Judge Orders Disclosure of Genetically Modified Crop Locations
Federal Court Ruling May Affect Iowa in the Long Run
Pacific Business News
A
federal judge [Thursday] issued a landmark ruling ordering the U.S.
Department of Agriculture to disclose locations of open-air field tests
in Hawaii of genetically modified biopharmaceutical crops....
The USDA
and biotech industry had fiercely resisted disclosing the locations of
the test plots to anyone, citing fears of espionage, vandalism and
civil unrest. However, District Court Judge David A. Ezra ordered the
USDA to provide the plaintiffs with the location information and
ordered the information to be public in 90 days unless the USDA came up
with better evidence of specific harm.
"Biopharming
could have disastrous effects on human health and the environment and
should not be shielded from public scrutiny," said Paul Achitoff, an
Earthjustice attorney. "At least now plaintiffs can find out if these
crops are being grown near conventional crops that can be
cross-pollinated, in ecologically sensitive areas or near schools or
homes."
...Genetically
engineered crops have contaminated conventional food crops, as in the
StarLink fiasco, where genetically engineered corn not approved for
human consumption ended up in dozens of products on supermarket shelves
and had to be recalled. There have been potentially disastrous slip-ups
in biopharm field tests. In 2002, the USDA had to quarantine and
destroy 500,000 bushels of Nebraska soybeans meant for human
consumption because the crop had been contaminated with corn engineered
to produce a pig vaccine. That same year, potential contamination led to the destruction of 155 acres of conventional corn in Iowa. The grower in both instances, Prodigene, is currently conducting open-air tests in Hawaii.
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Tuesday, August 10
Judge Orders Disclosure of Genetically Modified Crop Locations
by
Linda Thieman
on Tue 10 Aug 2004 04:08 PM CDT
The Republican Education Budget Shell Game: How It Affects Iowa
by
Linda Thieman
on Tue 10 Aug 2004 10:55 AM CDT
The Republican Education Budget Shell Game: How It Affects Iowa
by Darrell Lewis As a parent of two daughters who will be attending the University of Iowa next year, I must say I am totally fed up with Republicans crowing about how they have held the line on taxes. It's nothing more then a shell game on their part and their antics are falling particularly hard upon parents in Iowa. In the past four years, the actual general
fund allocation has decreased by approximately $100 million dollars to
the Iowa Board of Regents. I am not just talking failure to keep
pace with inflation, I am talking here about a real decrease
in money to support education. Because of this, Iowa universities
have made national news for being among the public universities with
the largest tuition increases nationwide. Only the University of
Wisconsin exceeds the tuition at the University of Iowa among all Big
Ten Universities. This report originally appeared on the Drury for Iowa Senate website.
The Counterpoint: Iowa’s Great New Blog!
by
Linda Thieman
on Tue 10 Aug 2004 05:00 AM CDT
The Counterpoint: Iowa’s Great New Blog!
The new Iowa blog called “The Counterpoint” is the brainchild of U of Iowa rhetoric teacher Ted Remington. As Ted puts it, “It began basically as a way to vent my own frustration with "The Point" being forced on KGAN viewers. I wrote a piece for the Iowa City Press Citizen a couple of months ago about Sinclair Broadcasting, got a good response, and wanted to do something to follow up on it. I found myself writing critical responses to Sinclair often enough that I finally decided to simply do it online so that other like-minded people might have a chance to see it (and also so Sinclair knew that my criticisms were, at least in a small way, available to a wider audience rather than simply being directed at them privately).” ”As a teacher of rhetoric, I get particularly ticked off at sloppy and misleading argumentation,” Remington continues. He says two things infuriate him about the broadcast of “The Point”: first, “the specific opinions in "The Point" and the fact that it's forced on local viewers by Sinclair executives in Baltimore,” and second, “the style of the argumentation (distortions, ad hominem attacks, etc.) It's talk radio babble posing as reasoned journalistic opinion, and I think people who use such simplistic thinking need to be called on it. I try to [call them on] it with attention to facts and details (e.g., I include hyperlinks to both the "Point" itself as well as to relevant outside sources), with a little humor, sarcasm, and parody thrown in when I can manage it.” Sounds like a good read and a much-needed public service! Ted will be sharing “The Counterpoint” with Blog for Iowa readers on a weekly basis. Visit “The Counterpoint” here. |
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