Draft new alfalfa GE regs comment period closing 2-16-10

[CatManDo]

From Gordon Baker, M.D.:
Subject: Draft new alfalfa GE regs comment period closing 2-16-10

Hi all,

I am writing regarding a draft environmental impact statement that is
closing on Feb 16 2010. The USDA is seeking comments on their plan to allow
Monsanto to introduce GE (genetically engineered) alfalfa into the
marketplace. I found out about this when I was reading an article in the
PCC Puget Consumers Co-op) February,2010 newsletter. Here is that article:

http://www.pccnaturalmarkets.com/sc/1002/sc1002-organic-consumers.html

What really jumped out at me in the article was one comment regarding what
the USDA had written in the draft environmental impact statement (that is
being commented on), " . . . there is no evidence that consumers care about
GE contamination."

I guess we may find out how true this is.

Public comment closes 2-16-10. If, you wish to comment on this, here is the
USDA comment page. (If you wish to acquire a little more background, I am
including a few relevant ideas and links elsewhere in this email), . (OK
here's the link to comment on the USDA EIS)::

http://www.regulations.gov/search/Regs/home.html#submitComment?R=0900006480a
6b7a1

Here's a link for those who want some recent background on how the USDA's
own auditing has been critical of the way that the USDA regulates GMOs
(genetically modified organisms). (In this letter I am using the terms 'GE'
and 'GMO' interchangeably, as the definitions are so similar).


http://communal.com/index.php/2010/01/28/internal-report-finds-usdas-fail
ure-to-effectively-regulate-gmos/

Some of us believe that we have insufficient regulation of bioengineered
crops and insufficient breadth and scope of studies that have been done on
GMO effects on biological communities beyond the narrow targets of the GE
firms.

So, most of the rest of this email consists of background info in case you
want to comment.

Yes, I do realize that I have a bias, but that has been gained by what I
hope has been objective openness to both sides of the various GMO issues in
today's world. If anything, I subscribe to the precautionary principle in
regards to the introduction of significant human introductions into our
biological communities. I do not think the precautionary principle has been
sufficiently applied in this alfalfa GMO application.

Here's a broad article summarizing some of the various unheralded effects of
GMO crops on people

<http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7277>
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7277

Here is an older link that the more scientific types might delve into, again
illustrating that the USDA should consider initiating substantial studies
on GMOs past, present and future. Although this article is from 2001 it is
yet relevant today.

http://www.actionbioscience.org/biotech/pusztai.html

If the USDA does allow Monsanto to introduce genetically modified alfalfa
into the marketplace we could incur significant repercussions in various
consumer, ecological and organic communities.

As consumers, it has become more and more diffucult to find foods that do
not have GMOs in them. Allowing Alfalfa to join the GMO mix would narrow our
food choices even further Today, GMO foods are in much of the groceries
available, and have even made inroads into 'organic' foods (A food can be
called 'organinc' if it has 95% organic ingredients). Besides this
incursion, GMOs are in over 95% of the corn, soybean and canola products in
the grocery store. GMOs are in the food chain of meat (corn or soybean fed
animals), oil ( vegetable oil, most condiments chips, fast food, any fried
food), sweeteners (high fructose corn syrup the main sweetener used today in
the US) and on and on.

We have few studies on the effects of GMO on any animals, but here is a link
to a study done on the adverse effects on rats from a diet of GMO corn.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/19/monsanto-gm-corn-causing_n_425195.h
tml

Ecologically, allowing GMO alfalfa to be introduced would greatly increase
the scope of GMO agriculture here and throughout the world. Alfalfa is grown
in a much greater range of landscapes than are the other main GMO crops
currently under cultivation: corn, soybeans, canola and cotton. Alfalfa's
agricultural role has numerous ecological components. It is widely valued in
feeding livestock, in fertilizer products, as a green manure and as a
honeybee forage crop.

The potential widespread growing of GMO alfalfa and the consequent spread of
GMO alfalfa pollen could affect every crop of alfalfa grown in North
America, and effectively causing GMO traits to appear in the diets of any
animal eating alfalfa. Since this pollen dispersal would be impossible to
avoid, even all of the farmers who don't want this pollen in their alfalfa
fields would not be able to stop it from occuring.

Once this happens, such farmers would very possibly be sued by Monsanto,
which has been very agressive in suing farmers who plant seed from their own
saved seed or seed obtained from others. Sometimes these farmers have been
been unwilling victims of GMO pollen infecting their crops.

.

A relevant lengthy Canadian case has cost one farmer hundreds of thousands
of dollars to fight Monsanto, and similar battles are likely to occur in the
US if the USDA approves this Alfalfa GMO.

http://www.percyschmeiser.com/]http://www.percyschmeiser.com/ <[url]http://www.percyschmeiser.com/> [/url]

Besides the consumer and ecological implications of GMO alfalfa to livestock
diets, many people are concerned about possible adverse GMO crops' effects
on pollinators like lepidoptera (moths and butterflies) and hymenoptera
(bees and wasps) populations.

The particular case of allowing GMO alfalfa to enter the marketplace would
ignore the apprehension that many beekeepers already have about adverse
linkages between GMO crops and honeybee declines, particularly the recently
emerging CCD (Colony Collapse Disorder). Since honeybees are such an
important and widespread pollinator, cross pollination with gmo pollen might
end up in agricultural landscapes everywhere. Here's one such report earlier
this month regarding Bulgarian beekeepers concerns

http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=112689

Along with concerns of possible USDA approval of GMO alfalfa, GMO advocates
also have prominent roles in the Obama administration. The fast growing
organic market is one arena that GMO firms continue to want to gain
regulations favorable to them. Michael Taylor, a prominent policy lawyer
for 7 years with Monsanto (the largest GMO corporation in the world)
returned to the FDA last summer to serve with the Obama administration. Here
is one July 2009 article about that appointment

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffrey-smith/youre-appointing-who-plea_b_2438
10.html

In January 2010 Michael Taylor was appointed to a newly created post with
various duties, one of them involving food labeling regulations. Here is an
official government link to that:

http://www.fda.gov/AboutFDA/CentersOffices/OC/Aficionados/ucm196721.htm

Here is one reaction to this recent appointment:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2429459/posts

Finally, you may wonder why I have taken the time to assemble and mail all
of this out to various folk. Well, I have been a seed saver for more than 30
years and since the 80s I have been concerned about genetically modified
seed and its phenomenal growth and domination of various foods that we eat.
During this time I have been relentlessly aware that the main corporation
driving this is the same one mentioned here, Monsanto.

I would think everyone has heard of various things that Monsanto has been
involved in within the 100 year lifespan of this company. Some things I am
glad for, as they were some of the first developers of LED lighting.

I am also concerned about the history of Monsanto products being approved by
Us regulatory agencies and then decades later we the public discover that
the damage these products do to both human and biological communities. I am
apprehensive that this could occur again with Monsanto alfalfa. What are
some of those products? the pesticide DDT and the herbicides 2,4,5 T and
Agent Orange.

I am also apprehensive about Monsanto's revolving door relationship with
between Monsanto and government regulatory agencies. Some past or current
people who have worked at Monsanto are Supreme Court Judge Florence Thomas,
Donald Rumsfeld, past deputy EPA administrator Linda Fisher, past Deputy FDA
Commissioner Dr. Michael Friedman.

What are a few of the many cases causing wonder about Monsanto? 50 US
Superfund Sites, fraud in covering up dioxin contamination, Bribery of
Indonesian officials. the list is extensive.

For those interested, finally I am including the informative link to the
Monsanto page on Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto