Wednesday, March 30, 2005
making anti-gmo laws illegal?
In late 2004, the American Farm Bureau Federation in association with
the industries promoting agricultural biotechnology began a preemptive
march through the state legislatures. The bills (if passed) effectively
prohibit local governments and communities from passing policies,
ordinances, or initiatives related to seeds including genetically
modified ones (GMOs). - from href="http://www.environmentalcommons.org/gmo-tracker.html"
target=_blank>Environmental Commons
Wednesday, March 23, 2005
UK ponders fertility reforms
target=_blank>An influential committee of British politicians will
advise tomorrow (March 24) that the government should allow couples to
use in vitro fertilization (IVF) purely for sex selection, as part of a
package of fertility regulation reforms.
Study: GM Crops Hurt Environment
target=_blank>The largest study ever conducted on genetically modified
(GM) crops has concluded they can harm wildlife, setting the stage for
a fight in Britain over whether to allow farmers to cultivate
bio-engineered crops.
Genetically Modified Foods Eaten Regularly
target=_blank>Today, roughly 75 percent of U.S. processed foods boxed
cereals, other grain products, frozen dinners, cooking oils and more
contain some genetically modified, or GM, ingredients, said Stephanie
Childs of the Grocery Manufacturers of America.
Monsanto buys Seminis
href="http://www.newfarm.org/features/2005/0205/seminisbuy/index.shtml"
target=_blank>The news of Monsanto’s agreement to purchase Seminis has
received little attention from the media other than the financial pages
and a few seed industry and anti-globalization web sites. But then
again, why should it? How many consumers – of food or seed – have even
heard of Seminis? And yet, as Seminis spinmeister Gary Koppenjan said,
“If you've had a salad, you've had a Seminis product." It is estimated
that Seminis controls 40 percent of the U.S. vegetable seed market and
20 percent of the world market...
Reclaim the Commons
Reclaim the
Commons website. RTC is movement to contest the developments of
biotech and proprietary science while promoting "life affirming
alternatives." Information on the upcoming target=_blank>Biotech Industry Organization conference taking place
in Philadelphia this June.
Genetically modified corn was sold for four years without approval
target=_blank>A strain of genetically modified corn that lacks
regulatory approval has been distributed accidentally over the past
four years, the scientific journal Nature reported in a news story
today.
Several hundred tons of the wrong seed were sold between
2001 and 2004 by Basil, Switzerland-based Syngenta International, one
of the world’s largest agricultural biotechnology companies, Nature
said.
Tuesday, March 22, 2005
Russians join U.S. bioterror program
href="http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/story/12596216p
-13450609c.html" target=_blank>Called the BioIndustry Initiative, it
was created after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks with the aim of
helping former bioweapons scientists apply their skills to peaceful
ends, such as by producing vaccines and drugs.
Saturday, March 19, 2005
Harnessing microbes, one by one, to build a better nanoworld
href="http://www.biologynews.net/archives/2005/03/19/
harnessing_microbes_one_by_one_to_build_a_better_nanoworld.html"
target=_blank>Taking a new approach to the painstaking assembly of
nanometer-sized machines, a team of scientists at the University of
Wisconsin-Madison has successfully used single bacterial cells to make
tiny bio-electronic circuits.
Politician stopped GM studies
target=_blank>Renate Künast, German minister for Agriculture and
Consumer Protection, is facing allegations of exerting undue political
influence on science this week after it emerged that she instructed
government researchers to cancel at least two projects into genetically
modified crops.
BIOTECH FIRM REJECTS GM CROP
href="http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/press_releases/
biotech_firm_rejects_gm_cr_18032005.html" target=_blank>Biotech giant,
Bayer, no longer wants to grow the GM winter oil seed rape trialled in
the GM farm scale evaluations in Europe, Friends of the Earth revealed
today. The results of the crop trials of GM winter oil seed rape - the
final results of the farm scale evaluations - are due to be unveiled on
Monday (21 March).
Whose Biotech Is It, Anyway?
GM Plants To Grow Vaccines Against Killer Diseases
href="http://www.innovations-report.com/html/reports/
agricultural_sciences/report-41975.html" target=_blank>Genetically
modified (GM) plants are to be used to grow vaccines for use in the
worldwide fight against HIV, tuberculosis, diabetes and rabies thanks
to a grant of 12 million euros from the EU’s Sixth Framework Programme
(FP6)
South American expansion of GE crops continues...
href="http://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/stories/2005/03/14/
daily74.html" target=_blank>Brazil approves Monsanto's Bollgard
cotton
UK insurers postpone using predictive genetic testing until 2011
href="http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/330/7492/617?ck=nck"
target=_blank>Insurance companies in the United Kingdom have agreed to
postpone using information from genetic tests that predicts risk of
disease when they set insurance premiums. The postponement, announced
by the Department of Health, will last until after 2011.
Do it yourself cancer gene testing raises concerns
href="http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/330/7492/617-a?
ck=nck" target=_blank>A US company is offering genetic tests for
susceptibility to breast and ovarian cancer direct to consumers.
Representatives of DNA Direct insist that the counselling and testing
that they provide is identical with what a woman would get at a cancer
centre—with the exception that she receives test results and
counselling by telephone and online, rather than in person. But critics
say that the approach puts women and their doctors at risk of not
getting the whole story.
A new setback for gene therapy
href="http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/
2002211498_tgen18.html" target=_blank>Fifteen years ago, researchers
thought cystic fibrosis would be the first easy hit of the gene-therapy
revolution. The deadly lung disease is caused by a single faulty gene,
so, in theory, delivering a properly functioning one into cells ought
to cure the disease.
It may happen someday, but yesterday one of
the stalwarts of the cystic-fibrosis field, Seattle-based Targeted
Genetics, dropped out. In the largest clinical trial ever conducted of
gene therapy for cystic fibrosis, with 102 patients, the company failed
to reach its goal of helping patients breathe significantly better,
even for a month
Welcome Mats Out for Stem Cell Agency
href="http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-
stem19mar19,1,1808499.story?coll=la-headlines-california"
target=_blank>This week, the California Institute for Regenerative
Medicine attracted Olympic-style bids from nearly a dozen cities — with
offers of thousands of free hotel rooms in some of the priciest tourist
cities in the state, turnkey laboratory space, a museum exhibit,
interactive plasma television screens and many other perks, large and
small.
The competition underscores what many California voters
believed when 59% voted to fund the work: that embryonic stem cell
research might be the next big thing. The agency, with $3 billion in
research grants to distribute over a decade, marks the largest
investment any state has made in science.
Sunday, March 13, 2005
Art & Biotech radio show
target=_blank>An archive of WPS1's Bio-Blurb net.radio show, hosted by
author Suzanne Anker.
Sunday, March 06, 2005
New web tool for research into biodefense funding
Friday, March 04, 2005
Brazil Passes Law Allowing Crops With Modified Genes
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/04/business/worldbusiness/
04gene.html?
ex=1267678800&en=499779b4cae6f156&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland"
target=_blank>In a victory for biotechnology companies like Monsanto,
Brazil approved legislation paving the way for the legalization of
genetically modified crops.
Human test subjects
href="http://www.dcmilitary.com/army/standard/10_05/local_news/33582
-1.html" target=_blank>An article from DCMilitary.com that celebrates
the use of human test subjects by the military in a project called
Operation Whitecoat.
Certainly of extreme importance in the current situation of renewed
biodefense programs.
Wednesday, March 02, 2005
U.S. Germ-Research Policy Is Protested by 758 Scientists
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/01/politics/01petition.html?
pagewanted=print&position=" target=_blank>More than 700 scientists sent
a petition on Monday to the director of the National Institutes of
Health protesting what they said was the shift of tens of millions of
dollars in federal research money since 2001 away from pathogens that
cause major public health problems to obscure germs the government
fears might be used in a bioterrorist attack.
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