Study indicates toxic risks are higher near projects

Dallas, Texas, Oct. 3— Nearly 46 percent of the nation’s federally subsidized apartments are within a mile of factories that produce toxic pollution, The Dallas Morning News reports in a three-part series.

“It is an American tragedy,” said Henry Cisneros, who was secretary of housing and urban development from 1993 to 1996. “But we sweep it under the rug and forget about it.”

A study by The Morning News and the University of Texas-Dallas found that some 870,000 of the 1.9 million housing units for the poor, mostly minorities, sit within about a mile of factories that reported toxic emissions to the Environmental Protection Agency. The pollution included legal, permitted emissions and accidental releases.

HUD secretary Andrew Cuomo declined to be interviewed for the Morning News’ three-part series, which started Sunday, but issued a statement calling the charges “outrageous.” Cuomo said the story “advocates an unrealistic and unbalanced approach to managing environmental concerns.”

He said HUD is getting a bad rap, that it is local governments that determine the locations for the federal developments based on growth plans and other criteria.

Economics played a role in locating developments in many communities, the Morning News said. As whites who formerly lived near polluting plants climbed the financial ladder and moved away, the property that they left behind was inexpensive enough to attract officials for places to build public housing.

“Everyone you see here is low-income — poor and black,” said Sammy Smith, who lives in a HUD-subsidized project in Bossier City, La., next door to land where toxic waste has been dumped for decades. “It’s like we’re in the jungle and we’re at the bottom of the food chain.”

The Morning News reported that people living in subsidized housing complain pollution causes health problems in their communities — including cancer, birth defects, respiratory ailments and developmental delays in children.

However, those claims are hard to prove. The EPA warns that exposure data for particular neighborhoods might not be sufficiently accurate to guide local policy decisions or predict an individual’s risk of getting sick.

“Public housing developments are not isolated enclaves. They share the same air with surrounding neighborhoods, and public housing residents make up just a small fraction of the people living and working near sites of potential air pollution,” said Leland Jones, a HUD spokesman. “It has long been the nation’s policy to clean up pollution — not to run from it by relocating tens of millions of people and abandoning our cities.”

But critics say a federal program to rebuild the worst housing projects, called the HOPE IV Urban Revitalization program, is simply entrenching a system that already pushes poor people into polluted areas, the newspaper said.

Elinor Bacon, the HUD official in charge of HOPE VI, said she is confident that the agency has enough safeguards — such as environmental reviews of each project — to ensure that families live in safe places.

However, the Morning News said records it obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show that in some cases the environmental reviews failed to note the existence of these hazards.

Source: Associated Press

New guide allows consumers to avoid GE foods

Washington, DC, Oct. 4— In response to the Food and Drug Administration’s failure to require labeling for genetically engineered (GE) food, Greenpeace today released the True Food Shopping List, a detailed list of thousands of products made with ingredients from genetically altered corn, soy, canola, and other crops. The international environmental organization contacted dozens of food companies to determine whether or not they have taken action to eliminate genetically engineered ingredients from their products.

“Consumers should not be used as guinea pigs by companies who continue to sell genetically contaminated food,” said Jeanne Merrill, Greenpeace True Food Network coordinator. “Since the FDA refuses to protect consumers and the environment, Greenpeace created the Shopping List. The Shopping List gives consumers who want to avoid genetically engineered foods a fighting chance.”

Organized like supermarket aisles, the True Food Shopping List covers dozens of foods in each of 20 categories, including baby food, cereal, frozen foods, snacks and soups. The “Red” list shows genetically engineered foods, such as Kellogg’s Corn Flakes. The “Green” list shows alternatives made by companies that have eliminated genetically engineered ingredients. The “Yellow” transitional list includes products made by companies that are working to eliminate genetically engineered ingredients.

Recently, store-bought Taco Bell taco shells tested positive for a variety of genetically engineered corn, called StarLink, that is not approved for human consumption. Kraft, which produces the supermarket brand shells, voluntarily recalled the tainted product. Aventis, the biotech company that makes the GE corn found in the taco shells, said it would stop selling the seed. The Agriculture Department said on Friday that it would broker the entire remaining StarLink crop for Aventis, to insure that it is only sold for feed. On Monday, FDA finally announced an official recall notice for the Kraft Taco Bell taco shells, and said that it would begin testing other corn products for contamination. The agency acknowledged that the engineered corn could cause “temporary adverse health effects.”

“Clearly, Americans can’t trust the biotech industry to keep its genetic experiments out of our shopping carts,” said Charles Margulis, Greenpeace genetic engineering specialist. “While food companies have eliminated genetically engineered ingredients in Europe, the Shopping List is the only way American consumers can avoid GE-contaminated food.”

Kellogg’s and other food giants have already stopped using genetically engineered food in Europe, but these companies continue to use the experimental crops here. In Japan, Australia, Russia and throughout Europe, genetically engineered food must be labeled. Many companies have announced that their products in these countries will exclude genetically engineered ingredients. But in the US, the FDA has sided with the biotech industry in opposing mandatory labeling. Instead, the FDA says that standards for “voluntary” labeling of GE or non-GE foods will soon be announced.

Consumers can receive a free copy of the True Food Shopping List: How to Avoid Genetically Engineered Food from Greenpeace by calling 1-800-219-9260. Beginning October 5, the List can also be downloaded from the True Food Web site at www.truefoodnow.org.

Source: Greenpeace

US corporate ‘biopirates’ still staking claim on Basmati rice

By Ranjit Devraj

New Delhi, India, Oct. 9 (IPS)— India and Pakistan could still lose a fight over the ownership of ‘Basmati’ rice to a US-based company, which has been forced to withdraw patent claims on the fragrant rice that has been grown for centuries in the central Indian Himalayan foothills.

Food security experts say celebrations by the Indian government’s Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA), which filed for revocation of the patents granted in September 1997 to ‘Rice Tec’ by the US Patent Office (USPTO), may be early.

“We have succeeded in forcing Rice Tec to withdraw four out of 20 claims. The claims now withdrawn would have adversely affected India’s commercial interests in future exports of Basmati rice,’’ said an APEDA statement.

But leading food security activist Devinder Sharma argues that by withdrawing four of its crucial claims, Rice Tec has foiled India’s attempts to strike down the patent.

According to Sharma, Rice Tec withdrew these because it realized its claims pertaining to ‘novel rice grains’ would not hold in the light of the re-examination sought by APEDA with the USPTO.

“Of the 20 claims, only four are specific to the characteristics of the rice grain while the remaining 16 claims are more or less concerned with ‘novel rice lines’, which details breeding techniques, characteristics and properties for cultivation outside the Indian sub-continent,’’ he says.

APEDA’s strategy was to contest the claims made on novel rice grains on the premise that that the rest of Rice Tec’s claims would then automatically fall flat. But Rice Tec’s lawyers, apparently sensing the strategy, deftly withdrew the clearly untenable claims.

“Instead of celebrating and putting on a brave front in public, APEDA must quickly challenge the withdrawal and force the USPTO to either accept the entire patent application for re-examination or direct Rice Tec to withdraw its patent,’’ says Sharma.

Rice Tec’s claim on Basmati rice is said to be the most audacious instance of ‘biopiracy’ by Western transnational corporations (TNCs). The Indian government has successfully contested in the United States, the grant of a patent on the commercial use of the traditional medicinal properties of turmeric.

Another well-known example of biopiracy is the patent on the herbicidal properties of the ‘neem’ tree. The Indian government was successful in the turmeric patent case because it could produce documented evidence, from ancient Indian texts, showing that turmeric’s medicinal use was well known in the country for centuries.

“The Basmati case is tricky techno-legal business and once we take up a position we cannot easily withdraw it,’’ explains Raghunath Mashelkar, director general of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).

But leading Indian anti-biopiracy campaigner, Vandana Shiva, who successfully challenged patents on neem granted to ‘W.R. Grace’ by the Munich-based European Patent office, accuses the government of “lethargy, indifference and collusion’’ with Western interests.

According to Shiva, the Indian government is actually helping biopirates. She has challenged in India’s Supreme Court, a biodiveristy law enacted by Parliament last year, which allows TNCs exclusive marketing rights (EMRs) for traditional medicines that are used by the bulk of the one billion Indians.

“The implication of the (biodiversity) bill is that the global seed industry can freely take seeds, claim patents or breeder’s rights by tinkering with them and not be regulated,’’ she explains.

In contesting the neem patents, Shiva too cited ancient texts to show that neem products have been used in India for centuries for medicinal and agricultural purposes. Earlier, the Indian government lost its challenge to the neem patents in the United States.

Pakistani anti-biopiracy campaigner, Uzma Jamil describes the Basmati and turmeric patents as “manifestations of the increasing infringement of the economic and national sovereignty of the South by the North.’’

According to Jamil, who is with the ‘South Asia Commission on Environmental, Economic and Social Policy, Rice Tec’s claims are clear violations of the Convention on Biodiveristy (CBD), which recognizes the sovereignty of a state over its natural genetic resources.

“The manner in which Rice Tec established its patent, demonstrates that it has ignored the contributions of local communities in the production of Basmati and that it does not intend to share the benefits,’’ says Jamil.

Rice Tec’s Basmati patent also violates provisions of the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) agreement concerning ‘geographical indications’, say anti-biopiracy activists.

Under this, for example, the term ‘champagne’ can only be used to describe wine that has been produced in the Champagne region of France and ‘Scotch’ whisky can only be applied to the spirit produced in the Scottish highlands.

Basmati rice is also governed by this rule since it is has a “closely linked, exclusive relationship with its place of origin on the Indian sub-continent,’’ says Sharma.

But, India has failed to claim TRIPs protection for Basmati rice, Darjeeling tea and other products, he says.

Old maps record plutonium outside government plant

Kevil, Kentucky, Oct. 2— Old maps, long since forgotten by the Energy Department, show alarming levels of radioactive plutonium had been found outside the Paducah Gasseous Diffusion Plant unbeknownst to many, the Courier-Journal of Louisville reported in its Sunday editions.

The three maps, obtained through a year-old Freedom of Information Act request, show that water and sediment samples collected around the plant between 1988 and 1998 had levels of radiation much higher than the government had been required to clean up in other locations.

US Department of Energy officials said they didn’t know the maps existed. The Energy Department had maintained for years that plutonium levels at the site were insignificant.

Mark Donham, environmentalist and newly elected chairman of the citizens advisory board that monitors the plant’s ongoing clean-up, said the latest revelation is an example of the Energy Department’s credibility problems.

“Every time we try to bring it up and ask what the impact of it is, they always try to change the subject and downplay it,” said Donham, a resident of Brookport, Illinois.

Energy Department officials said the levels don’t pose a threat to the health of nearby residents.

“Clearly it needs to be taken care of, but I don’t see it as something that requires a mass exodus” of people living nearby, said Don Seaborg, the Energy Department’s site manager.

Source: Associated Press