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07 February 2013

New Measures in Airport Security
In USA Travel Tips

By Sean O'Neill

 

The International Air Transport Association's proposed "checkpoint of the future”. (IATA)

By 1 June, the US Transportation Security Administration (TSA) will have removed a total of 250 full-body backscatter scanners from US airports – machines that had been criticized for generating overly detailed passenger images from low-dose x-rays.

The TSA has been replacing those machines with ones that use millimetre-wave technology, which generate images that better protect passenger privacy and rely on radio waves to check for weapons and explosives.
The TSA’s move is yet another example of how governments across the globe struggle to provide effective security while ensuring passenger privacy and efficient queues. As such, airports in the US are trialling new security measures – including facial recognition and iris scanners – to achieve this difficult balance.

Managed inclusion
Currently at checkpoints at Indianapolis and Tampa airports in Indiana and Florida respectively, the TSA is testing a system called “managed inclusion”, in which officials inspect the queues, sometimes with explosive-sniffing dogs, and select passengers to move into expedited security lanes.

The process – also known as behaviour detection – involves each passenger having a conversation with an officer, who asks questions while looking for signs of fear. Passengers who act suspiciously may be subjected to secondary screening measures, such as more invasive pat downs. A similar experiment ran for 60 days at Boston’s Logan Airport in 2011. There’s no word on whether this system will be deployed at other airports nationwide.

As a downside, some critics, such as author and security consultant Bruce Schneier, have said officers practicing behaviour detection are prone to racial and ethnic profiling, or the undue singling out of individuals based on stereotypes. Such profiling has happened frequently at European airports, according to a 2012 study by the consortium Behavioral Modeling of Security in Airports.

PreCheck
Since October 2011, the TSA has been testing PreCheck, a programme in which passengers voluntarily sign up for background checks in return for access to speedier lanes at checkpoints. Expanded last year to 35 major US airports, including most recently San Francisco International and Baltimore Washington, the service is open to elite loyalty programmes members for Delta, United, American, US Airways and Alaska – the only five airlines currently participating. PreCheck is free to frequent flyers, but other travellers may have to pay an application fee to apply via the US Customs and Border Protection's trusted traveller programs, such as Global Entry.

Critics of PreCheck say that technical glitches, such as minor inconsistencies in how passengers' information is presented in various databases, often prevent the effective functioning of the system, resulting in passenger delays. For example, if a paper record has a passenger’s middle initial but the computer has the passenger’s full middle name, the system may fail to make a proper match. The TSA counters that it is working out the kinks in the system.

The checkpoint of the future
In 2011, the International Air Transport Association proposed a collection of airport security improvements that it dubbed “the checkpoint of the future”. Passengers vetted via background checks would have a biometric identifier, such as their fingerprint or iris pattern, in their passport or other travel document. On arrival at an airport, a traveller would be directed to one of three lanes – Known Traveller, Normal or Enhanced Security – according to their biometric identifier. Some travellers would receive intensive levels of checks, such as hands-on pat-downs, while others would speed through.

At a testing centre at Dallas’ Love Field Airport, many of IATA’s ideas are being experimented with in a prototype checkpoint, according to USA Today. One of the highlights is the use of next-generation security cameras, with lenses that are sharp enough to see the faces of passengers from far away in much sharper and more recognisable detail than the present cameras at most US airports and can transmit those high-definition images to hand-held devices carried by guards patrolling the airport. Currently, guards mostly use less sophisticated cameras that only broadcast to monitors in fixed locations. Officials at Love Field hope to deploy the improved checkpoints within the next three years.
Unfortunately, the new systems are expensive. The TSA’s annual budget is $8 billion a year, an amount that some people deem out of proportion to the relative threat terrorism presents.
Sean O’Neill is the travel tech columnist for BBC Travel

Bhutan set to plough lone furrow as world's first wholly organic country

http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2013/feb/11/bhutan-first-wholly-organic-country

 

By shunning all but organic farming techniques, the Himalayan state will cement its status as a paradigm of sustainability

 

Stooping to conquer … Already an overwhelmingly agrarian state, Bhutan is aiming to become the world's first completely organic country. Photograph: Alamy

 

Bhutan plans to become the first country in the world to turn its agriculture completely organic, banning the sales of pesticides and herbicides and relying on its own animals and farm waste for fertilisers.

But rather than accept that this will mean farmers of the small Himalayan kingdom of 1.2 million people will be able to grow less food, the government expects them to be able to grow more – and to export increasing amounts of high quality niche foods to neighbouring India, China and other countries.

The decision to go organic was both practical and philosophical, said Pema Gyamtsho, Bhutan's minister of agriculture and forests, in Delhi for the annual sustainable development conference last week.

"Ours is a mountainous terrain. When we use chemicals they don't stay where we use them, they impact the water and plants. We say that we need to consider all the environment. Most of our farm practices are traditional farming, so we are largely organic anyway.

"But we are Buddhists, too, and we believe in living in harmony with nature. Animals have the right to live, we like to to see plants happy and insects happy," he said.

Gyamtsho, like most members of the cabinet, is a farmer himself, coming from Bumthang in central Bhutan but studying western farming methods in New Zealand and Switzerland.

"Going organic will take time," he said. "We have set no deadline. We cannot do it tomorrow. Instead we will achieve it region by region and crop by crop."

The overwhelmingly agrarian nation, which really only opened its doors to world influences 30 years ago, is now facing many of the development pangs being felt everywhere in rapidly emerging countries. Young people reluctant to live just by farming are migrating to India and elsewhere, there is a population explosion, and there is inevitable pressure for consumerism and cultural change.
But, says Gyamtsho, Bhutan's future depends largely on how it responds to interlinked development challenges like climate change, and food and energy security. "We would already be self-sufficient in food if we only ate what we produced. But we import rice. Rice eating is now very common, but traditionally it was very hard to get. Only the rich and the elite had it. Rice conferred status. Now the trend is reversing. People are becoming more health-conscious and are eating grains like buckwheat and wheat."

In the west, organic food growing is widely thought to reduce the size of crops because they become more susceptible to pests. But this is being challenged in Bhutan and some regions of Asia, where smallholders are developing new techniques to grow more and are not losing soil quality.
Systems like "sustainable root intensification" (SRI), which carefully regulate the amount of water that crops need and the age at which seedlings are planted out, have shown that organic crop yields can be doubled with no synthetic chemicals.

"We are experimenting with different methods of growing crops like SRI but we are also going to increase the amount of irrigated land and use traditional varieties of crops which do not require inputs and have pest resistance," says Gyamtsho.

However, a run of exceptionally warm years and erratic weather has left many farmers doubtful they can do without chemicals.

In Paro, a largely farming district in south-west Bhutan, farmers are already struggling to grow enough to feed their families and local government officials say they are having to distribute fertiliser and pesticides in larger quantities to help people grow more.

"I have heard of the plan to turn everything organic. But we are facing serious problems just getting people to grow enough", said Rinzen Wangchuk, district farm officer.

"Most people here are smallholder farmers. The last few years we have had problems with the crops. The weather has been very erratic. It's been warmer than normal and all the chilli crops are full of pests. We are having to rely on fertilisers more than we have ever had to in the past and even these are not working as well as they initially did."

Dawa Tshering, who depends on his two acres of rice paddy and a vegetable garden, says that for decades his farming was chemical free.

"But its harder now because all our children are either in the capital or studying. Nobody wants to stay, which means we have to work harder. It's just my wife an myself here. We cannot grow enough to feed ourselves and take crops to the market, so we have to use chemicals for the first time. We would like to go back to farming how we used to, where we just used what nature provided."

But in a world looking for new ideas, Bhutan is already called the poster child of sustainable development. More than 95% of the population has clean water and electricity, 80% of the country is forested and, to the envy of many countries, it is carbon neutral and food secure.

In addition, it is now basing its economic development on the pursuit of collective happiness.
"We have no fossil fuels or nuclear. But we are blessed with rivers which give us the potential of over 30,000megawatts of electricity. So far we only exploit 2,000 megawatts. We exploit enough now to export to India and in the pipeline we have 10,000 megawatts more. The biggest threat we face is cars. The number is increasing every day. Everyone wants to buy cars and that means we must import fuel. That is why we must develop our energy."
Agriculture minister Gyamtsho remains optimistic. "Hopefully we can provide solutions. What is at stake is the future. We need governments who can make bold decisions now rather than later."

Joe Russo’s Almost Dead: January 26, 2013 Brooklyn Bowl – Flac/MP3/Streaming

January 28, 2013

By nyctaper

[photo by nyctaper]

If you have any interest at all, even passing, in the music of the Grateful Dead, then what happened at Brooklyn Bowl on Saturday night was an important milestone in the post-Dead era. I do not exaggerate, this was a big deal.,..
Stream “Viola Lee Blues”:

Stream “Shakedown Street”:

Download the Complete show [MP3] / [FLAC]
Note: All of the material on this site is offered with artist permission, free to fans, at our expense. The only thing we ask is that you download the material directly from this site, rather than re-posting the direct links or the files on other sites without our permission. Please respect our request.

Joe Russo Almost Dead
2013-01-26
Brooklyn Bowl
New York, NY USA

FOB Four-Track Audience Recording
Sennheiser MKH-8040 Cardioids + Neumann KM-150s > Edirol R-44 (Oade Concert Mod) > 2x 24bit 48kHz wav file > Soundforge (level adjustments, mixdown, set fades) > CDWave 1.95 (tracking) > TLH > flac (320 MP3 and tagging via Foobar)
Recorded and Produced by nyctaper
2013-01-27
Joe Russo – Drums and Vocals
Marco Benevento – Keyboards
Scott Metzger – Guitar and Vocals
Tom Hamilton – Guitar and Vocals
Dave Dreiwitz – Bass

Setlist:
Set 1
[Total Time 1:24:31]
01 Bertha
02 Althea
03 Jack Straw
04 Deal
05 Mr Charlie
06 [band introductions]
07 Brown-Eyed Women
08 Tennesee Jed
09 Shakedown Street
10 Jam
11 China Cat Sunflower
12 I Know You Rider

Set 2
[Total Time 1:42:58]
13 Estimated Prophet
14 Eyes Of The World
15 Help On The Way
16 Slipknot
17 Franklins Tower
18 St Stephen
19 The Eleven
20 Caution Jam
21 The Other One
22 Viola Lee Blues
23 [encore break]
24 US Blues
If you download this recording from NYCTaper, we expect that you’ll please support these artists, visit their websites and purchase their office merchancise. Benevento-Russo Duo [HERE], Marco Benevento [HERE], Tom Hamilton [HERE], Scott Metzger [HERE], and Dave Dreiwitz [HERE].

Natural Disasters have always occurred, but all across the world and in the U.S they have been happening with greater extremes/force/gravity, more frequently. What I'm wondering is will people continue to demonstrate the same fervor for helping for others and supporting (either by donation or physical efforts) when all types of extreme climates become common place. I sure do hope. I think we all better buckle up and start helping each other, were gonna need it...

Whopping winter storm marching in Sandy's path

By Ben Brumfield, CNN

updated 5:40 AM EST, Fri February 8, 2013

'Monster' blizzard to slam northeast

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• The storm is brewing out of two fronts
• One is a subtropical wet system coming up from the gulf
• The other is a polar system coming in from the Midwest
• The storm will punish the same regions Superstorm Sandy did, the National Weather Service says

(CNN) -- Elizabeth Frazier grabbed the last bottles of water in sight, then left the store.

"It's a zoo in there," she said. "There's nothing left on the shelves," the Reading, Massachusetts, resident told CNN affiliate WHDH.

A gathering snowstorm is driving droves of New Englanders into shops to seize up the last supplies, then dash home to stock their cupboards, baton down the hatches and brace for a potentially long haul. Its icy rage will commence Friday afternoon, the National Weather Service predicts, and will last into Saturday.

In addition, it will produce high winds and stir up trouble at sea.

Blizzard could wallop East Coast

Northeast braces for 'historic' blizzard

New York, Boston brace for blizzard

Snow could lock some residents indoors for days, as the forecast calls for a "potentially historic winter storm." It is on a trajectory reminiscent of the path Hurricane Sandy took and is poised to deliver its harshest blows to regions that have already taken a lot of punishment.

Local politicians are taking to the stump to warn their citizenry to be prepared, and power companies and public works are shoring up their resources.

Transportation outlets were announcing shutdowns in the air and on land ahead of its ominous arrival, and motorists are being warned not to drive.

Airlines have already cancelled more than 3,200 flights to and from affected regions. Amtrak canceled many trips in the Northeast corridor.

The blizzard is predicted to smother places where the superstorm left behind the deepest scars, from the New Jersey shoreline through the boroughs of New York City and throughout Connecticut.

But forecasts call for the worst of the storm to extend into eastern Massachusetts and reach up the southern shoreline of New Hampshire.

Early Friday, Boston motorists stood in long lines to fill up their tanks at gas stations, and the city's public works filled trucks with sand to spread on roads and deployed snow plows to strategic points ahead of time.

"We are hardy New Englanders," said Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, "and used to these types of storms."

But Boston could see flakes falling at a rate of 2 to 3 inches per hour, and the storm has already drawn comparisons to the "Great Blizzard" of 1978, when thousands were stranded as fast-moving snow drifts blanketed highways and left several people dead.

Putting toughness aside, Menino told Bostonians to "use common sense" and "stay off the streets of our city." "Basically, stay home."

The most severe weather is expected to hit Massachusetts between 2 and 5 p.m. on Friday.

The rest of New England will see heavy snow into Saturday, the weather service said, which could also reach blizzard intensity in places, when a wet subtropical system rising from the Gulf Coast collides with a polar front rolling in from the Midwest to produce a whopping winter storm.

Residents from New Jersey to Maine will likely be digging themselves out of a foot or so of snow, the National Weather Service predicts.

In New York, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the timing of the storm could actually benefit municipal workers.

"If it's going to happen, having it happen Friday overnight into Saturday is probably as good timing as we could have," Bloomberg said. "The sanitation department then has the advantage of being able to clean the streets when there's normally less traffic."

In shades of Sandy, gales will whip up waves along the Atlantic coast, triggering small craft advisories as far south as Georgia, but hurricane force winds are predicted to churn up off-shore maritime tempests, particularly from New Jersey to Massachusetts, with waves cresting at up to 30 feet at the height of the storm.

Coastal flooding is possible "from Boston northward," the weather service said.

Strong winds are expected to push up high snow banks. The combination of snow and gusts "as high as 60-75 mph will create significant impacts to transportation and power," the weather service said.

After Superstorm Sandy left much of Long Island without power for days, power company National Grid is working to prevent a second act to that tragedy.

It is adding hundreds of extra crew members to more than 500 lineman already on site for the Long Island Power Authority.

The storm could knock out power for more than 100,000 customers on Long Island alone, National Grid said.

CNN's David Ariosto, Steve Almasy and Marina Carver contributed to this report

Regulators Discover a Hidden Viral Gene in Commercial GMO Crops

January 21, 2013 Biotechnology, Commentaries  

by Jonathan Latham and Allison Wilson

How should a regulatory agency announce they have discovered something potentially very important about the safety of products they have been approving for over twenty years?

In the course of analysis to identify potential allergens in GMO crops, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has belatedly discovered that the most common genetic regulatory sequence in commercial GMOs also encodes a significant fragment of a viral gene (Podevin and du Jardin 2012). This finding has serious ramifications for crop biotechnology and its regulation, but possibly even greater ones for consumers and farmers. This is because there are clear indications that this viral gene (called Gene VI) might not be safe for human consumption. It also may disturb the normal functioning of crops, including their natural pest resistance.

Cauliflower Mosaic Virus

What Podevin and du Jardin discovered is that of the 86 different transgenic events (unique insertions of foreign DNA) commercialized to-date in the United States 54 contain portions of Gene VI within them. They include any with a widely used gene regulatory sequence called the CaMV 35S promoter (from the cauliflower mosaic virus; CaMV). Among the affected transgenic events are some of the most widely grown GMOs, including Roundup Ready soybeans (40-3-2) and MON810 maize. They include the controversial NK603 maize recently reported as causing tumors in rats (Seralini et al. 2012).
The researchers themselves concluded that the presence of segments of Gene VI “might result in unintended phenotypic changes”. They reached this conclusion because similar fragments of Gene VI have already been shown to be active on their own (e.g. De Tapia et al. 1993). In other words, the EFSA researchers were unable to rule out a hazard to public health or the environment.

In general, viral genes expressed in plants raise both agronomic and human health concerns (reviewed in Latham and Wilson 2008). This is because many viral genes function to disable their host in order to facilitate pathogen invasion. Often, this is achieved by incapacitating specific anti-pathogen defenses. Incorporating such genes could clearly lead to undesirable and unexpected outcomes in agriculture. Furthermore, viruses that infect plants are often not that different from viruses that infect humans. For example, sometimes the genes of human and plant viruses are interchangeable, while on other occasions inserting plant viral fragments as transgenes has caused the genetically altered plant to become susceptible to an animal virus (Dasgupta et al. 2001). Thus, in various ways, inserting viral genes accidentally into crop plants and the food supply confers a significant potential for harm.

The Choices for Regulators
The original discovery by Podevin and du Jardin (at EFSA) of Gene VI in commercial GMO crops must have presented regulators with sharply divergent procedural alternatives. They could 1) recall all CaMV Gene VI-containing crops (in Europe that would mean revoking importation and planting approvals) or, 2) undertake a retrospective risk assessment of the CaMV promoter and its Gene VI sequences and hope to give it a clean bill of health.

It is easy to see the attraction for EFSA of option two. Recall would be a massive political and financial decision and would also be a huge embarrassment to the regulators themselves. It would leave very few GMO crops on the market and might even mean the end of crop biotechnology.
Regulators, in principle at least, also have a third option to gauge the seriousness of any potential GMO hazard. GMO monitoring, which is required by EU regulations, ought to allow them to find out if deaths, illnesses, or crop failures have been reported by farmers or health officials and can be correlated with the Gene VI sequence. Unfortunately, this particular avenue of enquiry is a scientific dead end. Not one country has carried through on promises to officially and scientifically monitor any hazardous consequences of GMOs (1).

Unsurprisingly, EFSA chose option two. However, their investigation resulted only in the vague and unreassuring conclusion that Gene VI “might result in unintended phenotypic changes” (Podevin and du Jardin 2012). This means literally, that changes of an unknown number, nature, or magnitude may (or may not) occur. It falls well short of the solid scientific reassurance of public safety needed to explain why EFSA has not ordered a recall.
Can the presence of a fragment of virus DNA really be that significant? Below is an independent analysis of Gene VI and its known properties and their safety implications. This analysis clearly illustrates the regulators’ dilemma.

The Many Functions of Gene VI
Gene VI, like most plant viral genes, produces a protein that is multifunctional. It has four (so far) known roles in the viral infection cycle. The first is to participate in the assembly of virus particles. There is no current data to suggest this function has any implications for biosafety. The second known function is to suppress anti-pathogen defenses by inhibiting a general cellular system called RNA silencing (Haas et al. 2008). Thirdly, Gene VI has the highly unusual function of transactivating (described below) the long RNA (the 35S RNA) produced by CaMV (Park et al. 2001). Fourthly, unconnected to these other mechanisms, Gene VI has very recently been shown to make plants highly susceptible to a bacterial pathogen (Love et al. 2012). Gene VI does this by interfering with a common anti-pathogen defense mechanism possessed by plants. These latter three functions of Gene VI (and their risk implications) are explained further below:

1) Gene VI Is an Inhibitor of RNA Silencing
RNA silencing is a mechanism for the control of gene expression at the level of RNA abundance (Bartel 2004). It is also an important antiviral defense mechanism in both plants and animals, and therefore most viruses have evolved genes (like Gene VI) that disable it (Dunoyer and Voinnet 2006).

Gene VI (upper left) precedes the start of the 35S RNA

This attribute of Gene VI raises two obvious biosafety concerns: 1) Gene VI will lead to aberrant gene expression in GMO crop plants, with unknown consequences and, 2) Gene VI will interfere with the ability of plants to defend themselves against viral pathogens. There are numerous experiments showing that, in general, viral proteins that disable gene silencing enhance infection by a wide spectrum of viruses (Latham and Wilson 2008).

2) Gene VI Is a Unique Transactivator of Gene Expression
Multicellular organisms make proteins by a mechanism in which only one protein is produced by each passage of a ribosome along a messenger RNA (mRNA). Once that protein is completed the ribosome dissociates from the mRNA. However, in a CaMV-infected plant cell, or as a transgene, Gene VI intervenes in this process and directs the ribosome to get back on an mRNA (reinitiate) and produce the next protein in line on the mRNA, if there is one. This property of Gene VI enables Cauliflower Mosaic Virus to produce multiple proteins from a single long RNA (the 35S RNA). Importantly, this function of Gene VI (which is called transactivation) is not limited to the 35S RNA. Gene VI seems able to transactivate any cellular mRNA (Futterer and Hohn 1991; Ryabova et al. 2002). 

There are likely to be thousands of mRNA molecules having a short or long protein coding sequence following the primary one. These secondary coding sequences could be expressed in cells where Gene VI is expressed. The result will presumably be production of numerous random proteins within cells. The biosafety implications of this are difficult to assess. These proteins could be allergens, plant or human toxins, or they could be harmless. Moreover, the answer will differ for each commercial crop species into which Gene VI has been inserted.

3) Gene VI Interferes with Host Defenses
A very recent finding, not known by Podevin and du Jardin, is that Gene VI has a second mechanism by which it interferes with plant anti-pathogen defenses (Love et al. 2012). It is too early to be sure about the mechanistic details, but the result is to make plants carrying Gene VI more susceptible to certain pathogens, and less susceptible to others. Obviously, this could impact farmers, however the discovery of an entirely new function for gene VI while EFSA’s paper was in press, also makes clear that a full appraisal of all the likely effects of Gene VI is not currently achievable.

Is There a Direct Human Toxicity Issue?
When Gene VI is intentionally expressed in transgenic plants, it causes them to become chlorotic (yellow), to have growth deformities, and to have reduced fertility in a dose-dependent manner (Ziljstra et al 1996). Plants expressing Gene VI also show gene expression abnormalities. These results indicate that, not unexpectedly given its known functions, the protein produced by Gene VI is functioning as a toxin and is harmful to plants (Takahashi et al 1989). Since the known targets of Gene VI activity (ribosomes and gene silencing) are also found in human cells, a reasonable concern is that the protein produced by Gene VI might be a human toxin. This is a question that can only be answered by future experiments.

Is Gene VI Protein Produced in GMO Crops?
Given that expression of Gene VI is likely to cause harm, a crucial issue is whether the actual inserted transgene sequences found in commercial GMO crops will produce any functional protein from the fragment of Gene VI present within the CaMV sequence.
There are two aspects to this question. One is the length of Gene VI accidentally introduced by developers. This appears to vary but most of the 54 approved transgenes contain the same 528 base pairs of the CaMV 35S promoter sequence. This corresponds to approximately the final third of Gene VI. Deleted fragments of Gene VI are active when expressed in plant cells and functions of Gene VI are believed to reside in this final third. Therefore, there is clear potential for unintended effects if this fragment is expressed (e.g. De Tapia et al. 1993; Ryabova et al. 2002; Kobayashi and Hohn 2003).
The second aspect of this question is what quantity of Gene VI could be produced in GMO crops? Once again, this can ultimately only be resolved by direct quantitative experiments. Nevertheless, we can theorize that the amount of Gene VI produced will be specific to each independent insertion event. This is because significant Gene VI expression probably would require specific sequences (such as the presence of a gene promoter and an ATG [a protein start codon]) to precede it and so is likely to be heavily dependent on variables such as the details of the inserted transgenic DNA and where in the plant genome the transgene inserted.
Commercial transgenic crop varieties can also contain superfluous copies of the transgene, including those that are incomplete or rearranged (Wilson et al 2006). These could be important additional sources of Gene VI protein. The decision of regulators to allow such multiple and complex insertion events was always highly questionable, but the realization that the CaMV 35S promoter contains Gene VI sequences provides yet another reason to believe that complex insertion events increase the likelihood of a biosafety problem.
Even direct quantitative measurements of Gene VI protein in individual crop authorizations would not fully resolve the scientific questions, however. No-one knows, for example, what quantity, location or timing of protein production would be of significance for risk assessment, and so answers necessary to perform science-based risk assessment are unlikely to emerge soon.

Big Lessons for Biotechnology
It is perhaps the most basic assumption in all of risk assessment that the developer of a new product provides regulators with accurate information about what is being assessed. Perhaps the next most basic assumption is that regulators independently verify this information.  We now know, however, that for over twenty years neither of those simple expectations have been met. Major public universities, biotech multinationals, and government regulators everywhere, seemingly did not appreciate the relatively simple possibility that the DNA constructs they were responsible for encoded a viral gene.
This lapse occurred despite the fact that Gene VI was not truly hidden; the relevant information on the existence of Gene VI has been freely available in the scientific literature since well before the first biotech approval (Franck et al 1980). We ourselves have offered specific warnings that viral sequences could contain unsuspected genes (Latham and Wilson 2008). The inability of risk assessment processes to incorporate longstanding and repeated scientific findings is every bit as worrysome as the failure to intellectually anticipate the possibility of overlapping genes when manipulating viral sequences.
This sense of a generic failure is reinforced by the fact that this is not an isolated event. There exist other examples of commercially approved viral sequences having overlapping genes that were never subjected to risk assessment. These include numerous commercial GMOs containing promoter regions of the closely related virus figwort mosaic virus (FMV) which were not considered by Podevin and du Jardin. Inspection of commercial sequence data shows that the commonly used FMV promoter overlaps its own Gene VI (Richins et al 1987). A third example is the virus-resistant potato NewLeaf Plus (RBMT-22-82). This transgene contains approximately 90% of the P0 gene of potato leaf roll virus. The known function of this gene, whose existence was discovered only after US approval, is to inhibit the anti-pathogen defenses of its host (Pfeffer et al 2002). Fortunately, this potato variety was never actively marketed.
A further key point relates to the biotech industry and their campaign to secure public approval and a permissive regulatory environment. This has led them to repeatedly claim, firstly, that GMO technology is precise and predictable; and secondly, that their own competence and self-interest would prevent them from ever bringing potentially harmful products to the market; and thirdly, to assert that only well studied and fully understood transgenes are commercialized. It is hard to imagine a finding more damaging to these claims than the revelations surrounding Gene VI.
Biotechnology, it is often forgotten, is not just a technology. It is an experiment in the proposition that human institutions can perform adequate risk assessments on novel living organisms. Rather than treat that question as primarily a daunting scientific one, we should for now consider that the primary obstacle will be overcoming the much more mundane trap of human complacency and incompetence. We are not there yet, and therefore this incident will serve to reinforce the demands for GMO labeling in places where it is absent.

What Regulators Should Do Now
This summary of the scientific risk issues shows that a segment of a poorly characterized viral gene never subjected to any risk assessment (until now) was allowed onto the market. This gene is currently present in commercial crops and growing on a large scale. It is also widespread in the food supply.
Even now that EFSA’s own researchers have belatedly considered the risk issues, no one can say whether the public has been harmed, though harm appears a clear scientific possibility. Considered from the perspective of professional and scientific risk assessment, this situation represents a complete and catastrophic system failure.
But the saga of Gene VI is not yet over. There is no certainty that further scientific analysis will resolve the remaining uncertainties, or provide reassurance. Future research may in fact increase the level of concern or uncertainty, and this is a possibility that regulators should weigh heavily in their deliberations.
To return to the original choices before EFSA, these were either to recall all CaMV 35S promoter-containing GMOs, or to perform a retrospective risk assessment. This retrospective risk assessment has now been carried out and the data clearly indicate a potential for significant harm. The only course of action consistent with protecting the public and respecting the science is for EFSA, and other jurisdictions, to order a total recall. This recall should also include GMOs containing the FMV promoter and its own overlapping Gene VI.

http://independentsciencenews.org/commentaries/regulators-discover-a-hidden-viral-gene-in-commercial-gmo-crops/

Following up about Water Fluoridation:

Huge victory against fluoride in Australia 

Wednesday, February 06, 2013 by: Ethan A. Huff, staff writer

 

(NaturalNews) Nearly 200,000 Australians have been released from the medical slavery that is artificial water fluoridation thanks to a major governmental policy change. The Liberal National Party (LNP) government of the Australian state of Queensland has not only cut $14 million of funding that had previously been used for fluoridation, but has also decided to allow local councils to decide for themselves whether or not to fluoridate, a move that has already prompted the northern city of Cairns to end its water fluoridation program.

As reported by The Australian, former "One Nation" member of parliament (MP) Rosa Lee Long, who is now mayor of the north Queensland Tablelands Regional Council, successfully lobbied LNP to end a longstanding policy that compelled local communities to fluoridate without approval from local residents. The government of Queensland last year also ended a policy that required larger communities to fluoridate their water, which is similar to existing fluoridation mandates in California and elsewhere.

So by the middle of March, Cairns' more than 150,000 area residents will no longer be exposed to fluoride chemicals in the water, making it the seventh community in Queensland to end water fluoridation so far this year. Murgon, Wondai, Kingaroy, Nanango, Blackbutt, and South Burnett have all ended their water fluoridation programs since January which, combined with the area population of Cairns, represents nearly 200,000 people who will no longer be forcibly medicated with an unapproved drug.

"If people want to have access to fluoride, they need to take that up with their dentists," said a local Cairns council spokeswoman about the policy change. "The decision has been made ... [fluoride] shouldn't be forced on people without consent."

Australian health authorities admit water fluoridation is 'involuntary medication' of public

The Australian Dental Association (ADA) and various members of the establishment government in Australia raised their usual fear-mongering in response to the landmark decision -- children's teeth will rot out of their heads without fluoride, has been their response, which mimics the same tired and unproven argument used by many American officials to defend the outdated and dangerous practice of water fluoridation.

But Queensland's LNP has remained steadfast in its decision, declaring forced water fluoridation to be "involuntary medication" of the public, regardless of someone's own personal opinion on the efficacy and safety of fluoride. This declaration is key, as it highlights a reality about fluoride that few people are willing to admit -- fluoride is a chemical drug that has never been proven safe and effective, but that is routinely added to water supplies without informed consent.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) likewise admits that water fluoridation is akin to forced medication, as the agency's official stance on the chemical is that it is an "unapproved drug" when added to water supplies. It is a fact that the FDA has never approved fluoride as a safe and effective water supplement, which means adding it to public water supplies is an illegal administration of a drug without FDA approval, and without the informed consent of every person exposed to it.

You can learn more about the dangers of fluoride by visiting the Fluoride Action Network (FAN):
http://www.fluoridealert.org/

Sources for this article include:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au

http://www.hangthebankers.com

http://www.fluoridealert.org/content/communities/

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Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/038984_Australia_fluoride_involuntary_medication.html#ixzz2KDVEVaaI