AR-NEWS Digest 436

Topics covered in this issue include:

  1) (US) Ten Threats to Wilderness Named
     by No1BadGrl@aol.com
  2) (INDIA) Illegal Transplant Suspect Wants Out
     by No1BadGrl@aol.com
  3) (US) Daily News (NY): City's Pet Killer -- Critics
     by Marisul@aol.com
  4) (US) New York Post: City Overwhelmed by Strays of Execution
     by Marisul@aol.com
  5) BRAZZAVILLE, Republic of Congo-Apes Evacuated from Zoo
     by No1BadGrl@aol.com
  6) Verdict Near in 'McLibel' Case
     by allen schubert 
  7) McLibel by the Numbers
     by allen schubert 
  8) VALRICO, Fla, USA-Fla. Residents Wary of Pest Spray
     by No1BadGrl@aol.com
  9) Deadly Medicine
     by Andrew Gach 
 10) Mad Cow Disease in Texas
     by Andrew Gach 
 11) FWD: "FDA: Monsanto's Washington Branch Office
     by Andrew Gach 
 12) Genetic Engineering : Past, Present, and Future (long)
     by Andrew Gach 
Date: Sun, 15 Jun 1997 08:23:22 -0400 (EDT)
From: No1BadGrl@aol.com
To: ar-news@envirolink.org
Subject: (US) Ten Threats to Wilderness Named
Message-ID: <970615082321_522495000@emout13.mail.aol.com>


      WASHINGTON (AP) - Environmentally sensitive lands in the United
States face a range of threats, from oil drilling and military
exercises to suburban sprawl, the Wilderness Society said in
listing lands it considers the nation's 10 most threatened wild
areas.
      The environmental advocates put at the top of the list, released
Saturday, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in far northern
Alaska, which oil companies have eyed for years as a source of
petroleum. Congress would have to approve such drilling.
      A proposal to drill for oil also put the Grand
Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah on the Wilderness
Society's threatened list.
      President Clinton designated the monument last year by blocking
attempts to develop huge coal reserves. But Conoco, a subsidiary of
Dupont, has plans for exploratory drilling within the monument
under existing federal oil leases.
      A proposed mine was cited as the reason the Okefenokee National
Wildlife Refuge, 400,000 acres of wooded marsh land in Georgia and
Florida, made the list of threatened lands. The mine on 38,000
acres at the eastern border of the refuge poses an environmental
threat, the group said.
      In northern California and Oregon, the Klamath Basin National
Wildlife Refuge made the list. The group said it is being
threatened by widespread diversion of water, causing marshes at
times to dry up, the group said.
      ``The Klamath Basin is trying to hang onto enough of its water
to remain ecologically viable,'' the Wilderness Society said. The
refuge features millions of geese, ducks and shore birds and the
largest collection of bald eagles in the lower 48 states.
      Expanded military flights and training activities are posing
environmental threats to refuge and environmentally sensitive areas
in Arizona, Idaho and California, the wilderness group said.
      It listed the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge in Arizona
as being threatened by a proposal to substantially increase
military training flights from a nearby Air Force base and a Marine
air station. This will threaten ``the solitude and silence'' of the
refuge and would harm Sonoran pronghorn antelope, desert bighorn
sheep and other wildlife, the group said.
      The group said the Owythee Canyonland in Idaho will be damaged
by a planned new Air Force electronic combat bombing range that
will cause supersonic jets to crisscross the isolated region.
      And more than 331,000 acres of southern California desert, being
studied as possible wilderness area, faces a threat from Army plans
to expand its tank warfare training facilities near Fort Irwin.
      In upstate New York, urban sprawl was blamed for threatening
parts of the Adirondack Park because of the proposed sale of 15,000
acres of the Whitney Estate, the park's largest family-owned
estate. A 41-lot subdivision is planned on the estate.
      Road building through a patchwork of federal and private land in
the Snoqualmie Pass region of Washington state is raising anxiety
and put that region on the Wilderness Society's list. The roadless
federal lands serve as ``a habitat bridge'' for an assortment of
wildlife, the group said.
      The Boundary Waters Canoe Wilderness area in Minnesota is
threatened by renewed attempts to expand use of motorized vehicles,
motorboats and snowmobiles, the Wilderness Society said.
Date: Sun, 15 Jun 1997 08:24:37 -0400 (EDT)
From: No1BadGrl@aol.com
To: ar-news@envirolink.org
Subject: (INDIA) Illegal Transplant Suspect Wants Out
Message-ID: <970615082436_-859849959@emout01.mail.aol.com>

 GAUHATI, India (AP) - A doctor who was arrested on suspicion of
transplanting the organs of a pig into a 32-year-old patient has
asked an Indian court to allow him to return to Hong Kong.
      The case against Jonathan Kei-Shing Ho should be dropped because
no formal charges have been filed against him, his attorney Kalyan
Pathak said Saturday. In India, police have 90 days to file charges
after an arrest.
      Ho, along with Dr. Dhaniram Baruah and a paramedic, were
arrested Jan. 9 on charges of culpable homicide and violating the
Indian Organ Transplantation Act after they claimed to have
transplanted a pig's heart, lungs, kidneys, gall bladder and
pancreas into the patient, whose name or gender were not disclosed.
      If convicted, Ho, who has a British passport, could face 10
years in prison.
      The operation was conducted on New Year's Day in Baruah's heart
clinic in Gauhati, in the northeast state of Assam. Baruah said the
patient lived for seven days, but authorities claim the procedure
may have been performed after the patient died.
      Ho spent 40 days in prison before he was released on bail. Two
months ago, the court allowed him to leave Gauhati, but kept his
passport.
      Pathak filed a motion in a Gauhati court last week, asking that
the charges against Ho be dropped and his passport returned. ``I
have presented a petition to the court to quash the charges against
him,'' Pathak told The Associated Press.
      Pathak didn't say when a ruling could be expected.
      Lawyers for Baruah and the paramedic also want charges against
them dropped.
Date: Sun, 15 Jun 1997 13:43:13 -0400 (EDT)
From: Marisul@aol.com
To: ar-news@envirolink.org
Subject: (US) Daily News (NY): City's Pet Killer -- Critics
Message-ID: <970615134312_-462585101@emout11.mail.aol.com>

Daily News (NY)
June 15, 1997, p. 12

CITY'S PET KILLER -- CRITICS

by Bob Liff

     The city agency created to control and care for stray pets is an animal
killing field wracked by management problems, lack of funds, staff turnover
and inadequate space, according to animal activists and City Council
investigators.
     The city created the Center for Animal Care and Control 2 1/2 years ago
to bring a more humane approach to the handling of tens of thousands of
unwanted dogs and cats found on the street each year.
     But the center has been euthanizing more than 40,000 animals a year
while finding adoptive homes for no more than 18% of the strays it picks up.
 That's far lower than the 24% average nationally.
     "Their goal seems to be to bring the animals in the front door and carry
their dead bodies out of the back door" said City Councilwoman Kathryn Freed
(D-Manhattan).
     Freed said a Council investigation confirmed the complaints of animal
lovers who have charged that the center is little better than the agency it
replaced, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
     A recent Daily News tour of the Manhattan facility found dogs and cats
in double-stacked cages in the adopton wards and cages lining the hallways.
     "The center doesn't seem to be able to do anything except euthanize
animals," said Freed, who will release the results of the Council
investigation tomorrow.
     The center was created as a nonprofit agency to assume the duties
performed for 100 years by the ASPCA, which pulled out of the animal control
business amid criticism.
     The center receives $5 million in city funds a year, about what the
ASPCA received.  But it has not replaced the $2 million in private
contributions the ASPCA raised each year to augment the city subsidy.
     The center has been without an executive director since February, and it
never fulfilled a promise to install and operate a computer system to track
the animals in its care.
     The agency also failed to meet its promise to spay or neuter all the
animals that are adopted from its offices.  The Council found that more than
60% of the animals adopted from the center had not had the procedures --
which are deemed essential for adopted pets.
     Dr. Susan Kopp, the center's chief veterinarian, called the criticism
from animal activists "persecution and lies."
     But Kopp conceded that lack of funding has left the center short of some
medication.  She said the city spends 67 cents per resident for animal
control, about half the $1.36 per person spent by the average publicly run
shelter.
     Kopp also acknowledged that the center's 110th Street headquarters,
inherited from the ASPCA, is "inadequate for the number of animals."
     Half of the animals that the center lists as adopted are actually sent
to no-kill shelters like Long Island's North Shore Animal League.  They take
what board member Lia Albo called "the fluffy, the cute."
     That leaves the center with the least adoptable animals -- the stray pit
bulls, the old and lame.
     But Albo said city statistics that showed 71% of the 63,449 animals
handled last year were killed are similar to the ASPCA's record.
     "It could be run by Mother Teresa, or it could be run by [Libya's
Moammar] Khadafy and the problem would still be there," she said.
------------------------------------
The City Council hearings on the CACC are tomorrow, Monday, June 16 at 11
a.m. at City Hall and are open to the public.
Date: Sun, 15 Jun 1997 15:10:11 -0400 (EDT)
From: Marisul@aol.com
To: ar-news@envirolink.org
Subject: (US) New York Post: City Overwhelmed by Strays of Execution
Message-ID: <970615151010_2055283413@emout11.mail.aol.com>

New York Post, Sunday, June 15, 1997, p.24-25

CITY OVERWHELMED BY STRAYS OF EXECUTION
Up to 200 Animals Dumped on Streets a Day

by Susan Edelman

     Homeless dogs and cats are destroyed at the chilling rate of 125 a day
on a grim assembly line of death run by the city's Center for Animal Care and
Control.
     Many  young, healthy, adoptable pets are "put down," officials admit, to
make room for the daily influx of up to 200 stray confiscated or
owner-rejected animals.
     CACC officials say theirs is an almost impossible situation, created by
people who care too little for animals.
     "Society is dumping animals at an alarming rate, and we have to deal
with it 24 hours a day," said CACC spokeswoman Faith Elliott.
     "The problem is out there, and everything comes to a head in here.  It's
a very difficult, stressful, thankless job."
     The numbers involved are staggering:
          The CACC took in 63,449 animals last year -- 12% more than the
previous year.  Most -- 56,392 -- were dogs and cats.
          Three-fourths of the dogs and cats -- 42,924 -- were destroyed.
          The CACC spends $158,000 a year to cart away and cremate animal
carcasses but just $14,000 a year on "public education" -- which includes
promoting adoption and spay neuter programs that could help curb animal
overpopulation and cut the death toll.
          Only a fraction of the stray and abandoned dogs and cats are
adopted.  Last year, the CACC found new homes for 10% of its charges.
 Another 10% were placed through the ASPCA, the North Shore Animal League and
other shelters and rescuers.  Adoptions totaled 11,147.
     Animal advocates call the CACC's main shelters in Brooklyn and Manhattan
"death camps" where animals often sit in cramped cages for days or weeks
without fresh air or exercise.
     At the East 110th Street shelter in Manhattan, which houses more than
600 animals, the barking in packed dog wards is so deafening that workers
must wear hearing protection.
     "Homeless pets aren't garbage," activists chanted at a recent City Hall
rally calling for creation of a city Department of Animal Affairs mandated to
eventually stop the killing.  They hope to collect 50,000 signatures by
Aug.15 to get the issue on the November ballot.
     CACC workers say it's no picnic killing pets, and they insist they're
doing the best they can to manage a crisis.
     Last year, nearly 20,000 pets were dropped off by owners, despite
warnings they might be destroyed.
     "They call us 'killing bastards' but who killed the cat -- the shelter,
or the person who dumped it without even making a phone call to find someone
else to take it?" Elliott asked.
     "A person just breaks his bond with his animal and walks out the door,
and after a week or so the shelter is overcrowded and the animal is put
down."
     Sanitation Commissioner John Doherty, chairman of the CACC board, called
euthanasia of excess pets a necessary evil.
     "You just don't have enough cages, enough space, enough money to house
them forever," he said.
     But the steady extermination takes a toll on CACC volunteers -- animal
lovers who come to walk or groom the castoffs.
     "I feel like I'm walking graveyard dogs," one disheartened volunteer
said.
     Besides deserted pets and strays -- which must be kept alive only 48
hours to give owners a chance to claim them -- the center holds animals
seized from people arrested for animal cruelty and other crimes, and also
must house fighting pit bulls and dogs that have bitten people.
     These "holding" animals take up space that might otherwise allow
sociable pets a reprieve from the "euthanasia room", Elliott said.
     "If you run out of space in the ward where the vicious dogs are kept,
you might have to pick and choose a few adoptable animals to be put to
sleep," she noted.
     A typical victim of the space crunch was Max, a Golden retriever/German
shepherd mix who rested silently and peered at visitors while his neighbors
panted and barked crazily.
     Someone had scribbled on Max's cage: "great dog, friendly and sociable."
     The notation kept Max alive for more than a week, but it wasn't enough
to spare him from the euthanasia needle.
     The nonprofit CACC was formed 2 1/5 years ago to take over from the
ASPCA, which bowed out of the animal control business after 100 years.
     ASPCA President Roger Caras sympathizes with the CACC's plight.  He says
the ASPCA did an "embarrasingly bad" job but blames the city:
     "At the very least, to do a rotten job, it took us $6 million a year.
 The most we could get from the city was $4.5 million."
     THe CACC inherited the ASPCA's tight budget and aging buildings,
although the city is spending $2.8 million to renovate the decrepit Brooklyn
shelter.
     The agency's first executive director, Martin Kurtz, resigned in January
amid complaints of callousness and incompetence.
     He has not been replaced, and an effort to woo a highly qualified
candidate failed.  Giuliani's office wants to "loan" a city manager to run
the shelters while the CACC conducts a "nationwide search," said Doherty.
      Meanwhile, the CACC and its practices have come under investigation by
the City Council Contracts Committee, chaired by Councilwoman Kathryn Freed
(D-Manhattan). A public hearing is set for tomorrow at 11 a.m.
     Elliott called adoptions "the No. 1 priority of the CACC."
     But none of the $4.8 million the city pays the CACC to operate is
allocated for advertising.
     This year, Elliott said, the CACC scraped together $30,000 from
donations and shelter fees to place ads in subways and posters on garbage
trucks promoting adoptions from CACC shelters.
     The CACC also spent about $8,000 to produce 18 half hour videos, called
"For Pet's Sake," featuring adoptable shelter animals.  The videos, the
brainchild of a shelter volunteer, ran on two cable networks, Manhattan
Neighborhood Network and QPTV in Queens.
     Elliott agrees the CACC could do much more to boost adoptions, like
place dogs and cats in pet-supply stores where they will be visible.  She has
proposed such a program, but hasn't gotten a go-ahead.

FOUR 'TAILS' OF WOE -- TWO WITH HAPPY ENDINGS

     Every day beloved pets and dogs and cats with great potential fall
victim to the incessant slaughter at the overburdened Center for Animal Care
and Control. Here are the stories of four animals: two that should not have
perished and two that narrowly escaped destruction.
     Beauregard beat the odds.
     "Nasty Chihuahua -- too nasty for adoption," his intake card at the
CACC's Manhattan shelter noted.
     Beauregard, actually a mini-Doberman, had been turned in by someone who
couldn't -- or wouldn't -- keep him.
     When a CACC employee urged Patty Adjamine, a pet rescuer with New
Yorkers for Companion Animals, to foster the mutt, she balked.
     But once she learned the pooch would be destroyed immediately, guilt set
in.  So she took Beauregard home.  And there he's stayed.
     "I can't bear to part with him," she said.  "He's lovable and devoted --
not nasty at all."
     Adjamine believes many animals have had similar experiences at CACC
shelters -- with less pleasant outcomes.
     "They're misbranded as nasty or aggressive but really just nervous or
frightened.  The staff can't tell the difference."
     When a fluffy, white, green-eyed cat was brought to the Manhattan CACC
shelter who found him abandoned in a cardboard box,  staffers feared he was
wild.
     The tossed the feline in a metal cage and marked it "Status 3" -- a
rating given to sick or unsociable animals.
     At the CACC, it's a death sentence.
     Pet rescuer Adjamine, who happened to be in the lobby, put her hand in
the cage to pet the prisoner.
     "This is a sweet cat!" she objected.  She grabbed a phone a called a
friend, who adopted the cat and named him Nicholas, because he was "saved in
the nick of time."
     CACC spokeswoman Faith Elliott conceded that animals can be misdiagnosed
in the daily crush.
     "If you're an intake clerk on the front lines, with people bringing in
cat after cat after cat, it's a very sad realilty that [you] will not always
have time to do a bang-up job on each one."
     Elliott said staffers try to spend some time with animals to guage their
personalities.  But, she agreed, they need training.
     CACC also needs a computerized animal-inventory system -- as Brooklyn's
14 year old Stephanie Stile tragically learned after her dog, Rommel, when
astray.
     She said here 5 year old Rottweiler slipped out of her family's fenced
Sunset Park yard and ran loose, frightening some children.
     Cops shot the dog with a tranquilizer dart and took it to the CACC
shelter in Manhattan because the Brooklyn shelter had closed for the night.
     But Stephanie and her dad, James, didn't figure that out until it was
too late.  A local police lieutenant told them the precinct had no record of
the pickup -- although it did -- and a Brooklyn CACC staffer informed them
"it would be a waste of time" to check the Manhattan shelter, the Stiles
said.
     By the time they discovered Rommel's whereabouts, the dog was dead.  He
had been euthanized a day earlier, his third day at the shelter.
     James Stile insists that Rommel was wearing two tags -- one with the
family's phone number, the other with his vet's name and number.
     Told their pet had been carted away for a "mass cremation" the Stiles
contacted the Pet Crematory Agency in West Babylon, LI where workers found
Rommel among hundreds of dead CACC animals.
     The Stiles paid $300 to have the dog` -- which had once save them from
an armed robber -- cremate privately.
     "It was like losing a family member," Stephanie said.  "I was angry
about it, I still am and always will be."
     Another Brooklyn pet owner, Joseph Marciano, said his pet Labrador
retriever, Coco, was wearing an ID tag when he jumped a backyard fence in
Sheepshead Bay and got lost.
     The following evening, Marciano said, neighbors told him the dog had
been picked up by an "animal rescue" truck.  He called the CACC's Brooklyn
shelter, but it was closed.
     When he visited the next day after work, he learned that Coco had been
put to sleep that morning.  
     The CACC is required by law to hold strays 48 hours to give owners a
chance to claim them.  After that, the animals can be put up for adoption --
or destroyed.
     "They did the wrong thing," Marciano said, choking back tears.  He plans
to sue the CACC.
     CACC's Elliott insisted that both Rommel and Coco were not wearing tags
when they arrived at the shelter.
     "If there's an ID tag -- any kind of ID -- calls are made immediately,"
she said, noting that the shelters routinely return lost pets.

TRAGIC VICTIMS DO NOT GO QUIETLY -- FOES

     A lethal injection of the anesthetic pentobarbitol is the end of the
line for most animals taken in by the city's Center for Animal Care and
Control.
     "It's very fast and very painless," said Faith Elliott, CACC
spokeswoman.
     Daily, shelter employees decide which animals will die to make room for
more.  Others are dispatched when they catc a cold or contagious disease,
which can spread like a plag through a ward's rows and stacks of cages.
     "We don't have the money for the treatment. We don't have the space for
the treatment," said Denise Brown, a Manhattan shelter director.  "We have no
choice."
     Volunteers and others who have been around when animals are killed at
the CACC's East 110th Street shelter -- several hours at a time, early
morning and late afternoon -- paint a "horrible scene" of howling dogs and
"terrified" cats.
     "Dogs have an acute sense of smell.  A lot of them sense what's going to
happen," said Patty Adjamine, who is director of New Yorkers for Companion
Animals.  She worked at the shelter in 1995 and 1996.
     "Most of the dos have to be dragged by a catch pole.  Some of them fight
like crazy."
     When their time runs out -- sometimes the day they arrive -- doomed dogs
are yanked from thei cages and hooked by nooses to the wall outside the
killing room and taken in one at a time.
     "I've seen dogs shaking, whining, crying.  Sometimes they pee or poop in
the hallway just out of fear," Adjamine said.
     The dead animals are piled in 4 foot high bins, rolled into a freezer
and picked up on weekdays by trucks from the Pet Crematory Agency in West
Babylon, LI, said manager Michael Mytko.
     His company operates two animal cremation ovens eight hours a day --
burning 600 pounds of dogs and cats an hour -- for the CACC and other
shelters.
     The company is paid $158,000 a year by the city Sanitation Department.

NEW LAW WOULD MAKE PET OWNERS SPAY UP

     If your dog or cat plays, you have to pay.  
     That's the message in a proposed law that would require the
sterilization of all pets in the city -- with owners paying $50 a year for
each "unaltered" animal.
     Councilwoman Kathryn Freed (D-Manhattan) is pushing the plan in a bill
she intends to introduce this month.
     "We're killing all these unwanted animals, and most of them live short,
horrible, suffering lives before they're finally euthanized," she said.  "The
only way to control the amount of unwanted animals is to quit producing
them."
     Animal advocates applaud  the bill, while the city Health Department
isn't as enthusiastic -- it's the agency that would be charged with enforcing
the legislation.
     "How do you enforce a law that requires people to spay and neuther their
animals? asked Health Department spokesman Fred Winters.
     He said many people will dump their animals rather than comply.
     Advocates say low-cost sterilization is widely available from vets and
such organizations as the Have a Heart clinic on West 52d Street.
     Many cities have higher license fees for "intact" dogs and cats.
     Other cities impose fines of $100 to $200 for people who let unaltered
pets run loose.
     In April 1996, Camden, NJ, passed the toughest animal-control law in the
country.  It requires a $500 -a - year fee for every unalter dog or cat over
six months old.
Date: Sun, 15 Jun 1997 17:53:15 -0400 (EDT)
From: No1BadGrl@aol.com
To: ar-news@envirolink.org
Subject: BRAZZAVILLE, Republic of Congo-Apes Evacuated from Zoo
Message-ID: <970615175314_-1697966509@emout03.mail.aol.com>

      By ALEXANDRA ZAVIS
      BRAZZAVILLE, Republic of Congo (AP) - The scientists had just 20
minutes to dash into the zoo, tranquilize the terrified lowland
gorillas and get them out of the war zone.
      Under the guard of French soldiers, a team of wildlife experts
rescued four young apes - but had to leave one behind in the
violence-wracked city. They had brought no cage big enough for Man,
a 14-year-old gorilla.
      ``I dread to think'' what will become of him and the other
animals left at the zoo, said the team's leader, Amos Courage of
Britain's Howletts Zoo.
      Courage led the Saturday evacuation from the zoo, which is near
the airport that has seen some of the fiercest fighting between
President Pascal Lissouba's troops and Gen. Denis Sassou-Nguesso's
militia.
      The apes were part of a special program, run by Howletts and the
Congolese government, that prepares gorillas and chimpanzees
orphaned by poaching to be released into a government wildlife
sanctuary 75 miles north of the capital.
      The program has been running for eight years, but was put on
hold because of the fighting and evacuation.
      On Saturday, French troops standing guard gave the evacuation
team 20 minutes to tranquilize four gorillas with drug-tipped darts
and load them into cages and vans.
      ``When I arrived to dart them, they were clinging to each other
and completely freaked out,'' Courage said.
      The four were flown to a zoo in Pointe Noire, about 190 miles
west of the capital, on Sunday. Four other gorillas were sent to
Pointe Noire last week.
      Man, the ape left behind, was left with a week's supply of food.
He would be cared for by a keeper who will look after him and the
other animals, Courage said.
      Fewer than 50,000 lowland gorillas are left in the wild - mostly
in equatorial Africa. The plight of mountain gorillas is even more
serious: Only about 600 are left in the world, most in neighboring
Rwanda, Uganda and Congo, the country formally known as Zaire.
      Wildlife officials in the Republic of Congo estimate fewer than
100 wild lowland gorillas are left in the north of the country,
while the species has virtually disappeared from the forests in the
south.
      ``Here in the Congo, gorillas are hunted for their delicious
meat,'' Marcel Nguimbi, coordinator of the Brazzaville zoo ape
project, said in a recent interview.
      Gorilla body parts are also believed to hold magical powers: A
gorilla's finger bone tied to a baby's wrist or put in bath water
is believed to make the baby healthy and courageous, Nguimbi said.
      Fighting in Brazzaville broke out June 5, when President
Lissouba sent in government forces to disarm Sassou-Nguesso's
private Cobra militia.
      Though a shaky cease-fire was declared Wednesday, intense
fighting broke out Sunday while French troops, who have been
evacuating foreigners from the city, prepared to end their mission
and leave in a few days. Late Sunday, they said they would would
fly out at least one more planeload of frightened foreigners
Monday.
Date: Sun, 15 Jun 1997 21:12:18 -0400
From: allen schubert 
To: ar-news@envirolink.org
Subject: Verdict Near in 'McLibel' Case
Message-ID: <3.0.32.19970615211216.006d8ef4@clark.net>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

from AP Wire page(!):
------------------------------------
 06/15/1997 13:32 EST

 Verdict Near in 'McLibel' Case

 By DIRK BEVERIDGE
 AP Business Writer

 LONDON (AP) -- McDonald's Corp. may be on the verge of victory in the
 longest trial ever heard by an English court -- but at what a cost.

 After three years, much adverse publicity and a legal bill worth millions
 of Big Macs, the global hamburger giant is about to get a verdict in its
 libel case against two obscure vegetarian activists, Dave Morris and
 Helen Steel.

 Legal experts predict a judgment largely in favor of McDonald's, which
 accuses Morris, an unemployed former postman, and Steel, a part-time bar
 worker, of defaming it with pamphlets that attack the company's business
 practices.

 But any victory by McDonald's could ring hollow. The marathon case dubbed
 ``McLibel'' has turned Morris, 43, and Steel, 31, into fringe heroes of
 the political left, standing up against what they call the oppressive
 evils of multinational capitalism.

 Morris and Steel have been showered by international attention -- through
 newspapers, a book, a British television miniseries and an Internet web
 site -- that they couldn't have dreamed of had McDonald's left them
 alone.

 ``We believe we've already won, because McDonald's brought this case to
 silence their critics and it's had the opposite effect,'' Morris said.

 If McDonald's should somehow lose, its embarrassment would be enormous.

 At issue is an old pamphlet, distributed by campaigners for years outside
 British McDonald's outlets, entitled ``What's wrong with McDonald's?
 Everything they don't want you to know.''

 The pamphlet shows a Ronald McDonald mask covering the face of a grubby
 capitalist. It accuses McDonald's of promoting an unhealthy diet full of
 fat and too much salt, treating workers and animals poorly, using beef
 from former rainforest lands and luring children into its stores with a
 seductive ad campaign.

 All false and defamatory, McDonald's claimed. It says it has spent so
 much money -- the company won't confirm reports that the case cost it $16
 million -- and time because its reputation is worth it.

 McDonald's says it is confident winning when the judge, Justice Roger
 Bell, delivers his verdict by the end of this week.

 McDonald's, with revenues that came to $10.7 billion last year, can
 certainly afford the legal tab. But many observers question the company's
 wisdom.

 ``It was, as it turned out, very crazy for them to bring the action,''
 said Eric Barendt, a professor of media law at University College in
 London.

 ``They have spent lots of money that they can't recover,'' Barendt said.
 ``They have had a lot of bad publicity and they appear oppressive.''

 Any victory by McDonald's will be tainted by public perceptions that the
 trial was a mismatch.

 McDonald's hired prominent London libel lawyer Richard Rampton to take on
 the two defendants who showed up in shirt sleeves, often appearing
 awkward and bewildered by trial procedures as they represented themselves
 throughout a record 313 days in court.

 McLibel set several milestones for legal longevity in England, duly
 taking a place in The Guinness Book of Records. When the case was handed
 to the judge late last year, it had become the longest English trial
 ever, outdoing the 291-day case of a Londoner caught impersonating a
 nobleman during the 1870s.

 McDonald's would find it hard if not impossible to fight such a libel
 case in the United States, where plaintiffs who are public figures face
 the difficult task of proving in court that they have been falsely and
 maliciously defamed. In Britain, laws are much more favorable to those
 bringing libel cases, because defendants are forced to prove that what
 they said was true.

 Critics say the rich and powerful can easily manipulate such a system.
 The late publishing tycoon Robert Maxwell is frequently cited as an
 example of a corrupt figure who used threats of lawsuits to silence his
 foes.

 Despite its legal advantages, McDonald's may have underestimated the
 consequences of picking a fight with people who had nothing to lose. When
 it brought the case, McDonald's apparently thought that Morris and Steel
 would cave in along with three other activists the company sued.

 Morris and Steel said the leaflets are true, so they decided to fight.
 They slugged it out through 28 pretrial hearings before the trial finally
 began on June 28, 1994.

 The defense called disgruntled former McDonald's workers, farmers and
 nutritionists, and says it extracted embarrassing confessions from
 McDonald's executives, some of whom were grilled for more than two weeks
 on the witness stand.

 The proceedings generated much publicity, including one report that a
 female private eye hired by McDonald's to infiltrate the left-wing
 activists ended up having an affair with one of the campaigners to gain
 his confidence.

 McDonald's tried to get out, flying over corporate directors from Chicago
 to seek a settlement. Morris and Steel dug in, eventually calling 60
 witnesses, compared with 70 called by McDonald's.

 The vegetarians say they proved every point, but even if the pamphlet is
 found to be libelous, it is now available worldwide on an Internet site
 called ``McSpotlight'' set up by their supporters.

 The environmental campaigners say they handed out another 2 million
 copies during the McLibel trial and they are printing thousands more to
 be distributed as they picket McDonald's stores across Britain on the
 Saturday after the verdict.

Date: Sun, 15 Jun 1997 21:13:26 -0400
From: allen schubert 
To: ar-news@envirolink.org
Subject: McLibel by the Numbers
Message-ID: <3.0.32.19970615211323.006d8ef4@clark.net>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

from AP Wire page(!):
----------------------------------
 06/15/1997 13:32 EST

 McLibel by the Numbers

 By The Associated Press

 Some numbers from the libel lawsuit by McDonald's Corp. against two
 vegetarian activists:

 Pretrial hearings: 28

 Start of trial: June 28, 1994

 Case goes to judge: Dec. 13, 1996

 Days in court: 313

 Number of witnesses: 130; 70 for McDonald's, 60 for defendants

 Pages of court transcripts: approximately 19,000

 Pages of documents introduced as evidence: approximately 40,000

 Number of anti-McDonald's leaflets that the company's foes claim to have
 distributed in Britain during the trial: approximately 2 million.

 Records set:

 Longest English libel case, when it hit 102 days on March 13, 1995

 Longest civil trial in English history, when it hit 199 days on Dec. 11,
 1995

 Longest trial in English history, when it hit 292 days on Nov. 1, 1996

Date: Sun, 15 Jun 1997 21:42:01 -0400 (EDT)
From: No1BadGrl@aol.com
To: ar-news@envirolink.org
Subject: VALRICO, Fla, USA-Fla. Residents Wary of Pest Spray
Message-ID: <970615213535_1585970486@emout12.mail.aol.com>

 VALRICO, Fla. (AP) - A $6 million government spraying effort to
protect southwest Florida's citrus industry has some residents
questioning whether they're paying another price - their
livelihoods and health.
      Dozens of Mediterranean fruit flies, one of the most harmful
fruit fly pests, were discovered in the Tampa Bay area in the past
three weeks. Once larvae burrow into fruits and vegetables, the
produce spoils quickly and drops prematurely. Entire crops can be
ruined.
      It is one of the most serious medfly outbreaks in Florida in
decades, and the government has spent $6 million since the medflies
were discovered.
      So with Florida's $3.6 billion citrus industry at risk,
helicopters started spraying the sticky malathion pesticide to kill
medflies.
      Fish farmer Donn Christy said his 3,000 tropical angelfish - a
$6,500 inventory - died when the poison malathion fell over his
home.
      ``I just don't think it's fair they're putting me out of
business trying to keep somebody else in,'' Christy said.
      Brandon beekeeper Steve Grande said he watched his Italian
honeybees die even though state experts assured that his 1,000
hives would be safe.
      Samm Philmore of Brandon said the chemicals have made him lose
an organic certification for his herb and vegetable garden.
      The first medfly was found in a trap in a backyard fruit tree in
the Brandon area. Since May 28, 155 flies have been found.
      For each medfly found in a trap, scientists estimated that 500
or 1,000 were buzzing around free. An area is not considered
medfly-free until state officials have gone three months without
trapping one of the insects.
      Agriculture officials found more medflies Saturday, which means
helicopters will spray more and will expand the range. They also
hope to find DC-3 airplanes for the sprayings. Officials have said
malathion is safe but urged residents to keep their pets inside and
take other precautions.
Date: Sun, 15 Jun 1997 19:16:08 -0700
From: Andrew Gach 
To: ar-news@envirolink.org
Subject: Deadly Medicine
Message-ID: <33A4A1E8.70F6@worldnet.att.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
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FDA orders controls on apparently addictive migraine drug

The Associated Press 

WASHINGTON (June 15, 1997 9:20 p.m. EDT) -- Bruce Fisher was overjoyed
to finally find a drug that almost instantaneously snuffed out his
severe migraines. But the Illinois man became hooked on the seemingly
innocuous nasal spray -- and at age 24, in the midst of addiction
therapy, he shot himself to death.

Now, after hundreds of reports of patient dependence, the Food and Drug
Administration has recommended that the popular migraine drug Stadol be
classified as a controlled substance, to curb how doctors prescribe it.

The Drug Enforcement Administration says the new restrictions, on both
the shot version hospitals provide and the popular nasal spray Stadol
NS, will be in force within months.

That's too late for Chicago neurologist Dr. Morris Fisher, who despite
his own medical expertise had no inkling Stadol could be addictive until
his son was in trouble. He argues in this month's journal Neurology that
neither the FDA nor Stadol's manufacturer adequately warned doctors or
patients about what they knew was a mounting problem.

"The evidence would raise some questions about their having acted in the
best interests of patients or physicians," Fisher said.

Manufacturer Bristol-Myers Squibb vehemently disagrees. In February 1995
-- six months before the younger Fisher's death -- it recommended to the
FDA that the Stadol nasal spray be reclassified a controlled substance.

Still, "I don't think we have a problem," the company's medical
director, Dr. Darlene Jody, contended. "Our data suggest that very few
patients who have been prescribed Stadol NS have had problems with abuse
or addiction."

The FDA has received reports of 41 deaths and 774 addiction-associated
side effects possibly involving Stadol.

The injectable version, sold since 1978, accounted for some. But for the
nasal spray, the FDA lists 654 addiction-associated reactions and 18
deaths -- seven associated with drug abuse or addiction.

The spray was approved for marketing only in 1991.

The nasal spray, which Fisher wrote is five times more potent than the
injection, accounts for the vast majority of Stadol's estimated $100
million in annual sales.

Every week, Dr. Joel Saper of the Michigan Head Pain and Neurology
Institute in Ann Arbor hospitalizes two to three Stadol addicts who seek
help from around the country.

Very few abuse Stadol for the "buzz" it gives certain users, he said.
Instead, the problem is unique to migraines: The more painkillers some
sufferers take, the more headaches they actually get. This "rebound
syndrome" causes them to take enough Stadol to get hooked.

"Here is a drug that really works for some people," Saper said. "The
problem is doctors were not aware of the physical dependency risks,"
which would have warned them to withhold Stadol from patients with
frequent migraines.

Saper hospitalized Marla, an Iowa mother, after she went from using the
prescribed dose of Stadol NS two days a week to needing an entire $70
bottle every five days.

"You do what you do to function," explained Marla, who spoke from her
Ann Arbor hospital room on condition that her last name not be used. "It
works almost immediately. Within 15 minutes your pain is starting to be
relieved. But it's very easy for people to get out of hand with it."

Stadol was especially developed to be less addictive than such narcotics
as morphine. The FDA originally thought Stadol wouldn't be a problem
because increasing doses -- a major sign of abuse -- can cause
unpleasant reactions in many patients.

But seven states already have made Stadol a controlled substance.

The DEA curbs will limit how often doctors prescribe Stadol and how many
refills patients get. The FDA also is considering whether to warn
doctors officially of the addiction potential.

The danger may not be sufficient to warrant such an expensive, intrusive
move, FDA addictive drugs chief Dr. Curtis Wright said.

The FDA started investigating Stadol in 1994. By then, 39 states had
reported abuse ranging from forged prescriptions to street sales, Fisher
discovered by viewing FDA files through a Freedom of Information
request.

When Bristol-Myers agreed for the nasal spray to be controlled in
February 1995, the DEA responded that legally it would have to curb the
shots too. Last May, Bristol-Myers agreed, and the FDA made the
recommendation formal in September.

Fisher doesn't understand the delay and says doctors need the addiction
warning now. He notes that FDA just last April had to warn Bristol-Myers
to rewrite a promotional brochure that said Stadol NS had "low potential
for abuse."

Bristol-Myers' Jody insists Stadol does have low potential -- compared
to morphine. And the FDA's Wright notes that language explaining all
that is in the drug's official labeling that doctors are supposed to
read, albeit on the last page.

By LAURAN NEERGAARD, The Associated Press
Date: Sun, 15 Jun 1997 19:19:32 -0700
From: Andrew Gach 
To: ar-news@envirolink.org
Subject: Mad Cow Disease in Texas
Message-ID: <33A4A2B4.E2E@worldnet.att.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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Texas investigates possible outcrop of 'mad-cow' disease

Agence France-Presse 

DALLAS, Texas (June 15, 1997 9:08 p.m. EDT) - Texas authorities are
trying to determine if a rare, fatal brain disorder linked to "mad cow"
disease is claiming an unusually high number of victims in the state's
northeast.

Five cases of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease have been identified in the
region since April last year.  Usually, an area with that population
should yield no more than one or two cases a year.

"There's not enough data yet to determine whether it's a trend," said
Julie Rawlings of the Texas Department of Health in Austin. "I'm not
able to draw any conclusions."

The state investigation comes weeks after U.S. authorities unveiled new
rules to ward off potential outbreaks of "mad cow" by banning most
animal-derived protein in cow, sheep and goat feeds.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said the ban aims to protect
animals from neurological diseases such as bovine spongiform
encephalopathy (BSE) and minimize risk to humans.

BSE, the scientific name for mad cow, has been tied to Creutzfeld-Jakob
disease, which killed 16 people in Britain who ate possibly contaminated
beef in the late 1980s or early 1990s. The deaths sparked worldwide
concern about beef consumption and led to a European Union ban on
British beef imports.

Rawlings said the Texans with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease do not appear to
have died from the same form of the disease as the British victims. And
Margaret Webb, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Agriculture Department, said
that U.S. cattle with signs of brain disease are removed from food
production, and that no British beef has entered the United States since
the mid-1980s.

But Melvin Massey, a veterinarian whose wife, Judith, died from
Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease on June 1, says he remains "suspicious."
Date: Sun, 15 Jun 1997 19:42:17 -0700
From: Andrew Gach 
To: ar-news@envirolink.org
Subject: FWD: "FDA: Monsanto's Washington Branch Office
Message-ID: <33A4A809.70C8@worldnet.att.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
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Subject: FDA:  Monsanto's Washington Branch Office
Date: Wed, 11 Jun 1997 10:42:52 -0400 (EDT)
From: Betty Martini 

Press Release   Betty Martini 770 242-2599

Dr. Virginia Weldon, VP for Public Policy at Monsanto Chemical is a "top
candidate" to become Commissioner of the FDA, reported the St. Louis
Post Dispatch Tuesday, 5/20 FDA approved Monsanto's NutraSweet, Equal
and bovine growth hormone, Posilac, which are under mounting
international medical and consumer criticism as toxic substances.
NutraSweet and Equal are Monsanto brands of the neurotoxin aspartame.
The original developer of NutraSweet was Searle which was acquired by
Monsanto in l985. 

 "If Weldon gets the appointment Monsanto will have its former Vice
President empowered to bless dozens of new Monsanto bioengineered
chemicals and sweeteners.  NutraSweet 2000 is slated for approval in
l998 according to 4/21/97 Chemical & Engineering News. Is it Monsanto's
mission to have their Dr. Weldon become FDA Commissioner to approve it? 
"These job swaps by FDA officials are a well oiled revolving door that
doesn't even squeak, it just stinks", says Betty Martini, founder of
Mission Possible.  "Think of the FDA as Monsanto's Washington branch
office." 

Monsanto researcher Margaret Miller who worked on the bovine growth
hormone, transferred to FDA and got the job of reviewing her own
research. Miller increased the antibiotic protocol for milk to permit an
increase of 10,000 percent.  Cows treated with rBST require more
antibiotics because of rampant udder infections.  Monsanto attorney
Michael Taylor was hired to an FDA post where he could oversee the
approval process.  Martini calls these events "The Monsanto march on
Washington."

In l977 Justice Department attorneys Sam Skinner and William Conlon were
assigned to prosecute Searle for submitting fraudulent tests on
NutraSweet.  They switched sides to join the defense lawyers and the
case died when the statute of limitations expired.  On 2/7/86 the Wall
Street Journal reported the probe of these two ex-U.S. Prosecutors  by
Senate investigators.

Former FDA Commissioner Arthur Hull Hayes who approved NutraSweet and
ignored the contrary recommendations of his own Task Force became a
consultant to Searle's public relations firm, Burston Marsteller.  Hayes
was being investigated for accepting gratuities when he quit.

David Kessler, the FDA Commissioner who recently retired when questioned
for padding his expense account, gave blanket approval to NutraSweet
even though it has an allowable daily intake, without public
notification in June.  He has protected Monsanto by ignoring the FDA
register of 10,000 complaints and their published list of 92 reactions
to aspartame from coma and blindness to seizures and death. Kessler
consistently protected Monsanto by refusing to require chemical
breakdown tests of the drug.  The original work was just done by 11 year
old Jennifer Cohen for a school science project as reported in the Food
Chemical News, May 5.  She stored cans of Diet Coke in a refrigerator
for 10 weeks which broke down and released formaldehyde and
diketopiperazine, a brain tumor agent.  The cola was analyzed by Winston
Laboratories in Ridgefield, New Jersey (201 -440-0022). According to the
Food Chemical News the FDA said they knew it all along. 

On June 2, l995 H. J. Roberts, M.D. wrote Newt Gingrich and said: "..
Congress must review this threat at a new open hearing (aspartame
disease), and second, it should declare aspartame products to be an
"imminent public health hazard" and withdraw them from the market"..
He wrote on the association of brain tumors with aspartame in a peer
reviewed report in the Journal of Advancement in Medicine, Vol 4, Number
4, Winter 1991.  John W. Olney, M.D. made world news when he announced
the increase in brain tumors (of the variety the rats developed in
original studies) and questioned the link to aspartame in Nov. 96 in the
J. Neuropath Exp. Neurol. Vol 55, No. 11.  As reported by Dr. Frank
Walton on 60 Minutes, Dec 29, of 90 independent studies not funded by
the manufacturer, 83 showed problems with aspartame.  Dr. Virginia
Weldon appeared on the show to defend NutraSweet against charges in the
Nov issue of the Journal of Neurology linking it to brain tumors.

James Turner, Washington based attorney, explained on 60 Minutes that
the original studies on aspartame never proved safety and were not
replicated.  The late FDA toxicologist, Dr. Adrian Gross, told Congress
that aspartame violated the Delaney Amendment because it triggered brain
tumors, astrocytomas (first stage of the deadly glioblastoma now said to
be rampant in the population).  The Bressler Report exposed mammary,
uterine and ovarian tumors.  Rats listed as dead appeared alive later in
the report!

Now comes a translator giving a notarized statement that Searle had
replicated the studies on humans in other countries and that she and a
Mexican physician translated them.  Even though the studies were short
in duration, not over 18 months, she says subjects began dropping out
with astrocytomas and seizures. This confirms the link of brain tumors
to aspartame continually warned by Roberts and Olney. She says the
studies were done on poor people in villages of South America and that
the people were told aspartame was made from papaya.  Aspartame is a
molecule composed of three components:  aspartic acid, phenylalanine and
methanol. Methanol, a severe metabolic poison, converts to formaldehyde
and formic acid and causes metabolic acidosis.  Phenylalanine and
aspartic acid when isolated from the other amino acids in protein go
past the blood brain barrier and deteriorate the neurons of the brain
causing brain damage of varying degrees, according to H. J. Roberts,
M.D., and neurosurgeon, Russell Blaylock, M.D.  Phenylalanine breaks
down into DKP, the brain tumor agent. Conversion to DKP was admitted on
secret trade information discussed in Congress.

Dr. Virginia Weldon is a pediatrician, and Pediatric Professor, Dr.
Louis Elsas (Emory/Genetics) testified before Congress in l987 that
aspartame is a neurotoxin and teratogen (triggers birth defects!).  If
she becomes the new FDA Commissioner will history repeat itself? "It's
the same song in the same saloon with new nudes," says Martini.  "Their
corruption is exposed for all to see.  Play it again, Sam!"

Contact:  Betty Martini, Mission Possible Worldwide, 770 242-2599
**********************************************************************
For more information on aspartame email:    betty@pd.org
    TYPE:    sendme help        on the Subject Line
                           
  Mission Possible              
5950-H State Bridge Rd.    
     Suite 215              
 Duluth, GA 30155  USA        
                                   
VISIT  http://www.dorway.com/possible.html  Get links to 29 other sites.
       http://www.tiac.net/users/mgold/aspartame/  FAQs/Toxicity Reports
Date: Sun, 15 Jun 1997 20:03:08 -0700
From: Andrew Gach 
To: ar-news@envirolink.org
Cc: OneCheetah@aol.com
Subject: Genetic Engineering : Past, Present, and Future (long)
Message-ID: <33A4ACEC.7DE6@worldnet.att.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
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The following article by Prof. Susan Wright is an excellent in-depth
review of genetic engineering.  If you have the time and the interest to
read this outstanding expose, you'll find it very rewarding.

Andy

===============================================================

Splicing Away Regulations
Down on the Animal Pharm

       by Susan Wright

Twenty-five years ago, the first rather clumsy genetic engineering
techniques were immediately recognized as aimed at the molecular basis
of life. The human race had acquired the ability to wreak change on the
"interior" as well as the "exterior" of earth's ecosystems. Doors began
to open to designer bugs able to make a huge range of proteins for the
pharmaceutical and chemical industries, and, further down the road, to
genetic techniques capable of revolutionizing the slow-paced plant and
animal breeding industries and the treatment of genetic diseases.
Government, agribusiness, pharmaceutical and chemical capital has been
moving through those doors ever since.

A quarter-century on, the brave new world of genetic engineering is
populated by some remarkable and disturbing creations. The crassly
utilitarian norms that are guiding innovations have so far produced
animals to be used as factories for producing drugs; cows stuffed with
bovine growth hormone; plants constructed to grow in soil drenched with
herbicides that would normally kill them, as well as every other green
thing in sight; bacteria that chew up materials used in weapons systems;
and cross-eyed, arthritic pigs that yield more meat. What's most
disturbing is that the genetic reconstruction of life is advancing on a
global scale with almost no informed public discussion or effective
oversight, and in the case of certain military uses, without even public
knowledge.

At the outset, it was noticed that gene-splicing had a downside. Grave
warnings were issued about its social misuse, about the health and
environmental hazards of modified organisms, about the ethical problems
of using our technical ingenuity on ourselves and other life-forms. In
the course of the debates that followed, millions of pages flowed forth
from committees, hearings, international bodies and the courts. And
since all this happened in the heyday of the photocopying machine and
the U.S.  "sunshine" laws, both the controversy and the
behind-the-scenes calculations by leaders of science and industry were
captured in hard copy. Genetic engineering is perhaps the
best-documented technology ever to emerge from a laboratory.

In the early 1970s leaders of biomedical research quickly moved to
contain the emerging ethical and social issues. A partial moratorium on
research in 1974 was followed by the famous international conference at
Asilomar, California, where scientists addressed the hazards of genetic
engineering and agreed to impose controls on their own research. These
events were celebrated as acts of scientific responsibility. But they
were also pre-emptive strikes, demonstrating that control of genetic
engineering was best left in the hands of experts, and defining the
problem as one that only experts could address --that of "containing"
possible biohazards. With that definition, genetic engineers were soon
back at work under voluntary controls issued by the National Institutes
of Health in 1976.

When intense controversy over these controls erupted shortly after
their inception, however, biomedical researchers closed ranks,
launching a sophisticated campaign against legislation designed to
regulate genetic engineering and investigate its long-term effects. New
evidence unavailable to the public at the time of these struggles shows
that researchers closeted at the N.I.H. in 1976 decided to conduct a
P.R. campaign aimed at persuading the public that hazards were
exaggerated.

Claiming that science was under attack, they agreed to direct public
attention to the inability of bacteria used for experiments to cause
epidemics -- an argument they knew was simplistic and misleading. In
the words of one scientist: "In terms of P.R., you have to hit
epidemics, because that is what people are afraid of, and if we can
make a strong argument about epidemics and make it stick, then a lot of
this public thing will go away....It's molecular politics, not
molecular biology."

The same group also agreed not to pursue experiments to test worst-case
scenarios. Instead, they would do a "slick New York Times type of
experiment" -- one likely to produce negative results that would
persuade reporters that the field was harmless.

Arguments for the safety of genetic engineering created many converts,
just as commercial applications in the field began to loom on the
horizon. In 1977 scientists demonstrated that bacteria could be
persuaded to make a human protein. If this was possible, why not
insulin, growth hormone and supercows making more milk?  At this point,
the president of the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association weighed in
against regulation: "It is quite possible that legislation could be so
restrictive, so much of a disincentive, that our people wouldn't lose
interest...they would go overseas."

Stunned by the ferocity of the scientists' lobbying effort, soothed by
the public relations campaign issuing from the N.I.H. and intimidated by
the P.M.A.'s threat to move elsewhere, Congress retreated. Concern that
the United States would lose out in the "genetic engineering race"
became the new mantra. Rapid deregulation followed.

Now we are confronting the legacy of our failure to face the issues
posed by genetic engineering. While the techniques have grown in power,
precision and range of application, even the limited regulation that was
put in place has been virtually dismantled. With one or two exceptions
for genes encoding a few o the most dangerous toxins, pretty much any
gene can be cloned in any organism. Most experiments and industrial
processes involving genetic engineering are overseen only by local
committees appointed by the institution doing the cloning.

Furthermore, the fundamental purpose of the original controls --
containment -- has been overturned. In the Reagan years, the N.I.H.'s
prohibition on the release of genetically engineered organisms into the
environment was replaced by a patchwork of existing regulatory law with
plenty of loopholes. In theory, the Agriculture Department and the
Environmental Protection Agency regulate releases of novel plants and
microbes. In practice, these agencies have already allowed more than
2,000 experimental releases, indicating just how vigorously their
"control" is exercised.

Moreover, changes in patent law are fueling aggressive efforts to
monopolize novel gene combinations and the living things in which they
are introduced. The landmark 1980 Supreme Court decision in Diamond v.
Chakrabarty established patentability for any living thing "under the
sun made by man." Over the past fifteen years, the Patent Office has
taken this decision to cover cells, microbes, plants, animals -- all
living things except, presumably, ourselves. But who knows? Lawyer
George Annas argues that there's nothing to prevent cloning enthusiasts
from pursuing patents for genetically modified human embryos.

The once-unthinkable idea that a microbe, a plant variety or an animal
breed could be owned has become accepted practice under the patent law
of many industrialized countries. During the recent GATT negotiations,
the United States pressed hard for similar practices in the Third World.
All genes are now seen as keys to new products. Not only the gene-rich
ecosystems of Third World countries but also the cells and genes of
indigenous peoples are now envisioned as lucrative targets. In the rush
to stake claims on cell-lines and DNA samples, companies and scientists
are committing what the Rural Advancement Fund International calls "acts
of biopiracy," violating the rights of the people and countries from
which the samples are taken. RAFI has launched a campaign to take the
issue to the International Court of Justice at the Hague.

A host of transgenic creatures is emerging from genetic engineering
laboratories. Typically, these creatures are portrayed as benign
additions to the natural world, bringing "better, healthier lives to
people," as Amgen regularly tells the listeners of National Public
Radio. Few of biotechnology's critics would deny that the field will
yield some useful products; Eli Lilly's human insulin and Merck's
hepatitis B vaccine already help millions of people. Crops that can
grow in the desert or resist major pests, and vaccines for diseases
like AIDS and malaria, would be beneficial. Nevertheless, many of the
applications prominent on corporate and military agendas pose explosive
social, ethical and environmental problems. The following is a small
sample:

Transgenic plants. Agrichemical and seed corporations are well on the
way to developing a wide range of transgenic crops and biopesticides.
The most visible are those that will reach supermarkets. Calgene's
Flavr Savr tomato, which can sit on store shelves for extended periods
without turning into mush, made headlines in 1994. But the most
lucrative products are emerging with much less fanfare. Over the past
decade, corporations and the government have poured millions into
developing plants and trees that tolerate the toxic effects of
herbicides. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, the
Agriculture Department has received hundreds of applications for field
trials of these crops. Two of them -- a cotton resistant to bromoxynil
and soybeans resistant to Monsanto's herbicide glyphosate, better known
as Roundup -- have already been approved. The E.P.A. must also approve
any new use of a herbicide. Last year the agency cleared the way for
full-scale commercialization by approving the sale of bromoxynil for a
quarter-million acres of bromoxynil-resistant cotton. In the pipeline at
the Agriculture Department are measures that will weaken the agency's
oversight of trials of transgenic plants and expedite full-scale
approvals.

The agrichemical industry claims that engineering herbicide tolerance
will encourage the use of a new generation of "environmentally
friendly" herbicides. The Biotechnology Working Group, a coalition of
environmental, labor and other organizations, says there's no such
thing: Herbicides have toxic effects on plants and animals; the more
they are used, the greater the likelihood of producing
herbicide-resistant weeds, contamination of water supplies and
destruction of wildlife habitats. While producers claim that their
present efforts are limited to resistance to less toxic herbicides,
there is no guarantee they will accept this limitation in the future.
Indeed, many research and development efforts have focused on crop
resistance to high-toxicity herbicides such as 2,4 D and atrazine.

Environmentalists cite yet other worrisome scenarios for transgenic
plants; the truth is, no one is able to predict what might happen in
the long run.  But if the past behavior of the National Institutes of
Health is any guide, the Agriculture Department's risk-assessment
program is unlikely to investigate worst-case scenarios or wait years
for results before granting approval.

Animal pharms. Meanwhile, back at the barn, bio-engineers are turning
animals into factories to make drugs in their milk or blood.  They're
also making pigs and chickens with flesh that can be easily microwaved
and bovine growth hormone (BGH) to increase milk production in dairy
cows. The latter product has proved particularly controversial. 
Consumer organizations in the United States an elsewhere argue that
injections of the hormone cause health problems in cattle, thereby
increasing the use of antibiotics and in turn leaving antibiotic
residues in milk. They also point to the risks of increasing the
presence in milk of insulin growth factor, which stunts growth. And it's
not as if there is a pressing need for milk. Michael Harness of the
Consumers Union points out that, because of the existing milk surplus,
taxpayers have spent billions of dollars over the past decade keeping
milk off the market. One may well ask, Who needs bovine growth hormone?
The answer seems to be the four leading corporations -- American
Cyanamid, Eli Lilly, Monsanto and Upjohn -- that are promoting BGH
worldwide.

Genetically altered humans. Applying genetic engineering to humans
faces major technical hurdles. "Humans are not simply large mice," a
recent scientific review states, and the introduction of novel genes to
correct for genetic diseases or cancer is no simple mechanical matter.
The human body tends to reject anything foreign, like a virus carrying a
corrective gene into a diseased cell. Nevertheless, corporations are
aggressively promoting human gene therapy even though no genetic cures
are yet in sight.  Researchers are moving quickly to clinical trials, 62
percent of which are funded by the private sector. The inserted gene,
the protein it encodes and the drugs that make the gene function are all
seen as likely commercial prospects. "Three for the price of one," was
the way an editor of an industry newsletter recently acclaimed the
approach.

So far, experimental human gene treatments have been limited to
treating life-threatening diseases. They have also been confined to
altering somatic cells, as opposed to the sex, or germ-line, cells that
pass on altered genes to future generations. But expansion of these
horizons is already foreseen. In 1994, the successful replacement of
sperm-forming cells of a mouse with similar cells from another mouse at
the University of Pennsylvania was hailed as potentially capable of
"shaping future generations." Researchers already talk of treating
non-life-threatening conditions like dwarfism or infertility.

We are approaching the time, perhaps ten or twenty years away, when
gene alteration will be offered as a service. On whom should it be
used? For what purposes? Where should the lines for human genetic
interventions be drawn? No committee outside the N.I.H. has been
established to address these questions. The research-dominated N.I.H.,
judging from its history, will insure that the boundaries change in
tandem with researchers' shifting goals. But with so many of those doing
research directly in the pay of the drug companies, who will insure that
human needs, not profits, are foremost in the minds of those who decide
priorities for human gene alteration?

Military applications. After maintaining a low profile for use of the
biological sciences throughout the turbulent 1970s, the Defense
Department quietly initiated military applications of biotechnology in
the 1980s. Citing a menacing Soviet biological warfare threat, the
department embarked on efforts to use the new biotechnology to make
therapeutic agents, detection devices and vaccines to protect against
biological weapons.

Vaccines might sound like a viable form of protection, but in practice
they present huge problems. There are about thirty known biological
weapons agents, and genetic engineering may expand that number almost
indefinitely.  The long latency period between vaccination and the
body's immune response and the logistical problems of manufacturing and
deploying vaccines pose further obstacles. Undaunted by the prospect of
multiple injections for U.S. soldiers in war zones and the risks such
procedures carry [see Laura Flanders, "Mal de Guerre," March 7, 1994],
the Pentagon aimed vaccines against more than forty different microbes.

More recently, the military has launched scarier schemes for
biotechnology.  On the one hand, "anti-materiel" bacteria are being
investigated for their capacity to degrade militarily significant
substances like rubber, engine lubricants and other critical components
of weapons systems. On the other, novel, opiumlike substances whose
minute presence induces sleep, euphoria, anxiety, submissiveness or
temporary blindness are being pursued for their potential as
incapacitants. Genetic engineering offers ways to refine both
applications.

In principle, the Biological Weapons Convention and the Chemical
Weapons Convention prohibit recourse to the use of such technologies.
The biological treaty bans development, production and stockpiling of
microbes and toxins made by living things for any weapons purpose.
Pursuit of "anti-materiel" bacteria should therefore be taken as a
violation. The Chemical Weapons Convention, however, allows development
of "riot control agents" for "law enforcement." It is apparently through
this loophole that the Pentagon is pursuing work on novel incapacitants.
This year, Congress approved $36 million for a new, largely secret
"non-lethal" weapons program.

The cornucopia of prizes from genetic engineering projected in the
optimistic 1970s is rapidly becoming a mare's-nest of transgenic
creations that we neither need nor want. Can we reverse genetically
engineered evolution? Not easily, and not without an educated and
active public. But there are models for alternative responses. In
pre-Thatcher Britain, a broadly composed committee that advised the
government on genetic engineering policy moved much more cautiously
than its U.S. counterpart, involving unions in policy-making at the
local and national levels. In India, a well-informed public debate
addressing the social impact of monopolizing life-forms continues.
Despite their weaknesses, the treaties bannin biological and chemical
weapons show that harmful technology can be curbed when people all over
the world press for restraints.

It's time for another Asilomar conference, this time led by those at
the receiving end of genetic technology, to take a long look at the
genetically reconstructed worlds being designed by corporations and the
military. Or must we wait for a genetic Chernobyl?

Susan Wright, a historian of science, teaches at the University of
Michigan. She is the author of Molecular Politics (University of
Chicago Press) and co-author of Preventing a Biological Arms Race
(M.I.T. Press). A recent recipient of a MacArthur Foundation
fellowship, her current research focuses on North-South differences
over the development and implementation of the Biological Weapons
Convention.

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from http://www.thenation.com/issue/960311/0311wrig.htm

* Some web sites for more informations:
http://www.lisco.com/mothersfornaturallaw/
http://www.greenpeace.org/~comms/cbio/geneng.html
http://www.demon.co.uk/solbaram/articles/clm505.html
http://www.hrc.wmin.ac.uk/campaigns/ef/toxmut/flavr.html#cflower
http://www.geocities.com/athens/1527
http://gopher.essential.org/crg/crg.html
http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~rone/Genetic%20Engineering.htm
http://www.netlink.de/gen/home.html
http://www.mum.edu/PRESS/genetics/ethical_stand.html
http://www.bio-integrity.org
http://www.peg.apc.org/~acfgenet
http://www.nemsn.org/ems/html/tryptophan
http://www.natural-law.ca/genetic/geindex.html
http://www.mcs.com/~jdav/league.htm