INNOVATIONS

Monsanto is creating the most 'pointless Gm product yet'; cornflakes that don't go soggy in milk. The controversial biotechnology company is launching a multimillion-pound programme to create a strain of maize that resists moisture, says The Daily Telegraph. The aim is to discover plant genes that produce high levels of wax, then transfer them into corn grown for breakfast cereals. "The idea of cereals that have a high wax content is not new," said a spokesman for the company. "Manufacturers add plant waxes to try to stop the cereal soaking up milk and going soggy. Our idea is to produce a more waxy corn in the first place." The project has been lambasted by Friends of the Earth as 'pointless'.
The Week, 19th January 2002

CTM Comment: History will no doubt show in the future the complete story of how companies like Monsanto locked themselves away to come up with the new money-spinning food creation, built already on the health-fraudulent breakfast cereal industry, which was sold to the public with intensive TV advertising as 'essential for good health'. CTM read a report recently on one breakfast cereal which was found, gram for gram, actually to have less nutrition in it than the cardboard box (unrefined pulp) which contained it.

ANTI-DEPRESSANTS ARE FOR THE BIRDS

Phoenix the parrot was ripping out his plumage, until his veterinarian hit upon the idea of proscribing the feathery creature the controversial anti-depressant Prozac. Now the feathers stay in, but Phoenix behaviour has changed….
Full story:
http://www.reuters.co.uk/news_article.jhtml?type=humannews&StoryID=537178