Monsanto May Commercialize Terminator

By Ban Terminator
News Release
February 21, 2006

Biotech Giant Revises Pledge on Sterile Seed Technology as Global Alliance Calls for a Ban.

Monsanto, the world's largest seed and agbiotech company, made a public promise in 1999 not to commercialize 'Terminator Technology' - plants that are genetically engineered to produce sterile seeds. Now Monsanto says it may develop or use the so-called 'suicide seeds' after all. The revised pledge from Monsanto now suggests that it would use Terminator seeds in non-food crops and does not rule out other uses of Terminator in the future. (1) Monsanto's modified stance comes to light as the biotech and seed industry confront peasant and farmer movements, Indigenous peoples and their allies in an escalating battle at the United Nations over the future of Terminator.

In 2000 the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) adopted a de facto moratorium on sterile seed technologies, also known as Genetic Use Restriction Technologies (GURTs). But at next month's high-level meeting of the CBD in Curitiba, Brazil (20-31 March 2006) the biotechnology industry will intensify its push to undermine the six-year old de facto moratorium.

In response, over 300 organizations today declared their support for a global ban on Terminator Technology, asserting that sterile seeds threaten biodiversity and will destroy the livelihoods and cultures of the 1.4 billion people who depend on farm-saved seed.

"The world's farmers and Indigenous peoples cannot trust Monsanto," said Alejandro Argumedo from Asociacion ANDES - Potato Park in Cusco, Peru "Monsanto's broken promise is a deadly betrayal because Indigenous peoples and farmers depend on seed saving for food security and self-determination."

Terminator technology was first developed by the United States Department of Agriculture and US seed company Delta & Pine Land to prevent farmers from saving and re-using harvested seed, forcing them to buy new seeds each season. (2)

In October 1999, in response to worldwide opposition, Monsanto publicly pledged not to commercialize Terminator seeds. Then-CEO, Robert Shapiro, wrote an open letter to the Rockefeller Foundation, stating, "I am writing to let you know that we are making a public commitment not to commercialize sterile seed technologies, such as the one dubbed 'Terminator.'"

Now, Monsanto has revised its commitment, pledging to keep Terminator only out of food crops - opening the door to the use of Terminator in cotton, tobacco, pharmaceutical crops and grass with sterility genes. Referring to new versions of GURTs, Monsanto's 'pledge' now says, "Monsanto does not rule out the potential development and use of one of these technologies in the future. The company will continue to study the risks and benefits of this technology on a case-by-case basis."

"Monsanto's revised pledge resonates closely with the actions of a few rich governments that have been promoting Terminator at the UN recently," points out Chee Yoke Ling of Third World Network. "It looks like Monsanto and other corporations are behind the strategy to unleash Terminator at the upcoming meetings of the CBD".

Monsanto's new stance on Terminator is part of an industry-wide attempt to undermine the de facto moratorium. In the past year, government delegates from Canada, Australia and New Zealand, working hand in hand with the biotech industry, have used UN meetings to introduce new text that will be considered at next month's CBD meeting in Brazil. (3) This text recommends Terminator technologies be approached on a "case by case risk assessment" basis - echoing the language of Monsanto's new 'pledge.' The intention behind the 'case by case' approach is to regulate Terminator just like any other genetically modified crop. This would ignore the uniquely devastating societal impacts of genetic seed sterility.

"Terminator is a direct assault on farmers, Indigenous cultures and on the food sovereignty and well-being of all rural people, primarily the very poorest," said Chukki Nanjundaswamy of India from La Via Campesina, an organization representing tens of millions of peasant farmers worldwide. "If Monsanto bullies the UN into allowing 'case by case' assessment of Terminator, it means farmers will be carried off the land coffin by coffin."

"These companies have a clear and simple vision that nothing should be grown without a license from Monsanto and a few other masters of sterility and reproduction," explains Benny Haerlin of Greenpeace International. "They pursue this strategy step by step or 'case by case' as they now call it. If governments at the CBD give in to Monsanto and erode the Terminator moratorium we will all have to pay the bill tomorrow and the collateral damage will be the integrity and fertility of nature."

The Ban Terminator campaign today announces the names of over 300 organizations worldwide that are demanding a ban on Terminator technology. The list of organizations is available at http://www.banterminator.org/endorsements These organizations are from every region of the world and include peasant farmer movements and farm organizations, Indigenous peoples organizations, civil society and environmental groups, unions, faith communities, international development organizations, women's movements, consumer organizations and youth networks.

"We are particularly alarmed that Monsanto's edited pledge no longer rejects commercialization of this dangerous technology." said Lucy Sharratt of the international Ban Terminator Campaign. "We are calling on national governments to dismiss Monsanto's tactic in favour of an all-out ban on Terminator. We invite all civil society and social movements to join with us for the battle against Terminator next month in Brazil."

Notes

Europe Rejects Genetically Engineered Drug

By Andrew Pollack
Capital Press Staff Writer
February 24, 2006

European regulators declined yesterday to approve what would have been the first drug produced in the milk of genetically engineered animals, dealing a setback to a fledgling industry that aims to convert cows, goats and rabbits into low-cost pharmaceutical factories.

The decision was closely watched because companies developing drug-producing animals need an approval from either the United States or Europe to persuade pharmaceutical companies to try the production method.

The drug's developer, GTC Biotherapeutics, said it would appeal the decision, adding that the ruling was based mainly on a problem with its clinical trial, not on the fact that the drug was made in goats.

"With a new technology there is a conservatism that is not inappropriate," Geoffrey F. Cox, chief executive of GTC, said in a conference call with analysts. But he added, "There is no way with this company and what we have achieved over 15 years that we will let this block us from getting the product to market."

Shares of GTC, which is based in Framingham, Mass., fell 90 cents, or 40 percent, to $1.35.

GTC and a few other companies put human genes into animals so they produce a human protein in their milk. The animals can be milked and the protein purified for use as a drug.

The companies say the method is a cheaper and easier way to produce biotechnology drugs. Many biotech drugs, like cancer-fighting monoclonal antibodies, are made in vats containing cultures of genetically engineered animal cells. Such factories can cost several hundred million dollars.

Other protein drugs, like the one GTC is developing, are extracted from donated blood, but are found in such minute quantities that they are often in short supply. GTC said it would take 90,000 blood donations to obtain as much of the protein as one of its goats can produce in a year.

But drug companies have been reluctant to use the technology, in part because they were unsure how readily regulators would approve drugs developed that way. So GTC decided to seek an approval by itself, even if sales of the drug would be small.

It tested an anticlotting protein called antithrombin on patients who have a rare inherited deficiency of the protein and are at risk of potentially fatal blood clots. The company tested the drug on 14 people who were undergoing surgery or giving birth. At those times, because of the risk of bleeding, such patients cannot take the blood thinners they usually use to prevent clots.

The European Medicines Agency said yesterday that its advisory committee recommended against approval because too few patients undergoing surgery were tested. Also, the drug tested was not made in exactly the same way as the drug that would be sold, because a filtration step was added after the trial began.

GTC executives said the committee decided not to count pregnant women included in the test, because the dosing of the drug was not optimal. They also said the regulators had concerns about possible immune reactions to the drug, though none were seen.

The company is doing another trial aimed at applying early next year for approval in the United States.

Another company, Pharming, has asked the Food and Drug Administration to certify its human lactoferrin protein, made in transgenic cows, as "generally recognized as safe." That designation would allow Pharming to sell the protein for use in food products. Human lactoferrin is naturally found in mother's milk.

Pharming, a Dutch company that has recovered from a financial collapse a few years ago, is also in late-stage clinical trials of a protein called C1 inhibitor, produced in rabbits, to treat hereditary angioedema.

PharmAthene, based in Annapolis, Md., is trying to win a contract from the Defense Department to supply a protein, butyrylcholinesterase, to help treat people exposed to nerve gas. The protein is found in blood plasma but in such small amounts it would be impossible to make as much as the military needs, the company said.

"It would take approximately 500 liters of plasma to produce a single dose," the company's director for education, Stacey Jurchison, said. "We have about 250 goats. The milk they would produce in a year's time would be sufficient to produce 100,000 doses."

Production of drugs in transgenic animals is not the only part of barnyard biotechnology that has suffered setbacks. So has cloning, which involves making copies of desirable animals, rather than putting foreign genes in them. The F.D.A. has continually put off making an expected decision that the meat and milk from cloned animals and their offspring are safe to consume.

Cotton Farmers Sue Monsanto, Others, for Crop Loss

By Carey Gillam
Reuters
February 24, 2006

KANSAS CITY, Missouri - More than 90 Texas cotton farmers have sued Monsanto Co. and two affiliated companies, claiming they suffered widespread crop losses because Monsanto failed to warn them of a defect in its genetically altered cotton product.

The lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in Marshall, Texas, seeks an injunction against what it calls a "longstanding campaign of deception," and asks the court to award both actual and punitive damages.

In addition to Monsanto, the suit names Delta & Pine Land Co. and Bayer CropScience L.P., producers and retailers of Monsanto's biotech cotton. A Delta & Pine Land spokeswoman said the company had no comment and no one for Bayer, a unit of Bayer AG, returned phone calls seeking comment.

Monsanto, which denies the allegations, wants the complaints removed from the court system and handled through arbitration. About half of the farmers agreed this week to enter into arbitration, but others have not. A hearing on the matter is scheduled for Monday in Austin.

The farmers' essential claim is that Monsanto's "Roundup Ready" cotton did not tolerate applications of Monsanto's Roundup weed killer as it has been genetically altered to do.

The farmers claim there is evidence that the promoter gene inserted into the cotton seeds in the genetic modification process does not work as designed in extreme high heat and drought conditions, allowing herbicide to eat into plant tissue, leading to boll deformity, shedding and reduced yields.

The plaintiffs claim Monsanto knew this but did not disclose it so the farmers would continue to buy and use Monsanto's Roundup herbicide.

"We feel like Monsanto's been lying to us all along," said B.B. Krenek, a Wharton, Texas cotton consultant who is working with a number of affected farmers.

Monsanto spokesman Andrew Berchet said there is no evidence that anything other than the weather is to blame for the technology that caused the crop losses.

"As far as we can tell this is weather related. The month of June was one of the driest and hottest in more than a century," said Berchet. "We don't see evidence that this is related to our product."

But farmer Alan Stasney said he has evidence in his fields. A strip of cotton four rows across and 3,000 feet long that inadvertently was not treated with Roundup yielded 1,051 pounds of lint per acre at harvest, while on either side of those rows, cotton that was treated with Roundup yielded only 675 pounds per acre.

Stasney said the lost yield cost him more than $250,000 in sales and forced him to refinance his farm.

"It is just a real sad situation," said Stasney. "There are a lot of people in a world of hurt because of that."

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