bush's remarks on arriving in Sydney for the APEC summit, which included a reference to intellectual property rights as a key topic on his agenda.

If Terminator were commercialised, farmers would be prevented from using the ancient practices of harvesting, saving and replanting seed, used since agriculture began at least 13,000 years ago. Farmers rely on using these processes to adapt their local varieties to unique environmental, soil and management conditions. As climates change globally local crop development will become even more crucial, especially for the 1.4 billion indigenous people and peasant farmers who depend entirely on farm-saved seed.

We are all custodians, for future generations, of a wonderfully diverse array of food and fiber crops, developed in the public domain by generations of farmers and seed savers. But patents, plant breeders rights and terminator technologies are being used to privatise the global biological commons without our consent

Monsanto, the largest GM company, is already suing many North American farmers for alleged GM crop patent infringement. The farmers are charged with saving and replanting seeds that contain the company's patented GM genes, without paying a technology fee. In at least some cases, the genes may have arrived through cross contamination but that has been judged irrelevant by North American courts. If commercialised, Terminator would enable Monsanto to enforce its patents without the costly lawsuits, bad publicity and opposition created by suing hundreds of farmers.

Following global public protests in 1999, Monsanto said, "We are making a public commitment not to commercialise sterile seed technologies, such as the one dubbed 'Terminator'." But now its revised policy, "does not rule out the potential development and use of one of these technologies in the future. The company will continue to study the risks and benefits of this technology on a case-by-case basis." Monsanto's new and old pledges can be compared at http://www.banterminator.org.

Although the Australian government says it does not have an official public policy on Terminator, Monsanto's case-by-case approach resonates with its position. The Department of Environment and Heritage (DEH) claims they 'do not have a ban on, or overtly support' Terminator, but also says that any proposals to release Terminator crops in Australia would be assessed 'on a case by case basis by the Office of Gene Technology Regulator'.

This position compromises Australia's commitment to the de facto global moratorium on Terminator, agreed to in 2000 by all the parties to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The CBD recommended that all governments prohibit field-testing and commercialisation of GURTS.

Since early 2005, Australia, Canada and New Zealand have worked with the US government and industry to overturn the moratorium. For instance, at a CBD meeting in Spain in January 2006, the Australian delegation argued that the precautionary approach be removed from the agreement and that Terminator technologies be assessed on a case-by-case basis. US delegates advised our delegation how to argue for Terminator, since the US - not a party to the convention - has no official standing or vote at the CBD.

The global moratorium on Terminator will again be under threat when the CBD meets early in 2008.

The only certain defense against suicide seeds is a complete and permanent ban, supported by over 400 civil society groups worldwide - farmers, indigenous, religious, and environment groups, etc. See: www.banterminator.org/endorsements.

National governments can ban Terminator technology. Brazilian law prohibits the use, sale, registration, patenting and licensing of Terminator technology and India has banned the registration of Terminator seeds. Australia should also totally and permanently ban Terminator now, to protect food security, farm incomes, crop diversity and the environment, for this and all future generations.

Terminator (seed sterilisation) technology would maximise seed industry
profits by preventing farmers and gardeners from saving and replanting
seed — key to crop diversity, evolution and food security. In 2000, worldwide
public protest forced the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)
to place a de facto global ban on Terminator.

Now, we are deeply concerned that:
> the Australian Government is trying to undermine the Terminator
ban at CBD meetings, advised by the USA and GM companies; and
> the UN's de facto ban on Terminator is too weak and may be overturned.

We urge you and the Australian government to:
> place a permanent Australian ban on research, development and use of Terminator seeds;
> cease all government attempts to undermine the present CBD ban on Terminator technology; and
> at CBD meetings, advocate a complete and permanent global ban on Terminator.

The only goal of “Terminator” is to make sure that farmers are forced to buy new seed each season. These seeds are genetically engineered to be sterile after the first harvest. The promoters of this technology do not make the claim that there will be any agronomic benefits to farmers.

Bill to Ban Terminator in Canada re-introduced - Support Bill C-353
March 3, 2009

New Democratic Party (NDP):

RIGHTS OF CANADIAN FARMERS SHOULD COME FIRST

Atamanenko re-introduces Private Members Bill to ban terminator seed technology

OTTAWA –NDP’s Agriculture Critic Alex Atamanenko (British Columbia Southern Interior) re-introduced his Private Member’s Bill from the last parliament yesterday to ban ‘terminator seed technology’ in Canada.

“The only goal of “Terminator” is to make sure that farmers are forced to buy new seed each season,” stated Atamanenko. “This is a technology where plants with a built in suicide characteristic will still have the ability to cross pollinate with neighbouring crops of the same species and wreak havoc on farmers who haven’t even planted them.”

Bill C-353, the Terminator Seed Ban Act, is designed to protect the right of Canadian farmers to save and re-use seeds by banning the release, sale, importation and use of Variety Genetic Use Restriction Technologies (V-GURTs). More commonly known as “Terminator”, these seeds are genetically engineered to be sterile after the first harvest. The promoters of this technology do not make the claim that there will be any agronomic benefits to farmers.

“We share the conviction that Canada should join the ranks of countries like India and Brazil, whose governments have already legislated bans on this technology in order to protect their farmers,” said Atamanenko.

“Our government needs to make the commitment to our farmers and to the international community that terminator seeds will not be allowed to take root in Canada,”

Since 2005, the federal government has been working against global consensus on banning “Terminator”. It does not recognize the current moratorium and says it will assess the technology on a case-by-case basis – a position which has been rejected by the U.N Convention on Biodiversity.

“The international community would rejoice if Canada were to pass this law. We have an opportunity to bring the world a major step closer to eliminating this detestable technology,” concluded Atamanenko. “I urge Canadians to appeal to the government to support this legislation.”

http://www.banterminator.org/News-Updates/News-Updates/Support-Bill-C-353

"MYTH AND LIES" ABOUT "GOLDEN RICE"

THE NONSENSE of "SEED PATENTS" by MONSANTO.

A FARMER SAVING A SEED IS TREATED LIKE A THIEF, because of PATENTS by MONSANTO.

Vandana Shiva On the Dangers of GMOs
Monday, April 27th, 2009 | Author: KristenM |

Watch VIDEO AT:

http://www.foodrenegade.com/vandana-shiva-on-the-dangers-of-gmos/

WAKE UP VATICAN!
VANDAN SHIVA OUGHT TO BE INVITED TO TALK AT THE VATICAN NOT MONSANTO>

Prince Charles warns GM crops risk causing the biggest-ever environmental disaster

By Jeff Randall
10 Nov 2008

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/3349308/Prince-Charles-warns-...

The mass development of genetically modified crops risks causing the world's worst environmental disaster, The Prince of Wales has warned.

In his most outspoken intervention on the issue of GM food, the Prince said that multi-national companies were conducting an experiment with nature which had gone "seriously wrong".

The Prince, in an exclusive interview with the Daily Telegraph, also expressed the fear that food would run out because of the damage being wreaked on the earth's soil by scientists' research.

He accused firms of conducting a "gigantic experiment I think with nature and the whole of humanity which has gone seriously wrong".

"Why else are we facing all these challenges, climate change and everything?".

Relying on "gigantic corporations" for food, he said, would result in "absolute disaster".

"That would be the absolute destruction of everything... and the classic way of ensuring there is no food in the future," he said.

"What we should be talking about is food security not food production - that is what matters and that is what people will not understand.

"And if they think its somehow going to work because they are going to have one form of clever genetic engineering after another then again count me out, because that will be guaranteed to cause the biggest disaster environmentally of all time."

Small farmers, in particular, would be the victims of "gigantic corporations" taking over the mass production of food.

"I think it's heading for real disaster," he said.

"If they think this is the way to go....we [will] end up with millions of small farmers all over the world being driven off their land into unsustainable, unmanageable, degraded and dysfunctional conurbations of unmentionable awfulness."

The Prince of Wales's forthright comments will reopen the whole debate about GM food.

They will put him on a collision course with the international scientific community and Downing Street - which has allowed 54 GM crop trials in Britain since 2000.

His intervention comes at a critical time. There is intense pressure for more GM products, not fewer, because of soaring food costs and widespread shortages.

Many scientists believe GM research is the only way to guarantee food for the world's growing population as the planet is affected by climate change.

They will be dismayed by such a high profile and controversial contribution from the Prince of Wales at such a sensitive time.

The Prince will be braced for the biggest outpouring of criticism from scientists since he accused genetic engineers of taking us into "realms that belong to God and God alone" in an article in the Daily Telegraph in 1998.

In the interview the Prince, who has an organic farm on his Highgrove estate, held out the hope of the British agricultural system encouraging more and more family run co-operative farms.

When challenged over whether he was trying to turn back the clock, he said: "I think not. I'm terribly sorry. It's not going backwards. It is actually recognising that we are with nature, not against it. We have gone working against nature for too long."

The Prince of Wales cited the widespread environmental damage in India caused by the rush to mass produce GM food.

"Look at India's Green Revolution. It worked for a short time but now the price is being paid.

"I have been to the Punjab where you have seen the disasters that have taken place as result of the over demand on irrigation because of the hybrid seeds and grains that have been produced which demand huge amounts of water.

"[The] water table has disappeared. They have huge problems with water level, with pesticide problems, and complications which are now coming home to roost.

"Look at western Australia. Huge salinisation problems. I have been there. Seen it. Some of the excessive approaches to modern forms of agriculture."

He said that the scientists were putting too much pressure on nature.

"If you are not working with natural assistance you cause untold problems. which become very expensive and very difficult to undo.

It places impossible burdens on nature and leads to accumulating problems which become more difficult to sort out."

In a keynote speech last year the Prince of Wales warned that the world faces a series of natural disasters within 18 months unless a £15 billion action plan is agreed to save the world's rain forests.

He has set up his own rain forest project with 15 of the world's largest companies, environmental and economic experts, to try to find ways to stop their destruction.

Only two weeks ago British GM researchers lobbied ministers for their crops to be kept in high-security facilities or in fields at secret locations across the country to prevent them from being attacked and destroyed.

They spoke out after protesters ripped up crops in one of only two GM trials to be approved in Britain this year.

Scientists claim the repeated attacks on their trials are stifling vital research to evaluate whether GM crops can reduce the cost and environmental impact of farming and whether they will grow better in harsh environments where droughts have devastated harvests.

"I'm certainly not in a position to judge the merits of GMOs."

Perhaps, you ought to read this too:

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/SPUCTGM.php

Scientists Protest Unethical Clinical Trials of GM Golden Rice

Professor Robert Russell,
Professor Emeritus, Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy
Tufts University School of Medicine
711 Washington Street
Boston, MA 02111-1524

Email: rob.russell@tufts.edu

Dear Professor Russell,

TUFTS UNIVERSITY INVOLVEMENT IN GOLDEN RICE FEEDING TRIALS

We are writing to express our shock and unequivocal denunciation of the experiments being conducted by your colleagues which involve the feeding of genetically modified Golden Rice to human subjects (adults and children.) We are all senior scientists / academics with a professional interest in the health and environmental effects of GMOs. We refer to three trials described on the US Clinical Trials web site:
Project NCT 00680355.(10) Bioavailability of Golden Rice Carotenoids in Humans.
http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/record/NCT00680355?term=golden

Project NCT 00082420. Retinol Equivalence of Plant Carotenoids in Children.
http://clinicaltrials.gov/archive/NCT00082420

Project NCT 00680212. Vitamin A Equivalence of Plant Carotenoids in Children.
http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/record/NCT00680212?term=golden

We wish to remind you that the variety of Golden Rice used in these experiments (GR2) is inadequately described in terms of biological and biochemical characterisation on the Clinical Trials web site and indeed anywhere else in the publicly available literature, and has woefully inadequate pre-clinical evaluation. It is a genetically modified product which has not been shown to be distinctive, uniform and stable over time. It has never been through a regulatory /approvals process anywhere in the world. There is now a large body of evidence that shows that GM crop/food production is highly prone to inadvertent and unpredictable pleiotropic effects, which can result in health damaging effects when GM food products are fed to animals (for reviews see Pusztai and Bardocz , 2006; Schubert, 2008; Dona and Arvanitoyannis, 2009). More specifically, our greatest concern is that this rice, which is engineered to overproduce beta carotene, has never been tested in animals, and there is an extensive medical literature showing that retinoids that can be derived from beta carotene are both toxic and cause birth defects.

In these circumstances the use of human subjects (including children who are already suffering illness as a result of Vitamin A deficiency) for GM feeding experiments is completely unacceptable. The three Projects listed breach the Nuremberg Code / medical ethics code on a number of counts, and we urge you to call them to a halt immediately. They should not be resumed unless and until the researchers can demonstrate that a full range of laboratory and animal feeding trials have been completed and published for the Golden Rice strain being used, and unless and until appropriate regulatory bodies have had an opportunity to come to a view on the health and safety issues about which we are very concerned.

We can assure you that such trials would not have been approved within the European Union in the absence of safety information, which highlights yet again the flaw of the USDA and FDA regulatory system in considering GM crops/foods as hypothetically “generally recognised as safe – GRAS” in the absence of hard experimental data.

References:

Pusztai A. and Bardocz S. (2006). GMO in animal nutrition: potential benefits and risks. In: Biology of Nutrition in Growing Animals, eds. R. Mosenthin, J. Zentek and T. Zebrowska, Elsevier Limited, pp. 513-540.
Schubert D.R. (2008) The problem with nutritionally enhanced plants. J Med Food. 11: 601-605.
Dona A. and Arvanitoyannis I.S. (2009) Health Risks of Genetically Modified Foods. Crit Rev Food Sci Nutr., 49: 164–175.

These unethical and potentially dangerous trials MUST be stopped, and we ask you to undertake a thorough review of why and how they were approved and funded in the first place. Please accept this letter as a formal protest, and please forward it to the relevant authorities at USDA, FDA, NIDDK, NIH and the US State Department.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely,

Prof Malcolm Hooper,
Emeritus Professor of Medicinal Chemistry,
University of Sunderland
SUNDERLAND , SR2 3SD , UK .

Prof David Schubert
Salk Institute for Biological Studies
10010 N. Torrey Pines Road,
La. Jolla, CA 92037
USA

Professor Brian Goodwin
Schumacher College,
Dartington Hall Estate,
Totnes, Devon TQ9 6EA

Dr Michael Antoniou
Head: Nuclear Biology Group
King's College London School of Medicine
Department of Medical and Molecular Genetics
8th Floor, Tower Wing
Guy's Hospital
Great Maze Pond
London
SE1 9RT, UK

Dr Vandana Shiva Ph D
Research Foundation for Science Technology and Ecology
105 Rajpur Road
Dehra Dun, India

Stanley W.B. Ewen M.B.Ch.B., Ph.D., F.R.C.Path.
Consultant Pathologist (Locum)
Department of Pathology,
University of Aberdeen,
Foresterhill
Aberdeen AB25 2ZD
UK

Dr Mira Shiva MD
Initiative for Health and Equity
A 60 Hauz Khas
New Delhi, 110016 India

Dr Brian John
(Past Lecturer in Geography, University of Durham)
Member, Independent Science Panel
Trefelin
Cilgwyn
Newport, Pembrokeshire SA42 0QN

Dr Phil Davies
Director,
Institute of Health and Environmental Research,
PO Box 155
Kensington Park, South Australia, 5068

Dr Irina Ermakova
Institute of Higher Nervous Activity and Neurophysiology RAS (IHNA)
Russian Academy of Sciences
Butlerov str., 5a,
Moscow 117463, Russia

Dr Judy Carman BSc (Hons) PhD MPH MPHAA
Epidemiologist and Biochemist
Director
Institute of Health and Environmental Research
PO Box 155
Kensington Park, South Australia, 5068

Prof E R Orskov
IFRU
Macaulay Institute
Craigiebuckler
Aberdeen AB15 8QH

Professor Leda Raptis, Ph.D.
Department of Microbiology and Immunology
and Dept. of Pathology
Botterell Hall, Room 713
Queen's University
Kingston, Ontario
Canada, K7L 3N6

Dr Eva Novotny
Associate, Institute of Science in Society,
Member Independent Science Panel,
25 Brownlow Road, Cambridge, CB4 3NG

Professor Peter T Saunders
Professor of Applied Mahematics
Department of Mathematics
King's College London
Strand, London WC2R 2LS

Dr E. Ann Clark,
Associate Professor
Department of Plant Agriculture
University of Guelph
Guelph, Ontario, Canada N1G 2W1

Professor Carlo Leifert
Res Dev Prof of Ecological Agriculture
Newcastle University School of Agriculture,
Food and Rural Development (SAFRD)
Nafferton Farm
Stocksfield
Northumberland, NE43 7XD, UK

Dr Mae-Wan Ho
Institute of Science in Society, PO Box 51885,
London, NW2 9DH, UK.

Professor Ralph C. Martin, Ph.D., P.Ag.,
Founding Director, Organic Agriculture Centre of Canada
Department of Plant and Animal Sciences
Nova Scotia Agricultural College
Truro, Nova Scotia, Canada B2N 5E3

Prof. Joe Cummins
Prof. Emeritus of Genetics,
University of Western Ontario,
738 Wilkins Street,
London, Ontario , Canada N6C4z9

Prof David Suzuki
Professor Emeritus
Zoology Dept.
University of British Columbia
Vancouver, BC, Canada

THIS LETTER IS ALSO SIGNED BY CHILDREN'S ADVOCATE JOAN KNOX

Joan Knox
Food Service Manager -Advocate for Children
University of Guelph Child Care and Learning Centre
University of Guelph. 50 Stone Road East .
Guelph, Ontario, N1G 2W1 Canada

============================================

Copies:

Tufts Medical Center and TUHS Institutional Review Board -- Jennifer
A. Graf, BA
IRB Administrative and Operations Manager
jgraf@tuftsmedicalcenter.org

Dr David Chelmow
Chair, Tufts University Institutional Review Board
dchelmow@tuftsmedicalcenter.org

Dr Leslie Curtis
NIDDK Office of Communications and Public Liaison
lesliecurtis@mail.nih.gov

Dr Guangwen Tang
Golden Rice Project researcher
guangwen.tang@Tufts.edu

Ingo Potrykus, the inventor of "golden rice," must read this:

ROCKEFELLER FOUNDATION HAS WITHDRAWN SUPPORT FOR GOLDEN RICE! HA! HA!! HA!!!

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/rice.php

Golden rice’ is no technical improvement and it is more unsafe

‘Golden rice’ is not a ‘second generation’ GM crop as has been claimed.

It involves STANDARD FIRST GENERATION technology, and carries some of the worst features in terms of HAZARDS TO HEALTH AND BIODIVERSITY.

Rockefeller Foundation, the major funder of the project by far has withdrawn support from it. The project should be abandoned altogether.

‘Golden rice’ exhibits all the undesirable, hazardous characteristics of existing GM plants, and in added measure on account of the increased complexity of the constructs and the sources of genetic material used.

The hazards are highlighted below.

1. It is made with a combination of genes and genetic material from viruses and bacteria, associated with diseases in plants, and from other non-food species.

2. The gene constructs are new, and have never existed in billions of years of evolution

3. Unpredictable by-products have been generated due to random gene insertion and functional interaction with host genes, which will differ from one plant to another.

4. Over-expression of transgenes linked to viral promoters, such as that from CaMV, exacerbates unintended metabolic effects as well as instability (see below). There are at least two CaMV promoters in each transgenic plant of the ‘golden rice’, one of which is linked to the antibiotic resistance marker gene.

5. The transgenic DNA is structurally unstable, leading to instability of the GM plants in subsequent generations, multiplying unintended, random effects.

6. Structural instability of transgenic DNA increases the likelihood of horizontal gene transfer and recombination.

7. Instability of transgenic DNA is enhanced by the CaMV promoter, which has a recombination hotspot, thereby further increasing the potential for horizontal gene transfer.

8. The CaMV promoter is promicuous in function and works efficiently in all plants, in green algae, yeast and E. coli. The spread of genes linked to this promoter by ordinary cross-pollination or by horizontal gene transfer will have enormous impacts on health and biodiversity. In particular, the hygromycin resistance gene linked to it may be able to function in bacteria associated with infectious diseases.

9. Horizontal transfer of transgenic DNA from GM plants into soil fungi and bacteria has been demonstrated in laboratory experiments. Recent evidence suggests that it has also taken place in a field-trial site for GM sugar-beets, in which transgenic DNA persisted in the soil for at least two years afterwards.

10. Prof. Hans-Hinrich Kaatz from the University of Jena, has just presented new evidence of horizontal gene transfer within the gut of bee larvae. Pollen from GM rapeseed tolerant to the herbicide glufosinate were fed to immature bee larvae. When the microorganisms were isolated from the gut of the larvae and examined for the presence of the gene conferring glufosinate resistance, it was found in some of the bacteria as well yeast cells.

11. All cells including those of human beings are now known to take up genetic material. While natural (unmanipulated) genetic material is simply broken down to supply energy, invasive pieces of genetic material may jump into the genome to mutate genes. Some insertions of foreign genetic material may also be associated with cancer.

12. Horizontal transfer of genes and constructs from the ‘golden rice’ will spread transgenes, including antibiotic resistance genes to bacterial pathogens, and also has the potential to create new viruses and bacteria associated with diseases.

INGO POTRYKUS and the NUREMBURG CODE OF ETHICS

Golden Rice was created 10 years ago as a public relations exercise for the biotech industry that was failing to convince people to accept GMOs.

Ingo Potrykus appeared on the cover of Time magazine (7 August 2000), with the headline: “This Rice could save a million kids a year” (from blindness due to vitamin A deficiency). The rice was genetically engineered to produce pro-vitamin A or b-carotene.

Last year, it staged a come back with a special feature in Science journal, “Tough lessons from Golden Rice”.

And it transpired that Tufts University in Boston, United States, has been carrying out ‘clinical trials’ of Golden Rice on children. More than 30 senior scientists and academics signed an open letter condemning the work.

The trials were in breach of the Nuremberg Code of Ethics brought in at the end of the Second World War to prevent repetition of experiments conducted by Nazi scientists including many on children.

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/goldenRiceHazardsGMOs.php

Golden Scare
http://www.businessworld.in/index.php/Economy-and-Banking/Golden-Scare.html

A new genetically modified rice strain is breeding controversy

Noemie Bisserbe
22 Aug 2008

A clinical trial was cut short in China last month when the government found that 24 children of 6-8 years of age at a primary school in Henyang in Hunan province were to be used as guinea pigs to test a new variety of genetically modified rice known as golden rice. But, ironically, in the midst of a host of controversies, India’s state-owned research labs — Indian Agricultural Research Institute in New Delhi, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU) and Hyderabad-based Directorate of Rice Research — are conducting research on golden rice.

“We are breeding golden rice with local species but we are yet to develop a potential line that would meet our dietary requirements,” says S.R. Rao, director at the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) of the Ministry of Science and Technology, who coordinates the golden rice project in India. “There are still many issues that we need to solve before coming out of the green house. For now, there are no proposals to carry out clinical trials in India.”

Golden rice, created by Swiss agri products firm Syngenta, owes its pale yellow colour to beta-carotene, which helps build vitamin A. It is not approved for commercial use anywhere in the world and has never been tested on humans.

(Businessworld Issue 26 Aug-01 Sep 2008)

I believe that abortion is a dastardly act. I would like to see the anti-abortion groups move away from their money grabbing hypocrisy to march for health care for mother and child during pregnancy and some years after the birth of the child. I would also like to see these groups march for more day care centers, expanding adoption services, more social services, and more social programs. More employment opportunities in our country would also be helpful for mothers who want to keep their babies and not abort them.

You mean we are still arguing everything all the way down to GMO's from opposite extremes without anyone arguing from the sides of the middle. That just seems to be indicative of our times today.

I just talked to my conservative, EWTN, Legion of Mary sister today. She just said the rosary recently with her group in front of an abortion clinic. She surprised me by saying she tried to tell one person that their big black and white sign shouting BABY KILLER wouldn't help change anyone's mind but showing loving concern might. Yay for my sister for arguing from the middle in her conservative views! No, she didn't change his mind but perhaps she helped influence someone else. I hope.

YOUR CAPTCHAS ARE STILL NOT WORKING CORRECTLY. REALLY, I DO KNOW HOW TO ADD!

Butterfly and Anonymous,

Pro-lifers do indeed do all the things you suggested. We work to help pregnant women financially (through crisis pregnancy centers and Birthright). We work to expand adoption services. We've been doing these things for years. If you don't know this, you don't know the pro-life movement.

Many of us also work tirelessly for government programs and legislation to achieve these goals. Right now, the pro-life Democrats have in Congress a bill called the Pregnant Women Support Act, which funds crisis pregnancy centers, medical aid for pregnant women and expansion of WIC, as well as other things.

Pro-lifers in Congress support this bill. President Obama has utterly failed to support it or other similar bills while he was a Senator. And in spite of his words at Notre Dame about how "we" must help women who carry their babies to term, there's no sign he's going to support it now.

Take your beef up with him.

John Allen is usually pretty smart, but this time he's all wet. I'm referring to his remarks about the supposed difference between European and American Catholic culture, and that Europeans are by American standards "soft" on abortion.

First, just as many Italians as Americans are angered at the recent articles in L'Osservatore Romano and Vian's justifying interview. I've translated a few of their comments on the article on my own blog (www.pilgrimage.subcreators.com). Some are canceling their subscriptions to OR and calling for Vian's resignation. They know a lot more about what the American bishops said than Vian does (and they applauded the protests at Notre Dame, which Vian completely ignored). Naturally there are a large number of different opinions represented, just as in the U.S. comboxes. But I don't see any essential difference between the cultures represented.

Second, I've studied the history of the late 70's in Italy, and it's clear that at that time the Italian bishops fought tooth and nail against the legalization of abortion, in the same way the American bishops did. Did they somehow have an American approach at that time, subsequently lose it, and then adopt an European one? It's true their approach may have changed, I don't know the situation now, but I very seriously doubt that you can attribute it to a difference of cultures.

Third, I don't see any question being raised in D'Agostino's article but the question of "decriminalization." I take this to mean that he doesn't think there should be criminal penalities for women who have abortions. Neither does any American pro-lifer I know. At any rate, his article is a long way from approving the idea that abortion is a woman's fundamental and inalienable right, to be enshrined in the Constitution and trumping all other rights, including those of the child. There are a whole lot of legal approaches one can take, from the one approved by NARAL and Planned Parenthood and presumably President Obama (the one I just mentioned), restricted legalization, legalization with norms and regulations for practice, de-legalization with criminal penalities, etc. Without a more rigorous analysis, I don't see how the contention that his is "softer" than the American view can be maintained. (Admittedly, I don't have the Italian original, so the quotation in context may have a different meaning).

The pro-life movement has enough enemies as it is; let's not imagine internal strife where there isn't.

I find John Allen's article about "aging prelates [the Pope is only two months younger than Cardinal Martini]", who pipe up controversial issues, most revealing and helpful.

A beautiful Devotion. Please pray daily during the 3:00 PM hour. If to busy then, any other time of the day is fine. God Bless.

http://www.ewtn.com/Devotionals/mercy/index.htm