Food is Different: Why we must get the WTO out of Agriculture

Author: Peter M Rosset

ISBN: 1552662012 Publisher: Zed books (2003)

Most people would probably agree that the world needs food and agricultural
systems that:
1) provide adequate, affordable, nutritious, tasty and culturally appropriate food,
2) offer rural people the opportunity for a living wage/income,
3) contribute to broad-based development and
4) conserve rural environments, cultural and culinary traditions

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Civil Society Statement on Nanotechnology: Guiding Principles for Regulation

An international coalition of 44 food, environment and labour organisations is calling for urgent precautionary management of nanotechnology’s toxicity risks to human health and the environment, and its significant social challenges. The group has released a joint statement that details the principles which should underpin precautionary and democratic management of this powerful new technology.
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Farm Bill Amendment calls for NAS to Study Safety and Impacts of Cloned Meat and Animals

Press Release of the Center for Food Safety
FDA APPROVAL OF CLONES STALLED BY PASSAGE OF MIKULSKI-SPECTER AMENDMENT IN FARM BILL

Bill Passes by an Overwhelming Majority of 79 to 14; Coalition of Consumer,
Farmer, and Animal Welfare Groups Praise the Senate’s Action
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What is Nature Biotechnology good for?

Jonathan Latham and Allison Wilson

The case of Irina Ermakova

Quite likely it surprised many regular readers of Nature Biotechnology that for the September (2007) issue their journal had invented a new article format specifically in order to describe, and then extensively criticise, the work of a researcher that most of them had never heard of before (1). That surprise will only increase if they read the translation, featured on our website, of a Nov 1st article (The excommunication of a heretic) in the Swiss Newspaper WOZ. Readers who thought this new format was simply a curious, if rather aggressive, literary innovation, can now see that this was a story with a disturbing history. Even more interesting however than the ethical shenanigans behind the publication of the interview with Dr Ermakova, is a point not raised by the Swiss newspaper article.

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The Killing of the Countryside

Author: by Graham Harvey

ISBN: 0099736616 Publisher: Vintage (1998)

Visitors to Britain are always being asked to admire the “unspoiled countryside” of a particular region, but landscapes are more than just photo opportunities. In only sixty years the British countryside has changed from being predominantly meadows and grasslands abundant with orchids and bees to virtual monocultures of rye grass whose wildlife is largely confined to clipped hedges and mown verges.

Many species of insects and flowers are all but extinct in Britain and the process continues. Today, the weed seed bank in farmed arable fields is estimated to be declining by approximately 3% per year. What has been lost and how we got here is the story of this book. Of all the ways that the UK landscape has been ‘spoiled’ , ugly development is perhaps the least of the villains.

Rethinking the Risks of Viral Transgenes in Plants

Jonathan Latham and Allison Wilson

Part I: Transcomplementation and its implications

Today marks the publication, in the journal Molecular Plant Pathology, of the Bioscience Resource Project’s newest biosafety review: Transcomplementation and synergism: implications for virus-resistant transgenic plants?.

This review, which represents a conceptual reanalysis of the risks of viral proteins expressed in transgenic plants, is particularly timely because virus resistance and the biosafety of viral transgenes are currently under active discussion in more than one US regulatory agency.

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The Excommunication of a Heretic

by Roland Fischer

The article below is translated from an original article in the Swiss German-language newspaper WOZ

An unusual article was published in the September printed edition of the science magazine “Nature Biotechnology”. The editor of the magazine had arranged a sort of “triangular” interview. In one corner he had invited a Russian scientist to answer a few critical questions about her feeding study of GM soybeans. That was researcher Irina Ermakova, who had already presented her initial results at conferences, and who now gladly agreed to help. The study had created considerable controversy, since Ermakova had reported toxic effects on the offspring of laboratory rats, leading to stunted growth and low survival rates.
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Corn Fakes

The article below is reprinted from the British magazine Private Eye, No. 1194, 28 September-11 October 2007. The ‘heavy-handed’ libel threats referred to below temporarily closed the GM Watch website this summer.

Heavy-handed libel threats on the part of a biotech researcher have done little
to silence criticism of a scientific paper claiming that shoppers prefer GM
produce.
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