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Wednesday, March 16, 2016

Senate GMO Bill Failure Makes it Clear that Mandatory Labeling is the Answer

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Consumers Union, the policy and advocacy division of Consumer Reports, praised Senators for standing against anti-consumer GMO labeling legislation that would prohibit state labeling laws. The consumer group urged lawmakers to move towards mandatory, national labeling.

Jean Halloran, director of food policy initiatives for Consumers Union, said, “Today’s vote, in which the Senate rejected an industry-backed effort to advance a​ bill that would block GMO labeling, was an important victory for consumers. ​Senators from both sides of the aisle balked at shutting down state efforts to address what consumers want–which is to know if their food is genetically engineered.”

“Consumers have a right to know what they are eating. ​As the vote makes clear, meaningful, mandatory labeling that provides consumers with the information they want about whether their food is genetically engineered​ is the only answer.

From: Heidi Hautala, Benedek Javor, Michele Rivasi and Bart Staes

March 15, 2016

Dear Bernhard Url, Executive Director of the European Food Safety Authority,

Under the right of access to documents in the EU treaties, as

enshrined in Regulation 1049/2001 and in the Aarhus Regulation, we are requesting documents which contain the following information:

There is an alarming scientific controversy between the European

Food Safety Agency (EFSA) and the International Agency for Research on Cancer of the World Health Organisation (IARC) with regard to the carcinogenicity of glyphosate. In March 2015, IARC concluded that glyphosate is a probable human carcinogen (category 2A) . However, later that same year, in November 2015, EFSA concluded that glyphosate is "unlikely to pose a carcinogenic hazard to humans and the evidence does not support classification with regard to its carcinogenic potential".

What foods have GMOs?

“Genetically modified products are in an estimated of 60 percent of processed foods,” coordinator of GM Free Australia Alliance Jessica Harrison told HuffPost Australia.

“Soy lecithin -- a common emulsifier that helps other ingredients mix together -- can be GM and is in most GM foods.”

“Oil is a big one -- it’s in a lot of products and could contain a cocktail of GM oil, such as soy, canola and corn,” Harrison said. “The other area is corn syrup -- corn syrup is manufactured on a huge scale in the U.S. and is in a lot of sweetened products, such as soft drinks.”

Currently, the approved GM foods for consumption in Australia are soybean, canola, corn, potato, sugar beet, cotton, wheat and rice.

“There are no fresh fruits or vegetables grown in Australia that are genetically modified,” Rachel Ankeny, professor and leader of the Food Values Research Group at the University of Adelaide, told HuffPost Australia. “The only crops approved for commercial growth in Australia are GM cotton and GM canola (we use the oil in human food and seed meal in animal feed).”

However, the other genetically modified foods mentioned are grown overseas and imported into Australia.

March 2016

Dear Sir or Madam,

Last Tuesday, 8th of March, the Standing Committee on Plant Animal Food and Feed (PAFF) postponed the vote on the re-approval of glyphosate in the EU. Unable to reach a qualified majority voting (QMV), the European Commission (EC) asked the Member States to give their suggestions by 18th of March.

With this letter we are seeking your immediate reaction on this matter and we’re hoping you will propose to suspend glyphosate’s re-approval in the EU.

In complete disregard to the growing scientific evidence on the toxic potential of glyphosate to humans, the environment, and agriculture, the EC proposal includes not only its authorization for nearly the maximum period possible (14 years) but has also increased the acceptable daily intake (ADI) by 66% (from 0.3 mg/kg to 0.5 mg/kg), i.e. higher amount of glyphosate residues will now be tolerated in our food.

Glyphosate-based weed killers are far from harmless. Last year, glyphosate was classified by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) of the World Health Organisation (WHO), as a “probable human carcinogen” (equivalent to carcinogenic category 1B in Europe). In Europe according to the Plant Protection Product Regulation (PPPR) 1107/2009 such a pesticide ingredient must not be authorised unless exposure is proven to be negligible (Article 4.1; Annex II 3.6.3).

This small Himalayan state has been officially declared free of chemical pesticides and fertilizers.

Sunday mornings are perfect for bright sunny strolls through local farmers markets, where you can spend hours picking fresh produce. One of the reasons that people flock to these markets on their day off is because these fresh fruits and veggies are also organic.

Within the past decade or so, we’ve seen a global cultural shift towards a health conscientious mentality where eating organic food is the first step to a healthier lifestyle—it’s a great example of when you know better, you do better. We’ve come a long way from frozen entrees as being considered the healthy choice over fresh foods.

Navdanya travels to the cotton growing Malwa belt of Punjab to report the damage done by the whitefly on Bt cotton in October ’15. Despite spraying pesticides 10- 15 times, 1.2 million acres of cotton was destroyed by the whitefly, a common pest. This short film is an attempt to make the pain of the Bt Cotton farmers be heard and make the lives our farmers’ lives matter.

Four EU states force delay of a vote to renew the licence for glyphosate, which has been found to be ‘probably carcinogenic’

A mutiny by several EU states has forced the postponement of a vote in Brussels on relicensing a widely used weedkiller that the World Health Organisation has found is probably carcinogenic.

Italy joined France, Sweden and the Netherlands in opposing a new 15-year licence for glyphosate at a meeting which had been expected to rubber stamp its reapproval on Tuesday.

The European commission may now bring forward a new proposal to cut the licence’s length, or create a list of “co-formulants” whose use can be limited or banned. These surfactants increase a plant’s uptake of glyphosate, and can be more dangerous than the herbicide alone.

But the Netherlands is calling for the relicensing to be put on hold until after a separate evaluation of glyphosate’s toxicity next year.

Peer-reviewed article criticizes EFSA over incorrect use of data, ignoring evidence of tumours in lab animals, and reliance on secret studies to come up with a verdict that glyphosate doesn’t cause cancer

A group of 94 scientists has published an article explaining the differences in the evaluation of the weedkiller glyphosate’s cancer-causing potential by two scientific organisations.

Glyphosate is sprayed on over 80% of GM crops grown worldwide and is the most used herbicide in the world.

The World Health Organisation’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) and the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) came to opposite conclusions on the carcinogenicity of glyphosate. The IARC classified glyphosate as a “probable” human carcinogen, but EFSA said a cancer link was unlikely.

On 8 March, a meeting of EU government experts in Brussels is expected to support the European Commission’s proposal to grant a new 15-year lease to glyphosate, the world’s most used weedkiller, despite World Health Organisation (WHO) cancer warnings.

EU governments will only restrict its use in pesticide products that also contain a chemical called polyethoxylated (POE)-tallowamine. These products are already banned in Germany, one of Europe’s largest pesticides markets. European decision-makers are also expected to endorse the Commission’s request that Monsanto and other pesticide companies produce scientific evidence, by 1 August 2016, proving that glyphosate does not interfere with the human hormone system. However, the EU licence for glyphosate is expected to be renewed ahead of this deadline.

In a new French-Hungarian study, the co-formulants of glyphosate herbicides are shown to be endocrine disruptors, i.e. to interfere with the human hormone system. Two ENSSER board members, Nicolas Defarge and András Székács, are involved in the study.

Despite a great deal of scientific criticism pointing at serious potential health hazards, the European Commission has recently proposed to extend the approval of the world's most popular herbicide glyphosate for another 15 years. One of the points of criticism is that both the EU risk assessment and the acceptable daily intake (ADI) refer only to the active substance glyphosate, while the commercial product ('formulation') contains more substances: 'co-formulants' are added to modify the physico-chemical properties or to improve penetration or stability of the active substance. The co-formulants are usually presented as inert and their identity is generally protected as 'confidential business information'. However, the new study demonstrates that known co-formulants of six commercial glyphosate formulations have endocrine-disrupting effects by themselves.

The endocrine disrupting effects of the co-formulants were assessed by measuring the activity of aromatase, a key enzyme for the balance of sex hormones, in human placental cells, using a method validated by the OECD to assess endocrine disruptors. Aromatase is responsible for the irreversible conversion of male sex hormones into female sex hormones.