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You may find it comforting to know that, so far, GM crops have had no direct effect on human health. (Unlike, say, drugged livestock.) Plants don't use often use hormones that are compatible with the human body, so the likelihood of health problems occurring is somewhat diminished. One notable exception is the fig, which produces a chemical similar to estrogen.

Also, a lot of people don't understand that genes only spread when they're evolutionary beneficial to the organism receiving them. Usually, the benefit is either metabolic (the ability to digest a new nutrient) or defensive (the ability to survive pesticides or natural poisons.) The worst thing that can happen to crops is that they become easier to farm. To date, the biggest legal case involving the spread of genes was a case where a farmer was re-selling herbicide-resistant seeds patented by Monsanto; pollen from a neighbouring field had spread over to his. But it's not like this affects you, the grocery-buyer—if Monsanto had contract terms saying they can sue their customers' customers, no one would do business with them!

Most of the paranoia regarding the genetic manipulation of crops is the product of a culture accustomed to paranoid science fiction. There are plenty of cases where business practices are doing serious harm to human health—factory farming, for example, is responsible for several serious diseases, some of them incurable—but GM crops really aren't an issue. We simply don't know enough to create a real mess yet.

Awesome - FINALLY a vet.

Talk to us about zoological transfer in the context of using human sewage sludge (class B or worse) on farm pasture land and allowing your cows graze immediately after application.

Talk about rebloom/growth of ecoli and other bacteria on farm fields.

Talk about molybdenum poisoning (as witnessed in Augusta GA).

Talk about the lack of source tracking when contamination does become a problem (livestock auction breaks chain of custody of poisoned/contaminated cattle).

Talk about ecoli in cookie dough and if that could be linked to sewage sludge.

Talk about bio-aersols and if the wind can carry sludge particulates off site for miles.

Talk about vector transmission of MRSA and ECOLI by birds that feast on our waste and poop on our beach.

Talk about the issue of RCRA regulations of accepting toxic waste and the potential for clean up liability to the farmer who accepts this material.

Talk about the mrsa and ecoli showing up in meat.

This is just a warm up - i've got tons more.

The concern centers on farmers' routine use of antibiotics. Its use on livestock accounts for roughly half of the 25,000 tons produced in the United States each year. - link -

The question of whether we are creating ‘resistances' in zoomatic organisms (that affect both species) out in the feedlot and pastures and passing this on to humans with veterinary use of drugs, however, is still a very up-in-the air question. - link -

This is a good reason to think twice about fast tracking genetic modification and testing things in the wild

Yes, through preferential selection we have been practicing GMO for millenia. And yes, there's probably a good safe way to accelerate that process. But sometimes I think we play a little fast and loose with our food supply.

FYI, the Monarch butterfly report showing harm was discredited due to the concentrations of pollen placed on the milkweed. It was way more than would normally by found in the wild.

And thank your for for the support.

That said, here are some links you might find informative;

Monsanto
more Monsanto
Yet more Monsanto (busy aren't they)
intersting site
Canola
GM canola in the wild
Possible wipe out of terrestrial plant life
another one

Have fun reading.

_

Actually I'm very interested in GM and as a result I have done quite a bit of research on the subject.

My criticism of it usually is in regards to how it is being applied with little, if any, real regard to its impact on the environment. Also a concern is the moral, legal and cultural ramifications of the technology. Particularly in situations where profit is being placed above responsible use. I mean come on, patents on a string of amino acids?

And there are too many questions, to many inconclusive or questionable reports into the effects (good and bad) of the tech when introduced into the environment, for me to be the enthusiastic supporter I once was.

I really don't think we know enough about it to use it safely and effectively, with continued research one day we will. Until then we need to be very, very, careful.

Here is a near miss that didn't get much press. The modified K. Planticola would be considered a bio weapon if a terrorist had been found with it. And keep in mind the modified organism had been cleared through the "proper channels" for release into the wild. That and many other stories have made me advocate caution, next time we may not be so lucky.

Indeed, our luck may already have run out, we just don't know it yet.

_

Why would I pay to read news from a "news" organization that has argued that it has a right to deliberately lie or distort the news to suit its advertisers? http://www.purefood.org/rbgh/akre022603.cfm If I want to read fiction I will go to a site that tells me that it is fiction - and be willing to pay for that.

I never implied Monsanto had a good rep. What I said is that there can be both benefits and consequences of genetic modification, as exemplified in a single company which does a ton of bad things and even a couple of good ones (like providing royalty-free licenses for golden rice). The issue is more complicated than "frankenfood will either save us all or spell our doom"

sources: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2000/08/04/world/main221973.shtml http://www.monsanto.co.uk/news/2000/august2000/040800monsanto.html http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/865946.stm

Negative Source (Denounces Monsanto): http://www.purefood.org/corp/gericetoofar.cfm
Note that in the above, the benefits of the rice are marginalized, but it doesn't dispute that Monsanto is freely licensing the product.

The threat of a lawsuit is frequently enough to stifle discussion or dissent.

Someday we will have DRM for nature, too...because we are idiots.

We are already headed that way.

I did not know that human genes were patented. Are you sure the patent isn't with machines that are able to detect/view/manipulate human genes?

I was able to find this link that talks about the Criminal Investigation of Monsanto Corporation for attempting to Cover up Dioxin Contamination in their Products. Here is a preview of the link

"Monsanto covered-up the dioxin contamination of a wide range of its products. Monsanto either failed to report contamination, substituted false information purporting to show no contamination or submitted samples to the government for analysis which had been specially prepared so that dioxin contamination did not exist."

"Another Monsanto study involved independent medical examinations of surviving employees by Monsanto physicians. Several hundred former Monsanto employees were too ill to travel to participate in the study. Monsanto refused to use the attending physicians reports of the illness as part of their study, saying that it would introduce inconsistencies. Thus, any critically ill dioxin-exposed workers with cancers such as Non-Hodgkins lymphoma (associated with dioxin exposures), were conveniently excluded from the Monsanto study."

Some people will happily ignore reasonable explanations and cling desperately to their paranoid delusion. These people cannot be convinced otherwise. Rather they need to be brain-washed to get that stupid idea out of their head.

That's why I fully place my trust in governments and corporations to tell me what's healthy and what's not.

After all, everyone knows that smoking is good for you. And there's no danger in mining uranium or genetically modified food or syphillis treatments or the drinking water, etc.

Yep, if a big organization says it's safe, that's good enough for me.

W

Just to clarify: The Motosoto license is different from the Monsanto license. The biotech giant will sue you for growing crops using their patented genes, even if the genes got into your crops because of cross-contamination from neighbors fields. Even if you don't want to grow genetically modified crops, and you don't use roundup (a monsanto herbicide - their plants have genes that make them resistant to this, so you can spray it indiscriminately and kill only weeds), they still sue. More monsanto info.

It's almost as if the people behind nimda demanded money from you for running their copyrighted software! The sad thing, this is a very good comparison. Genetically modified organic crops are worth much less than pure organic.

"On April 6, the government of Thailand issued a ban on all GE crops. On May 1, a similar ban came into effect in Sri Lanka. On March 19, a million farmers marched in New Delhi, calling for, among other things, an end to the World Trade Organization and a ban on genetic engineering and life form patents. In Japan and South Korea government inspectors have continued to test for StarLink and other unapproved varieties of GE foods, while importers are steadily turning away from the US and Canada to other suppliers such as Brazil, China, and Australia for GE-free corn, soybeans, and canola. On April 20 consumer groups in Japan called for a halt in all corn imports from the US. In the Philippines, a bitter debate has erupted over field-testing GE rice and corn varieties. Protests against GE cotton have erupted in Indonesia. Mandatory GE labeling laws begin coming into effect in New Zealand and Australia in July, while labeling laws are already being enforced in Japan and Korea. Labeling laws are under discussion in the Legislative Council of Hong Kong, as well as in the Philippines and Taiwan. Perhaps most significant of all was the announcement on April 18 that the government of China was banning the cultivation of GE rice, corn, soy, and wheat-out of fear of losing its major export markets. Monsanto and the biotechnology industry had previously held out hope that China would be the "promised land" for biotech expansion. Despite all the hoopla about how great biotech is doing, the same three countries most heavily promoting the technology, the US, Canada, and Argentina, are still producing almost 99% of all GE crops."

You can read more about it on the site.

Fialar

Scientists still do not know the outcome of all this testing, and like all things corporate, the goal is profits over everything else.

The Biotech industry already has an economic strangehold on countries like Argentina who now completely depend on genetically modified crops.

What you will not see in the news media (especially the U.S. corporate machine media) is that Thailand is considering bans on it. GMO seed has to be delivered in Singapore under armed guard. Thousands of farmers in 3rd world countries and in Europe are protesting, some even on the doorstep of Monsanto.

All of this is glossed over by the media or not mentioned at all, yet it's very real. Keep your eyes open. Check out alternative news media sites such as:

Independent Media Center
Organic Consumers Association

My wife and I buy organic whenever we can. The problem is, just because food is certified organic, doesn't mean it may have been contaminated by GMO crops nearby (pollen, etc..)

I find it horrifying that a bill requiring proper labelling of foods as genetically modified hasn't happened here in the U.S. yet. Companies like Monsanto don't want that to happen because of what happened in the UK. Foods were labelled as genetically modified and nobody bought them. Supermarkets like Tesco and Sainsbury's had to clear their shelves. This is where we can make a difference. Show Monsanto you do not support their shoddy research on GMO crops. Hit them in the wallet.

Fialar

Pointing out that food has impurities is actually illegal in some states. They're called "food disparagement laws" and are the result of heavy lobbying by the food industry. (See this story.) Causing loss of potential profits is rapidly becoming a crime in this increasingly megacorporate-controlled country called the USA.

Monsanto definitely has a bad rep.

Monsanto: Pure Concentrated Evil.

Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/

No they cannot because that would loose them the market share that they have gained. They want those big profits that growing corn at twice the natural rate gives. Also by the time that mansanto raises the prices they have spent extensive amounts of money setting up thier farms around the GM food. Special fertilizers must be used (GM food requires more and different fertalizers then are required for "normal" food)Also they do not have any seeds because Mansanto forces them to buy new seeds and they cannot hold their seeds to replant the next year. Also farmers must spend a lot of money on pesticides that you can only get from Mansanto or it's affiliate companies. The infrastructure involved makes it extremely difficult for a farmer to just switch over to another crop.

Another strawman argument. You're blaming the GM food when it's obviously the people buying it who are at fault for not doing their research properly. If they were buying huge amounts of GM crops to replace their normal crops then you would think they would investiate things like disease resistance, which one would assume is why they bought it in the first place...

This is just a ridiculous argument. Your trying to tell me that an extremely poor rice farmer in china can decunstruct the patented and trade secreted mansanto golden rice's genome to determine if it will survive in China or not. By this logic firestone shouldnt be in trouble with it's cars because each individual owner of a firestone tire should have done stress tests on thier tires before ddriving on them. No, I'm sorry. If Mansanto (or any company) releases a product that does not work as advertised then that company is responcible. Not the consumer. This is why snake oil salesmen are not legal.

No they cannot because that would loose them the market share that they have gained. They want those big profits that growing corn at twice the natural rate gives. Also by the time that mansanto raises the prices they have spent extensive amounts of money setting up thier farms around the GM food. Special fertilizers must be used (GM food requires more and different fertalizers then are required for "normal" food)Also they do not have any seeds because Mansanto forces them to buy new seeds and they cannot hold their seeds to replant the next year. Also farmers must spend a lot of money on pesticides that you can only get from Mansanto or it's affiliate companies. The infrastructure involved makes it extremely difficult for a farmer to just switch over to another crop.

Another strawman argument. You're blaming the GM food when it's obviously the people buying it who are at fault for not doing their research properly. If they were buying huge amounts of GM crops to replace their normal crops then you would think they would investiate things like disease resistance, which one would assume is why they bought it in the first place...

This is just a ridiculous argument. Your trying to tell me that an extremely poor rice farmer in china can decunstruct the patented and trade secreted mansanto golden rice's genome to determine if it will survive in China or not. By this logic firestone shouldnt be in trouble with it's cars because each individual owner of a firestone tire should have done stress tests on thier tires before ddriving on them. No, I'm sorry. If Mansanto (or any company) releases a product that does not work as advertised then that company is responcible. Not the consumer. This is why snake oil salesmen are not legal.

[The following is a revision of a letter I have been distributing via email. I ought to have posted this earlier, but I lacked the courage. You can find the original on my website.]

Dear US Citizen,

I am writing to remind you to vote conscientiously tomorrow. I will also indulge in a little political activism by introducing some issues (watered stock, free trade, and others) for your consideration. As you read this message, keep in mind that I am not recommending that you vote for this or that candidate, but only that you think about what is at stake, make a choice, and vote.

I wish to bring to your attention a pattern of behavior by national governments that suggests that, in the world-wide political arena, the interests of citizens rank far below those of large corporations, and that the latter seek actively to diminish the influence of citizens on their governments' legislative activity. In some countries, citizens are even compelled by law to foot the bill for this nonsense. ;) It is worth noting that the worst consequences of this are not in the future: most US citizens feel so disenfranchised today that they either don't vote or vote for the lesser evil, and US taxpayers (citizens or not) bear the burden of unprecedented personal and national debt. If you don't vote, you will be capitulating, and the future of US politics will be that much closer to a foregone conclusion. As a citizen of the European Union and a resident of Switzerland, a very small sovereign state, I have learned that the rest of the world cannot afford apathy or carelessness on the part of registered voters in the US. You can think of this message as a plea for help.

[As you read this, please excuse the careless use of "Americans" where "US citizens" would have been correct.]

The first issue I want to discuss is the connection between corporations and public money. You may or may not be aware of the emergence of watered stock and pooling as a powerful weapons in the corporations' arsenal; for example, Microsoft and Cisco have managed to attain tax-free status by writing off stock options (and then earning some of that back when new stock is issued for the purpose of redeeming those options) and Citigroup recapitalizes and decapitalizes itself arbitrarily to achieve spectacular mergers (thus posing a great risk to the banking sector) -- right under the nose of the SEC. In a perfect world, this sort of abuse would have been reigned in already but, in our world, the possibility of relief seems remote. Let me make this plain: the watered stock write-off scheme amounts to a theft of public money and pooling needlessly endangers the stability of the economy. At the very least, insofar as stock represents a redeemable claim against a company's assets, it is a perversion of the modern economic perspective in which the stock market is allegedly as adequate a store of value as gold ever was.

Actually, said modern economic perspective was already quite perverse (in ways too numerous to mention) long before watered stock was even imagined. Such perversity is a natural consequence of the absence of an adequate standard of value, which was in turn an intended consequence of changes in policy that took place earlier in the century. Long ago, Alan Greenspan explained that the institution he heads today is a powerful instrument with which the government can confiscate part of the value of your money and, not incidentally, engage in deficit spending regularly. You might argue that calculated inflation is a small price to pay for being able to float a chronic debt and sustain a deficit as needed. You might argue that your national debt is presently unassailable because American households, which on average have a negative savings rate and face unabatable credit card debt, are financially overcommitted as it is. You might be wrong. Habitual deficit spending and the resulting chronic national indebtedness, along with the corporate welfare mechanisms that aggravate them, are to blame for your misery: the federal government uses inflation and national debt to mortgage your personal assets and your public resources, respectively, as effortlessly as a corporation uses watered stock to dilute the value of your share holdings. Think what you will of Greenspan's former support of the gold standard, but you have to admit that he was correct in predicting the practical consequences of failing to provide an adequate store of value, and in identifying the welfare state as the primary beneficiary:

Stripped of its academic jargon, the welfare state is nothing more than a mechanism by which governments confiscate the wealth of the productive members of a society to support a wide variety of welfare schemes.

What he may not have realized then is that corporate welfare is just as likely a welfare scheme as any other.

It now behooves us to ask not only how this wave of abuse can be stemmed, but also how this sort of situation can arise even under the watchful eye of our elected officials. The answer is that, in the US, the Executive and the Agencies operate with considerable autonomy; many important decisions are often made away from public scrutiny, largely or altogether, and there is a vested interest on the part of large corporations to increase the autonomy, if not the stature, of these public servants. Consider the case of MAI, the Multilateral agreement on investment -- a charter of rights and freedoms for corporations. Those of you who have not heard of it should at least know that it was the culmination of attempts to transfer some important powers from the popularly elected legislative bodies to the executive officials of sovereign states and to give corporations the legal standing of sovereign states. Let me take a moment to explore the brilliance of these tactics.

• When decision making forums are sheltered from public scrutiny, executive officials can serve corporate interests with impunity.
• When corporations have the same legal standing as sovereign states, large multinational corporations have power over small sovereign states -- perhaps even those in which the company is incorporated.

Surely, you can give examples of an administration negotiating treaties that would be difficult to accept for a majority of citizens and impossible to ratify for most congresses; now, try to imagine a future in which the legislature is powerless to stop unfavorable or undesirable consequences of free trade arrangements that it did not have the opportunity to approve or reject. Surely, you can name instances of a corporation getting away with practices that a majority of citizens would condemn but which the courts are powerless to stop in the absence of adequate legislation or jurisdiction; now, try to imagine a future in which a corporation undertakes legal action against sovereign states for refusing to let it set up shop, or even for having laws and regulations that hinder it, such as strict environmental standards.

"That's not a problem," you say, "because Public Citizen told us about MAI in the nick of time." That's not the point; the point is that MAI is evidence of an alarming, long-standing pattern of behavior: as Noam Chomsky has said, our governments really are, and have been for a long time, trying to undermine democracy. Consider, as further evidence, the case of Australia's MIGA, an agency that predates MAI and obviates the "need" for it.

Now, the two leading candidates, Al Gore and George Bush, look at the issue very differently, saying that free trade creates jobs, without mentioning what kind and where. Actually, Bush has even said that it is the duty of the administration to "sell" free trade (on WTO's terms, of course) to US citizens! Ralph Nader, on the other hand, has said that he wants the US to withdraw from the WTO and that we should re-examine the premise of so-called "free trade" agreements. I was going to give you a reference to Nader's website with that last statement, as WTO/NAFTA was one of the three key issues on his home page until just a few days ago, but now it is not even in the issue summaries. What could this mean? I think it means that he has pushed one of his favorite issues into the background because he needs enough votes to get federal funding for his next campaign. And this, in turn, suggests that American politicians think that the US electorate is politically comatose. You can help prove them wrong: a strong showing by Americans on election day would tell US politicians and corporations and the world that Americans are still in control of their political system. It would be a great sequel to the Battle of Seattle, with a lot less violence and just as much press coverage. Realistically, you probably cannot afford to act as resolutely as José Bové, but you can vote.

When I think about US politics, I think of the fable in which a master presents some options to his student, threatening to beat him with a cane if he chooses poorly; the essence of the problem is that the student cannot choose any of the options presented to him without risking bodily harm. (You should now take a moment to discover how the student can avoid the beating and what the moral of the story is.) You can and should vote for the presidential candidate who will most closely represent your interests, as you have more valid options than the mainstream media seem to suggest: you can vote for George W. Bush; you can vote for Al Gore; you can vote for Ralph Nader; you can vote for Harry Browne; and you can vote for some other candidate (yes, there are more) though his name may not appear on your ballot. If you cast a so-called "useful" vote, you are supporting a system in which you have a lot less influence than you otherwise might, and you might get beat with a cane. Of course, if you don't vote, you have no voice, nor will you ever, and when you and I finally get beat with a very stiff cane, no one will hear us scream. Please, vote.

Yours,

Alejandro Gómez de Argüello

Actually, while much of his statement was a lot of overreacting, the so-called "terminator" seeds are real. They're the creation of Monsanto, a biotech company on the same level of consumer disdaining evil as Microsoft. Monsanto is also the inventor of PCBs & Agent Orange and a big promoter of rBGH. They also have a pretty hideous record of being fined for pollution.

My favorite quote from them is from Phil Angel, their director of corporate communications: "Monsanto should not have to vouchsafe the safety of biotech food. Our interest is in selling as much of it as possible. Assuring its safety is the FDA's job."

Here's a great paranoid website tracking the antics of this company and their money-over-lives attitude. Granted, it is off an organic foods website, but the articles they link to are all for real.

Heck, I don't weigh that much less than that. Neither do a bunch of my friends. Maybe we should get together and beat up on Verisign and steal its lunch-money.

These companies really have to learn that it's not that impressive if they weigh only slightly more than the average American male. Even if America is a chronically obese nation.

Maybe Microsoft would like to help them out by hooking them up with some of that combination bovine-growth hormone and human-g rowth hormone regimen that's keeping Gates's hair so glossy and thighs so sexy. They'll help make Verisign a man. How do I know this? Try searching Google for "make you a man". Microsoft comes up as #2. Does Judge Jackson know about this?....