Category: biotech. GMOs

“Responsible” soy labelled ”greenwash. Earth 1st.

Soy fields encroach on Brazilian rainforests accelerating deforestation and destroying biodiversity. Life is replaced by industrial agriculture.

On Wednesday 8 June, the first bags of certified “responsible” soy will be issued to companies such as Ahold and FrieslandCampina, during a ceremony in Rotterdam. This voluntary certification scheme is an initiative of the World Wildlife Fund and will be marketed by the Round Table on Responsible Soy (RTRS). One certificate represents one tonne of soy products: beans, flour or oil. [1]

However, the new label has repeatedly been dismissed by hundreds of organisations as “greenwashing”. Networks including Friends of the Earth International, Global Forest Coalition and Food & Water Watch wrote a letter in March this year to warn supermarkets not to cooperate with this misleading label. 23,000 consumers signed an email petition with a similar message. [2]

“This soylabel is a typical example of consumer deceit”, says Nina Holland of Corporate Europe Observatory. “Importing soy for industrial livestock farming in the Netherlands is inherently unsustainable. Apart from that the soy is produced with intensive use of agrotoxins. Even genetically manipulated soy that is resistant to the herbicide Roundup can be called ‘responsible’ according to this new label”, she adds.

Read more here

http://earthfirstnews.wordpress.com/2011/06/08/new-%E2%80%9Cresponsible%E2%80%9D-soy-label-misleads-consumers/

Hybrid human animals..Chimeras tomorrow..

Animal-Human Hybrids Spark Controversy
Scientists have begun blurring the line between human and animal by producing chimeras—a hybrid creature that’s part human, part animal.
shy Meera

Chinese scientists at the Shanghai Second Medical University in 2003 successfully fused human cells with rabbit eggs. The embryos were reportedly the first human-animal chimeras successfully created. They were allowed to develop for several days in a laboratory dish before the scientists destroyed the embryos to harvest their stem cells.

In Minnesota last year researchers at the Mayo Clinic created pigs with human blood flowing through their bodies.

And at Stanford University in California an experiment might be done later this year to create mice with human brains.

Scientists feel that, the more humanlike the animal, the better research model it makes for testing drugs or possibly growing “spare parts,” such as livers, to transplant into humans.

Watching how human cells mature and interact in a living creature may also lead to the discoveries of new medical treatments.

But creating human-animal chimeras—named after a monster in Greek mythology that had a lion’s head, goat’s body, and serpent’s tail—has raised troubling questions, this is even worse than experimenting on normal animals: What new subhuman combination should be produced and for what purpose? At what point would it be considered human and have human rights?

There are currently no U.S. federal laws that address these issues.

http://first-news.blogspot.com/2011_01_28_archive.html

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next GM Sugar Beets and Fish

 

By Center for Food Safety 

 

The debate over genetically modified organisms (GMOs) is no longer just over alfalfa; the Center for Food Safety reports that GM fish and GM sugar beets are now being considered for the market. A bipartisan effort to ban the sale of these new genetically engineered products, or to require mandatory labeling if the items get approved for consumption, is already underway. Click here to learn more about these issues, and to sign pledges and see what else you can do to prevent GM beets and fish from becoming commonplace fare in your supermarket.

[Photo by Maureen Reilly]

TAGS: alfalfa, beets, fish, genetically modified, GMO

SEE OTHER POSTS FROM: Center for Food Safety

via It’s not just Alfalfa: threat of GM Sugar Beets and Fish « Ecology Center.