Warning signs point to risks of GM foods

Warning signs point to risks of GM foods


The Scotsman print print close close
Wed 30 Mar 2005

Warning signs point to risks of GM foods

JEFFREY M SMITH

IN A study in the early 1990s rats were fed genetically modified (GM) tomatoes. Well actually, the rats refused to eat them. They were force-fed. Several of the rats developed stomach lesions and seven out of 40 died within two weeks.

United States Federal Drugs Agency scientists who reviewed the study warned that GM foods in general might create unpredicted allergies, toxins, antibiotic-resistant diseases and nutritional problems.

The safety studies conducted by the biotech industry are often dismissed by critics as superficial and designed to avoid finding problems. Tragically, scientists who voice their criticism, as well as those who have discovered incriminating evidence, have been threatened, stripped of responsibilities, denied funding or tenure, or fired.

For example, a UK government-funded study demonstrated that rats fed a GM potato developed potentially pre-cancerous cell growth, damaged immune systems, partial atrophy of the liver, and inhibited development of their brains, livers and testicles. When the lead scientist went public with his concerns, he was promptly fired from his job after 35 years and silenced with threats of a lawsuit.

Americans eat genetically modified foods every day. Although the GM tomato has been taken off the market, millions of acres of soy, corn, canola, and cotton have had foreign genes inserted into their DNA.

The new genes allow the crops to survive applications of herbicide, create their own pesticide, or both. While there are only a handful of published animal safety studies, mounting evidence, which needs to be followed up, suggests that these foods are not safe.

Rats fed GM corn had problems with blood cell formation. Those fed GM soy had problems with liver cell formation, and the livers of rats fed GM canola were heavier. Pigs fed GM corn on several Midwest farms developed false pregnancies or sterility. Cows fed GM corn in Germany died mysteriously. And twice the number of chickens died when fed GM corn compared with those fed natural corn.

Soon after GM soy was introduced to the UK, soy allergies rocketed by 50 per cent. Without follow-up tests, we can’t be sure if genetic engineering was the cause, but there are plenty of ways in which genetic manipulation can boost allergies.

No-one in the US or elsewhere monitors the human health impacts of GM foods. If the foods were creating health problems in the US population, it might take years or decades before we identified the cause. As a result, millions of Americans are exposed to the potential dangers, and children are most at risk. Perhaps the revelations in the reports released on opposite sides of the planet will awaken consumers as well as regulators, and GM foods on the market will be withdrawn.

• Jeffrey M Smith is the author of Seeds of Deception.


This article:

http://news.scotsman.com/archive.cfm?id=335102005

GM food:

http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=9

Websites:

Agricultural Biotechnology Council
http://www.abcinformation.org/

DEFRA - chemicals & biotechnology
http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/chemicals/index.htm

DTI - Bioguide
http://www.dti.gov.uk/bioguide/

Gene watch
http://www.genewatch.org/

Monsanto
http://www.monsanto.co.uk/

Soil Association
http://www.soilassociation.org/

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Study highlights global decline

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Study highlights global decline

BBC NEWS
Study highlights global decline
By Jonathan Amos
BBC News science reporter

The most comprehensive survey ever into the state of the planet concludes that human activities threaten the Earth's ability to sustain future generations.

The report says the way society obtains its resources has caused irreversible changes that are degrading the natural processes that support life on Earth.

This will compromise efforts to address hunger, poverty and improve healthcare.

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment was drawn up by 1,300 researchers from 95 nations over a period of four years.

This report is essentially an audit of nature's economy, and the audit shows we've driven most of the accounts into the red
Jonathan Lash, World Resources Institute
It reports that humans have changed most ecosystems beyond recognition in a dramatically short space of time.

The way society has sourced its food, fresh water, timber, fibre and fuel over the past 50 years has seriously degraded the environment, the assessment (MA) concludes.

And the current state of affairs is likely to be a road block to the Millennium Development Goals agreed to by world leaders at the United Nations in 2000, it says.

"Any progress achieved in addressing the goals of poverty and hunger eradication, improved health, and environmental protection is unlikely to be sustained if most of the ecosystem 'services' on which humanity relies continue to be degraded," the report states.

"This report is essentially an audit of nature's economy, and the audit shows we've driven most of the accounts into the red," commented Jonathan Lash, the president of the World Resources Institute.

"If you drive the economy into the red, ultimately there are significant consequences for our capacity to achieve our dreams in terms of poverty reduction and prosperity."

Way forward

The MA is slightly different to all previous environmental reports in that it defines ecosystems in terms of the "services", or benefits, that people get from them - timber for building; clean air to breathe; fish for food; fibres to make clothes.

There will undoubtedly be gainsayers, as there are with the IPCC; but I put them in the same box as the flat-Earthers and the people who believe smoking doesn't cause cancer
Prof Sir John Lawton
The study finds the requirements of a burgeoning world population after WW II drove an unsustainable rush for these natural resources.

Although humanity has made considerable gains in the process - economies and food production have continued to grow - the way these successes have been achieved puts at risk global prosperity in the future.

"When we look at the drivers of change affecting ecosystems, we see that, across the board, the drivers are either staying steady or increasing in severity - habitat change, climate change, invasive species, overexploitation of resources; and pollution, such as nitrogen and phosphorus," said Dr William Reid, the director of the MA.

More land was converted to agriculture since 1945 than in the 18th and 19th Centuries combined. More than half of all the synthetic nitrogen fertilisers - first made in 1913 - ever used on the planet were deployed after 1985.

The MA authors say the pressure for resources has resulted in a substantial and largely irreversible loss in the diversity of life on Earth, with some 10-30% of the mammal, bird and amphibian species currently threatened with extinction.

The report says only four ecosystem services have been enhanced in the last 50 years: increases in crop, livestock and aquaculture production, and increased carbon sequestration for global climate regulation (which has come from new forests planted in the Northern Hemisphere).

Two services - fisheries and fresh water - are said now to be well beyond levels that can sustain current, much less future, demands.

Global value

The assessment runs to 2,500 pages and is intended to inform global policy initiatives. In many ways, it mirrors the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which, by bringing together hundreds of scientists in a peer-reviewed process, has driven efforts to slow global warming.


MA - ASSESSMENT OVERVIEW
Humans have radically altered ecosystems in just 50 years
Changes have brought gains but at high ecosystem cost
Further unsustainable practices will threaten development goals
Workable solutions will require significant changes in policy
"The MA is a very powerful consensus about the unsustainable trajectory that most of the world's ecosystems are now on."

"There will undoubtedly be gainsayers, as there are with the IPCC; but I put them in the same box as the flat-Earthers and the people who believe smoking doesn't cause cancer," said Professor Sir John Lawton, former chief executive of the UK's Natural Environment Research Council.

The report is not all doom and gloom. Modelling of future scenarios suggests human societies can ease the strains being put on nature, while continuing to use them to raise living standards.

At the heart of this assessment is a stark warning
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But it requires, says the MA, changes in consumption patterns, better education, new technologies and higher prices for exploiting ecosystems.

Some of the solutions go to old but as yet unfulfilled initiatives, such as the abolition of production subsidies which imbalance world trade and in agriculture are blamed for overloading land with fertilisers and pesticides as farmers chase high yields.

Newer solutions centre on putting a value on "externalities" that are currently deemed to be "free" - airlines do not pay for the carbon dioxide they put into the atmosphere; and the price of food does not reflect the cost of cleaning waterways that have been polluted by run-off of agrochemicals from the land.


PLANET UNDER PRESSURE
60% of world ecosystem services have been degraded
Of 24 evaluated ecosystems, 15 are being damaged
About 20% of corals were lost in just 20 years; 20% degraded
Nutrient pollution has led to eutrophication of waters and coastal dead zones
Species extinction is now 100-1,000 times above the normal background rate
In future, these areas could be constrained by markets that trade permits - as in Europe's newly established carbon emissions market.

Technology's role, the MA says, will be keenly felt in the field of renewable energies.

But the pace of change needs to quicken, the report warns. Angela Cropper, the co-chair of the MA assessment panel, added: "The range of current responses are not commensurate with the nature, the extent or the urgency of the situation that is at hand.

"In our scenarios, we see that with interventions that are strategic, targeted, and more fundamental in nature - we can realise some of the desired outcomes and they can have positive results for ecosystems, their services and human well-being."

The MA has cost some $20m to put together. It was funded by the Global Environment Facility, the United Nations Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the World Bank and others.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/sci/tech/4391835.stm

Published: 2005/03/30 11:23:07 GMT

© BBC MMV

the Mail online | Mail - news, sport, showbiz, health and more | The 'plastic chicken' that's only 51% meat

the Mail online | Mail - news, sport, showbiz, health and more | The 'plastic chicken' that's only 51% meat: "The 'plastic chicken' that's only 51% meat
by SEAN POULTER, Daily Mail 08:59am 21st May 2003 Shoppers are being fobbed off with low-quality chicken pumped full of chemicals, water and even pig skin.

The 'plastic chicken' that's only 51% meat
by SEAN POULTER, Daily Mail 08:59am 21st May 2003 Shoppers are being fobbed off with low-quality chicken pumped full of chemicals, water and even pig skin.

About 40 per cent of the imported chicken sold by catering suppliers undergoes heavy processing.

The meat that results is so rubbery and tasteless it is known in the trade as 'plastic chicken'.

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Huge quantities are involved - about 60,000 tons a year - in what amounts to a massive food fraud.

Most of the meat comes from processors in Holland and Belgium, who bring in cheap chickens from Thailand and pump the meat with a chemical mix.

The treatment is now so sophisticated that what seems like a fresh, plump chicken breast might be only 51 per cent meat.

Much of the plastic chicken goes to curry houses, Chinese restaurants and takeaways, often disguised with highly- spiced sauces and colourings. There are concerns that some is sold to small butchers, while supermarket foods could also include suspect supplies.

The details - to be revealed in tomorrow's Panorama - will confirm the fears of British and Irish watchdogs. BBC TV investigators found many of the supermarkets use chicken with added water in ready meals. The stores say adding small amounts of water to the flesh prevents the meat from drying out.

But the Food Standards Agency is concerned that Moslems, who for religious reasons do not eat pig meat, might be consuming chicken that contains pork DNA.

Panorama found traces of pig DNA in own-label chicken nuggets sold by Sainsbury's, although this is being viewed as accidental contamination.

The ingredients on what looks like a 'natural' chicken breast can include a bizarre cocktail of materials designed to hold in the water.

They will include salt, stabilisers (E450, E451), the milk protein lactose and the sweeteners dried glucose syrup and dextrose to counteract the salt.

The use of pig material may be described - where there are labels - as hydrolised protein.

Flavour enhancers such as E649 and E621 are also often used to disguise the washed-out taste.

John Sanford of Hull Trading Standards, the authority leading investigations into the practice, said: 'We have had many complaints about the eating quality of this chicken when it turns up in a takeaway or restaurant.

'Consumers have told us it is spongy and rubbery and does not taste like normal chicken.'

He advised consumers to ask restaurants whether they were serving chicken with added water.

David Walker, of the Trading Standards Institute, said: 'It is clear that some brands of imported frozen chicken meat continue to be adulterated. The time for action is long overdue.

'Trading standards officers will continue to take action against importers, who have a moral and legal obligation to check the quality of the food they sell.'

Sainsbury's said: 'We take food integrity extremely seriously and have fully investigated the issues raised by Panorama.

'Following this investigation we would like to reassure our customers that the meat in Sainsbury's chicken nuggets are 100 per cent chicken sourced from approved suppliers.

'The type of testing used by Panorama is extremely sensitive and a minute amount of DNA can cause a positive reaction.

'Our own investigation included independent testing, none of which found any pork DNA in this product. We are entirely satisfied that our supplier is only using chicken suppliers who are approved by us and is following our strict quality procedures.'

s.poulter@dailymail.co.uk

Homeowners in capital quickest to pay mortgage

Homeowners in capital quickest to pay mortgage

HOMEOWNERS in Edinburgh are some of the quickest in Scotland to pay off their mortgages, new figures show.

Research published by the Royal Bank of Scotland has revealed that buyers in Cramond, Murrayfield, Ravelston, the Grange and Davidson’s Mains fall into an elite category of 20 areas nationwide making the least repayments.

On average, Scottish homeowners are now paying off their mortgage at the age of 45 - younger than any time since 1986 - while the time they spend making mortgage repayments has fallen to 21 years.

The figures also revealed that a quarter of Scottish households are now owned outright.

Paul Thwaite, head of the RBS Offset Service, said: "The findings of our research are rather surprising, because they suggest that Scotland’s homeowners are actually paying off their mortgage younger than at any time in almost 20 years.

"This means that for millions of Scots, a mortgage-free future may, in fact, be less of a distant dream than they imagined."

According to the study, the average age at which Scots said they paid off their mortgage in the first two months of 2005 was down from 52 in 2004 and 58 in 2003.

On a nationwide analysis, Scots appeared to have paid off their mortgage younger than any other part of the UK. Examining all the data from across the last 60 years, the overall average age at which outright owners said they paid off their mortgage was 53.


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Mortgage and property news:

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