the sacred corporation

THE SACRED CORPORATION

DECEMBER 2, 2004. The release below describes an expanding US government policy that rolls the dice on the effects of contaminating food crops with inserted genes. Insert genes, who cares? Which genes? Oh, that's secret. Does it matter if the genes used in experimental crops in experimental fields, in the US, spread to food crops you buy in stores? No. Who cares? No problem. They WILL spread. That's a given. It's sort of like a medical treatment in which the doc closes his eyes, reaches up on the shelf and takes down a syringe filled with random genes. Could be syringe A or B or C or D. Not sure which. Who cares? As you'll see, all this relates to a policy in which corporations are held to be inviolate entities. Can't investigate or publish the secret and proprietary ingredients in their products. Free market and all that, you know. Privacy concerns. Yeah. Well, when the colonists came to America, they learned to fear corporations in the same way they feared monarchy, and when they finally drafted a Constitution to limit government's inherent power, state legislatures enacted laws to keep corporations on a tight leash. You see, the thirteen colonies really were corporate entities granted licenses by the British Crown. Crown colonies. The idea was, the colonies would ship raw materials home to England, where finished products would be made, and those products would then be sent back to America for purchase. The classic colonial pattern. So after the American Revolution, state legislatures set up laws that made it clear corporations could have their charters to operate yanked by the legislatures if they did harm to the public. No courts, no judges, no corporate PR flacks or lobbyists. An up and down vote, and then a corp could simply be kicked out of the state. Pack up and leave. Vacate. Get out. Don't come back. Of course, over time, this legislative power was chipped away at, eroded, and finally the modern corp emerged, with all the rights accruing to an individual human being and more. No one bothered to point out that a corp is not a person. In the early 1990s, when a major Congressional push was launched at big tobacco, ABC revealed that cigarettes contained massive numbers of inserted chemicals. In the hundreds. ABC queried the FDA, and the agency said it had the list IN A SAFE. And couldn't reveal the names of the chemicals---BECAUSE THAT WAS PROPRIETARY CORPORATE INFORMATION. Hey, who cares what damage those chemicals were doing? Are doing? And now, the same thing is happening with genes placed into food crops. Which genes? Sorry, that's proprietary info. "Chief, we had to let the killer go. We know he fired the gun. But we couldn't do tests to confirm that the bullets in the victim's body came from the gun, because this guy, the killer, is actually registered as a corporation. So the bullets belong to the corporation..." All this has nothing to do with free market. It's about crime. US Will Officially Legalize Genetic Pollution of Crops MEDIA ADVISORY Friends of the Earth International November 23, 2004 US TO LEGALIZE BIOTECH CONTAMINATION US sets out plan to allow contamination of the world's food supply with experimental Genetically-Modified crops WASHINGTON, DC (US) / BRUSSELS (BELGIUM), November 23, 2004 A new proposal to allow contamination of human food crops with biotech or genetically modified (GM) experimental crops grown on "test" sites will be published tomorrow (Wednesday) by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) [1]. In sixty days from Nov. 25 the new proposal could be accepted, giving biotech companies a major disincentive to control field tests contamination which is therefore likely to increase. It is already impossible to test for the presence of experimental Genetically-Modified food crops in foods imported from or processed in the US, because over two-thirds of US experimental Genetically-Modified crops contain genes classified as confidential which therefore can't be detected. Juan Lopez from Friends of the Earth International said: "The Bush Administration, with the active support of the biotechnology industry, is about to force their untested genetically modified experiments into the world's food supply. This proposal should be ringing alarm bells in every consumer, every food company and every food agency of the planet." Adrian Bebb of Friends of the Earth Europe added: "Because of the secrecy behind experiments in the United States, no one not food companies, not even governments will be able to test food products or food imports for contamination because they won't know what to test for. This will leave consumers worldwide exposed to new risks from genetically modified foods." Experimental GM crops are currently permitted to be grown on a minimum of 23,000 hectares in the United States, and some individual releases are over 400 ha in size. The approved acreage for GM crop tests since the late 1980s is over 200,000 ha. They include crops engineered for herbicide or insect resistance, altered nutritional properties, or sterile pollen or seeds. Other crops generate pharmaceuticals or anti-fungal compounds that resemble proteins that cause food allergies . The US government is not proposing any maximum threshold for "inadvertent" contamination of food, feed and seed stocks from experimental sites. The new policy sets out loose "safety assessment" guidelines under which a company may voluntarily consult with the FDA to have its experimental GM crop material deemed "acceptable" as a contaminant in food. The "safety assessment" is based on paperwork and two inadequate tests that the FDA estimates will take companies just 20 hours to complete. The proposed review also excludes testing for unintended effects caused by genetic modification. This inadequate review would grant biotech companies the legal cover to allow their experimental GM crops to enter the American food supply. And the US biotechnology and grain industries are already calling on the US government to "vigorously promote global adoption" of this policy [2] Bill Freese, Research Analyst with Friends of the Earth US said: "Allowing conventional food to be contaminated by experimental crops is a recipe for disaster. What is even more unbelievable is that the Bush Administration wants to promote this policy around the world as an international model." Since over two-thirds of experimental GM crops grown in the US contain genes classified as confidential, there is little public information about what genes are being tested. Without this basic information, laboratories will be unable to look for their presence in food products. This will have serious consequences for food companies wishing to avoid such contamination and Governments carrying out checks on imports. Neither will be able to detect the contamination as they won't know what they are looking for. The FDA policy comes in response to a 2002 initiative by the Bush Administration. FDA Commissioner Lester Crawford describes the policy as "a high priority for the Administration and the industry, to enhance public confidence, avoid product recalls, and provide an international model" for similar policies around the world [3] In January, the US Dept. of Agriculture proposed a similar policy for its sphere of GM crop regulation (plant pest risks). The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is expected to issue its own contamination approval policy applicable to pesticide-producting GM crops in the near future. A briefing paper with more information is available at: http://www.foei.org/publications/pdfs/contamination.pdf FOR MORE INFORMATION William Freese in the US, 301-985-3011 e-mail: billfreese@prodigy.net Adrian Bebb, Friends of the Earth Europe, +49 1609 490 1163; email adrian.bebb@foeeurope.org Juan Lopez, Friends of the Earth International, +39-333-1498049 (Italy); e-mail: juan.lopez@foeeurope.org NOTES: [1] FDA release of the policy was announced at: http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/ANSWERS/2004/ANS01327.html FDA's draft policy is available at: http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/bioprgui.htm. [2] 3US Grain Industry, BIO Urge US Government to Expedit, "Trace-Amounts" Policy for Biotech Products, press release, Biotechnology Industry Organization, National Grain & Feed Association, and other trade groups, April 7, 2004, www.bio.org/newsroom/newsitem.asp?id=2004_0407_01. [3] Lester M. Crawford, Acting Commissioner of the FDA. Speech before The U.S. Vatican Mission's Conference "Feeding A Hungry World: The Moral Imperative Of Biotechnology," September 2004 www.agbioworld.org

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This Genetically-Modified-Organisms news service is underwritten by a generous grant from the Newman's Own Foundation and is a production of the Ecological Farming Association www.eco-farm.org end of release


JON RAPPOPORT www.nomorefakenews.com Tweet