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Leaked Cable: Hike food prices to boost GM crop approval in Europe
In a January 2008 meeting, US and Spain trade officials strategized how to increase acceptance of genetically modified foods in Europe, including inflating food prices on the commodities market, according to a leaked US diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks.
During the meeting, Secretary of State for International Trade, Pedro Mejia, and Secretary General Alfredo Bonet “noted that commodity price hikes might spur greater liberalization on biotech imports.”
It seems Wall Street traders got the word. By June 2008, food prices had spiked so severely that “The Economist announced that the real price of food had reached its highest level since 1845, the year the magazine first calculated the number,” reports Fred Kaufman in The Food Bubble: How Wall Street starved millions and got away with it.
The unprecedented high in food prices in 2008 caused an additional 250 million people to go hungry, pushing the global number to over a billion. 2008 is also the first year “since such statistics have been kept, that the proportion of the world’s population without enough to eat ratcheted upward,” said Kaufman.
All to boost acceptance of GM foods, and done via a trading scheme on which Wall Street speculators profited enormously.
Mass food riots in several nations ensued, as did an investigation by the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, resulting in a finding that, yes, unrestricted speculation in food commodities caused soaring prices.
In a comment at the end of the cable, the diplomat also revealed a level of pessimism about Spain’s willingness to help force GM foods on Europe:
That pessimism was largely unfounded, as “Spain planted 80 percent of all the Bt maize in the EU in 2009 and maintained its record adoption rate of 22 percent from the previous year,” noted a report by the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA).
The leaked cables, amounting to over 1,300 right now, reveal US obsession with expanding the biotech market:
- One leaked cable confirms US concern with promoting GM foods in Africa, which Richard Brenneman described as “a significant item on the State Department’s agenda.”
- In another leaked cable describing the potential to expand US interests in “isolationist” Austria, that nation’s ban on GM foods is highlighted.
- According to a leaked cable from 2007, of concern was French President Sarkozy’s desire to implement a ban on GM foods in line with populist sentiment. According to GM Free Regions, France maintains its opposition to GM foods today.
- In this leaked cable, the Pope openly blamed global hunger on commodity speculation and corrupt public officials, so far refusing to support the use of GM foods. (Also see my Dec. 12 piece, “Leaked cables confirm Pope’s distance from GMO debate and limited stance on bioethics.”)
More may be revealed in the remaining cables.
Profiteering Leaves World open to Future Price Manipulation
Food commodity speculation was enabled in 2000 by the Commodity Futures Modernization Act. Deregulation handyman Senator Phil Gramm (R-TX) introduced the bill, coauthored by financial industry lobbyists and cosponsored by Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN), the chairman of the Agriculture Committee.
Mother Jones describes the legislative climate when the bill passed:
Not only did that Act enable the subprime meltdown that crashed the economy and put tens of millions into foreclosure, it also enabled Wall Street investors to artificially spike the price of food.
“Bankers had taken control of the world’s food, money chased money, and a billion people went hungry,” Kaufman clarified.
After a year long investigation, he confirmed that price hikes in food from 2005 thru the peak in June 2008 had nothing to do with the supply chain, but instead occurred as a result of a Wall Street investment scheme known as Commodity Investment Funds. The first to develop the idea was Goldman Sachs, which took 18 different food sources, including cattle, coffee, cocoa, corn, hogs and wheat, and created an investment package. Kaufman explains:
(Kaufman summarizes his report in this June 2010 interview by Thom Hartmann, and in this July Democracy Now interview.)
Kaufman points out that also in 2008, ConAgra Foods was able to sell its trading arm to a hedge fund for $2.8 billion. The world’s largest grain trader and GMO giant, Cargill, recorded an 86% jump in annual profits in the first quarter of 2008, attributed to commodity trading and an expanding biofuels market. The Star Tribune calculated that Cargill earned $471,611 an hour that quarter.
The investment bubble burst in June 2008 and “aggregate commodity prices fell about 60% by mid-November 2008,” notes Steve Suppan of the Institute for Agricultural and Trade Policy. Though the US House of Representatives introduced a regulatory bill, “legislative loopholes will exempt at least 40-45%” of such trades. Supporting the loopholes is Cargill, among other multinational corporations. Suppan concludes:
The final bill was signed into law in July 2010 (summarized by the New York Times), and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission continues to issue new rules purportedly aimed at regulating financial markets. “But big banks influence the rules governing derivatives through a variety of industry groups,” notes another New York Times piece.
Did the artificial price hike open EU doors to GM foods?
No, in fact ISAAA noted that: “Six European countries planted 94,750 hectares of biotech crops in 2009, down from seven countries and 107,719 hectares in 2008, as Germany discontinued its planting.”
A closer look at EU member state actions on GM foods after June 2008 details some of the GM-free battle in Europe:
For updates and a more thorough history of EU actions on GM foods, see GMO-Free Europe. European states handle the issue differently than in the US, allowing regions within a nation to maintain GM-free zones. Each step a nation takes toward GM approval invariably draws regional resistance.
Biotech Crops Expand Globally in 2009
Though the strategy to hike food prices to spur European acceptance of GM foods failed, it worked elsewhere. Globally, biotech crops expanded by 7% in 2009 over 2008 figures, according to this chart by ISAAA:
In fact, ISAAA asserted GM expansion was due to the 2008 price hikes, as noted by chairman and founder Clive James: “With last year’s food crisis, price spikes, and hunger and malnutrition afflicting more than 1 billion people for the first time ever, there has been a global shift from efforts for just food security to food self-sufficiency.”
Poorer nations hardest hit by hunger — in Africa and South America — are more vulnerable to price hikes. But even after the geologically unusual earthquake in January, Haitian farmers rejected Monsanto’s “gift” of GM seeds. However, the big push remains in Africa and China.
A Wary Future
Although it is now widely accepted that Wall Street speculation caused the food bubble, starving hundreds of millions, regulators have so far failed to curb the practices that allow international banksters to manipulate food prices.
Meanwhile, the biotech industry continues to repeat its mantra that GM food can cure world hunger. This claim is not backed by the science and it seems to hold less sway in the GM food debate, especially with the Pope recognizing what many others assert: There is no shortage of food; hunger expanded because of price hikes.
Rady Ananda’s work has appeared in several online and print publications. She holds a B.S. in Natural Resources from The Ohio State University’s School of Agriculture. Using years of editorial experience and web publishing, Rady now promotes the ideas and work of a select group of quality writers and artists at Food Freedom and COTO Report.
Related Article by Rady Ananda:
New Scientist Magazine Plants False Story That Pope Approves GM Crops
Leaked Cables Confirm Pope’s Distance From GMO Debate
RELATED ARTICLE:
Banksters Inflate Speculative Food Bubble
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Scientists explain phenomenon of submortem visions
As a rule, people perceive near-death visions as a phenomenon that proves the existence of the nether world. Many of those people, who wake up from clinical death, say that they were traveling along a narrow dark tunnel with light shimmering at its end. Some people say that they were communicating with some luminous creature (whom they take for God) and their deceased relatives.
American scientists studied encephalograms of dying patients and discovered that the electric activity in their brains was intensifying as the moment of death was drawing near.
“We think the near-death experiences could be caused by a surge of electrical energy released as the brain runs out of oxygen,” Lakhmir Chawla, an intensive care doctor at George Washington University said.
“As blood flow slows down and oxygen levels fall, the brain cells fire one last electrical impulse. It starts in one part of the brain and spreads in a cascade and this may give people vivid mental sensations,” the doctor added.
What about the cases, when a person feels like leaving the body during the moment of death? Those who had such a near-death experience say that they were moving in the “astral body,” going outside and even visiting their friends. Some people also said that in an astral state they could know the things which they never knew when living in a physical body. They knew where to find something that they were looking for, they could describe what some person was doing at one particular moment or what he or she was wearing during that moment, etc.
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Scientists and parapsychologists conducted many studies in an attempt to find an explanation to the mysterious phenomenon. US researcher Charles Tart conducted a series of laboratory experiments at the end of the 1960s. Tart cast his patients into sleep while sensors were registering their eye movements, brain biocurrents, blood pressure and electric resistance of the skin. The scientist placed a cart with a five-digit number on the shelf above the patient’s bed. In order to see the number on the card, a patient had to look at it from above. After the tests, several volunteers said that they were hovering in the room above their beds – they named the numbers on the cards correctly.
In Russia, the phenomenon of near-death experience was explored by psychiatrist Vladimir Raikov. He conducted his experiments with the participation of an extrasensory individual, who could voluntarily generate an “astral twin.” The phantom could be visible, but it would only obey his master’s orders. The psychic ordered his own “ghost” to move to the room next door. In that room, Raikov had another patient – a hypnotized trance. The other patient has never seen the psychic and did not know how he looked. However, when she was asked to describe the appearance of the “astral twin,” the woman provided the detailed description of the psychic. In addition, Raikov asked the woman to jab the phantom with a needle: the “original” could feel the jabs every time they were made.
Professor Alexander Chernetsky also received interesting results in his research. Employees of his laboratory used a sensor to measure the electric tension during the research. The device showed reactions to the fields around biological objects. A sensitive (a human possessing extrasensory abilities) was building their own phantom with the power of mind. The sensor showed considerable changes taking place in the biological field of the person.
Swiss scientists have recently made a sensational discovery. The electrical stimulation of one of the zones of the human brain gives the out-of-body feeling to a person. A female patient, suffering from epilepsy, was subjected to electric stimulation of her brain, a angular gyrus in the right part of the brain, said that she could see herself falling down from a high altitude and then hovering above her own body.
It is not ruled out that people will develop the out-of-body technology some time in the future. At present moment, it is clear that the phenomenon is of the psychological nature and is closely connected with the activity of the human brain.
Irina Shlionskaya
Pravda.Ru
Did the universe exist before the Big Bang?
Big News Network.com (IANS) Tuesday 30th November, 2010
| Scientists may have uncovered evidence that the universe existed before the Big Bang.
Concentric circles discovered in cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB) – the after-effects of the Big Bang – display evidence of events that took place before most scientists believe the universe came into being. The controversial finding points to the existence of a universe that did not begin 13.7 billion years ago, as is generally accepted, but is instead a cycle of so-called aeons. The discovery has been posted online by Professor Roger Penrose from Oxford University and Professor Vahe Gurzadyan from Yerevan State University, Armenia, the Daily Mail reports. Most scientists believe the universe was created in the Big Bang around 13.7 billion years ago. Stars and galaxies started to form around 300 million years later. Our sun was born around five billion years ago, while life first appeared on the earth around 3.7 billion years ago. The CMB dates to 300,000 years after the Big Bang and has now cooled to around -270 degrees Celsius. But Penrose and Gurzadyan argue that evidence unearthed by NASA’s Wilkinson Microwave Anisotophy Probe in the CMB shows imprints in the radiation that are older than the Big Bang. They say they have discovered 12 examples of concentric circles, some of which have five rings, meaning the same object has had five massive events in its history. They believe the circles are imprints of extremely violent gravitational radiation waves generated by supermassive black hole collisions in a previous aeon before the last big bang. Penrose believes that his new theory means that black holes will eventually consume all the matter in the universe.
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Mind Blowingly Massive Star Cluster Discovered
Scientists aren’t usually given to hyperbole but the discovery of a galaxy cluster 7 billion light years from the Earth has astronomers gushing.
Image of a massive galaxy cluster located 7 billion light-years from Earth. Galaxies with “old” stellar populations are circled in yellow; galaxies with “young” stellar populations are circled in blue.
(Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/M. Brodwin (Harvard-Smithsonian CfA)
“This galaxy cluster wins the heavyweight title. It’s among the most massive clusters ever found at this distance,” said Mark Brodwin, a Smithsonian astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
The discovery, announced in the current issue of Astrophysical Journal., is especially cool because astronomers got a chance to peer through their instruments to see the cluster as it looked when the universe was half as old as now and our solar system didn’t exist yet.
It’s also likely not going to be the only one out there astronomers find.
Brodwin noted that this cluster is full of ‘old’ galaxies, which likely came together early in the universe’s history, or roughly within the first two billion years. The work was carried out as part of a larger project underway at the South Pole Telescope.
The survey hopes to eventually come up with a sufficiently representative sample of massive galaxy clusters to allow scientists to better measure dark energy. The Center for Astrophysics estimates that most – 95 percent – of the energy in the universe is of unknown origin, which is classified as either “dark energy” or “dark matter.”
China to explore deep space
Image via Wikipedia
Sunday 3rd October, 2010
Big News Network.com (IANS) Saturday 2nd October, 2010
China will set up its own deep space communication network in three to five years which will help in the exploration of the solar system, a top scientist has said.
With the new system, which includes a network of large antennae and communication facilities to support interplanetary missions and astronomical observations by radio and radar, ‘there will be no problem for China to carry out an exploration of the solar system’, said Qian Weiping, chief designer of Chang’e-2 mission’s tracking and control system.
He said that Chang’e-2, China’s second lunar probe which was launched Friday, will test the X-spectrum telemetry, tracking and control system, a key technology in the deep space network, according to China Daily.
‘If the test succeeds, it means we have mastered the technology of using the X-spectrum to fulfil functions like orbit determination and the remote control of spacecraft in deep space,’ he said. ‘With this technology, we only need to build larger antennae to explore planets in deep space.’
As part of the network, two ground tracking stations with large antennae are currently under construction in the country – one in Kashgar in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region and the other in Jiamusi in Heilongjiang province, the scientist said.
Deep space usually means 1.5 million km from the earth, said Wu Weiren, chief designer of China’s lunar exploration programme.
He said since the moon is 400,000 km away from the earth and there is no large celestial body between 400,000 km and 1.5 million km, the new lunar mission is considered as the starting point for the exploration of deep space.
According to Wu, the technology used in the lunar mission can be applied in exploring other planets including Mars and Venus.
‘So it would be possible for us to explore Mars and Venus in the foreseeable future, as the two planets are the closest to the earth,’ he said.
Back from the dead: One third of ‘extinct’ animals turn up again
By David Derbyshire Environment Editor
Last updated at 9:10 AM on 29th September 2010
An okapi: Tracks were seen by researchers five years ago for the first time since 1959
Conservationists are overestimating the number of species that have been driven to extinction, scientists have said.
A study has found that a third of all mammal species declared extinct in the past few centuries have turned up alive and well.
Some of the more reclusive creatures managed to hide from sight for 80 years only to reappear within four years of being officially named extinct in the wild.
The shy okapi – which resembles a cross between a zebra and a giraffe – was first discovered in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1901.
After increasingly rarer sightings, it vanished from the wildlife radar for decades from 1959, prompting fears that it had died out.
But five years ago researchers working for the WWF found okapi tracks in the wild.
Other mammals ‘back from the dead’ include the rat-like Cuban solenodon, the Christmas Island shrew, the Vanikoro Flying Fox of the Solomon Islands, the Australian central rock rat and the Talaud Flying Fox of Indonesia.
The revelations come as the world’s leading conservationists prepare for a major United Nations summit on biodiversity in Nagoya, Japan, next month.
More…
Many scientists believe the world is going through a new ‘mass extinction’ fuelled by mankind – and that more species are disappearing now than at any time since the dinosaurs vanished 65million years ago.
BACK FROM THE DEAD
- The Australian central rock rat (pictured)
- The rat-like Cuban solenodon
- The Christmas Island shrew
- The Vanikoro Flying Fox of the Solomon Islands
- The Talaud Flying Fox of Indonesia
According to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, 22 per cent of the world’s mammals are at risk of extinction. In Britain, more than two plant and animal species are being wiped out each year.
But while the report does not play down the threat from deforestation, overfishing or habitat destruction, it raises questions about the way species are classified as extinct.
Dr Diana Fisher, of the University of Queensland, Australia, compiled a list of all mammals declared extinct since the 16th century or which were flagged up as missing in scientific papers.
‘We identified 187 mammal species that have been missing since 1500,’ she wrote in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
‘In the complete data-set, 67 species that were once missing have been rediscovered.
More than a third of mammal species that have been classified as extinct or possibly extinct, or flagged as missing, have been rediscovered.’
Mammals that suffered from loss of habitat were the most likely to have been declared extinct and then rediscovered, she said.
Species spread out over larger areas were also more likely to be wrongly classified as extinct.
The mistakes cannot be blamed on primitive technology or old fashioned scientific methods.
‘Mammals missing in the 20th century were nearly three times as likely to be rediscovered as those that disappeared in the 19th century,’ Dr Fisher added.
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Mystery force stops spacecraft from travelling farther
Big News Network.com Wednesday 22nd September, 2010
 A force in space is hindering the journey of a NASA spacecraft. Scientists have been baffled by a mysterious phenomenon that has prevented the craft from moving further into outer space. Described as a force that defies all laws of nature, they have said gravity laws may eventually need to be changed. Defying all previously-known theories about the universe, the strange force that gently pushes spacecraft away from outer space was discovered last year when the spacecraft Pioneer 10 was stopped in its path by the unknown phenomenon. Researchers for NASA have said the force could be a totally new phenomenon that does not fall under familiar titles such as gravity or electromagnetic power. A tangible scientific explanation has not been put forward for the fact that the Pioneer 10 left the solar system to start its voyage in a space where there is no solar radiation or planets to attract it toward their orbits. Pioneer 10, which travels more than one million kilometres per day, started slowing down in an area where it is not supposed to meet any obstacles. Pioneer 10 is the first spacecraft to have taken close photos of Jupiter, which it passed in 1973. In 1978, it traveled towards Pluto and reached it in 1983. It then left for a region called the Asteroid Belt, which is occupied by several irregular-shaped minor planets. The spacecraft, which is currently 11 billion kilometers away from earth, now only travels at 25 centimetres every day, going backwards. |
Genetically Manipulated Crops: The GMO Catastrophe in the USA. A Lesson for the World
| Recently the unelected potentates of the EU Commission in Brussels have sought to override what has repeatedly been shown to be the overwhelming opposition of the European Union population to the spread of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) in EU agriculture. EU Commission President now has a Maltese accountant as health and enviromnent Commissioner to rubber stamp the adoption of GMO. The former EU Environment Commissioner from Greece was a ferocious GMO opponent. As well, the Chinese government has indicated it may approve a variety of GMO rice. Before things get too far along, they would do well to take a closer look at the world GMO test lab, the USA. There GMO crops are anything but beneficial. Just the opposite.
What is carefully kept out of the Monsanto and other agribusiness propaganda in promoting genetically manipulated crops as an alternative to conventional is the fact that in the entire world until the present, all GMO crops have been manipulated and patented for only two things—to be resistant or “tolerant” to the patented highly toxic herbicide glyphosate chemicals that Monsanto and the others force farmers to buy as condition for buying their patented GMO seeds. The second trait is GMO seeds that have been engineered genetically to resist specific insects. Contrary to public relations myths promoted by the agribusiness giants in their own self-interest, there exists not oné single GMO seed that provides a greater harvest yield than conventional, nor one that requires less toxic chemical herbicides. That is for the simple reason there is no profit to be made in such. Giant super-weeds plague Superweed One variety of super-weed, palmer pigweed can grow up to 2.4 meters high, withstands severe heat and prolonged droughts, and produces thousands of seeds with a root system that drains nutrients away from crops. If left unchecked, it takes over an entire field in a year. Some farmers have been forced to abandon their land. To date palmer pigweed infestation in GMO crop regions has been identified in addition to Arkansas, also in Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, New Mexico, Mississippi and most recently, Alabama and Missouri.
As I detail in my book, Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation, GMO crops and patented seeds were developed in the 1970’s with significant financial support from the pro-eugenics Rockefeller Foundation, by what were essentially chemical companies—Monsanto Chemicals, DuPont and Dow Chemicals. All three were involved in the scandal of the highly toxic Agent Orange used in Vietnam, as well as Dioxin in the 1970’s, and lied to cover up the true damage to its own employees as well as to civilian and military populations exposed. France’s University of Caen, in a team led by molecular biologist, Gilles-Eric Seralini, did a study that showed Roundup contained one specific inert ingredient, polyethoxylated tallowamine, or POEA. Seralini’s team demonstrated that POEA in Roundup was more deadly to human embryonic, placental and umbilical cord cells than even the glyphosate itself. Monsanto refuses to release details of the contents of its Roundup other than glyphosate, calling it “proprietary.” [3] The Seralini study found that Roundup’s inert ingredients amplified the toxic effect on human cells—even at concentrations much more diluted than those used on farms and lawns! The French team studied multiple concentrations of Roundup, from the typical agricultural or lawn dose down to concentrations 100,000 times more dilute than the products sold on shelves. The researchers saw cell damage at all concentrations. Glyphosate and Roundup are advertised as “less toxic to us than table salt” in a pamphlet from the Biotechnology Institute promoting GMO crops as ‘Weed Warrior.’ Thirteen years of GMO crops in the USA has increased overall pesticide use by 318 million pounds, not decreased as promised by the Four Horsemen of the GMO Apocalypse. The extra disease burden on the nation from that alone is considerable.
Endnotes: [2] Clea Caulcutt, ‘Superweed’ explosion threatens Monsanto heartlands, Clea Caulcutt, 19 April 2009, http://www.france24.com/en/20090418-superweed-explosion-threatens-monsanto-heartlands-genetically-modified-US-crops [3] N. Benachour and G-E. Seralini, Glyphosate Formulations Induce Apoptosis and Necrosis in Human Umbilical, Embryonic, and Placental Cells, Chem. Res. Toxicol., Article DOI: 10.1021/tx800218n Publication Date (Web): December 23, 2008. [4] Carolyn Dimitri and Lydia Oberholtzer, Marketing U.S. organic foods: recent trends from farms to consumers, USDA Economic Research Service, September 2009, http://www.ers.usda.gov/Publications/EIB58/ [5] International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development, IAASTD, 2008, http://www.agassessment.org/index.cfm?Page=Press_Materials&ItemID=11 [6] Ho MW.UK Food Standards Agency study proves organic food is better. Science in Society 44, 32-33, 2009. F. William Engdahl is the author of Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)/ Centre de recherche sur la mondialisation (CRM) NEW BOOK Seeds of Destruction The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation by F. William Engdahl Global Research, 2007 ISBN 978-0-937147-2-2 SPECIAL ONLINE AND MAIL ORDER PRICE US$17.00 (list price $24.95) This skillfully researched book focuses on how a small socio-political American elite seeks to establish control over the very basis of human survival: the provision of our daily bread. “Control the food and you control the people.” This is no ordinary book about the perils of GMO. Engdahl takes the reader inside the corridors of power, into the backrooms of the science labs, behind closed doors in the corporate boardrooms. The author cogently reveals a diabolical World of profit-driven political intrigue, government corruption and coercion, where genetic manipulation and the patenting of life forms are used to gain worldwide control over food production. If the book often reads as a crime story, that should come as no surprise. For that is what it is. Engdahl’s carefully argued critique goes far beyond the familiar controversies surrounding the practice of genetic modification as a scientific technique. The book is an eye-opener, a must-read for all those committed to the causes of social justice and World peace. F. William Engdahl is a leading analyst of the New World Order, author of the best-selling book on oil and geopolitics, A Century of War: Anglo-American Politics and the New World Order,’ His writings have been translated into more than a dozen languages. |
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| F. William Engdahl is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by F. William Engdahl | |
Feds: North Carolina Crime Lab Buried Blood Evidence
FBI Report Says Crime Lab Misrepresented Crucial Blood Evidence in Hundreds of Cases
By JESSICA HOPPER
Greg Taylor was wrongfully convicted of killing a prostitute in 1991 in North Carolina. Taylor proclaimed his innocence, but the evidence against him seemed insurmountable: blood from the victim found on his SUV.
The catch is that there was never any blood in the car. Taylor was convicted after crime lab technicians reported traces of blood on his SUV near the crime scene. Those same technicians buried the results of additional testing that showed there was never any blood.
Taylor wrongly served 17 years in prison until being released in February.
Blood Evidence Buried in Hundreds of Cases
Taylor might not be alone. A new report released by the FBI showed that North Carolina crime lab workers omitted, overstated or falsely reported blood evidence over a 16-year period.
“The practice is unacceptable,” said Chris Wrecker, one of the report’s investigators. “We were encouraged to turn over every rock and look at everything.”
North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper ordered the review in March after a hearing about Taylor’s case. During the hearing, a North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation agent testified that the crime lab once had a policy of excluding complete blood test results from reports sent to defense attorneys.
Cooper said that the investigators pored through 15,000 lab files from the period between 1986 and 2003. Of those, they identified 230 instances where a lab report did not clearly reflect the totality of information in the lab notes.
“I firmly believe in the interest of justice that the full case files in each of these cases should be reviewed by both prosecutors and appropriate defense counsel to determine if any of thse cases should be re-opened,” Cooper said.
Death of Michael Jordan’s Father Among Cases
The investigation does not conclude that people were wrongly convicted of crimes, but it does call for a re-examination of 190 of the 230 criminal cases where blood evidence was misrepresented.
The independent report confirmed long-held suspicions about the people at the North Carolina crime lab. It said that “information that was material or even favorable to the defense was withheld and misrepresented.”
Of the 190 cases that will now be reviewed, four people are sitting on death row, three have already been executed and five died in prison.
One of the highest-profile cases involved in the investigation is the conviction of two men for the murder of the father of basketball superstar Michael Jordan. Lab technicians reported that there was blood at the crime scene but they didn’t reveal that four additional tests were inconclusive.
Four of the technicians responsible still work for the lab and that state is promising that they will be disciplined. Since 2003, North Carolina’s crime lab has changed its methods substantially. It uses modern blood testing methods and prosecutors have online access to lab files that they can give to defense attorneys, too.
Still, for Taylor, the report is too little, too late.
“What is it worth to miss your daughters 10th birthday, to miss her high school graduation, to miss her college graduation … to hear about her walking down the aisle on her wedding day by herself?” Taylor asked ABC News affiliate WTVD in May after being pardoned.
He vows to work to make sure no one is ever wrongfully convicted again.
The state has had to pay Taylor for his lost time, and it’s now entirely possible that they could be forced to do the same for many others.
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