Entrevista a Ignacio Chapela, 2013

Ignacio Chapela on BASF pullout

“The number one chemical concern in the world, the German BASF has announced on 16 January 2012 that it gives up the development and marketing of new transgenic products intended for the European Union.”

GMO’s Move Out » Counterpunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names

www.counterpunch.org

Ignacio Chapela on Pollan and the Gates Foundation

Berkeley, April 1
To: Jim Thomas et al.
From: Ignacio Chapela
Re: Gates' Grant to Berkeley's Journalism School

In coincidence with Jim's friends at Berkeley (but independently of any of them), I composed an email to Michael Pollan, which I sent earlier today with copies to people I thought would be directly interested. Since this seems in fact to be taking a deservedly higher magnitude of interest, I am enclosing the text of that email for your information below.

I cannot pretend not to be concerned about these developments, even with Michael's reassurances as reported by Jim. As the corporate capture of all aspects of public life noose-knots tighter and faster, I think this is a very unfortunate step. Berkeley is, as we have shown multiple times over the decades, the weathervane for developments in the corporatization of public spaces and this, modest and independent as it seems, looks to me as a very important one. It was Berkeley, not least thanks to Michael's deft leadership and brilliant writing, which catalyzed the very successful and inspiring inroads of the organic and slow food movements in the last few years, developments which have had resonance around the world. And it is because of this influence that Berkeley continues to be a target of all kinds of discredited parties who want to gain credibility, not least BP, Novartis, the hordes of biotech boosters and now Gates.

Gates' move on Berkeley is interesting because it comes from a "charity", an organization which could be naïvely believed to be free of vested interests and because it targets an institutional player who is not clearly identified with direct interventionist goals as a technical research lab would be. So it is not the usual "BP Pays Energy Researchers to do its Work" kind of headline (as it is, no regular news outlet seems to have picked up the story, but that is another story), and Gates is as free to claim independence from vested interests as the J School is free to claim freedom to research. Naively, then, we should pack this conversation and move on to another (for example, watch the nice video at one my ex student's comment on youth bloggers against clean coal here: http://solveclimate.com/blog/20090331/media-savvy-youth-are-blogging-coal-death ). But the reality is not so simple, not these days of Government by Monsanto, BP, Lockheed and Goldman Sachs.

As Jim probably pointed out to Michael, Gates is bereft of ideas on what to do with their billions as they seek to save the poor (from whom?), and they have -naively or not, I don't know- loaded their ship with well-known agents of the capsizing nave of agricultural biotech. If there is anything in which the Gates people seem to believe, it is the unavoidability nay the morality of technical solutions to all problems, and the one tired thing left in the magician's hat of technology for environmental interventions is transgenesis, or at least they seem to believe so. Most importantly, Gates' dominant voice and policy enforcer continues to be one of the most notorious activists for the transgenization of Africa, Robert Horsch (a UC R alumnus and Monsanto's main strategist on the very matter). Given the dismal record of transgenic agriculture in general, and in particular in Africa, can we possibly believe that Gates would want to attract real, probing journalism to their (basically, Monsanto's) agricultural works in the troubled continent? Horsch must know very well what Burston-Marsteller was telling Monsanto already in 1998, namely that the battle over GMOs was not technical, but one of PR dominance. I use the word "Monsanto" here because of Dr Horsch, but also to refer to this particularly interesting beast of the 21st Century corporate state as much as to a metonymy for the rest of the known list of commercial, environmental transgenecists such as Syngenta, Amyris or LS9.

Ever since, and despite all signs of financial, ecological and public rejection of their plans, Monsanto and allies have continued a campaign to enforce the use of GMOs wherever possible. "Africa" has been in their designs at least since their catastrophic collapse of 2000 (largely unreported as such), mostly as a strategic -and mostly rhetorical- location. It appears that Gates may have naively run into its role as the new, new lease on life to Monsanto's designs after the evaporation first of real industrial money (1999), then of venture capital (2002) and now of governmental subsidies. Along this long trek of failures, it has been interesting to note also the move on Monsanto's part from trying to support their own scientists (early 1990s) to getting hired, subsidized ones (in academia and government mid- to late 1990s), to altogether giving up on them and dedicating themselves to two main things: PR and litigation.

I am sure I would offend many at the J School by even suggesting that they could possibly be participating in anyone's PR campaign, but I cannot avoid the conclusion that this grant is intended to weigh the academic balance in that direction. Nevertheless, we the Academic Senate of the Berkeley campus re-wrote the meaning of Academic Freedom in 2007, on the occasion of the BP half-billion cannonade, to mean the freedom to receive money from any source we wish without being questioned about it, so it may be close to impossible (and for me even a breach of basic academic rules) to even ask questions about it. Gates must be well advised about this nice, business-friendly novelty at the Berkeley campus, since the chair of the Senate at the time and a fierce promoter of the idea was the Journalism School's locally influential William Drummond.

Whether Michael (Pollan) takes money from them or not is in fact a consideration, but one that in the dumb light of PR campaigns represents a minor one in comparison with the brightness of the well-honed power of our campus' PR machine and of course those of Gates and their subjacent interested parties. Already in the press release about the grant, Michael is the subject of about 1/6 of the text, certainly the only one with anything to say about how this makes any sense, and there is definitely the impression that he is a central player in the grant. This image is irretrievable. Did he mean to play this role? Apparently not, but this subtlety will remain hidden from the outsider.

By staying on as a faculty member on the Berkeley campus of BP, I am myself confronted with the very same quandary, knowing that the very work I may do on my side of the biotech debates is always prone to be used as a demonstration of the "balance" and even "radicalism" of the campus, no matter how marginal my position may be. It is a sad National situation when I have to be proud that there are no quotes of me on the campus' news website (the ugly mugs with one of my quotes in the Free Speech Movement Café are also gone), or that my Chair would have called me in to tell me that I was tarnishing the image of the Department by my statements. I do not wish this status on Michael, who had managed to keep -together with some of his colleagues- a notably sane environment in the J School, and wish him well on managing what I believe to be unmanageable.

After all, what are the options? In my case, and now it appears in Michael's, too, the alternative doors are closing for the moment. For me the prospect of receiving funds from BP or Monsanto is untenable, but even looking elsewhere the panorama is not much broader for the critical thinker: I do not seem able to find a federally-funded program that has even two degrees of separation from BP's Department of Energy, Monsanto's Department of Agriculture, Lilly's NIH and so on. It is not a coincidence that Gates itself would have hit a brilliant, $48 million strategic alliance with the last uninfected (perhaps) agency, the NSF: not two days ago, the announcement was made that Gates was pouring $24 million into the perversely named BREAD initiative, whereby NSF will administer Gates' money to entice scientists to perform promotional work in ag biotech. In a world where journalism has passed from the kneeling to the supine position, the Seattle Times appears to be the only independent source of this news and far from implying any interest in influencing scientist's attention, the homie reporter highlights Gates' generosity in "sharing" the decision: "Staff from NSF and the Gates Foundation will jointly make the final cut." I would have called that jaw-dropping arrogance, glaring censorship and meddling in the work of science. And of course I can easily imagine the fate of one of my proposals to this generous program.

No doubt, we must keep the feet of the J School and the Gates Foundation on the fire of critical thinking and analysis, and I am thankful that there are so many out there who are paying attention. Please keep pushing, please keep questioning.

With all best from a Berkeley buffeted by a long tide of corporate cooptation that does not relent,

Ignacio


Dear Michael,

I just read news about the big Gates grant to the Journalism School to draw your attention and efforts to Africa's agriculture: What a great idea, what a scary reality! I just want to wish you luck in dealing with this, loaded as it is with the intervention of Gates, Henry and Zilberman (those few I could figure out from the PR on the press release at http://journalism.berkeley.edu/press/africa_reporting/, among the many chefs that I imagine will be wanting to help with the menu); I can see there will be involvement of the Beahrs Poverty Center, too.

I hear from good sources that Gates may be honest about trying to find out the consequences of their extremely clumsy moves on Africa, and they will have to conclude sooner or later that they have been acting like an ignorant goat in a concert hall. But will they be so open as to allow serious journalism being done about themselves? No doubt AGRA will have to be part of any English-language reporting on Africa's agricultures, perhaps the most important part, and it is hard not to conclude from all they do in their "Fourth Generation" AGRA program that Gates are clear in a propagandistic intent.

How to avoid the conclusion that the J School is now burdened with as heavy a conflict of interest as there can be in the field? Not even Monsanto has such a desperate need for inspired and credible propagandizing (check out their Monsanto blog, which they present as if it was their maiden trip into internet-driven opinion-shaping, as if nobody knew about their millions invested over the many years in every possible PR strategy, including the questionable "viral marketing" from its earliest days) - and Gates has in fact much more financial muscle to push their weight around than Monsanto. Gates (and AGRA) cannot claim independence from Monsanto, with whom they have strategic alliances, at least through Monsanto's Danforth Center. Perhaps it will be useful to hear what Paul Rabinow has to say about such deals since he has gained experience trying to infuse the BP deal with a streak of Bioethics, a similar quandary as the one you are presented today.

I do look forward to the internationalization of the food-related work and the J School, and keep my fingers crossed.

With all best,

Ignacio

THIRD WORLD NETWORK BIOSAFETY INFORMATION SERVICE

Dear Friends and colleagues,

RE: Latest Findings Confirm GM Maize Contamination in Mexico

A team of researchers led by Elena Álvarez-Buylla of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) in Mexico City, have found traces of transgenes in traditional 'landrace' maize in a number of locations in Mexico, thus confirming similar results published in Nature in 2001.

These latest findings found transgenes in 3 of the 23 locations where samples were taken in 2001 by Dr Ignacio Chapela and David Quist of the University of California, Berkeley and again in two of those locations using samples taken in 2004.

In 1998, the Mexican government outlawed the planting of GM maize to protect its local genetic biodiversity. Mexico is a center of origin and diversity for maize and maize is also intrinsically linked to Mexican culture, especially that of Mexican indigenous groups.

With best wishes,


Third World Network
131 Jalan Macalister,
10400 Penang,
Malaysia
Email: twnet@po.jaring.my
Website: www.biosafety-info.net and www.twnside.org.sg

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Modified genes spread to local maize
Findings reignite debate over genetically modified crops.
Rex Dalton

Transgenes from genetically modified (GM) maize (corn) crops have been found in traditional 'landrace' maize in the Mexican heartland, a study says. The work largely confirms a similar, controversial result published in Nature in 2001 [1] and may reignite the debate in Mexico over GM crops.

The paper reports finding transgenes in three of the 23 locations that were sampled in 2001, and again in two of those locations using samples taken in 2004. Written by a team led by Elena Álvarez-Buylla of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) in Mexico City, the study will be published in the journal Molecular Ecology.
In 1998, the Mexican government outlawed the planting of GM maize to protect its approximately 60 domesticated landraces and their wild relatives. But newspaper reports suggest that farmers have planted at least 70 hectares of GM maize crops in the northern state of Chihuahua, and it is unclear what repercussions this may have.

Only about 25% of the maize planted in Mexico comes from commercially sold seed; the majority is saved from harvest to harvest. That's why, says Álvarez-Buylla, researchers need to pin down whether transgenes really have made it into local crops. "It is urgent to establish rigorous molecular and sampling criteria for biomonitoring at centres of crop origination and diversification," the team writes.

“The importance of the study is not the impact of the transgenes themselves, but the fact that their spread has occurred so easily.”

Allison Snow, a plant ecologist from Ohio State University in Columbus, led a team that reported [2] in 2005 it could not detect transgenes in maize from regions sampled by the original Nature paper. She calls the new work "a very good study, with positive signs of transgenes".
"It is good to see this," adds Ignacio Chapela, the ecologist from the University of California, Berkeley, who was senior author on the Nature publication. "But it took seven years."

Testing times

The original paper caused a storm of controversy [3] , [4] ,[5] . Critics pointed out some technical errors, including problems with the type of PCR used to amplify the genetic sequences, although Chapela and his co-author David Quist stood by their conclusions [6] . Others questioned whether the critics were influenced by their association with the biotechnology industry, which they denied. In the end, Nature published an editor's note saying there was insufficient evidence to justify the original publication. Advocates of GM crops widely, and erroneously, called this a retraction.

A second round of criticism was sparked in 2005, after the Snow paper reported no evidence for transgenes in Mexican maize. Some criticized this article as being statistically inconclusive and lacking representative samples [7] , which the authors disputed [8] .
Álvarez-Buylla's team set out to resolve the issue by conducting genetic tests on thousands of maize seed and leaf samples for evidence of two transgenes: a gene promoter from the 35S cauliflower mosaic virus, and the nopaline synthase terminator, NOSt. The team found transgenes in about 1% of more than 100 fields it sampled, including some sampled by Quist and Chapela in 2001.

Jose Sarukhán, a biologist at the UNAM and a member of the US National Academy of Sciences, recommended the Álvarez-Buylla article for publication in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. It was rejected; in a letter to the authors on 14 March this year, the journal's editor-in-chief Randy Schekman, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, wrote that the biology and genetics didn't warrant publication, and that a reviewer had pointed out the report could "gain undue exposure in the press due to a political or other environmental agenda". Sarukhán responds: "I saw no reason why it should not be published."

Norman Ellstrand, a plant geneticist at the University of California at Riverside, called the study intriguing. "The importance of the study is not in the impact of the transgenes themselves," he says, "but in the fact that their spread has occurred so easily in a country where the planting of transgenic maize has not occurred for several years."

However, the new paper doesn't confirm an important conclusion from the original Nature paper — whether the transgenes had been integrated into landrace genomes and passed along to progeny plants. Álvarez-Buylla suspects this may be the case, but she's not interested in pursuing another round of politically charged battles — and will leave that work to others.

References

1. Quist, D. & Chapela, I. Nature 414, 541–543 (2001).

2. Ortiz-Garcia, S. et al. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 102, 12338–12343 (2005).

3. Suarez, A. V. et al. Nature 417, 897 (2002). | Article | PubMed | ChemPort |

4. Metz, M. & Futterer, J. Nature 416, 600–601 (2002).

5. Kaplinsky, N. et al. Nature 416, 601–602 (2002).

6. Quist, D. & Chapela, I. Nature 416, 602 (2002). | Article | ISI | ChemPort |

7. Cleveland, D. A. et al. Environ. Biosafety Res. 4, 197–208 (2005).

8. Ortiz-Garcia, S. et al. Environ. Biosafety Res. 4, 209–215 (2005).

Corrupción transgénica al descubierto

Silvia Ribeiro

Después de siete años del artículo de Ignacio Chapela y David Quist en la revista Nature, mostrando que existía contaminación transgénica en el maíz campesino de Oaxaca, un nuevo artículo científico comprueba que no sólo existía contaminación en ese momento –pese a que los mencionados autores fueron objeto de una de las más vergonzosas cazas de brujas de la historia del establishment científico– sino que años después, aún seguía existiendo y representa un riesgo actual y futuro contra el maíz, uno de los más importantes patrimonios genéticos y alimentarios de México

Titulado Presencia de transgenes en maíz mexicano: evidencia molecular y consideraciones metodológicas para la detección de organismos genéticamente modificados, este artículo se publicó en noviembre 2008 en la revista científica Molecular Ecology y es responsabilidad de un equipo liderado por Elena Alvarez-Buylla de la UNAM.

Más allá de una controversia científica, el artículo es sumamente relevante porque, aunque no haya sido su objetivo, pone de manifiesto el contubernio existente entre la industria biotecnológica, científicos y funcionarios gubernamentales, así como las fallas de las empresas de detección de transgénicos, muy útiles a las trasnacionales.

Cuando se publicó el artículo de Chapela y Quist, la industria de los transgénicos, a través de sus vinculacione$ con científicos y publicaciones, dedicó considerables recursos a tratar de demostrar que no era verdad que había contaminación transgénica del maíz campesino y posteriormente que si existía era algo positivo (!) o al menos fácilmente manejable. En lo último fue altamente funcional a la industria un artículo “científico” publicado en 2005 por Sol Ortiz García et al, donde afirmaban que ya no había transgenes “detectables” en Oaxaca.

El nuevo artículo demuestra que sí existía contaminación en Oaxaca en 2001, pero también en 2004 e incluso en las muestras en las que se basa el artículo de Ortiz García et al.

Ortiz García y co-autores, en lugar de proseguir con los estudios independientes que eran necesarios para una comprobación rigurosa, enviaron las muestras de Oaxaca, con recursos públicos, a un laboratorio comercial (Genetic ID), que tiene certificación del gobierno de Estados Unidos para detección de transgénicos. Esta empresa dijo que “según sus estándares”, no existía contaminación en esas muestras. Pero esos estándares, que Sol Ortiz y co-autores tomaron como aceptables para anunciar al mundo que la contaminación transgénica en Oaxaca había “desaparecido”, tienen un umbral comercial, es decir, que aunque exista contaminación, si es en pequeños porcentajes, no se considera. Esto lo demuestra en forma contundente el nuevo artículo de Álvarez Buylla, que además agrega que los porcentajes no necesariamente deben ser bajos, sino que la propia metodología de detección de las empresas no es adecuada para la contaminación en áreas campesinas, no comerciales, donde luego del cruzamiento por polen, las construcciones transgénicas pueden sufrir modificaciones que no son reconocidas.

Por supuesto, a la industria de transgénicos, a las empresas que lucran con la detección y a los gobiernos que fijan los estándares, no les interesa lo que pueda suceder en la producción campesina, de donde no esperan obtener jugosas ganancias.

Es muy grave, además de la propia contaminación del maíz campesino en su centro de origen (un crimen histórico de proporciones), que el artículo del 2005, que livianamente adoptó como propios esos estándares comerciales engañosos, fue firmado entre otros por Sol Ortiz, Exequiel Ezcurra y Jorge Soberón, en ese entonces todos funcionarios de gobierno, encargados de velar por la bioseguridad en México. Incluso Sol Ortiz García, luego de esta muestra de negligencia científica y ética tan útil a la industria, fue designada para su cargo actual en la Dirección de Políticas y Normatividad (muy apropiado) en la Comisión de Bioseguridad y Organismos Genéticamente Modificados (Cibiogem). Desde ese puesto, juega un papel clave en el aval que podría dar la Cibiogem a la liberación de maíz transgénico en México.

Siguiendo las mismas líneas “éticas”, el 11 de diciembre del 2008, la Comisión de Mejora Regulatoria emitió un dictamen avalando una propuesta de Sagarpa que pretende eliminar el Régimen de Protección Especial al Maíz (que según la ley de bioseguridad debe establecer antes de permitir ninguna forma de experimentación con maíz transgénico en México), sustituyéndolo por unos cuantos artículos decorativos en el reglamento de dicha ley. Aún más agresivas, las transnacionales de transgénicos, cansadas de artículos y normativas, decidieron pasar a la acción, facilitando la contaminación intencional del maíz en Chihuahua y otros estados.

Hay un renovado esfuerzo concertado de gobierno, trasnacionales y seudocientíficos para imponer el maíz transgénico en México y legalizar la contaminación en 2009. Comen lumbre. El maíz está en el corazón de las culturas y economías campesinas e indígenas y frente a este, como ante muchos otros ataques que pretenden la extinción de esos pueblos, continuará la resistencia.

*Investigadora del Grupo ETC

Fuente: La Jornada

GMO Contamination in Mexico's Cradle of Corn
Joëlle Stolz
Le Monde, 11 December 2008
http://www.truthout.org/121208D

Raise the alarm for Mexican corn's biosecurity: a molecular study conducted by Mexican, American and Dutch researchers demonstrates the presence of genes from genetically modified organisms (GMO) among the varieties of traditional corn cultivated in the remote regions of Oaxaca State in the southern part of the country, even though the Mexican government has always maintained a moratorium on the use of transgenic seed.

The results of this study incite the experts to demand much more restrictive protective measures. "Old time" agriculture as practiced in Mexico - where wind-blown pollination of corn is the norm and where peasants are in the habit of exchanging their seed - seems to aggravate the risk of rapid GMO contamination.

An article that details their conclusions should be published in the next edition of the review, "Molecular Ecology." It was written by Elena Alvarez-Buylla of the Institute for Ecology of the Autonomous National University of Mexico ( UNAM ), with the collaboration of a dozen other scientists.

Their work could relaunch the controversy that was unleashed in 2001 by a highly controversial article in the magazine, "Nature," the authors of which, biologists David Quist and Ignacio Chapela from the University of California at Berkeley, revealed that criollos (traditional) corn from the Oaxaca region - one of the cradles of that cereal - were contaminated by Roundup Ready (RR) and Bt genes, property of the American company Monsanto.

In her book, "The World According to Monsanto," (due for release [in English, a French edition is already available] in March 2009 and already available for pre-order at Amazon.com), Marie-Monique Robin related how Mr. Chapela became a victim of "media lynching" at that time at the instigation of the dominant company in the GMO market. "Nature" ended up publishing a disclaimer, deeming that the two biologists' article was insufficiently backed up.

However, seven years later, the work Mrs. Alvarez-Buylla directed broadly confirms their conclusions, as a report published in the November 13 "Nature" emphasizes. The researchers have discovered transgenes in three of the twenty-three fields of Oaxaca 's northern sierra where samples were taken in 2001, then in two places sampled in 2004.

American Allison Snow, of the University of California and author in 2005 of a preliminary study that seemed to undermine Ignacio Chapela and David Quist's discoveries (and which were then immediately exploited by GMO partisans), is publishing an additional complimentary note in the same issue of "Molecular Ecology," in which she judges the molecular analysis conducted by the UNAM team to be "very good," bringing to light "the positive evidence of transgenes."

This acknowledgement did not come without difficulty. "We battled for two years to get the results of our study published," declares Mrs. Alvarez-Buylla. "In the course of my entire career, I have never encountered so many difficulties! There were efforts to stop the publication of this scientific data!" Biologist José Sarukhan, a UNAM researcher and member of the United States National Academy of Science, had recommended the article for publication by that organization's review. The latter rejected the article in March, with the justification that it risked provoking "excessive media attention for political or environmentally-related reasons ..."

How - in spite of the moratorium - have GMO transgenes migrated to the far depths of Oaxaca 's mountains, and also to Sinaloa State in the north, the biggest producer of corn for human consumption, and to Milpa Alta, a district on the periphery of Mexico ? They are found in one percent of the plots analyzed, which is a lot in the Mexican context, where 75 percent of the corn planted comes from seeds selected by peasants from their own harvest.

The first hypothesis is that some farmers are illegally importing transgenic seeds. Strong suspicions surround the company Pioneer, a big supplier of hybrid corn seeds purchased by Mexico from the United States and distributed to small farmers through government aid programs.

Preliminary data indicate that a third of Pioneer's seeds are contaminated by GMO, any distinctive labeling of which Monsanto has succeeded in preventing.

The study's authors call for a strengthening of "biosecurity measures" to preserve native corn varieties, especially in Mexico , corn's "center of origin." They say Mexico must set up truly independent laboratories and adapt criteria of molecular analysis to the Mexican reality, rather than trusting "methods used in countries such as the United States which have an agricultural system entirely different from our own."

But their greatest concern at present involves planned pharmaceutical trusts which want to make a profit on corn biomass and use it as a bioreactor in order, for example, to express vaccines and anti-coagulants.

"Given the incidents that have already occurred in the United States where they have trouble separating bioreactors from GMO, we may fear that corn could turn into the garbage bin of the pharmaceutical industry, at the expense of its purpose as food," fears Mrs. Alvarez-Buylla. "What shall we do when anti-coagulants arrive in Mexicans' tortilla?"

Chapela tells it like it is

Commentary: UC and BP: A Step in the Wrong Direction
By Ignacio Chapela (10-30-07) Berkeley Daily Planet


When our students look back in time, it will be easy for them to recognize this as a key moment in history. The signing of the "bioenergy" agreement between British Petroleum and the University of California, Berkeley for a reported $500 million will be clearly visible then, in the future, as a very big step indeed, a decisive step in the wrong direction.

At Berkeley, the bare promise of money has dulled the capacity for critical thinking and transformed our public institution into a secretive society manipulated by special interest grouplets. I shudder to think about the further consequences that the arrival of this money, and the BP associates carrying it, will have on our campus. Before today, the chancellor would already speak of "we" to refer only to those on campus who identify with his ideas, while the others, like me, are already defined as "them."

Any disagreement continues to be suppressed, dismissed as simply part of the colorful character of our campus, and the signing of the contract will directly fund the mechanisms necessary to entrench this suppression. Nevertheless, biofuels are now known to have been the wrong answer to the global warming puzzle, and the approach to biofuels into which Berkeley will be locked by signing a contract with BP is also already known to bring with it serious problems for human and environmental health. This reality is clear for anyone with eyes to see, most certainly for those unfortunate enough to live under the immediate consequences of its pursuit in places like Argentina and Indonesia. Time, wind and water will bring those consequences back home to us. With information available today, the only reason one could have to go into the biofuel program of BP and its Berkeley associates is to make personal progress, financially for sure and maybe scholarly, from the very flare of public support created by one's own
propagandizing.

Other core values have been sacrificed already in the process of bringing BP to our campus and the ink in the contract with BP will seal their fate. Our chancellor and all the promoters of this agreement have systematically avoided reckoning with the destructive force brought about by this contract against academic freedom and also against an unencumbered public voice for the university. By hijacking the Academic Senate through brute force and parliamentary sleight of hand last spring, BP boosters have minted a new definition of academic freedom as the freedom not to be questioned on their financial associations, no matter how damaging for the university or the public. In other times this Orwellian definition would have been rejected as a grab for unaccountable profiteering, and so it shall be recognized in the future.

But today any question relating to conflict of interest is swept under the cover of this new definition, making it possible for BP associates to carry out research, provide guidance in public policy, teach and train from the halls of our university while standing to gain most of their personal wealth from the consequences of their very research, teaching, and public opinion. The promotion of diversity and true academic freedom and the avoidance of conflict of interest are the most delicate values of our profession because once we lose them it becomes practically impossible even to see that we have: as we open our doors to BP employees and their associates, as we use the money that they bring to recruit professors and students who will by definition agree with the New Order for the university, a flood of acquiescence will drown out any memory of what a truly open and diverse campus could have achieved. In this process, society as a whole may gain a few upward ticks in the stock markets but it certainly loses irretrievably the values sown into the university as seeds for the future over many generations.

This tragic moment for the public university and for biology represents, paradoxically, the natural but unfortunate culmination of Dan Koshland's dream, a dream that became by deed
of Koshland's fortune Berkeley's and the nation's. Koshland can be credited more than any single individual for his obstinate dedication to transform the discipline of biology into what he defined as Big Science, just as it had been done by others for the field of physics that he so admired. In this effort, he conceived of his home, Berkeley, as the ideal place to bring that dream to reality. While this goal may have looked as desirable back in the '80s, by the dawn of the 21st century it is clear that it represents the sacrifice of a whole discipline, biology, in the hands of a small, monopolistic political group which has successfully captured the name of science for their own visions, including the vision of Big Money. Whether Professor Koshland was able to see the tragedy in the natural consequences of his dream will remain an interesting question for his biographers. But now without Koshland his dream forges ahead by bringing the biggest players and profiteers in the geopolitical arena to dictate what we, and by consequence, society, should do with the Big Science that we have wrought.

Koshland was wrong, however, in modelling biology after physics, and the jury is in on that judgement. While physics was able to speed from nuclear particle theory to nuclear war in the briefest three decades, biology continues to resist, half a century and many billions of dollars later, the proposals of physicists and chemical engineers. The New Biology going into the BP era at Berkeley may have new names and new faces, but it has not been able to change the fundamentals of living systems, most poignantly those in the open, public space: the loss of biological and cultural diversity, the spread of epidemics and invasive species, the emergence of new diseases for humans and their companion domesticates, all these problems continue not only unabated, but racing at increased pace.

The interventions by our BP-Berkeleyans have already shown what a staggering power they can have in furthering, not solving, all these problems. Physics as an abstraction provides necessary but not sufficient understanding to deal in real life with living individuals, species or ecosystems, and those living systems will continue to resist from their complex biological reality. Part of that biology-in-resistance shows up at Berkeley every year in the form of faculty, students and many others who want to sustain the idea that we can do much better than proposing to steer the world through engineers and lawyers. A lobby of BP boosters, half-a-billion-dollars louder, will most likely overlook to our peril the power of resistance of those living systems which they wish would fade away. But the public would do well to remember, on the day that the contract is signed in their name, that it is from that very suppressed biology that they can expect any real answers to the questions conveniently shelved away for the BP press conference.

Testimonio de Chapela

Remarks Prepared by Invitation
of the Chair of the Academic Senate
University of California, Berkeley


On the Berkeley-British Petroleum Proposition:
Things are Often Not what they Appear.

Presented on the Floor of the Academic Senate of the
University of California, Berkeley Division.

In eight minutes.

by

Ignacio H. Chapela
Associate Professor

For a webcast of the proceedings, including interventions from the floor:
http://webcast.berkeley.edu/event_details.php?webcastid=19207&p=1&ipp=15&category=
This Session

This session, for instance. It will be portrayed as the latest expression of the vibrant democratic system of shared governance for which Berkeley was once known. Far from it, this session is a last-minute hurried afterthought by a leadership caught asleep at the wheel, a session convened only because of the rising outrage and opposition to the presence of British Petroleum on our campus.

May nobody claim that eight minutes of my clumsy words represent any kind of reasonable and legitimizing discussion. May nobody leave this room thinking that there is anything like a legitimate process in place to guarantee that this Faustian deal with the British transnational corporation is not what it portends, the last –and I believe final- coup de grace to the very idea of a university that can represent the best interest of the public.

The Technical Value of the Premises

I have tried for size the word Prostitution as best describing that for which the Chancellor and his associates would like us to sign.

When faced with this concept, I have heard the proponents of this deal simply shrug and say: “But at least we can agree that it IS a lot of money – and even perhaps some science may come out of it!” So leaving prostitution aside, why not glance at the science?

What would certainly come out of the BP-Berkeley facilities would be a large number of genetically altered, reproducing, LIVING organisms to be released in the public environment.

In Berkeley, in the MidWest and around the world. Genetically-modified (or “GMO”) grasses, trees, algae, bacteria, viruses destined for intentional, large-scale release in the public environment.

These organisms do not represent Science. If anything, they may represent our failure as scientists to assume the deep inadequacies of our understanding about living organisms and the ecology of our planet. I do not need to dwell on it: read it in the front pages of your newspapers.

Despite a third of a Century and more than $350 billion dollars invested in the trinket, a hurricane remains more predictable, and a wildfire remains more controllable than GMO organisms. Meanwhile, they have proven to be a disastrous economic proposition, not to speak of their environmental and social consequences.

Cognizant of this reality, BP-Berkeley proponents would wish to rename everything in their trade to give it a fresh face of novelty: GMOs should now be called “DNA circuits”, pieced together from “Biobricks” through a craft not called transgenesis, but “Synthetic Biology”;

decomposition, the process which has defeated many better minds in the past may be more tractable –they suggest-- if it can be renamed “depolymerization”. And so on…

In the BP-Berkeley spirit I would suggest we rename “science” what used to be called “magic” in my childhood: addressing a question by drawing a cloak of confusion and secrecy over it, only to extract a pre-arranged answer to the pre-arranged question.

We hear that the magic of “DNA-circuits” should also produce some science in the physics departments. BP-Berkeley proponents wish to deny it, but the proposition that more energy can be extracted from a process than what is invested into it does not follow the phoney rules of the stock market or the wild-eyed predictions of venture capitalists. Biofuels may be convenient because they shove the tragic aspects of our insatiable consumption to the invisible corners of the Third World,

but they will not change the laws of thermodynamics, nor –I suspect- will they succeed in the medieval quest for perpetual motion machines.

Do we need a solution to the crazed consumerism binge of the short two centuries we have spent burning our fossil-fuel accounts?

Certainly. If we do not find it soon, the solution itself may come and get us, and we may not like it. But does the BP-Berkeley proposal address any of the questions necessary to find that solution? I believe not. At least there are very legitimate and reasonable concerns, growing by the day in the last few weeks here and abroad, that the idea of Biofuels embodied in the BP-Berkeley proposal is not only short-sighted, but fatally flawed:

For a measure, Indonesia without Biofuels used to be close to 20th in the world as producer of CO2 in the atmosphere. In a few years with biofuels it is now third, only behind the US and China.
Signing the contract with British Petroleum would yoke the university to a flawed and potentially very dangerous route at least for the next decade.
Because of the investments and commitments made and because of the roads not taken, most probably much longer.
The evidence keeps coming in about the inadequacy and dangerous nature of the proposal, but we cannot afford to even see or acknowledge it, even before signing the contract, for fear of scaring the money away.

If we signed that contract, Can anyone seriously imagine that Berkeley would be in a position to undertake significant research to show the problems with the BP strategy? Can anyone believe that after signing the contract we could be working on alternatives that do not involve patents, immoral profit margins, economies of scale and command-and-control governance? Look at the subserviant motions of this very Senate, and answer these questions truthfully, at least to yourselves (at night, in the bathroom?).

After signing the contract with BP, will anyone ever believe our objectivity and advice as we move into the most difficult part out of the social and environmental decomposition that we live in?

Chancellor Berdahl, while signing with one hand the predecessor of the BP-Berkeley agreement, the Novartis-Berkeley deal, was writing with the other
hand:

“The issue is not that Novartis may direct the research exclusively to topics that may yield profits for the company; it is, rather, that the perception of the objectivity of our faculty may be compromised and with it the confidence that their research is dedicated to the public good. Few would put a great deal of confidence, I suspect, in the objectivity of lung cancer research funded by tobacco companies.”

The evidence is in, and we cannot afford to see it?

We already missed the opportunity of listening to the best advice of our faculty. In addition to Berdahl’s, the following names, and what they could have contributed are but a sampler of the many important campus voices that are clearly not represented here:

Clark Kerr – the dangers of the university-industrial complex.
Nancy Peluso – probable consequences of the BP deal in Indonesia.
Miguel Altieri – ditto for the Amazon basin, plus the many non-patent alternatives to global disaster.
Michael Watts – ditto for Asa
Claudia Carr – ditto for Africa
Gordon Rausser – the difference between first right of refusal and first right of negotiation. Basics of negotiation strategies.
Bob Buchanan – the limits of microbial transgenesis
Bob Berdahl – the possible limits to privatization
Laura Nader – the impossibility of unlimited power through knowledge
David Hollinger – the unsustainability of using the university as a political workhorse
Tad Patzek
Urs Cipolat
Gray Brechin
Bob Brentano
Jennifer Miller
Iain Boal
Louise Fortmann… the list goes on

Can we call this a “Berkeley”agreement when these and many other voices are not here?

Things are often not what they appear: there are other names.

This agreement, which many fear as an unacceptable private-public partnership, is very much a private-private partnership. Attention faculty in English, Music or Rhetoric: do not hold your breath for the financial crumbs to fall from the party table for your programs, because the chickens are all counted, and they carry name-tags around their necks.

I mean to say: the reason why you have not heard mention of even the concept of Conflict of Interest is precisely because nobody in the partnership seems to recognize the idea.

To my knowledge the last time Conflict of Interest was considered worth visiting, again involved the Novartis-Berkeley deal. One of the overseers of that Deal, Prof Jasper Rine, stated in his legal declaration on conflict of interest caused by his simultaneous involvement in private and public science-making:

“…the possibility of conflict of interest is non-existent, since the science happening in my lab at Berkeley is exactly the same as the science happening in [my outside company]” A curious but clearly faulted definition of the concept, I should point out.

It is not surprising then to see that conflict of interest levels that would have been considered unthinkable even a decade ago would not deserve even a note in the BP-Berkeley designs. The conflicts and mutual-self-serving dealings are many, large and very complex, but once again in eight minutes we are reduced to a mention of a few examples.

BP-boosters propose to focus on grasses and other “DNA circuits” controlled by a company in Walnut Creek called Mendel Biotechnology. Mendel is thus a major, little-mentioned partner in this deal. Mendel has an alliance with Monsanto, the world’s monopoly of transgenic seeds, for more than $40 milllion dollars. This long-term relationship includes a VicePresident of Monsanto on Mendel’s board; in their words, their reciprocal interests are “highly aligned”. So it stands to legal reason --by some standard I suppose-- that there would be no conflict of interest between BP, Berkeley, Mendel, Monsanto, and the deployment of their products for profit over more than 200 million acres of transgenic (excuse me, “Synthetic Biology”) crops? In this proposal, Berkeley is nothing but a business partner with these corporations, professors entrepreneurs and students simply cheap labor, paying high fees for the privilege of giving their work to the right corporation.

Principals in Mendel’s Board of Directors and Scientific Advisory Board are Prof. Brian Staskawicz, of Berkeley, and Prof. Stephen Long of the University of Illinois (the other business partner in this Proposal). Both entrepreneurs’ interests inside campus and out are probably so identical that they do not need to worry about conflict of interest. Whether their students can maintain such clear alignment in their allegiance between finding out what is true and publically desirable and finding out what is profitable might be a different question.

Chris Sommerville, CEO of Mendel, has been apparently rushed in to Berkeley through a secretive and highly irregular flash-hire process to be safely on the UC side as a professor for the signing of the agreement. His campus interviews, behind closed doors, apparently happened last Tuesday, although the Chancellor had already announced more than a month ago that he would unilaterally appoint him. Not surprisingly, there is no outward sign that the Academic Senate even knew about all this. Oh, I nearly forgot: Mr Sommerville’s wife is reportedly also getting another professorial position at Berkeley through the same process – I am not sure what she does professionally.

Of course, no contract will be official without the signature of the Regents but here again, the Chair of the Regents, Richard Blum, stands in multi-million-dollar conflict of interest over his financial engagement with “development” corporations that are already signed on to begin the digging and concrete-pouring in Strawberry Canyon, as has been well documented by investigative journalist Peter Byrne.

Prof. Dan Kammen’s description of the goals here is appropriate, and seems to describe the real environmental interest in the BP-Berkeley proposal: He said that the goal of the BP-Berkeley deal was “to generate an ecosystem of companies”. We now have an inkling of the “biodiversity” making up this “innovation environment”; now we know that what is really meant here is a trophic web of favoritism that would have shamed the Soviet system, in an environment of profit-driven conflict of interest.

BP’s Benefit

As the smell of depolymerization (British Petroleum-word for decomposition) continues to emerge from the extraordinary proposition, few stop to ask what else would BP get out of all this.

Time is short, so we are back to citing samplers from a much larger collection.

I will leave a marker here for what I think is the most important benefit to BP apart from the obvious greenwashing and the very large public subsidization of its faulty science, research development, distribution and marketing: the liability haven provided by Berkeley.

If the production of Synthetic Biology “DNA circuits” entails with it very clear risks, Berkeley is providing an unrivalled degree of protection against public scrutiny, through the abuse of the public privilege assigned to us in the Constitution of the State of California to conduct our affairs in privacy, for academic freedom’s sake. This privilege can also be used, as if it were a private right to secrecy, to deflect public inquiry and to protect BP, Dow, Monsanto, Mendel, Savia, Amyris and the rest of the “ecosystem of companies” from the evident and imminent liability in Moral, Fiduciary and Legal terms associated with the release of herbicide resistant weeds, algae, all kinds of microbes, crops and the rest of it.

Thanks. It is not all bad. I want to thank the many students and faculty who are awakening to the situation of their university, the public of California and the world who understand what is at stake and will hold us accountable for it, as they are doing here tonight.

But I also want to thank British Petroleum, not for the $500,000,000.00 –which, at $600 of after-tax profit per second for last year does not represent much-- but for the arrogant and reckless style with which they have come to our Campus. With this they have already helped uncover the depth and breadth of the problems with/for our university that this proposal entails. These problems were really in need of public attention, and they will get it.

I Believe that I stand here for a majority within this campus, throughout the State and in the world who also believe that the time has come to re-take control of our institutions as the only possible way forward from the enormous environmental and social catastrophe that we are already living through.

I Trust that this Academic Senate, the only legitimate body of representation for our faculty, will stand up against this last push to declare us irrelevant in the worst moment of social and environmental need.

I Know that the people of California will demand a better university for themselves, because without it, their options for a survivable future, let alone a future they might desire, are dim.

Let there be light.

Chapela le contesta a Point Reyes Light

This letter by Dr Ignacio Chapela was sent in response to the recent editorial on genetic engineering published in a California local weekly paper, the Point Reyes Light. You can read the editorial here http://www.ptreyeslight.com/editorial.shtml

---

Re: Genetically Modified Organisms
The Editor: Robert Plotkin (The Point Reyes Light)
2007-02-13

To read your editorial of 13 February evokes quaint memories of decades past. Long ago --a quarter century, to be more precise-- your eulogy of genetic engineering could have passed for visionary science in popular magazines. Now, more than $350 billion later, it simply reeks of the stale propaganda of Russian Lysenkoism: a futile attempt at denying truth borne by factual evidence.

Thankfully, the arguments are well rehearsed elsewhere: Genetic engineering is not precise, is not controlled, cannot be contained, is not predictable once released in the environment, has not been properly tested in animal models or real environmental conditions, and has defeated multiple times the gold-standard of the US regulatory system formed by USDA, FDA and EPA. In short, the biological foundation of this mid-twentieth century obsession is already past its "best-by" date.

Economically, genetic engineering has proven also a major disaster: may I direct you to the analyses of the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, or such firms as Ernst and Young for the evidence? Better still: farmers have known long ago what the Deutsche Bank realized only in 1999, that genetic engineering could not fairly compete for markets on a premium basis, but would have to be foisted upon markets at a discount instead.

To accuse the enlightened population of West Marin of backwardness by such low rhetorical ploys as the racist move to compare them with presumed ignorant black Africans is not only insulting to your readers, but denigrating to your own intelligence. Straus and many other farms have moved on to the 21st Century together with many others in our Nation, many European, Asian, African and Latin American countries. This is the century of reckoning for the blunders of failed technofixes to serious environmental, cultural and economic problems created by the very practices you praise. Genetic engineering has done nothing more than delay progress towards this goal through its fixation on failed, half-baked practices. It is sad indeed to see a journal that once deserved a Pulitzer Prize thrown into the backwaters of anti-scientific propaganda.

Yours sincerely,
Ignacio H. Chapela, PhD
Associate Professor of Microbial Ecology University of California, Berkeley

Co-existence hoax

Co-Existence with Genetically Engineered Crops is Impossible: International Call to Action

From: Consumers International http://www.consumersinternational.org

Appeal to European Commission and world for caution over GMO contamination Bologna, Italy, 9 September 05

Consumers International (CI) made an appeal for caution over genetically modified organism (GMO) contamination. David Cuming, CI GM Campaign Manager, said: 'Stop GMO contamination - it can happen quickly and over vast areas and is irreversible. In places, like Italy, where there are a lot of small farms with traditional and organic crops, "co-existence" is probably impossible without removing the freedom of consumers and farmers to choose.'

Speaking at a conference in Italy, organised by CI and RegioneEmilia-Romagna, David Cuming advised 'All countries worldwide must introduce strict rules to prevent contamination, and allow for GM-free zones, before allowing GMOs in their countries. The EC must wait until they have completed the full review of "co-existence" in Europe before approving new GMO crops.'

Prof. Ignacio Chapela, leading expert on GMOs told the conference '"Co-existence" of GMOs and GM-free plants is biologically impossible. If we keep thinking like this it won't be a question of - if contamination will occur: It will be a question of when and how much? We do not have the political will, the technical capacity or the independence of thought to deal with "co-existence"; neither to monitor its development, nor to remedy its consequences. Proposed biosafety and bioethical frameworks will not prevent contamination.'

GMO and consumer experts from Canada, USA, Brazil, Thailand, Zambia, Austria, Italy and UK presented their position on "co-existence", contamination and GM-free zones at the conference in Bologna. Recent examples of GMO contamination cases are: canola fields in Australia and Canada, shipments of maize to Japan and New Zealand, and illegal rice in China.

Biodemocracia en Filadelfia

Equipo de Movilización por la Biodemocraciawww.reclaimthecommons.net

CONTACTO:Carmelo Ruiz Marrero (787) 203-2615

PARA PUBLICACION INMEDIATA

Opositores de la ingeniería genética se dan cita en Philadelphia para exponer peligros de la biotecnología

PHILADELPHIA, PA En junio 17-21 gente de todo el país y de alrededor del mundo convergerá en Filadelfia para demostrar su oposición al mercantilismo del cuidado médico, a la proliferación de las bio-armas, y a alimentos genéticamente alterados, inadecuadamente probados y sin etiqueta. Esta gran reunión, "BioDemocracy 2005," coincidirá con la convención anual de BIO, la Organización de la Industria de la Biotecnología, que se llevará a cabo en Filadelfia en los días junio 19-22. La convención de la BIO es la más grande del mundo de la biotecnología y los ejecutivos de la industria farmacéutica. "BioDemocracy 2005," que está siendo organizada sobre todo por ciudadanos de Filadelfia, atraerá gente de alrededor del mundo para exponer a la luz pública la peligrosa práctica de manipular genes, conocida como biotecnología o ingeniería genética y también celebrar alternativas sanas.

"BioDemocracy 2005" destacará los crecientes movimientos por la seguridad y soberanía alimentaria, junto con los impactos devastadores de la guerra biológica, y los peligros de la biotecnología en la investigación farmacéutica. "con BioDemocracy, estamos continuando una serie de reunions de base internacionales que comenzaron hace siete años en St. Louis," dijo Brian Tokar, director del Proyecto de Biotecnología del Instituto de Ecología Social. Como parte de las actividades de este año habrá un Festival de Alternativas, actividades para niños, una contra-conferencia de tres días, y una variedad de acciones coloridas e inspiradas para destacar las actuales injusticias, así como nuestra visión para generaciones futuras más sanas y más seguras.

Esta serie histórica de actividades comenzó en 1998, cuando los opositores de la ingeniería genética se reunieron en St. Louis, la ciudad sede de la firma de biotecnología Monsanto, hoy infame por haber creado el agente naranja, los polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), la hormona de crecimiento bovino (BGH), y maíz y soya genéticamente alterados. El tema de los servicios médicos será muy prominente en "BioDemocracy 2005", ya que ochenta por ciento de las compañías farmacéuticas más grandes del mundo están dentro de un radio de 50 millas de Filadelfia. Las noticias recientes sobre la negativa de Merck a retirar su droga peligrosa Vioxx demuestran que con demasiada frecuencia las corporaciones ponen sus ganancias delante de la salud pública. "Los patrocinadores corporativos de la convención de la BIO incluyen a muchas de las compañías farmacéuticas grandes que son responsables del alto costo de los medicamentos de prescripción a la vez que muchos americanos no pueden pagarse cuidado medico básico o medicamentos. La industria farmacéutica se ha opuesto con vehemencia a cualquier reforma racional del sistema de salud porque reduciría sus márgenes de ganancia”, dice el doctor Adam Tsai, de la organización Médicos por un Programa Nacional de Salud, quien señala que "precisamente porque todos comemos alimento y tomamos medicinas, necesitamos plantear preguntas sobre la biotecnología."

Desde 1998 estas interrogantes se han planteado en reuniones anuales en localizaciones tan diversas como Nueva Deli, Seattle, Boston, San Diego, Toronto, Sacramento, y San Francisco. Clarissa Rogers, coordinadora de BioDemocracy 2005, relata que "la actividad en San Francisco en 2004 fue la primera en tomar el tema de la recuperación de los espacios communes (Reclaim the Commons), que va más allá de la biotecnología y examina las raíces de la peligrosa influencia corporativa en la investigación farmacéutica y armas biológicas." Rogers explica que los "activistas en Filadelfia está haciendo lo mismo este año para examiner e indager el hurto y la privatización del espacio común (commons) físico, intelectual, y también biológicos."

Para más información sobre BioDemocracy 2005: biodev.org y reclaimthecommons.net

---OJO: El sábado 18 de junio de 2 pm a 9 pm tendremos el Biodemocracy Teach In, actividad educativa en el Friends Center en el 1501 de la Calle Cherry. Oradores incluirán el professor Ignacio Chapela de la Universidad de California, Carmelo Ruiz del Proyecto de Bioseguridad de Puerto Rico, y Ramona Africa de MOVE, entre otros.

Por la biodemocracia, ¡A Filadelfia!

Please forward to your lists:

Biodemocracy Teach-in, Festival and Actions
Philadelphia, June 18th – 21st

Had enough of genetically engineered food and corporate healthcare?
Hungry for peace, global justice and real grassroots democracy?
Reclaim Community and Environment! Come to Philadelphia!

The world’s largest convention of biotech and pharmaceutical executives is coming to Philly this June. Join us to challenge their closed-door corporate agenda of GE agriculture, healthcare for profit, and bioweapons proliferation. Give voice to a different vision of fair trade, local food sovereignty, healthcare for all, community power, biodiversity and honest science.

RECLAIM THE COMMONS FESTIVAL Saturday June 18th, 10 AM – 2 PM, Clark Park (43rd St. and Baltimore Ave., West Philly) Live Music, Farmer Speak-Out, Green Circus, Seedling Give-Away, Puppets, Free Food, Strawberries, Games, Art, & Sustainability Demonstrations!

BIODEMOCRACY TEACH-IN Saturday June 18th to Monday June 20th
(Philadelphia Friends Center at 15th and Cherry Sts., and other locations) 2 – 9 PM weekend, 11 – 6 on Monday Featuring Ignacio Chapela, Medea Benjamin, Percy Schmeiser, Deborah Koons Garcia, Anuradha Mittal, Judy Wicks, Brian Tokar, William Weaver, Sheldon Krimsky, and many more. Panels and workshops on GE Agriculture, Drug Company Profiteering, Biotech and Medical Ethics, Militarism and Bioweapons, Corruptions of Science, and Ecological Alternatives. Films, Trainings, Workshops and more.

Evening events: Saturday: "The Future of Food" documentary with filmmaker Deborah Koons Garcia and special guests; Sunday: Bioweapons, US Militarism and the Myths of "Biodefense;" Monday: Biotechnology and the Corruption of Science

DAY OF ACTION Tuesday June 21st
Plant seeds of hope, resistance and sustainablity. Parade against bioweapons proliferation, genetic engineering and greed-based healthcare. Locations TBA.

Questions? E-mail biodemocracy@riseup.net, call 215-222-4711, or leave a message toll-free at 877-806-2871.

Daily updates are online at www.reclaimthecommons.net, www.biodev.org

Todos a Filadelfia

The world’s largest convention of biotech and pharmaceutical executives is coming to Philadelphia this June.

Join us to resist their closed-door corporate agenda of GE agriculture, health care for profit, and bioweapons proliferation.

Give voice to a different vision of local food sovereignty, fair trade, health care for all, community power, biodiversity and honest science.

FESTIVAL Saturday June 18th. Live music, puppets, food, farmer speak-out, plant give-away

TEACH-IN Saturday June 18th – Monday June 20th. With Ignacio Chapela, Medea Benjamin, Anuradha Mittal, Percy Schmeiser, & many more

DAY OF ACTION Tuesday June 21st. Expose biotech and pharma. hotspots in central Philadelphia

FOOD NOT BOMBS 25th ANNIVERSARY GATHERING

GREEN AND BLACK URBAN GATHERING

Get Involved! Contact Philadelphia RAGE (Resistance Against Genetic Engineering): phillyrage(at)riseup.net
215-222-4711 or leave a message toll-free at 877-806-2871

For further details, housing information, etc., see www.reclaimthecommons.net.

Victoria en Berkeley!

Tenure Granted to Ignacio Chapela

I am proud to contact you with extraordinary news. Yesterday afternoon, the Dean of the College of Natural Resources at Berkeley communicated to me the intention of our new Chancellor to grant tenure to my position at Berkeley.

Berkeley. Wednesday, 18 May 2005.


Dear friends, dear colleagues,

I. An announcement

I am proud to contact you with extraordinary news. Yesterday afternoon, the Dean of the College of Natural Resources at Berkeley communicated to me the intention of our new Chancellor to grant tenure to my position at Berkeley.

This decision is a clear message of vindication not only of myself, but also of the innumerable individual and collective efforts put into this process by all of you. You have generously added your voices to the many questions raised around my tenure review and demanded a process free of conflict of interest or undue influence, and for this I am thankful. I foresee no official recognition of your presence, but you should know that it was precisely that which in the end achieved this result.

As happened two years ago, when I received an important communication once I had decided to bring my office out into the street in front of California Hall, the tenure decision reached me while in the midst of another street intervention seeking to cast public light upon the newest incarnation of the bioengineering edifice. A small number of us have been using our bicycles all week to circulate messages about the hull of the bioengineering building on the Berkeley campus, which will soon reach completion (see http://www.pulseofscience.org).

The cycling has been difficult at times, not least because of highly unseasonable rain in Berkeley, but this has not stopped us from continuing to be present, in the measure that we can, to represent our positions in the face of the biotech dream. We will continue with this event, now in the light of the news about my tenure. Please come to celebrate and maintain the questioning with us.

II. An invitation

I want to extend my invitation again to any and all who might wish to join us on the last day of our week-long event in Berkeley (see http://www.pulseofscience.org).

On Friday evening (9-10:30 pm), the week’s events will culminate in a gathering outside the bioengineering construction site:

Gray Brechin, brilliant analyst of California’s, the nation’s and the world’s environment will share his deep knowledge of the history inscribed in the buildings, stones and peopled spaces in our midst. Gray is author of “Imperial San Francisco: Urban Power, Earthly Ruin”, and “Farewell, Promised Land: Waking from the California Dream”. He is working on a new project which explores the forgotten public endowment of the New Deal to our country’s landscapes.


We will also hear from Dan Siegel, the attorney representing my case, but also a veteran student activist and tireless challenger of the university’s history of exclusionary practices.

The interventions will be concerted by Iain Boal, hub and spark of intellectual life in the Bay Area and the world, historian of technics, and, most recently, coauthor of Retort’s “Afflicted Powers: Capital and Spectacle in a New Age of War”. Iain will share his historical perspective on the bioengineering edifice – in Berkeley and beyond.

I will also make some remarks regarding my situation and the current condition of biology and biotechnology.

For more information, see http://www.pulseofscience.org, where you will find maps and directions, or simply come. We stage the cycling from the platform at the entrance to the Greek Theatre on Gayley Road, across from the bioengineering building. The speeches, slides, and illumination will take place just to the north, in the grassy amphitheatre. Bring blankets, bring food, music, but please also bring light (flashlights, laser pointers, LED lights, etc.).

For those who cannot come, please note that a live webcast is planned for Friday at 9-10:30 p.m. Pacific Time (see details below).


III. Whither my biology

The tenure decision has come in a manner to be expected: during one of the quietest weeks on campus. The significance and implications of this news is only slowly seeping into my consciousness, since I find myself once again in a state of exhaustion while performing in a physically strenuous street intervention.

So it is that I will need some time fully to grasp the new situation, to consider what this decision brings as options, and to restructure my personal and professional life around them. Nevertheless, I must admit to a deep concern that the rare privilege of a tenured position in such a university as UC Berkeley may become a muzzle. I am very aware that becoming a vested member in the club of the tenured could cause me to measure my words and thoughts more carefully. I have seen it happen, as I have also watched the glint in the eye of colleagues dim, as they fitted themselves to the academic cloth. But I have also seen the sharpness undulled in those few among our large number who have maintained a critical and uncompromising engagement with the real, an engagement that is the straw in the shoe reminding them of the privilege granted them through tenure by the generosity of the public, and not by pomp and ritual, nor by autocratic decision, nor by presumed birthright.

I know of no other case where the public’s role in the conferring of tenure has been more evident. There is no doubt in my mind that I owe this tenure to you, as well as to others beyond yourselves who, without knowing, have been prodigal in support of a place to think and speak freely. I trust that you, and those who will come in your wake, will help me bear the burden of responsibility to public service that tenure in this university entails. No doubt I will need your support now more than ever.

Tenure should not stop our questioning - yours and mine - any more than rain has stopped our circulation of meaning around and about the bioengineering edifice this week. Please come to any of the three remaining cycling events, or to the gathering on Friday evening, to celebrate.



IV. If you cannot come, but would like to witness Friday’s events

I have received a generous offer from a technically sophisticated group to arrange for live streaming of the Friday proceedings. This will allow anyone with an internet connection anywhere in the world to at least listen and watch. For those of you interested, the details are below.

Yours,

Ignacio

Dreams of Reason

This event will be web-cast on Friday 20 May 2005. 9-10:30 pm, Pacific Time

Brought to you by Enemy Combatant Radio (www.enemycombatantradio.net). Make sure to check this website for up to date info, including details .

64k mp3 (broadband)
Virginia: http://mirror.enemycombatantradio.net:8030/listen.pls
Amsterdam: http://radio.indymedia.org:8000/ecr-hi.mp3.m3u

16k mp3 (dial up)
Amsterdam: http://radio.indymedia.org:8000/ecr-lo.mp3.m3u

Vbr ogg
Amsterdam: http://radio.indymedia.org:8000/ecr.ogg.m3u