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Propriety of group's opposition to ballot issues is questioned.
By Mike Lee -- Bee Staff Writer
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California State University's systemwide biotechnology program is taking a stand against efforts to ban genetically engineered crops in four counties - the first political foray of its kind for the 17-year-old program.
While the announcement gives a boost to opponents of four November anti-biotech ballot measures, it also raises questions for some about publicly funded institutions taking sides on an issue that divides Californians.
"It's predictable but continually disappointing and, I think, outrageous," Renata Brillinger, campaign coordinator for Californians for GE-Free Agriculture, said Tuesday of the CSU endorsement.
Biotech prohibitions already are in place in Mendocino and Trinity counties. Proposals to ban the growing of biotech crops are on Nov. 2 ballots in Butte, Marin, Humboldt and San Luis Obispo counties, making this election critical for an emerging technology with substantial implications for California agriculture.
"These initiatives narrowly and selfishly serve the purposes of the anti-biotech community by attempting to prohibit the cultivation of biotech crops that have been proven to be beneficial to agriculture in general, and to farmers and the environment in particular," according to a statement made public this week by CSU's Program for Education and Research in Biotechnology.
The program promotes biotechnology and has invested heavily in laboratories and related research. Roughly 750 CSU faculty members and thousands of students statewide study aspects of the fast-growing and high-paying industry that Bay Area professors helped launch in the 1970s.
"When we see ballot measures coming out of this type where there is very little scientific reasoning taking place ... we feel compelled to voice our opinion," said A. Stephen Dahms, executive director of the CSU biotech program in San Diego.
The CSU executive council of campus presidents declined to lend its support to the biotech statement but encouraged the biotech program to make its views known.
The council "decided that it would be most appropriate for the faculty (biotech) group to support their own resolution since faculty can advocate on behalf of political issues," according to a council report provided by Dahms.
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Helen Pearson
Bush-Kerry election race adds heat to discussion.
Members of the United Nations are gearing up to debate a highly contentious issue: whether to introduce an international ban on human cloning.
In the build-up to the debate, a group of patient and medical research advocates yesterday pleaded with UN delegates not to forbid the cloning of human embryos for medical research. They also presented a letter making their case, signed by 125 scientific and patient organizations from around the world.
The UN has been wrestling with whether to regulate human cloning since 2001, and decided to postpone a decision on it after reaching stalemate last year. Its legal committee will take up the discussion again on 21 and 22 October.
As they were last year, UN delegates are deeply divided. One group, led by Costa Rica and backed by nearly 60 countries, including the United States, is calling for a comprehensive ban on cloning. This includes both reproductive cloning to make babies, and the creation of human embryos for use in medical research.
The other group of countries, led by Belgium and backed by over 20 countries, wants a ban on reproductive cloning only. These countries argue that cloning for research should be allowed because stem cells grown from cloned embryos might lead to cures for countless diseases.
The opposing sides have changed little since last year's deliberations. But Spain, for example, has switched away from supporting a blanket ban because of its change from a conservative to a socialist government after elections in March 2004.
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The rice breeders will share the $250,000 award, which will be presented tonight in Des Moines, ending the first day of the international symposium.
By JERRY PERKINS
REGISTER FARM EDITOR/p>
Two rice breeders who will be jointly awarded the World Food Prize tonight in Des Moines said modern biotechnology provided a shortcut in their work to develop high-yielding rice plants.
Yuan Longping of China and Monty Jones of Sierra Leone will share the $250,000 prize, which will be formally presented to them during ceremonies beginning at 7 p.m. in the Iowa Capitol.
The ceremony comes at the end of the first day of the World Food Prize international symposium, titled "From Asia to Africa: Rice, Biofortification and Enhanced Nutrition." The symposium, which concludes Friday, brings together scientists and officials from around the globe.
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Although Yuan was recognized for his work using conventional plant-breeding techniques, he said new technologies like molecular analysis, DNA insertion from a common weed, and cloning techniques to increase photosensitivity of rice plants have led to large yield increases in rice varieties.
Yuan said his goal is for the high-yield rice varieties to be commercially available to farmers in five years.
Biotechnology in agriculture has stirred controversy in some nations. But Yuan said, "In the long run, if you want to increase potential yields and improve the quality of food in the world, we must use biotechnology."
Jones said he also used both conventional plant-breeding techniques and newer biotechnologies to overcome some of the hurdles he faced in his work.
Sterility and inconsistencies in the seed of rice varieties that had been crossed were solved by using "some modest biotechnology tools," Jones said.
Researchers had tried unsuccessfully for 50 years to cross the Asian and African rice varieties, Jones said.
"We were able to do it in four years," he said. "Biotechnology has speeded up the process and improved our ability to attain these lines and multiply the seeds for farmers."
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By DIEDTRA HENDERSON
AP Science Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Privacy advocates are concerned that an implantable microchip designed to help doctors tap into a patient's medical records could undermine confidentiality or could even be used to track the patient's movements.
"If privacy protections aren't built in at the outset, there could be harmful consequences for patients," said Emily Stewart, a policy analyst at the Health Privacy Project.
The Food and Drug Administration said Wednesday that Applied Digital Solutions of Delray Beach, Fla., could market the VeriChip, an implantable computer chip about the size of a grain of rice, for storing medical information.
With the pinch of a syringe, the microchip is inserted under the skin in a procedure that takes less than 20 minutes and requires no stitches. Silently and invisibly, the dormant chip stores a code that releases patient-specific information when a scanner passes over it.
The VeriChip itself contains no medical records, just codes that can be scanned and revealed in a doctor's office or hospital. With that code, doctors can unlock part of a secure database that holds the patient's medical information, including allergies and prior treatment. The electronic database, not the chip, would be updated with each medical visit.
The microchips have already been implanted in 1 million pets. But the chip's possible use to track people's movements - in addition to speeding delivery of medical information to emergency rooms - has raised alarm.
The company's chief executive officer, Scott R. Silverman, said chips implanted for medical uses could also be used for security purposes, like tracking employee movement through nuclear power plants.
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