Use of Roundup Ready crops has been so widespread in the United States over the past decade and a half that farmers have increasingly found themselves battling weeds that have evolved resistance to the herbicide’s key ingredient, glyphosate. Credit: Bigstock

By Carey L. Biron
WASHINGTON, May 2 2014 (IPS)

Two key federal agencies here are in the final stages of approving a new herbicide-resistant crop “system” that would constitute the second phase of genetically engineered agriculture, following an announcement this week.

To date, the only herbicide-resistant plants approved in the United States have been related to Monsanto’s Roundup Ready system. This system uses six crops genetically engineered to withstand the herbicide Roundup, also produced by Monsanto, a U.S.-based company.“It’s advertised as a solution to the problem of glyphosate-resistant weeds, but in fact the weeds will rapidly evolve resistance and become more difficult to control – leading to what we call the pesticide treadmill." -- Bill Freese

Yet use of Roundup Ready crops has been so widespread in the United States over the past decade and a half that farmers have increasingly found themselves battling weeds that have evolved resistance to the herbicide’s key ingredient, glyphosate.

According to an industry survey released last year, the amount of U.S. farmland infested with glyphosate-resistant weeds has almost doubled since 2010, to more than 61 million acres, with half of U.S. farmers reporting glyphosate-resistant weeds in their fields in 2012.

In response, Dow AgroSciences, another U.S. company, has produced a new set of crops that have been genetically engineered to be resistant to both glyphosate and another chemical, 2,4-D, known most notoriously as half of the infamous Vietnam War-era defoliant Agent Orange. The company says approval could bring in a billion dollars in revenues.

“The Dow proposal would be the first major product of the next generation of genetically engineered crops,” Bill Freese, a senior policy analyst with the Centre for Food Safety, a watchdog group here, told IPS.

“It’s advertised as a solution to the problem of glyphosate-resistant weeds, but in fact the weeds will rapidly evolve resistance and become more difficult to control – leading to what we call the pesticide treadmill. As we’ve seen with Roundup Ready, these systems are extremely good at fostering resistant weeds.”

On Wednesday, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) opened a 30-day public comment period on Dow’s application, specifically on its specialised use of 2,4-D. The other agency in charge of deciding on the application, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), has already given its provisional approval for the new cops, which include a corn plant and two types of soybean.

In announcing the start of this final phase of the regulatory process, the EPA was clear in the rationale behind Dow’s product, which is known as Enlist Duo. (An EPA fact sheet is available here.)

“Weeds are becoming increasingly resistant to glyphosate-based herbicides and are posing a problem for farmers,” the agency said in a statement. “If finalized, EPA’s action provides an additional tool to reduce the spread of glyphosate resistant weeds.”

Indeed, it appears that additional tools may soon abound. According to the Center for Food Safety’s Freese, nine of the 14 applications for genetically engineered crops currently pending before U.S. regulators are for herbicide-resistant varieties.

Sixfold increase

Critics are warning of a spectrum of concerns around Dow’s application, particularly regarding the impacts of increased use of 2,4-D. This compound is already in use, with U.S. farmers currently using around 26 million pounds per year.

Yet according to the USDA’s own estimates, this usage would likely jump by more than sixfold following the approval of Enlist Duo, perhaps resulting in some 176 million pounds used per year. That would constitute higher U.S. use than any pesticide other than glyphosate.

Even at the comparably low usage of 2,4-D of recent years, worrying health effects are already being seen. According to public health advocates, 2,4-D has been linked to increases in non-Hodgkin lymphoma and Parkinson’s disease, as well as heightened risk of birth defects among the children of farm workers who apply 2,4-D.

“The herbicide itself is in various ways more toxic than glyphosate, leading to cancer, lower sperm counts, liver disease and other problems. And it’s still contaminated with dioxins,” Paul Achitoff, an attorney with Earthjustice, a legal advocacy group, told IPS.

“Remarkably, you have government regulators openly admitting that, due to previous deregulations, you already have 60 million acres of glyphosate resistance, and now they want to address this by increasing the use of a toxic chemical. And so far, Congress has just yawned!”

Impact could also be significant for both nearby agriculture and environmental systems. 2,4-D has been shown to be highly volatile, tending to drift easily on the wind or to enter groundwater via runoff.

Given that the compound is specifically designed to be lethal to any broad-leafed plant, the impact of a sixfold increase in the use of 2,4-D would likely be significant. The EPA and the National Marine Fisheries Service have both found that the even relatively low use of 2,4-D of recent years is likely already having a negative impact on endangered species.

Agricultural crossroads

In a public letter released earlier this year, 144 “farm, food, health, public interest, consumer, fisheries, and environmental organizations” called on the federal government to reject the Dow proposal, warning that U.S. agriculture is at a “crossroads”.

“One path leads to more intensive use of old and toxic pesticides, litigious disputes in farm country over drift-related crop injury, still less crop diversity, increasingly intractable weeds, and sharply rising farmer production costs,” the letter stated. “This is the path American agriculture will take with approval of Dow’s 2,4-D corn, soybeans and the host of other new herbicide-resistant crops in the pipeline.”

Yet the implications of the biotechnology revolution in agriculture go well beyond the United States. Although genetically engineered crops first took root in the U.S., this approach has since spread across the globe, in developing and developed countries alike – though the U.S. regulatory system continues to be more lax on the issue than in other countries.

At times these new technologies are contextualised as an important opportunity to increase yields, particularly in adverse environments, and thus to combat hunger and strengthen food security. But the Center for Food Safety’s Freese says this is whitewash.

“The rhetoric is about biotech feeding the world, but really it has no place in developing countries. Most poor farmers can’t afford this type of product in the first place,” he notes.

“Biotech is not a humanitarian endeavour. It’s about promoting pesticide use by industrial farmers in developed countries.”

Freese says his office will likely push the EPA to extend its public comment period for Enlist Duo, given what he dubs the significance of the regulator’s decision. Dow is currently hoping to have its new crops in the ground by next year.

Alfalfa is the fourth-widest grown crop in the United States. Credit: Public domain

By Carey L. Biron
WASHINGTON, Sep 13 2013 (IPS)

With state and federal government agencies investigating a U.S. farmer’s complaint that his alfalfa crop may have been contaminated by a genetically modified strain, consumer rights groups are suggesting that such reports were inevitable.

The incident comes just months after similar allegations were made regarding genetically engineered (GE) wheat, a report that is still under investigation. While several strains of GE alfalfa have been approved for commercial use – unlike the modified wheat – the implications of any proven contamination could still be far-reaching.“We did everything we could to prevent this from happening and unfortunately the government and industry went ahead, and this is now the result." -- George Kimbrell of the Centre for Food Safety

In accounts that were publicly confirmed on Wednesday, a farmer in Washington state told government officials in late August that his alfalfa crop had been rejected for export after it was found to include a genetic modification that made it resistant to certain herbicides. A spokesperson for the Washington State Department of Agriculture told IPS that results of a state-level investigation could be ready by Friday.

While it is unclear which organisation carried out the original testing or how any contamination may have taken place, several countries refuse to allow the import of GE products. That has led some exporters to refuse to deal with GE crops entirely.

Alfalfa is the fourth-widest grown crop in the United States, according to U.S. government figures, with exports alone valued at nearly 1.3 billion dollars last year. Following years of debate and litigation, in 2011 federal U.S. regulators allowed the largely unfettered production of GE alfalfa, though the issue remains contentious.

“Based on both the government’s and industry’s negligence, this type of contamination was an inevitability – we vigorously opposed the original approval, and litigated whether it was lawful for eight years,” George Kimbrell, an attorney with the Centre for Food Safety (CFS), an advocacy group, told IPS.

“We did everything we could to prevent this from happening and unfortunately the government and industry went ahead, and this is now the result. This is the beginning, and I think you’ll see these types of reports happening more and more frequently.”

Administration about-face

Starting in 2006, Kimbrell and CFS fought a series of cases against the agribusiness company Monsanto over whether U.S. regulators should be allowed to plant GE alfalfa. In 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a lower-court ban on such crops, stating that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) failed to take into account environmental risks.

That decision prompted a USDA review that found that GE alfalfa genes “could be found” in non-GE alfalfa “at low levels”, and noted that the commercialisation of GE alfalfa would result in greater use of herbicides.

“In December 2010, the Obama administration proposed limiting GE alfalfa to restricted planting zones to prevent contamination; however, in January 2011, under tremendous industry pressure, the [USDA] did a complete about-face and again approved the crop without protections,” according to CFS.

“The administration relied heavily on industry assurances that its ‘best practices’ would prevent GE contamination from occurring, despite the overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary.”

While Monsanto seeds were implicated in the GE wheat contamination earlier this year (though the company has said it was sabotaged), its products are not involved in the Washington reports, according to a spokesperson.

“The farmer was growing alfalfa purchased from another seed company, not Monsanto seed … [That company] offers GM, conventional and organic alfalfa seed products for sale,” Thomas Helscher, a Monsanto representative, said in an e-mail to IPS.

Helscher also notes that the industry allows multiple levels of purity in crop seeds, while it is not yet clear which seeds the Washington farmer was using.

“Varietal purity standards followed by the alfalfa seed industry allow for low level presence of impurities, including GM traits, in conventional alfalfa seed,” he says. “If a grower is growing alfalfa for sensitive markets and wants specialized, GM-free alfalfa, they can purchase [those varieties].”

On Thursday, a USDA spokesperson confirmed to IPS that the agency was working with Washington state to gather information on the alfalfa findings. Meanwhile, the agency is continuing to examine the report, from earlier this year, of possible contamination of non-GE wheat in neighbouring Oregon.

That news prompted at least two countries to temporarily halt U.S. wheat exports. The report was particularly worrying for both government regulators and the biotech industry because GE wheat has never been cleared for commercial use, and any contamination would have come from test fields grown in the area a decade ago.

Yet if that were true, it would vindicate a longstanding concern on the part of environmentalists that accidental cross-pollination between GE and non-GE crops was largely inevitable.

Food concerns

Such concerns have been particularly strong with regard to alfalfa, a perennial, bee-pollinated crop – characteristics that some say increase the likelihood of cross-breeding. Further, because alfalfa is a prime constituent of cattle fodder across the country, the potential for GE contamination worries the fast-growing organic dairy sector.

Indeed, Washington state will soon be voting on a referendum to require the labelling of GE foods, part of a mounting national campaign. Major agribusiness companies, including Monsanto, are reportedly spending millions of dollars to counter that initiative.

Although relatively little is known about U.S. public opinion on the broader agricultural applications of GE products, on food sources reactions are fairly clear. According a 2010 poll, just one in five people in the United States feel that genetically modified foods are safe, while a recent public comment period on whether the U.S. government should approve GE salmon garnered more than 1.8 million responses.

Such findings appear to be in line with public sentiment in other countries, too. Consumers in the European Union have been repeatedly found to oppose genetically modified crops, for instance, and E.U. countries have been at the forefront of requiring the labelling of foods with GE ingredients.

While legislative action on this issue has lagged in most developing countries, civil society opposition has been widely documented. Late last year, Peru and Kenya both imposed bans on the import of genetically modified foods, while Nigeria was reportedly considering following suit, citing lack of scientific consensus on the long-term impact of GE materials.

In April, a decades-long push to require the labelling of foods containing genetically modified ingredients in the United States received a significant boost, when bipartisan bills on the issue were simultaneously proposed in the House and Senate. If the bills pass, the United States would join 64 other countries that have already put in place similar laws or regulations.

Cyclamens on sale at Home Depot. Credit: AWA/cc by 2.0

By Carey L. Biron
WASHINGTON, Aug 14 2013 (IPS)

Major U.S. retailers are selling garden plants that are billed as “bee-friendly” but laced with pesticides known to be toxic to bees, according to a preliminary study, the first on the issue, released Wednesday.

Researchers with Friends of the Earth U.S. and the Pesticide Research Institute say that more than half of the nursery plants studied contained residues of “neonicotinoid” pesticides, a substance increasingly thought to be contributing to mass die-offs of global honey bee populations."It turns out these systemics have major risks that EPA did not fully understand. Now the agency is in a defensive stance … It will be difficult to reel these products back in, but it can be done.” -- Peter Jenkins of the Centre for Food Safety

“At the levels observed in our report, the high percentage of contaminated plants and concentrations suggest this problem is widespread,” Lisa Archer, a co-author of the new report and director of Friends of the Earth U.S.’s food and technology programme, told IPS.

“Unfortunately, too many home gardeners have likely become a source of exposure to pesticides that have been shown to harm, weaken and kill bees. It’s pretty shocking that consumers who may be purchasing these plants specifically to help bees could in fact be poisoning them.”

Many others may share that shock. Also on Wednesday, these groups delivered a petition signed by some 175,000 people to major retailers, urging them to stop selling neonicotinoid-treated plants.

Following on a half-decade of mysteriously bad news, last winter was one of the worst on record for U.S. commercial bee populations, with beekeepers reporting mortality rates of 40 to 90 percent and the collapse of nearly a third of hives. Normal “over-wintering” mortality rates should be around 10 to 20 percent, experts say.

In the United States, around a third of the food supply (and two-thirds of food crops) is dependent on bee pollination. Broader ecosystems arguably have even more to lose, with some 80 percent of flowering plants relying on bees for their survival.

Neonicotinoids (or “neonics”) are known as a systemic pesticide, water-soluble substances that can travel throughout a crop via its roots, remaining within the plant for multiple seasons. Today, neonics make up the most common class of pesticide in the world, including treatments for nearly all commercially sown grains in the United States.

Yet a growing body of scientific evidence is suggesting that low levels of exposure to neonics could be making bee populations more vulnerable to a host of other problems, including parasites and a changing climate, or even simply making it through the winter months.

Sublethal doses

While scientists have increasingly focused on the potential impact of the agricultural use of neonics, Wednesday’s study is the first to try to gauge the use of these substances in home and industrial ornamental gardens. The report notes that “many of the seedlings and plants sold in nurseries and garden stores across the U.S. have been pre-treated with neonicotinoids at much higher doses than are used on farms.”

The study sample was very small, just 13 plants known to be highly appealing to pollinators, and the researchers are calling for more extensive research. The plants were purchased at three nationwide retailers in three areas of the United States and then analysed by an independent laboratory.

More than half the plants sampled were found with some level of neonic concentration, ranging from 11 to 1,500 microgrammes per kilogramme. Some plants were found to be carrying two or even three types of neonics.

While the lower levels of that spectrum would likely not kill bees, Archer notes that smaller amounts could have significant impact.

“Adverse effects are definitely possible even with lesser amounts, including impacting on bees’ fertility and ability to navigate, as has been proven in lab settings previously,” she says.

“Bees already have enough problems as it is, so our hope with this study is that retailers can now take action and lead on this issue, to ensure that consumers at least have access to neonic-free plants.”

Archer is unaware of the extent of knowledge within the nursery retail industry about the potential impact of neonics on bee populations, but says she’s willing to give companies the benefit of the doubt that they were unaware of the issue to date.

A spokesperson for Home Depot, a home services giant that operates some 2,250 stores, told IPS that his office hadn’t yet reviewed the new study. “But we certainly appreciate the importance of the bee population,” he said, “so we’ll be reaching out to the study groups to learn more.”

Lowe’s, another large-scale retailer included in the new study, did not respond to a request for comment by deadline.

Defensive regulators

Last month, U.S. lawmakers introduced national legislation aimed at taking emergency interim measures to safeguard U.S. beehives, after some 50,000 honey bees reportedly died following an ornamental application of neonic pesticide in a business parking lot. If passed, the bill would halt the use of neonics until the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) – the body that approved their use in the first place – undertakes a scheduled reappraisal of the pesticides in 2018.

“Twelve years ago, EPA became so enamoured with systemic insecticides that they approved hundreds of these products,” Peter Jenkins, an attorney with the Centre for Food Safety, an advocacy group that sued the EPA over the issue this spring, told IPS.

“But it turns out these systemics have major risks that EPA did not fully understand. Now the agency is in a defensive stance … It will be difficult to reel these products back in, but it can be done.”

While some suggest that conservative pushback could doom the currently pending pollinator legislation, Jenkins points to recent evidence of notably broad bipartisan support for such action.

A related provision would have passed the Republican-controlled House of Representatives earlier this year as part of a larger bill that ultimately failed, he says. In addition, the Republican-controlled House committee that oversees financial appropriations for the EPA is currently urging the agency to take related regulatory action.

To a great extent, global precedent on neonic use is currently coming from Europe. The European Union is slated to pass a two-year moratorium on the use of three types of neonics, pending additional research, while the majority of home garden retailers in the United Kingdom have already stopped selling neonic-treated plants.

“If retailers can do this in the U.K., they can do it here,” Friends of the Earth U.S.’s Archer says. “According to the American Gardening Association, more than 80 percent of consumers are interested in purchasing environmentally friendly products, so we’re hoping retailers will see this as an opportunity to be leaders in pollinator protection.”

A honey bee in a willow tree. Credit: Bob Peterson/cc by 2.0

By Matthew Charles Cardinale
ATLANTA, Georgia, Jul 29 2013 (IPS)

Two Congressional Democrats have co-sponsored new legislation called the Save America’s Pollinators Act of 2013 to take emergency action to save the remaining bees in the U.S., and in turn, the U.S. food supply.

At issue is the use of toxic insecticides called neonicotinoids. Recent studies suggest that at least four types of these insecticides are a primary cause of the massive decline in bee populations seen in the U.S. in recent years.“Our ecosystems are based on pollination of native bees; everything from grizzly bears to songbirds rely on foods that rely on pollination." -- Scott Hoffman Black of the Xerxes Society

It is estimated over 10 million beehives been wiped out since 2007, as part of a phenomenon known as Colony Collapse Disorder.

“Given that EPA allowed many of these insecticides on the market without adequate safety assessments and without adequate field studies on their impact to pollinator health, we feel it’s time that Congress support a bill like the Conyers-Blumenauer bill, which would suspend the use of the neonicotinoids until EPA does the adequate science to prove that these neonicotinoids… are not harmful – and if they are harmful, to keep them off the market,” Colin O’Neil, director for government affairs for the Centre for Food Safety, told IPS.

“One-third of food that’s reliant on the honeybee pollination is really under threat, and threats to pollinators concern the entire food system,” O’Neil said.

During the last winter alone, which began in 2012 and ended early this year, U.S. beekeepers lost 45.1 percent of the colonies they operate, with some beekeepers losing 100 percent, according to a government-sponsored study.

The European Union has already imposed a two-year moratorium on several types of neonicotinoids, after the European Food Safety Authority found in January 2013 that certain neonicotinoids were threatening Europe’s bee populations.

In May 2013, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a joint study noting that, “Acute and sublethal effects of pesticides on honey bees have been increasingly documented, and are a primary concern.”

The proposed legislation, by Rep. John Conyers and Rep. Earl Blumenauer, would require the EPA to suspend the use of at least four neonicotinoids, including imidacloprid, clothianidin, thiamethoxam, and dinotafuran.

The legislation would prevent the EPA from re-authorising the use of the chemicals as pesticides until the agency conducts a full review of the scientific evidence. It would have to determine there are no unreasonable adverse effects on bees or other pollinators or beneficial insects before allowing them back on the market.

Through their pollination activities, by which bees allow plants to reproduce, bees are responsible for over 125 billion dollars in global food production, including over 20 billion dollars in the U.S., according to the legislation’s findings.

“Neonicotinoids cause sublethal effects including impaired foraging and feeding behavior, disorientation, weakened immunity, delayed larval development, and increased susceptibility to viruses, diseases, and parasites and numerous studies have also demonstrated acute, lethal effects from the application of neonicotinoid insecticides,” the legislation states.

“Recent science has demonstrated that a single corn kernel coated with a neonicotinoid is toxic enough to kill a songbird,” it says.

In June 2013, over 50,000 bumblebees were killed in Wilsonville, Oregon, as a direct result of exposure to a neonicotinoid that was used not as a pesticide, but to cosmetically improve the appearance of certain trees.

So many bees have already died in the U.S. that just one more bad winter here could cause a major food crisis, one U.S. Department of Agriculture scientist said in the recent report.

O’Neil notes the U.S. House recently approved an amendment to the Farm Bill that would establish an interagency consultation process on pollinator protection, and would establish a task force to address bee decline.

“Passage of that was the first indicator this summer that members of congress were really waking up to this issue,” O’Neil said.

“We feel this bill [Conyers-Blumenauer] is necessary because the bees are dying now, and we can’t wait four years down the road to come to the conclusion that pesticides are killing bees,” he said.

The Centre for Food Safety recently sent an email to their members asking them to contact Gina McCarthy, the new head of the EPA, to encourage her to take action to benefit bees. McCarthy is believed to be a strong proponent of environmental stewardship.

“We’re hoping she’s going to be a better steward of bee health at the EPA than her predecessor was,” O’Neil said.

One of the neonicotinoids was conditionally registered for agricultural uses by the EPA in 2003, based on the fact that it was already registered as an insecticide for non-agricultural uses.

“So they allowed it to be conditionally registered without a field study on the condition this field study would still be received. Ten years later this requirement has never been met and the EPA continues to allow the use,” O’Neil said.

Scott Hoffman Black, executive director of the Xerxes Society, an organisation that advocates on behalf of invertebrates, told IPS, “The important fact about [neonicotinoids], they’re systemic, they’re inside the plant. Others go straight on the plant, and the rain would wash it off after. It’s [the neonicotinoids] in the roots, it’s in the stem, it’s in the flower, it’s in the flower nectar.”

When asked what would happen to te U.S. diet if there was a bee collapse large enough to eliminate pollination across the nation, Hoffman Black said that crops like wheat and corn, which do not require pollination, would still be available.

“Vegetables, fruits, nuts, all things that are highly nutritious and taste really good,” would be eliminated, Hoffman Black said. “We would have rice and wheat.

“Our ecosystems are based on pollination of native bees; everything from grizzly bears to songbirds rely on food that rely on pollination,” he said.

The Supreme Court found naturally occurring segments of DNA "not patent eligible" on Thursday. Credit: Phil Roeder/CC by 2.0

By Carey L. Biron
WASHINGTON, Jun 13 2013 (IPS)

The nine judges of the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously Thursday that naturally occurring DNA, including component parts of that genetic material, cannot be patented.

The decision overturns three decades of practise to the contrary by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Health and civil liberties groups are celebrating the unusual unanimous ruling, as are consumer protection advocates.

Although the case dealt specifically with questions regarding the “isolating” of genes within the human genome, the judges did not limit their decision to human genetics, meaning the case will have an effect throughout the biotechnology industry.

“A naturally occurring DNA segment is a product of nature and not patent eligible merely because it has been isolated,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in the court’s final opinion.

He noted that U.S. patent legislation “permits patents to be issued to ‘[w]hoever invents or discovers any new and useful…composition of matter,’ but ‘laws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas’ ‘are basic tools of scientific and technological work’ that lie beyond the domain of patent protection”.

The court did, however, leave open the possibility of patenting synthetic or “complementary” DNA, artificial copies of DNA that are either separated or constructed in a lab and allowed to evolve on their own.

The biotech industry has long argued that stringent patent protection is needed for companies to feel comfortable spending the significant capital required to fund related research and development.

Others have suggested that allowing such patenting actually quashes innovation by limiting competition, while also pointing to the significant federal money that is often available for such research."A product of nature cannot be patented."
-- Sandra Park

Still, the ruling will likely affect and potentially void thousands of patents on “isolated” genetic material taken out over the past decade or more, though experts say the legal process will now be required to move through each patent on a case-by-case basis. Isolated DNA is genetic material excised from chromosomes but not otherwise altered.

According to current estimates, about 40 percent of the human genome is currently covered in some way by patents.

Product of nature

“The court’s decision today represents a straightforward application of the ‘product of nature’ doctrine, which holds that a product of nature cannot be patented,” Sandra Park, a senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a watchdog group, told reporters after the ruling.

“Maybe a product required great ingenuity to discover, but a product of nature needs to remain as part of the storehouse of knowledge.…This is a simple question but with profound consequences, and from our perspective this ruling is a victory.”

The ACLU has been involved in this case since 2009, when it helped bring a lawsuit on behalf of plaintiffs suffering from breast cancer who found themselves at the mercy of a U.S. company that had patented two genes linked to breast and ovarian cancer. Researchers working for that company, Myriad Genetics, isolated those genes and then developed tests for mutations based on the research.

“These patents here tied up all uses of those particular genes, so if you found a better way to do this testing, you couldn’t do it,” Jaydee Hanson, a policy analyst at the Centre for Food Safety, a Washington advocacy group, told IPS.

“In that way, this is a revolutionary change, and makes clear that the U.S. Patent Office has not understood what the Constitution says as relating to the patenting of naturally occurring things. This is very important, and we will be working hard to disallow Congress from trying to pass any new law suggesting that you can indeed patent DNA.”

In the initial lawsuits, plaintiffs argued that Myriad was able to charge exorbitant prices for the tests and that its patents disallowed competing labs from working with those genes in any way.

“Genes are not being held hostage by private corporations any longer,” Lisbeth Ceriani, a breast cancer survivor and original plaintiff in the case, told reporters Thursday.

“If you’ve been adopted or don’t know your medical history – say, if your parents are from other countries – up until today Myriad had been able to design the criteria for who should take their test, as opposed to doctor or patients. So I’m incredibly relieved, as something that’s been going wrong for more than a decade has finally been corrected.”

Moral obviousness

Medical experts are suggesting that the court’s decision will now have an immediate impact on public health, given that Myriad’s methods – and similar research based on isolated DNA – will be able to be put into broad clinical practice and subjected to further study.

Yet the implications of the ruling will almost certainly be felt beyond the confines of human health.

“Part of the significance of this ruling is that the judges did not specify that the decision applies only to human DNA, so this will now cover the whole range of DNA,” the Centre for Food Safety’s Hanson says.

“Many of the patents out there today are of other mammals, animals, plants and microorganisms. In fact, we’ve recently seen some decline in the number of human patents being issued, but large numbers of other patents are still being issued.”

He also notes that the decision has brought the United States somewhat more in line with legal precedent on this issue elsewhere, particularly in Europe.

“European patent law has set morality as a standard, so some countries have made restrictions on what is patentable gene sequence because it might be immoral to exclude people from being able to engage in certain testing or research,” he says. “In effect, the court has come down on the side of both the U.S. Constitution and moral obviousness.”

Still, those on the losing side of Thursday’s decision are suggesting that they are relieved the ruling did not go farther.

“I’m not fully happy with opinion, but it could have been much worse,” Greg Dolin, a co-director at the University of Baltimore School of Law’s Center for Medicine and Law who formally supported Myriad Genetics in the case, said in a press conference hosted by the Federalist Society, an association of right-wing attorneys.

“Luckily, the court did not undercut the biotechnology industry,” Dolin said. “It took a cautious step, but ultimately didn’t do too much damage – though that remains to be seen, in how the decision is applied to future cases.”

A new act will require the USDA to issue temporary permits allowing farmers to continue planting genetically modified organisms. Credit: Peter Blanchard/CC by 2.0

By Matthew Charles Cardinale
ATLANTA, Georgia, Apr 28 2013 (IPS)

Food safety advocates are outraged over revelations that U.S. Congress and President Barack Obama approved an act that includes a provision purporting to strip federal courts of the ability to prevent the spread of genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

The provision in the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act of 2013 requires the U.S. Department of Agriculture to issue temporary permits allowing the continued planting of GMOs by farmers, even when a court rules that the agency erred in its environmental impact review of the GMOs.

The provision, which activists call the Monsanto Protection Act, is one for which the multinational corporation Monsanto has been lobbying Congress for at least a year. The legislation passed the U.S. House of Representatives on Mar. 6, 2013 and the Senate on Mar. 21, with Obama signing the legislation five days later on Mar. 26.

Revelations of the provision, which was buried in the 587-page spending bill (HR 933, under Division A, Title VI, Section 735), have increased public awareness and interest in the issue of GMOs in the United States.

The provision states that if “a determination of non-regulated status…is or has been invalidated or vacated, the Secretary of Agriculture shall, notwithstanding any other provision of law, upon request by a farmer, grower, farm operator, or producer, immediately grant temporary permit(s) or temporary deregulation in part”.

Industry control

U.S. Senator Jon Tester, a Democrat from Montana and one of the only family farmers in Congress, spoke out against the provision on the floor on the Senate. Once again, agribusiness multinational corporations [are] putting farmers as serfs

“The United States Congress is telling the Agricultural Department that even if a court tells you that you’ve failed to follow the right process and tells you to start over, you must disregard the court’s ruling and allow the crop to be planted anyway,” Tester said.

“Not only does this ignore the constitutional idea of separation of powers, but it also lets genetically modified crops take hold across this country, even when a judge finds it violates the law,” Tester said, describing the issue as “once again, agribusiness multinational corporations putting farmers as serfs”.

Meanwhile, activists are holding Senator Barbara Milkulski, a Democrat from Maryland, partially responsible, as she was the committee chair who allowed the amendment and could have addressed the provision in Congressional hearings

In a statement, Mikulski’s spokeswoman, Rachel MacKnight, defended her. “Senator Mikulski understands the anger over this provision. She didn’t put the language in the bill and doesn’t support it either.”

“As Chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee, Senator Mikulski’s first responsibility was to prevent a government shutdown. That meant she had to compromise on many of her own priorities to get a bill through the Senate that the House would pass,” MacKnight said.

Because the provision is temporary, it will likely come up for reauthorisation in September 2013, an opportunity for public opposition that activists are relishing.

“The USDA has working mechanisms in place to allow for partial deregulation for those crops,” Colin O’Neil, director of government affairs for the Centre for Food Safety, noted in an interview with IPS.

“At best, it’s unnecessary and duplicative. At worst, it takes oversight away from the USDA and puts it in the hands of the industry,” O’Neil said of the provision.

The centre has concerns about how the USDA has used temporary deregulation in the past, such as with genetically modified sugar beets. Both genetically modified alfalfa and sugar beets have been held up in court in the past over National Environmental Policy Act challenges.

“While we have argued that the USDA isn’t adequately protecting farmers and the environment, the rider will essentially prevent the USDA from safeguarding farmers and the environment because it forces the agency to comply with industry demands,” O’Neil said.

Future benefits

Monsanto has proposals for numerous GMO crops in the pipeline that could be affected by this rider.

“I think the Monsanto Protection Act and how it was passed and how it was slipped into law is just another example of how this company operates, how they manipulate our democracy, and they buy off our elected officials,” Dave Murphy, founder of Food Democracy Now, told IPS.

“This is another example of how…they choose to operate within the rules of a democratic society. They’re like the mafia, they go in and write the rules the way they want them to be,” Murphy said.

“Monsanto really did themselves a major disservice by slipping this into a continuing resolution,” he said.

Monsanto, which does derive benefit from the provision, responded in a statement, saying its critics have an “interesting narrative, worthy of a B grade movie script”.

“Virtually none of the people protesting actually read the provision itself. Those who did, found a surprise: It contains no reference to Monsanto, protection of Monsanto, or benefit to Monsanto. It does seek to protect farmers, and we supported the provision,” Monsanto wrote.

Senator Roy Blunt, a Republican from Missouri, inserted the provision, or “rider”, into the spending bill, according to Politico. Monsanto is based in St. Louis, Missouri.