https://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=412726

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https://www.wanttoknow.info/newsstories

Canola, Pushed by Genetics, Moves Into Uncharted Territories
2010-08-10, New York Times
Posted: 2010-08-17 10:17:11
https://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/10/science/10canola.html

Genetically
engineered versions of the canola plant are flourishing in the form of
roadside weeds in North Dakota, scientists say, in one of the first
instances of a genetically modified crop establishing itself in the
wild. Critics of biotech crops have long warned that it is hard
to keep genes — in this case, genes conferring resistance to common
herbicides — from spreading with unwanted consequences. The
roadside plants apparently start growing when seeds blow from fields or
fall out of trucks carrying the crops to market. In the plains of
Canada, where canola is widely grown, roadside biotech plants resistant
to the herbicide Roundup have become a problem, said Alexis Knispel, who
has just completed a doctoral dissertation on the subject at the
University of Manitoba. Some farmers, she said, have had to return to
plowing their fields to control weeds — a practice that contributes to
soil erosion — because they can no longer use Roundup to control the
stray canola plants. She also said the proliferation of roadside canola would make it difficult to keep organic canola free of genetically engineered material. The biotech canola has also been found growing in Japan, which does not
even grow the crop, only imports it. Scientists have also reported that
genetically engineered grass established itself in the wild in Oregon.

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U.S. regulators lack data on health risks of most chemicals
2010-08-02, Washington Post
Posted: 2010-08-09 10:30:01
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/01/AR20100801034...

This
summer, when Kellogg recalled 28 million boxes of Froot Loops, Apple
Jacks, Corn Pops and Honey Smacks, the company blamed elevated levels of
a chemical in the packaging. Dozens of consumers reported a strange
taste and odor, and some complained of nausea and diarrhea. Federal
regulators, who are charged with ensuring the safety of food and
consumer products, are in the dark about the suspected chemical,
2-methylnaphthalene. The [FDA and EPA have] no scientific data on its
impact on human health. The cereal recall hints at a larger
issue: huge gaps in the government's knowledge about chemicals in
everyday consumer products, from furniture to clothing to children's
products. Under current laws, the government has little or no
information about the health risks posed by most of the 80,000 chemicals
on the U.S. market today. The information gap is hardly new.
When the Toxic Substances Control Act was passed in 1976, it exempted
from regulation about 62,000 chemicals that were in commercial use --
including 2-methylnaphthalene. In addition, chemicals developed since
the law's passage do not have to be tested for safety. Instead,
companies are asked to volunteer information on the health effects of
their compounds.

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Iran scientist: CIA offered me $50m to lie about nuclear secrets
2010-07-16, The Independent (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
Posted: 2010-07-27 08:51:24
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/iran-scientist-cia-offere...

An
Iranian scientist who says he was abducted and taken to the United
States by the CIA returned to Tehran yesterday to a hero's welcome and
claimed that he had been pressured into lying about his country's
nuclear programme. Shahram Amiri said that he was on the hajj pilgrimage
when he was seized at gunpoint in the city of Medina, drugged and taken
to the US, where he says Israel was involved in his interrogation. In
the US, officials were reported to have admitted that Mr Amiri was paid
more than $5m (£3.2m) by the CIA for information about Iran's nuclear
ambitions. The offer of a large bribe is reportedly part of a special US
programme to get Iranian nuclear scientists to defect. "Americans
wanted me to say that I defected to America of my own will, to use me
for revealing some false information about Iran's nuclear work," Mr Amiri said at Tehran airport. "I
was under intensive psychological pressure by [the] CIA... the main aim
of this abduction was to stage a new political and psychological game
against Iran." At his press conference at Tehran airport, Mr
Amiri stressed that he had acted under compulsion. "Israeli agents were
present at some of my interrogation sessions and I was threatened to be
handed over to Israel if I refused to cooperate with Americans," he
said. He says he was offered $50m to stay in the US.

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Navy plans could affect more marine mammals
2010-08-05, USA Today
Posted: 2010-08-09 10:27:44
https://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/environment/2010-08-05-navymammals05_...

The
Navy plans to increase ocean warfare exercises, conduct more sonar
tests and expand coastal training areas by hundreds of square miles —
activities that could harass, injure or disturb the habitats of hundreds
of thousands of marine mammals, federal records show. The Navy is
seeking federal permits to broaden an existing range off the Pacific
Northwest and dramatically expand exercises and sonar use in the Gulf of
Alaska. The Navy's plans have ignited a debate with environmental
groups that say the service underestimates the long-term impact of its
activities and fails to restrict training sufficiently in marine
sanctuaries and other areas where it is likely to affect sensitive
species. The plans to expand training off the Pacific Northwest, where
the service's exercise areas reach into the Olympic Coast National
Marine Sanctuary, have drawn about 3,500 public comments, most in
opposition. Critics of the Navy's plans point to its use of new
sonar systems that can disrupt marine mammals' brain function and
behavior, noting that even brief disorientation or other "temporary"
effects can have serious consequences, such as changes in reproductive
activity. Among the most serious concerns is the potential for whales to
strand themselves on beaches: Since 2000, there have been at
least four instances in which mass strandings of whales have been
associated with the Navy's sonar use, federal records show.

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Millions spent on doctor 'gagging orders' by NHS, investigation finds
2010-08-02, The Independent (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
Posted: 2010-08-09 10:00:48
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/milli...

Hospital
doctors who quit their jobs are being routinely forced to sign "gagging
orders" despite legislation designed to protect NHS [National Health
Service] whistleblowers. Millions of pounds of taxpayers' money are
being spent on contracts that deter doctors from speaking out about
incompetence and mistakes in patient care. Nearly 90 per cent of
severance agreements hammered out between NHS trusts and departing
doctors contain confidentiality clauses. The widespread use of
"gagging orders" against senior NHS staff who could raise patient safety
concerns will intensify the doubts over the protection given to
whistleblowers. Campaign groups claim that NHS managers sometimes resort
to intimidatory tactics to deter medics from coming forward,
while others that break cover can face years of expense and uncertainty
before their cases reach court. The result, they say, is that doctors
accept the gagging clauses in order to protect their careers and avoid
legal wrangling. Mike Parker, of the Royal College of Surgeons, said:
"The trusts find something upon which they can influence this individual
and hold them virtually to ransom, and say: 'You speak up and this will
happen.' It's effectively a form of bullying, if you like, but we do
hear about this sort of thing happening."

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A hidden world, growing beyond control
2010-07-19, Washington Post
Posted: 2010-07-27 08:58:31
https://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/nation/tsa/static/articles/hid...

In
the Department of Defense, where more than two-thirds of the
intelligence programs reside, only a handful of senior officials -
called Super Users - have the ability to even know about all the
department's activities. Most [sources for this story] requested
anonymity either because they are prohibited from speaking publicly or
because, they said, they feared retaliation at work for describing their
concerns. Beyond redundancy, secrecy within the intelligence world
hampers effectiveness in other ways. For the Defense Department, [the]
problem goes back to an ultra-secret group of programs for which access
is extremely limited and monitored by specially trained security
officers. These are called Special Access Programs - or SAPs - and the
Pentagon's list of code names for them runs 300 pages. The intelligence
community has hundreds more of its own, and those hundreds have
thousands of sub-programs with their own limits on the number of people
authorized to know anything about them. All this means that very few
people have a complete sense of what's going on. Such secrecy
can undermine the normal chain of command when senior officials use it
to cut out rivals or when subordinates are ordered to keep secrets from
their commanders. One military officer involved in one such
program said he was ordered to sign a document prohibiting him from
disclosing it to his four-star commander, with whom he worked closely
every day, because the commander was not authorized to know about it

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