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Biotech / Medical : Monsanto Co. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Anthony Wong who wrote (1276)	2/21/1999 9:56:00 PM
From: Anthony Wong	Respond to of 2539

Greenpeace boards ship to protest bioengineering Sunday, February 21, 1999 The Associated Press BOGOTA Environmental activists briefly boarded a ship carrying genetically modified U.S. corn Saturday in Colombia as part of a protest campaign against so-called 'Frankenstein foods. The environmental group Greenpeace said five members from Argentina, New Zealand, Australia and Colombia had used jet skis to reach the cargo ship Abydos, which was traveling from New Orleans, shortly before it docked at Colombia's Caribbean port of Santa Marta. Shore-based protester Isabelle Meister of Switzerland said the group had spoken briefly with the ship's captain to complain about the lack of import and export controls on genetically modified foods. The protesters then left the ship. News media in Britain, where a debate is raging on such foods, have dubbed the crops Frankenstein food in a reference to the fictional mutant monster. "We're protesting against transgenic crops being dumped on these countries without them even being told," Meister said in a phone interview. "This was a peaceful protest to draw attention to the issue." Scores of other demonstrators in the port unfurled banners saying "No genetic imperialism." Meister said she did not know how large the U.S. cargo was but said Colombia has imported more than 1.6 million tons of U.S. corn between March 1998 and January 1999, about 20 percent of which was genetically modified. The protest came as the United Nations held a week-long conference on genetically modified foods in the nearby Colombian resort of Cartagena. More than 500 delegates from 150 countries are trying to write a protocol that would establish strict guidelines for the importation, exporting and use of genetically modified crops. The biotechnology industry, including Monsanto Co. of St. Louis, has pumped billions of dollars into engineering new high-yield and disease-resistant strains of crops, especially corn, soy and cotton, by mixing genes and DNA from other plants and even animals. Critics say the crops could cause environmental damage by cross-pollinating with wild species and could harm plants, insects and animals right up the food chain. Copyright (c) 1999, St. Louis Post-Dispatch