Food and Water Sovereignty:Water Rights Groups Blast Corporate-Dominated Water Forum / Common Dreams

 
Published on Monday, March 12, 2012 by Common Dreams
 "Untamed privatization will lead to a disaster”

As the World Water Forum gathers in Marseille, France, for its 6th meeting since 1997, water rights activists are criticizing the corporate-led, profit-motivated gathering as a move for global control of water.
Shayda Naficy, senior organizer of Corporate Accountability International's Challenge Corporate Control of our Water, slams the forum as a platform for corporations to push their privatization efforts:

The World Water Forum is another tool in the corporate move to shift policy debates to opaque, elite forums insulated from broad democratic participation, asserting market assumptions as a starting-point for water policy. Since its 1997 inception, the WWF has been a lightning-rod for international protest, as a prime example of corporate interference with water governance. Organized by the private trade association, the World Water Council, in conjunction with host governments, this year’s Forum will be held in France, the home of the two largest water corporations, Suez and Veolia. While the movement to reclaim public control of water has made major strides in France in recent years, most notably with the 2010 transition of the Paris water utility back to public control, the Forum location of Marseille remains a stronghold for the private water industry, and the home turf of the World Water Council.

Maude Barlow, chairperson of the Council of Canadians and Food & Water Watch, criticizes the core mission of the forum:

“Water and sanitation have been recognized as human rights. The challenge now is to have governments implement these rights as quickly as possible now. It’s a poor starting point for the World Water Forum to fail to recognize these fundamental rights.”

Portuguese member of Parliament: “Whoever controls water controls a great source of power and of course a great source of profit.”
Euractiv reports:

At the last forum in Istanbul in 2009, police battled protestors opposing private management of water utilities. The issue resonates this year in austerity-driven European countries – including Greece, Portugal and Spain – where authorities have mapped out plans to sell state assets and utilities to address budget and debt woes.
“Whoever controls water controls a great source of power and of course a great source of profit,” João Ferreira, a Portuguese member of Parliament from the European United Left group, said Tuesday at a Brussels meeting called by FAME organisers.
“This resource cannot be managed privately … and untamed privatisation will lead to a disaster,” Ferreira said.

To provide an alternative conference emphasizing water as a human right, activists have created the Alternative World Water Forum. This group states that:

The next World Water Forum presents itself as a "Forum for solutions" as usual. These solutions are about making water more expensive and about having more paying customers. The issues should be about guaranteeing access to water and sanitation services.

In its focus on access to water and sanitation services, the Alternative Water Forum explains:

The objective of the Alternative World Water Forum (AWWF) – in French, the Forum Alternatif Mondial de l’Eau (FAME) – is to create a concrete alternative to the sixth World Water Forum (WWF) which is organized by the World Water Council. This Council is a mouthpiece for transnational companies and the World Bank and they falsely claim to head the global governance of water.
For several years, different civil society movements have fought side by side for water conservation and citizen management of water. Activists have created platforms, propositions and campaigns at events such as the 2003 Alternative Forum in Florence, the 2005 Alternative Forum in Geneva, the 2006 Alternative Forum in Mexico or the 2009 Alternative Forum in Istanbul and within international Social Forums such as those in Porto Alegre, Caracas, Nairobi, and Belem. These gatherings helped solidify the movement to reappropriate water, a communal resource which belongs to all of humanity.

 
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U.S. Launches Mission to Privatize Water in India: By Wenonah Hauter / AlterNet

  WATER  

AlterNet / By Wenonah Hauter

U.S. Launches Mission to Privatize Water in India

The U.S. Water Trade Mission to India to secure the entry of U.S.-based corporations into the lucrative Indian water market has Indian water activists seething.

March 2, 2011  |  

 

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Despite the failure of private water providers to deliver expected results or improve equitable access to water, the U.S. continues to try and export the idea that private companies are best poised to deliver water in the 21st century. Its latest attempt to do so is the U.S. Water Trade Mission to India, a move that has Indian water activists seething.
In a petition organized by the Peoples’ Campaign for Right to Water-Karnataka, the activists appeal for the mission to leave, noting, “Instead of responding to the basic water needs of people…successive state governments [since] the late 90s have been happily signing up one project or another with international banks and foreign governments to privatize every aspect of their constitutional responsibility of providing clean potable drinking water to all.” In an email sent out by another group, Pani Haq Samiti Mumbai, the mission is a “clear plan to convert basic human need of domestic water into business product and privatize the water distribution and treatment processes presently handled by local public bodies.” The group is organizing a massive protest of the mission on March 3.
The stated objective of the trade mission is to secure the entry of U.S.-based corporations into the lucrative Indian water market, estimated at $50 billion. This mission follows on the heels of years of investment by USAID in water sector reforms that have laid the groundwork for private sector participation.
So, what’s wrong with this picture? The promotion of water markets and the commodification of water will come at the expense of the traditional idea of water as a public good and a natural resource, to be shared by all. In the end, the principles of equity and ecological sustainability will be sacrificed for profits.
Furthermore, the behind the scenes meetings the trade mission is arranging between the U.S. executives and the Indian representatives and officials represent a more fundamental attack on the idea of community control of natural resources. The corporations’ attempts to capture control of water resources for private profit will come at the expense of local populations and the fundamental human right to water, a right recognized by both the United Nations General Assembly and the Supreme Court of India. (In an ironic twist, the UN’s independent expert on the human right to water Catarina de Albuquerque is touring the U.S. this week to identify stumbling blocks to the provision of water here in the world’s richest nation.)
These behind the scenes discussions, which involve little input from affected communities, are far removed from the principles of democracy and transparency that the U.S. Government purports to represent globally. Hopefully the demonstration of the Indian people will show the U.S. leadership that local participation in how their water resources are managed is critical to success, and reinforce to them that communities want water safeguarded as a human right, not a commodity.

Regulating the Rush for Land by Jessica McDiarmidby / Inter Press Service / ICH

Published on Monday, October 31, 2011 by Inter Press Service

Published on Monday, October 31, 2011 by Inter Press Service

Regulating the Rush for Land

by Jessica McDiarmid

FREETOWN - The adoption of international guidelines to regulate so-called land grabs has been pushed to next year after negotiators failed to agree on conditions for large-scale land investments and enforcement.
More and more investors have flocked to the developing world over the past decade, snapping up huge tracts of farmland. Investment has intensified since the 2008 food and fuel price crisis. The guidelines, in the making for several years, were sparked by fears that a "land rush" is leading to hunger, conflict and human rights abuses.
More and more investors have flocked to the developing world over the past decade, snapping up huge tracts of farmland. Investment has intensified since the 2008 food and fuel price crisis.
Once in place, the United Nations’s Committee on World Food Security guidelines are meant to protect people, mainly in poor countries such as Sierra Leone, from "land grabbing".

Earlier in October, a brief flurry of attention from media and civil society surrounded the sessions of the Committee on World Food Security in Rome, where a stamp of approval on the guidelines on tenure of land, fisheries and forests was expected.

However, Olivier De Schutter, the U. N. special rapporteur on the right to food, said in an email following the meetings that details of conditions for large-scale investments remained an unresolved sticking point.

"Another major potential difficulty will be how the (voluntary guidelines) shall be followed up on," said De Schutter.

Another week of negotiations should take place in January or February to hammer out a consensus on guidelines that will "hopefully" be adopted early next year.

"These are complex issues and I'm not surprised more time is required than expected," said De Schutter. "I think it is remarkable we are heading towards a very detailed text despite the wide range of interests involved, in which decisions are made not by vote but by consensus."

A September 2011 report by Oxfam International estimated as many as 227 million hectares of land in developing countries has been sold or leased since 2001. Most of that acquisition has occurred since 2008 and most has been into the hands of international investors, says the Land and Power report.

"There is a fear that arable lands will be scarce in the future and the price of land will continue to increase," said De Schutter. "There is a sudden realisation that land is something that is in increasingly short supply.

"So there is now a rush for land."

De Schutter said developing countries agree to sell or lease out large amounts of land in exchange for infrastructure and agricultural development - things cash-strapped governments could not afford on their own.

"They (feel) they have no choice," said De Schutter.

And corruption remains rife in many countries, with local elites receiving kickbacks for land and inking agreements that benefit their own interests. Transparency International's Global Corruption Barometer reported that 15 percent of people dealing with land administration services had to pay bribes.

Foreign direct investment to Africa continues to rise to unprecedented levels. The growth in production of biofuels, as well as carbon credit mechanisms and speculation, are key driving forces.

The majority of land deals in Africa are for export commodities, including biofuels and cut flowers, rather than food production, according to Oxfam International's report.

In Sierra Leone, a small West African country of about six million people that emerged from a long civil war in 2002, the democratically elected government of President Ernest Bai Koroma makes no secret of its desire to lure foreign investment.

In a recent presidential address, Koroma pointed out that agriculture contributes to nearly half the country's GDP and a quarter of its export earnings, as well as employing about two thirds of the population.

While touting the government's small-scale farming programmes, Koroma hailed "huge investments" by the private, mainly foreign, sector.

"These private sector enterprises have not only made substantial investments in the agricultural sector but have created thousands of jobs for our people," said Koroma, whose government offers an array of incentives and tax breaks to foreign investors.

According to a report by the California-based Oakland Institute in early 2011, nearly half a million hectares of Sierra Leonean farmland had been leased or was under negotiation, while the World Food Programme estimates that about half the population remains food insecure.

The Sierra Leone country report of Oakland Institute's Understanding Land Deals in Africa series suggested that large-scale land acquisition is characterised by a lack of transparency and disclosure, weak legal frameworks and confusion surrounding land availability.

"Land is being cultivated for agrofuel production as opposed to food production for local markets, raising serious doubts about the value of investments for local food security," says the report.

The report stressed the conditions "are ripe for exploitation and conflict" and called for international institutions and donor partners to withdraw support for large-scale land acquisitions in the country.

Earlier in October, dozens of people were arrested in southern Sierra Leone following protests against a land deal. Locals said they were not consulted or given information regarding the deal, which leased 12,500 hectares to a Belgian company, Socfin. More than 100 protesters blocked access to the site.

Joseph Rahall, of the Sierra Leonean non-governmental organisation Green Scenery, said local government and landowners are vulnerable to exploitation.

"Sierra Leone is very new in this business, the business of large-scale investment in land," said Rahall. "I know there could be a balance, if it is properly thought out. But we have not, we're just jumping into it without critical analysis, without proper research."

He stressed any principles adopted internationally need enforcement in Africa and cannot be something companies just say they adhere to.

Employment and economic development is simply "the bell they ring to sweet talk people into accepting these things," said Rahall.

A 2009 report, "Land grab or development opportunity? Agricultural investment and international land deals in Africa", noted land acquisitions have the potential to result in loss of land for large numbers of people.

"As much of the rural population in Africa crucially depend on land for their livelihoods and food security, loss of land is likely to have major negative impacts on local people," said the 130-page report by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, the International Fund for Agricultural Development and the International Institute for Environment and Development.

"These may only partly be compensated by the creation of permanent or temporary jobs."

De Schutter said benefits are rarely spread across the board to the most needy and decisions are not necessarily transparent or in the interests of the poor.

"In general, the development of plantations increases inequality, instead of decreasing it," said De Schutter.

"The majority will not benefit."

The guidelines on the security of tenure of land, fisheries and forests "could be a significant advance," said De Schutter. "It can make it more difficult for governments to ignore the demands of the local community."

© 2011 IPS North America

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by Jessica McDiarmid

FREETOWN - The adoption of international guidelines to regulate so-called land grabs has been pushed to next year after negotiators failed to agree on conditions for large-scale land investments and enforcement.
More and more investors have flocked to the developing world over the past decade, snapping up huge tracts of farmland. Investment has intensified since the 2008 food and fuel price crisis. The guidelines, in the making for several years, were sparked by fears that a "land rush" is leading to hunger, conflict and human rights abuses.
More and more investors have flocked to the developing world over the past decade, snapping up huge tracts of farmland. Investment has intensified since the 2008 food and fuel price crisis.
Once in place, the United Nations’s Committee on World Food Security guidelines are meant to protect people, mainly in poor countries such as Sierra Leone, from "land grabbing".

Earlier in October, a brief flurry of attention from media and civil society surrounded the sessions of the Committee on World Food Security in Rome, where a stamp of approval on the guidelines on tenure of land, fisheries and forests was expected.

However, Olivier De Schutter, the U. N. special rapporteur on the right to food, said in an email following the meetings that details of conditions for large-scale investments remained an unresolved sticking point.

"Another major potential difficulty will be how the (voluntary guidelines) shall be followed up on," said De Schutter.

Another week of negotiations should take place in January or February to hammer out a consensus on guidelines that will "hopefully" be adopted early next year.

"These are complex issues and I'm not surprised more time is required than expected," said De Schutter. "I think it is remarkable we are heading towards a very detailed text despite the wide range of interests involved, in which decisions are made not by vote but by consensus."

A September 2011 report by Oxfam International estimated as many as 227 million hectares of land in developing countries has been sold or leased since 2001. Most of that acquisition has occurred since 2008 and most has been into the hands of international investors, says the Land and Power report.

"There is a fear that arable lands will be scarce in the future and the price of land will continue to increase," said De Schutter. "There is a sudden realisation that land is something that is in increasingly short supply.

"So there is now a rush for land."

De Schutter said developing countries agree to sell or lease out large amounts of land in exchange for infrastructure and agricultural development - things cash-strapped governments could not afford on their own.

"They (feel) they have no choice," said De Schutter.

And corruption remains rife in many countries, with local elites receiving kickbacks for land and inking agreements that benefit their own interests. Transparency International's Global Corruption Barometer reported that 15 percent of people dealing with land administration services had to pay bribes.

Foreign direct investment to Africa continues to rise to unprecedented levels. The growth in production of biofuels, as well as carbon credit mechanisms and speculation, are key driving forces.

The majority of land deals in Africa are for export commodities, including biofuels and cut flowers, rather than food production, according to Oxfam International's report.

In Sierra Leone, a small West African country of about six million people that emerged from a long civil war in 2002, the democratically elected government of President Ernest Bai Koroma makes no secret of its desire to lure foreign investment.

In a recent presidential address, Koroma pointed out that agriculture contributes to nearly half the country's GDP and a quarter of its export earnings, as well as employing about two thirds of the population.

While touting the government's small-scale farming programmes, Koroma hailed "huge investments" by the private, mainly foreign, sector.

"These private sector enterprises have not only made substantial investments in the agricultural sector but have created thousands of jobs for our people," said Koroma, whose government offers an array of incentives and tax breaks to foreign investors.

According to a report by the California-based Oakland Institute in early 2011, nearly half a million hectares of Sierra Leonean farmland had been leased or was under negotiation, while the World Food Programme estimates that about half the population remains food insecure.

The Sierra Leone country report of Oakland Institute's Understanding Land Deals in Africa series suggested that large-scale land acquisition is characterised by a lack of transparency and disclosure, weak legal frameworks and confusion surrounding land availability.

"Land is being cultivated for agrofuel production as opposed to food production for local markets, raising serious doubts about the value of investments for local food security," says the report.

The report stressed the conditions "are ripe for exploitation and conflict" and called for international institutions and donor partners to withdraw support for large-scale land acquisitions in the country.

Earlier in October, dozens of people were arrested in southern Sierra Leone following protests against a land deal. Locals said they were not consulted or given information regarding the deal, which leased 12,500 hectares to a Belgian company, Socfin. More than 100 protesters blocked access to the site.

Joseph Rahall, of the Sierra Leonean non-governmental organisation Green Scenery, said local government and landowners are vulnerable to exploitation.

"Sierra Leone is very new in this business, the business of large-scale investment in land," said Rahall. "I know there could be a balance, if it is properly thought out. But we have not, we're just jumping into it without critical analysis, without proper research."

He stressed any principles adopted internationally need enforcement in Africa and cannot be something companies just say they adhere to.

Employment and economic development is simply "the bell they ring to sweet talk people into accepting these things," said Rahall.

A 2009 report, "Land grab or development opportunity? Agricultural investment and international land deals in Africa", noted land acquisitions have the potential to result in loss of land for large numbers of people.

"As much of the rural population in Africa crucially depend on land for their livelihoods and food security, loss of land is likely to have major negative impacts on local people," said the 130-page report by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, the International Fund for Agricultural Development and the International Institute for Environment and Development.

"These may only partly be compensated by the creation of permanent or temporary jobs."

De Schutter said benefits are rarely spread across the board to the most needy and decisions are not necessarily transparent or in the interests of the poor.

"In general, the development of plantations increases inequality, instead of decreasing it," said De Schutter.

"The majority will not benefit."

The guidelines on the security of tenure of land, fisheries and forests "could be a significant advance," said De Schutter. "It can make it more difficult for governments to ignore the demands of the local community."

© 2011 IPS North America

Is the EPA Selling Out Your Water? by Kate Fried

Published on Wednesday, October 26, 2011 by Food & Water Watch Blog

Is the EPA Selling Out Your Water?

by Kate Fried

We were disheartened to learn this week that Nancy Stoner, the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) acting assistant administrator for water, is an advocate for water privatization. In an interview with Greenwire (Sorry, but subscription required.), Stoner expressed doubt about the federal government’s ability to help provide the public with drinking and wastewater service, citing them as “too expensive.” She then went on to say,
“I think there’s big money in to be made in how to address the water resources needs for our country, particularly when we are going to have population growth, development, the decay of existing infrastructure and climate change.”
Hearing a top government official in charge of protecting one of our most essential shared resources laud a scheme that has been linked to the degradation of municipal water supplies definitely makes us wonder where our government is placing its priorities. Across the U.S., privatization has been linked to deteriorating water quality, rate hikes, job force reductions and poor customer service.
If there is any money to be made in water privatization, it’s among wealthy corporations and their shareholders, who time and time again have proven that they are not responsible patrons of common resources such as water. Privatization has led to disasters around the U.S., especially in Illinois, where customers of the water systems purchased by Illinois American Water and Aqua Illinois over the last fifteen years have seen their water bills more than double on average since privatization.
The EPA should be ensuring the abundance of safe, clean, affordable water, not encouraging corporations to swindle more Americans.
Stoner is correct in her assessment of the challenges facing municipal water systems, which every year fall at least $22 billion short of the funds needed to safely and affordably deliver this basic resource to Americans. Many public water systems in the United States were built over a century ago, around the same time that Henry Ford was tinkering around with the first Model T. Few people rely on cars from that era for their basic transportation needs, yet much of our water flows through pipes just as old.
While Stoner supports the President’s proposed infrastructure bank, which wouldn’t even address the needs of small and rural water systems, she fails to mention a bill recently introduced in Congress that would create a clean water trust. Food & Water Watch has been actively engaged in the fight to establish such a fund for several years now because it would create a sustainable, dedicated source of federal funding for community water systems, freeing them from the funding whims of congress and the president. According to our research, closing the gap in federal infrastructure funding could also create up to 750,000 new jobs.
Today Food & Water Watch issued an open letter to Stoner that encapsulated many of the points above, and can best be summed up with this: When looked at from the perspective of environmental protection or job creation, privatization is a problem, not a solution.
It’s no secret that our nation’s prolonged economic crunch has drained local and federal coffers alike. Perhaps we’re so accustomed to recession-era hysteria that just about every fix to raise money seems like a sound one. Regardless, it’s extremely irresponsible of the EPA to advocate for water privatization.
Municipal water systems deliver an essential resource that belongs to us all. Our government should remember that before turning it into a cash cow.

© 2011 Food & Water Watch

Private Utilities Land Residents in Hot Water Food & Water Watch

Private Utilities Land Residents in Hot Water


ew Food & Water Watch Analysis Shows that Inter-municipal Partnerships can Better Deliver Safe, Affordable Water to Illinois Consumers

WASHINGTON - October 26 - New analysis by national consumer advocacy group Food & Water Watch finds that Illinois’s largest private water utilities are earning profits of as much as $18 million dollars a year, while raising rates for consumers by as much as 23 percent. Illinois American Water and Aqua Illinois: Community Experiences With the Largest Investor-Owned Water Utilities in Illinois shows that Illinois’s communities are better served by publicly owned and operated water systems and that public-public partnerships are better options through which to efficiently deliver affordable water to consumers.
“The experience of Illinois consumers with these private water companies highlights the need for publicly-owned and operated water systems that are locally-controlled, transparent and more accountable to ratepayers. Only publicly owned and operated water systems can deliver high-quality water at an affordable price,” said Emily Carroll, an organizer for Food & Water Watch.
Residential customers of the water systems purchased by Illinois American Water (IAW) and Aqua Illinois over the last fifteen years have seen their water bills more than double on average since privatization. Nationally, water rates typically increase 5 percent a year, but Illinois customers of these two corporations are seeing their water rates increase 260 percent faster than the typical increase. Despite the high prices, the companies’ customers have received poor service in the form of billing mistakes, inadequate water pressure and even improper fire hydrant maintenance.
In just the first eight months of 2011, IAW and Aqua Illinois spent a combined $33,300 on campaign contributions and $3,080 on lobbying state officials to influence policy in their favor. Communities such as Homer Glen in Will County have seen their water rates increase by as much as 82 percent, even when customer service has been so bad that village residents were charged for IAW’s unaccounted-for water. 

“Under private ownership, people pay much more than their neighbors across the street who get their water from a public utility, even though that water comes from the same source — Lake Michigan,” said Representative Renée Kosel, assistant republican leader of the Illinois House of Representatives. “One of the factors making it difficult for my constituents to sell their homes is high utility rates from Illinois American Water.”
Since Bolingbrook sold its drinking water system to Illinois American Water in 2002, residents have been slammed with rate hikes, adding $267 to $615 onto typical annual bills. Under public ownership, residents paid $246 a year for 72,000 gallons of well water, or $524 a year for water from Lake Michigan. In 2011, Illinois American Water charged households $922 a year for the same amount of water. Yet, Bolingbrook’s water prices were 228 percent higher than the average price of ten nearby publicly owned water systems supplying Lake Michigan water. 

Despite the high rates paid in Lisle, Illinois American Water has consistently provided water service with water pressure so low that it was considered “woefully inadequate” for fire fighting. In 2007, a group is Lisle residents sued the company for this.
The track record of Aqua Illinois is not much better. In 2007, Aqua Illinois bought the water system serving Manteno. In less than one year, about a hundred customers had problems with their bills; in some cases, the company charged them nine times as much as their actual water usage. One customer was even charged for supposedly using 270,000 gallons of water on a vacant lot.
“The track records of Illinois American Water and Aqua Illinois demonstrate that privatization is not a responsible or acceptable way to address the needs of water and sewer systems in Illinois,” said Carroll. “Instead, policy makers should explore the benefits of public-public partnerships, which would especially benefit low-income and rural communities.” 

Food and Water Watch’s analysis finds that municipalities can better serve consumers by sharing resources and expertise. These public-public partnerships can enhance service quality and save money while allowing communities to retain local control of an essential resource.
Illinois American Water and Aqua Illinois: Community Experiences With the Largest Investor-Owned Water Utilities in Illinois is available here: (http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/briefs/illinois-american-water-and-aqua...)

###

Food & Water Watch is a nonprofit consumer organization that works to ensure clean water and safe food. We challenge the corporate control and abuse of our food and water resources by empowering people to take action and by transforming the public consciousness about what we eat and drink.

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ACLU Will Take Gene Patent Case to Supreme Court by Amanda Wilson

Published on Sunday, October 16, 2011 by Inter Press Service

ACLU Will Take Gene Patent Case to Supreme Court

by Amanda Wilson

WASHINGTON - When Jaydee Hanson, then-bioethics director for the United Methodist Church, spoke out publicly against gene patents over 15 years ago, some in the biotech industry compared his stance to the Catholic Church's persecution of Galileo, the 15th century astronomer who discovered the moons of Jupiter.

Hanson and 200 other religious leaders had released a statement that DNA in the human body and animals are natural objects and should not be subject to patenting. "It's kind of like saying two of your genes are in jail, but we are not allowed to report this information to you, even though it would save your life." (photo: opensource.com)

Patent supporters in the biotech industry disagree, arguing that "isolated copies" of genes outside the human body should be patentable and that the prospect of intellectual property rights on genes serves as incentive for further research.

On Wednesday, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) announced it would ask the Supreme Court to rule on a patent by Myriad Genetics, a genetic diagnostics company based in Salt Lake City, Utah, on "isolated" BRCA-1 and BRCA-2 genes, two genes that can have mutations linked to breast, ovarian and prostate cancers.

Those with a stake in the case say any ruling from the court would have a major impact on patient care, scientific research, and rights to access human genetic information, as well on legal doctrine.

The gene patenting case has been moving up through lower courts since 2009, when the ACLU first filed a civil suit in a district court in the state of New York arguing that Myriad's patent on the genes should be invalidated.

District judge Robert Sweet agreed with the ACLU in 2010, but Myriad appealed, and the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals overturned Sweet's ruling in July, with two out of three judges siding with Myriad, affirming the company's right to patents on the two "isolated" BRCA genes linked to breast cancer.

Facing a mid-December deadline to appeal the lower court's ruling to uphold gene patents, the ACLU decided to move forward with the appeal in time for National Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October, said Sandra Park, an ACLU attorney working on the case.

"We consulted with our clients and made the decision to move forward, given the importance of the issues to patients and scientists," Park told IPS, adding that the Supreme Court would likely make a decision in the spring of 2012 about whether it will hear the case.

More than 4,000 genes have been patented, including copies of genes that make up 20 percent of the human genome, according to Hanson, who now works as a policy director for the International Centre for Technology Assessment (ICTA). In the past, Hanson and ICTA have successfully challenged patents on a beagle and other animals.

In September, Myriad sent the following comment to IPS: "Myriad defended its position in the courts and recently had a favourable outcome. We believe that isolated DNA and cDNA are patent-eligible material, as both are new chemical matter with important utilities which can only exist as a product of human ingenuity."

With its patents, Myriad holds exclusive rights in the U.S. to test the BRCA-1 and BRCA-2 genes for mutations and provide that information to doctors and patients. Those mutations place women at a much greater risk of developing breast cancer and some men at greater risk of developing prostate cancer.

ACLU: Patents make tests cost-prohibitive and block research

The ACLU represents a group of 20 other plaintiffs, including geneticists, pathologists and breast cancer survivor advocates, who maintain that the patents block patient care.

They argue that patients shouldn't have to pay for genetic information they could use to make life-or- death decisions, such as whether to get a mastectomy, especially when other genetic testing providers could offer that information if Myriad didn't have exclusive rights to sequence the genes.

Five to 10 percent of breast cancer cases are linked to mutations on the BRCA-1 or BRCA-2 genes, and those with the mutations have an 85 percent risk of developing cancer. Some insurance policies cover the tests, but other plans, especially those providing insurance for the poor, don't.

According to Park, Myriad chose not to enter into contracts with about half of all insurance programs in states that cover low-income people.

Ellen Matloff, a genetic counselor at Yale for over 15 years and a plaintiff in the ACLU case, said the cost of the test was a real issue for many of her patients.

According to her, "comprehensive" breast cancer test from Myriad for other breast cancer mutations costs 3,400 dollars and a supplementary test for the BRCA-1 and BRCA-2 genes, called the BART test, costs 700 dollars. Matloff said that 95 percent of patients she recommends for supplementary testing don't end up being tested because of its high cost.

"I know that we are missing mutations," Matloff told IPS, adding that the BRCA gene mutations are passed down maternally and paternally. "It is going to impact them, their children, their siblings their grandchildren, their nieces and nephews, and from a clinician's standpoint it is horrifying."

Gene patenting opponents also argue that in a new era in which full- genome sequencing is getting faster and cheaper, patents stand in the way of access to new knowledge about how certain genes are related to disease.

"The whole next phase of [research in] genetics and disease is to understand how genes work together," Hanson told IPS. "It is a huge task, and the patents just interfere with it."

Matloff expressed a similar concern that advanced knowledge about genes without access to that knowledge could create problems for patients and care providers.

"It is almost like saying, 'we have your genes right in front of us, it came out of your body, but we are not allowed to look at it, we're not allowed to interpret it, and we are not allowed to give the information back to you,'" Matloff said.

"It's kind of like saying two of your genes are in jail, but we are not allowed to report this information to you, even though it would save your life."

GM Crops Promote Superweeds, Food Insecurity and Pesticides, say NGOs

GM Crops Promote Superweeds, Food Insecurity and Pesticides, say NGOs

Published on Wednesday, October 19, 2011 by The Guardian/UK

Report finds genetically modified crops fail to increase yields let alone solve hunger, soil erosion and chemical-use issues

by John Vidal

Genetic engineering has failed to increase the yield of any food crop but has vastly increased the use of chemicals and the growth of "superweeds", according to a report by 20 Indian, south-east Asian, African and Latin American food and conservation groups representing millions of people.

The so-called miracle crops, which were first sold in the US about 20 years ago and which are now grown in 29 countries on about 1.5bn hectares (3.7bn acres) of land, have been billed as potential solutions to food crises, climate change and soil erosion, but the assessment finds that they have not lived up to their promises.

The report claims that hunger has reached "epic proportions" since the technology was developed. Besides this, only two GM "traits" have been developed on any significant scale, despite investments of tens of billions of dollars, and benefits such as drought resistance and salt tolerance have yet to materialise on any scale.

Most worrisome, say the authors of the Global Citizens' Report on the State of GMOs, is the greatly increased use of synthetic chemicals, used to control pests despite biotech companies' justification that GM-engineered crops would reduce insecticide use.

In China, where insect-resistant Bt cotton is widely planted, populations of pests that previously posed only minor problems have increased 12-fold since 1997. A 2008 study in the International Journal of Biotechnology found that any benefits of planting Bt cotton have been eroded by the increasing use of pesticides needed to combat them.

Additionally, soya growers in Argentina and Brazil have been found to use twice as much herbicide on their GM as they do on conventional crops, and a survey by Navdanya International, in India, showed that pesticide use increased 13-fold since Bt cotton was introduced.

The report, which draws on empirical research and companies' own statements, also says weeds are now developing resistance to the GM firms' herbicides and pesticides that are designed to be used with their crops, and that this has led to growing infestations of "superweeds", especially in the US.

Ten common weeds have now developed resistance in at least 22 US states, with about 6m hectares (15m acres) of soya, cotton and corn now affected.

Consequently, farmers are being forced to use more herbicides to combat the resistant weeds, says the report. GM companies are paying farmers to use other, stronger, chemicals, they say. "The genetic engineering miracle is quite clearly faltering in farmers' fields," add the authors.

The companies have succeeded in marketing their crops to more than 15 million farmers, largely by heavy lobbying of governments, buying up local seed companies, and withdrawing conventional seeds from the market, the report claims. Monsanto, Dupont and Syngenta, the world's three largest GM companies, now control nearly 70% of global seed sales. This allows them to "own" and sell GM seeds through patents and intellectual property rights and to charge farmers extra, claims the report.

The study accuses Monsanto of gaining control of over 95% of the Indian cotton seed market and of massively pushing up prices. High levels of indebtedness among farmers is thought to be behind many of the 250,000 deaths by suicide of Indian farmers over the past 15 years.

The report, which is backed by Friends of the Earth International, the Center for Food Safety in the US, Confédération Paysanne, and the Gaia foundation among others, also questions the safety of GM crops, citing studies and reports which indicate that people and animals have experienced apparent allergic reactions.

But it suggests scientists are loath to question the safety aspects for fear of being attacked by establishment bodies, which often receive large grants from the companies who control the technology.

Monsanto disputes the report's findings: "In our view the safety and benefits of GM are well established. Hundreds of millions of meals containing food from GM crops have been consumed and there has not been a single substantiated instance of illness or harm associated with GM crops."

It added: "Last year the National Research Council, of the US National Academy of Sciences, issued a report, The Impact of Genetically Engineered Crops on Farm Sustainability in the United States, which concludes that US farmers growing biotech crops 'are realising substantial economic and environmental benefits – such as lower production costs, fewer pest problems, reduced use of pesticides, and better yields – compared with conventional crops'."

David King, the former UK chief scientist who is now director of the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at Oxford University, has blamed food shortages in Africa partly on anti-GM campaigns in rich countries.

But, the report's authors claim, GM crops are adding to food insecurity because most are now being grown for biofuels, which take away land from local food production.

Vandana Shiva, director of the Indian organisation Navdanya International, which co-ordinated the report, said: "The GM model of farming undermines farmers trying to farm ecologically. Co-existence between GM and conventional crops is not possible because genetic pollution and contamination of conventional crops is impossible to control.

"Choice is being undermined as food systems are increasingly controlled by giant corporations and as chemical and genetic pollution spread. GM companies have put a noose round the neck of farmers. They are destroying alternatives in the pursuit of profit."

© 2011 Guardian Media