EU Takes 11 Member Governments to Court (biotech foods)

[Nambe]

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP)

The European Union filed lawsuits against 11 member governments Tuesday for maintaining moratoriums against approving biotech foods — bans that have prompted U.S. action at the World Trade Organization.

Under EU regulations, the countries should have already implemented laws on testing and licensing genetically modified organisms or GMOs. But the governments have refused and the European Commission, the 15-member EU's executive arm, filed suits at the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg. Continued noncompliance could lead to fines. ---

The U.S. government has called the European moratorium an illegal trade barrier and charged the EU in May with breaking global trade rules. A formal request to convene an expert panel at the WTO is expected shortly. If the WTO rules against the EU, the 15-nation bloc would be forced to lift the moratorium or face U.S. trade sanctions.

Privatize bush It’s a Good Thing

[DemBones DemBones]

1. I'm so sick of Monsanto and other megacorporations running the

world. I wish we could escape these greedy bastards -- or that they would listen to consumers instead of making all our decisions for us without input from us. Their actions will influence evolution in plants and thus, because plants form the base of food chains, in animals, including Homo sapiens. Who died and made them God?

:grr: :mad: :grr:

[tlb]

2. Who made Jonas Salk God for that matter.

How dare he interfer with evolution by attacking the polio virus. Maybe they should have burned Fleming also, for interferring with " nature ".

GM has been around long enough that if a legitimate scientific case could be made agaisnt it, its opponents would have done so by now. The pure speculation, corporation bashing, and general hysteria approach to the question has about run out of steam.

The EU also has called for strict labeling of all GM foods which when implemented will permit the consumer, NOT Monsanto, to make their own decisions. Fine by me.

[w4rma]

3. Modern day sharecropping? Destroys European food culture?

The fight over GM crops exposes the weaknesses of globalisation, says

In case you thought that the Bush administration's rift with its European allies ended with the Iraqi military campaign, think again. The White House has now set its sights on something far more personal - the question of what kind of food Europeans should put on their table. President Bush has charged that the EU's ban on genetically modified food is discouraging developing countries from growing GM crops for export and resulting in increased hunger and poverty in the world's poorest nations. His remarks, made just days before the G8 meeting in Evian, have further chilled US-European relations.
...
For most Europeans, GM food is anathema. Although Europeans are worried about the potentially harmful environmental and health consequences, they are equally concerned about the cultural consequences. While Americans long ago accepted a corporate-driven fast food culture, in Europe food and culture are deeply entwined. Every region boasts its own culinary traditions and touts its local produce.
...
The White House has made a bad situation worse by suggesting that European opposition to GM food is tantamount to imposing a death sentence on millions of starving people in the third world. Denying poor farmers in developing countries a European market for GM food, says the White House, gives them no choice but to grow non-GM food and lose the commercial advantages that go hand-in-hand with GM food crops. President Bush's remarks on the many benefits of GM food appear more like a public relations release than a reasoned political argument.
...
Second, President Bush talks about the cost savings of planting GM food crops. What he conveniently ignores is that GM seeds are more expensive than conventional seeds and, because they are patented, farmers cannot save the new seeds for planting during the next growing season because those seeds belong to the biotech companies. By exercising intellectual property control over the genetic traits of the world's major food crops, companies such as Monsanto stand to make huge profits while the world's poorest farmers become increasingly marginalised.

Third, the White House alludes to the new generation of crops with genes whose proteins will produce vaccines, drugs and even industrial chemicals. The Bush administration cites the example of "golden rice", a new genetically engineered rice strain that contains an inserted gene that produces beta-carotene. Noting that half a million poor children around the world suffer from vitamin A deficiency and become blind, the US trade representative Robert Zoellick argues that to deny them this valuable food source would be immoral. The biotech industry has been singing the praises of the "miracle" rice for years, despite articles in scientific journals that say it simply doesn't work. To convert beta-carotene into vitamin A the body requires sufficient body protein and fat. Undernourished children lack the body protein necessary for the conversion....
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,968356,00.html
http://www.democraticunderground.com/cgi-bin/duforum/duboard.cgi?az=show_thread&om=4138&forum=DCForumID71

Farmers' Declaration on Genetic Engineering in Agriculture
The corporate ownership of genetic resources and the corporate use of genetic engineering in agriculture is not designed to solve the problems farmers face in agriculture such as increased weed resistance, growing staple crops on marginal land, or making traditionally bred crops available to farmers worldwide, but rather to enrich corporations.

Genetically engineered seeds increase costs to farmers, have failed to perform as promised by corporate agribusiness, and, in some cases, yields have been lower and crops engineered to be herbicide tolerant have required increased use of herbicides manufactured by the corporations that market the seeds.
...
The "terminator" gene, which renders corporate seeds sterile and was developed with USDA resources, is an unconscionable technology because it destroys life and destroys the right of farmers worldwide to save seeds, a basic step necessary to protect food security and biodiversity.
http://www.inmotionmagazine.com/nfrel.html

GM crops will not feed the world and could pose a considerable threat to poor farmers, warns a new report launched today by ActionAid. GM Crops – Going Against the Grain examines biotech companies’ claims that genetically modified (GM) crops can tackle world hunger. The report is being submitted to the Government in advance of the UK public debate starting on 3 June.
GM Crops – Going Against the Grain reveals that at best GM crops are irrelevant to poor farmers, at worst they threaten to push them deeper into debt, making them more reliant on expensive seeds and chemicals and unable to save seed from one harvest to the next.

“The UK public should not be duped into accepting GM in the name of developing countries. GM does not provide a magic bullet solution to world hunger. What poor people really need is access to land, water, better roads to get their crops to market, education and credit schemes,” said Matthew Lockwood, ActionAid’s Head of Policy.
...
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/fromthefield/105412105895.htm

[Aaron]

4. Why would a scientific case being made against it change anything?

I doubt a scientific case against something would prevent this administration and these multinational corporations from pushing anything they think will profit them. If Blair is in it or some EU leaders or the WTO I wouldn't be surprised.

Maybe I'm too skeptical?