More than Food
“According to an ancient Indian Upanishad
Whether the subject is sweet potatoes, corn, soybeans, or rice, much more is involved than merely something that we stuff our faces with, like so much junk food of America. To many, it may be just that. But its significance is far greater than the four letters convey. To Indians rice is the “breath of life.” In fact, the word for rice, gift and wealth is the same. The Japanese equate it with the self. Native Americans believe that their folk crop varieties are sacred gifts of the Creator.
In areas where conversion from subsistence to a cash agricultural economy progressively occurred, a number of ecological and social problems became evident: loss of food self-sufficiency, genetic erosion, loss of biodiversity and traditional farming knowledge, and permanence of rural poverty.
Altieri, M. Genetic Engineering in Agriculture: The Myths Environmental Risks and Alternatives. Food First Special Report n.1 Apr01
In the past, whole families and villages joined forces during the harvest in order to accomplish the common goal of storing enough food for the winter. After the work was done, great gatherings of workers would eat, trade stories, and play music. In this way, the community’s communication and vitality were increased.
Green revolution farming, grows one variety of a crop as far as the eye can see, allowing massive machinery to sweep large areas. This machine requires only one person’s labor. Those lone drivers blaze across hundreds of acres a day, cocooned in an air-conditioned cab. The lack of diversity doesn’t end with the crops. They listen to endless streams of computer-programmed and played music that corporations decide should be played. And when the work is done, there is no reward of one’s neighbor’s company.
Seed Saving
Saving, sharing and trading seed is a tradition around the globe that has been practiced for thousands of years. It increases the social interaction that binds communities together and benefits all. It increases biodiversity by transporting seed long distances. Immigrants entering the US bring seed from their homeland as a remembrance and a first crop. Even the Internet hosts many seed saving groups.
Today, seed saving is vital because corporations such as Monsanto are destroying the world’s biodiversity. If they had their way, there would be only one of each variety of crops in order to maximize profits—one seed, packaged in one container, advertised in one way.
Biodiversity
Biodiversity can be thought of as a bank of genetic material. By having lots of money in the bank, one worries less about times of need, such as sickness or unemployment. Biodiversity works the same way. When the stores of genetic code are high, plants and animals are better able to deal with adverse conditions—disease, drought or flooding, too much or too little heat. The greater the number of crop varieties, the greater the chances of survival of that species.
Genetic engineering is but an extension of the green revolution, in that it is reducing the diversity of genetic code available for the future. The biggest reason for the mad scramble on the part of many groups to save seed is that once the code is lost, it cannot be regained.
Only 100 years ago, there were about 1,500 different plants, and thousands of varieties of those plants. Because of the industrialization of farming during the so-called green revolution, fewer than 20 different plants provide most of the world’s nutrition. Wheat, rice, and corn account for about 60% of the calories and 56% of the protein that humans consume from plants.
The loss of genetic diversity caused by today’s high yielding monocultured industrial farming can greatly heighten adverse environmental effects, thereby erasing massive amounts of potential profits. Without a robust environment, humans cannot survive.
In 1970, for instance, the U.S. corn crop suffered a 15 percent reduction in yield and losses worth roughly $1 billion when a leaf fungus (Helminthosporim maydis) spread rapidly through the genetically uniform crop. Similarly, the Irish potato famine in 1846, the loss of a large portion of the Soviet wheat crop to cold weather in 1972, and the citrus canker outbreak in Florida in 1984 all stemmed from reductions in genetic diversity.
World Resources Institute (WRI). Agriculture and Genetic Diversity.
Schubert, R. The Loss of Corn Exports to Europe: Something to chew on at the Commodity Classic - CropChoice 5mar04
Winter, R. USAID Has Ceased All Further Food Aid Shipments to Port Sudan Due Insistence that it be on free of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) - United States Agency for International Development (USAID) 11mar04
The genetic engineering of agbiotech hasn’t stopped at the garden. There are also GMO trees being developed.
It is said that Mexico is the keeper of the genetic diversity of corn.
proliferating GMO varieties throughout the world without the benefit of preliminary long-term testing
Through so-called terminator technology, seeds are produced that grow crops without the ability to further reproduce. It would destroy this tradition, which is well documented in stories, music, art, and dances, and handed down through many thousands of generations. Terminator technology is a method of control that would be used to force the world’s farmers to purchase their seeds, and chemicals from one source.
Changes in dietary preferences come with increased affluence.
With a trend towards greater meat consumption, even in places where it is shunned, world meat production has more than doubled between 1950 and 1997, from 37.5 to 79.4 pounds per person. One-third of the world’s grain production is presently fed to livestock. And much that livestock is served to customers of the golden arches and the likes. The trend toward greater meat consumption is continuing and grazing lands are becoming scarcer as meat production increases and humans sprawl across the world. As this all happens, larger quantities of grains will need to be diverted from human consumption to livestock. This puts more pressure on the poor, who are unable to compete with the livestock that is going to feed more affluent populations.
Diets in the US have an impact on the rest of the world.
Over half of the water used in the United States goes to beef production. “The water that goes into a 1,000 pound steer would float a destroyer.”[71] It takes less water to produce a year’s food for a pure vegetarian than to produce a month’s food for a meat-eater.[72] This enormous use of water is not sustainable. It is also a hidden cost of producing meat that the taxpayers are force to pay for through taxes. One pound of red meat takes an average of 2,500 gallons, as much as it takes a farmer to grow up to one hundred pounds of grain. That one pound of beef will feed four people for one lunch, but one hundred pounds of grain can feed four people for a month.
“Rainforest beef is typically found in fast food hamburgers or processed beef products. In both 1993 and 1994 the U. S. imported over 200 million pounds of fresh and frozen beef from Central American countries. Two-thirds of these countries' rainforests have been cleared, in part to raise cattle whose meat is exported to profit the U. S. food industry. When it enters the U. S. the beef is not labeled with its country of origin, so there is no way to trace it to its source.”[73]
The USDA reports that animals in the US meat industry produce 61 million tons of waste each year, which is 130 times the volume of human waste - or five tons for every US citizen.[74] North Carolina's 7,000,000 factory-raised hogs create four times as much waste - stored in reeking, open cesspools - as the state's 6.5 million people.[75] According to the Environmental Protection Agency, hog, chicken and cattle waste has polluted 35,000 miles of rivers in 22 states and contaminated groundwater in 17 states.
Corporate Benevolence
The benevolence of agbiotech corporations to feed the world’s masses is a sham. Its professed mission of feeding the world’s starving masses is in stark contrast to the reality of its investments. Most of the billions of dollars being invested are for products catering to capital-intensive, large-scale farmers of developed countries of the US and EU. The few products with relevance to poor, subsistence farmers actually divert attention from hunger’s underlying causes and other alternative interventions that would prove more appropriate, and safer.
Rice, called “Golden Rice,” a genetically modified rice that was to marketed as the cure for blindness in millions of children. The Rockefeller Foundation funded the project. As justification for such technology, the industry marketed it as being able to save the sight of 500,000 children a year. The perceived problem was a vitamin A deficiency in the rice diet of children in India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand and the Philippines. Industry’s solution was to genetically modify rice to contain beta-carotene, which then is converted to vitamin A in the body. The beta-carotene turns it yellow, consequently it is named golden rice.
Dr. Vandana Shiva insisted that this GMO rice is a distraction from well-known and proven methods of providing sufficient vitamin-A in diets. Before the green revolution was introduced to India, these plants were much more abundant. She explained that it was the technology that had created the problem of vitamin-A deficiency in the first place.
“Genetically engineered rice as part of the second Green Revolution is repeating the mistakes of the Green Revolution while adding new hazards in terms of ecological and health risks.
The "selling" of Vitamin A rice as a miracle cure for blindness is based on blindness to alternatives for removing vitamin A deficiency and blindness to the unknown risks of producing Vitamin A through genetic engineering.
The lower cost, accessible and safer alternative to genetically engineered rice is to increase biodiversity in agriculture. Further, since those who suffer from vitamin A deficiency suffer from malnutrition generally, increasing the food security and nutritional security of the poor through increasing the diversity of crops and diversity of diets of poor people who suffer the highest rates of deficiency is the reliable means for overcoming nutritional deficiencies.
Sources of Vitamin A in the form of green leafy vegetables are being destroyed by the Green Revolution and Genetic Engineering, which promote the use of herbicides in agriculture. The spread of herbicide resistant crops will further aggravate this biodiversity erosion with major consequences for increase in nutritional deficiency. For example, bathua a very popular leafy vegetable in North India has been pushed to extinction in Green Revolution areas where intensive herbicide use is a part of the chemical package.”[76]
Many human rights and environmental watchdog organizations denounced the rice as a hoax. A Greenpeace study revealed that it wasn’t humanly possible to eat enough of the wonder rice:
“[A]n adult would have to eat at least 3.7 kilos [8.2 pounds] of dry weight rice, i.e. around 9 kilos [nearly 20 pounds] of cooked rice, to satisfy his/her daily need of vitamin A from "Golden Rice". In other words, a normal daily intake of 300 gram of rice would, at best, provide 8% percent of the vitamin A needed daily. A breast-feeding woman would have to eat at least 6.3 kilos [13.9 pounds] in dry weight, converting to nearly 18 kilos [39.7 pounds] of cooked rice per day.”[77]
In February of 2001, after the Greenpeace study and months of industry claims that a single month of marketing delays would cause 50,000 children to go blind, the Rockefeller Foundation, which funded it’s development, made the unexpected statement that "the [agbiotech industry’s] public relations uses of Golden Rice have gone too far.” It continued to say that claims by the biotech industry and some US politicians that genetically engineered "golden rice" would save the sight of 500,000 children a year are exaggerated.[78] Even the inventor of the so-called ‘golden rice’, Ingo Potrykus, responded by saying that he “acknowledge[d], that Greenpeace [was] arguing on a rational basis.”[79]
Gifts of Agbiotech Industry Shunned
The Case of rBGH (Recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone)
Recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH) is a genetically engineered growth hormone injected into cows. Monsanto produces it under the name Prosilac. The purpose of rBGH is to increase milk production. It is used mostly in extremely large and inhumane factory farms, where cows rarely see the light of day and calves are not allowed to suckle. The growth hormone is administered by injection.
It causes an increased rate of udder infections, known as mastitis. To fight mastitis, enormous quantities of antibiotics must be used. Residues of the antibiotics and puss from the mastitis are found in the milk of rBGH-treated cows. Studies have shown an increased risk of breast cancer from other residues in milk from treated cows.[80], [81] Most milk produced in the USA is produced on a large scale within this environment; one of cruelty, confinement, sickness and death. It is the norm of factory farming and agribusiness, in general.
After researchers revealed that Monsanto submitted false data with their application for approval to market rBGH in Canada, it was banned. The Canadian Broadcasting Company reported that Monsanto had attempted bribing Health Canada to have them approve the growth hormone. In spite of an attempt by Monsanto lawyers to kill a story by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, they reported that Monsanto attempted to bribe Health Canada with a significant amount of money in order that rBGH be approved without a need for subsequent safety data. [82]
For three years Monsanto blocked attempts by British researchers to publish important findings regarding increased mastitis in cows. Monsanto also threatened to sue the Chicago Board of Education unless it reversed its decision to pursue rBGH-free milk and dairy products for participants in the school lunch program.[83] They sued two milk processors that labeled milk as free of the hormone. [84]
Ever since the mid-1950s, US milk production has outpaced demand. Federal subsidies have amounted to billions of dollars, in an effort to stabilize milk prices. At the same time that billions of dollars were paid by taxpayers to large corporations, thousands of small, family-run dairy farms have gone out of business each year because the milk prices are so low. In 2000, two-thirds of the federal farm subsidies went to 10% of the farm owners. Subsidies are based on farm size, rather than need. Ted Turner, one of the largest private landowners in the United States, was paid at least $190,000 in subsidies in 2000 for ranches he owns in Montana, South Dakota and Florida.[85] The number of farms in the US is rapidly dwindling from a high of about 7 million down to about 1.6 million, the number in the year 1850. The size of farms in that year was about 200 acres and is now at about 500 acres.[86]
Monsanto consistently blocks legislation to monitor the use and effects of rBGH. Even the FDA admits that humans gain nothing from rBGH. So why is rBGH still used when there is so much known about it and its maker? There is only one answer, profit at any cost by a multinational corporation with little regard for life, health, dignity or values. This is one example of many illustrating that Monsanto cannot be trusted at any time, no matter what they promise or how benevolent they appear to be.
The Percy Schmeiser Case
In March of 2001, a Canadian court ordered Percy Schmeiser, a farmer in Saskatchewan, to pay Monsanto over $15,000 plus damages, which could amount to another $75,000, after Monsanto’s genes were found in his canola crop. To obtain a test specimen, Monsanto company investigators trespassed on Schmeiser's land. And even though Schmeiser had not intentionally planted the GMO canola, he was still found liable because Monsanto owns patent rights on the genes used in the altered canola.
In court 70-year-old Schmeiser asked:
"What if a farmer has a scrub bull? And his neighbor's got a herd of purebred registered cows? Through negligence, the bull gets over the fence and impregnates his neighbor's cows. Now the guy with the scrub bull says those calves are his. The cows too! Same thing, eh?" The judge disagreed by stating that "[t]he bull farmer didn't have a patent on the bull."
"It will take totally all of my wife's and myself's (sic) retirement funds that we've worked for all our life. I've lost 50 years of work because of a company's genetically altered seed getting into my canola, destroying what I've worked for, destroying my property and getting sued on top of it."[87]
In August of 2001, a tornado in Homefield, Manitoba, seeds from a GMO canola crop were blown into other canola fields up to eight kilometres away. A farmer said, "The tornado actually picked up the canola plants and actually wrapped them around these trees." Nature does not follow any rules or regulations prescribed by humans. On the other hand, we mere mortals had better start accounting for nature; meaning that we cannot release genes that we have no basic knowledge of into the wild. The author of this paper feels that we should not be experimenting with life forms in general because the variables far exceed anything we can comprehend. Besides the millions of acres of GE foods planted worldwide, there are smaller plots of experimental crops planted everywhere that are just as exposed to the elements as the canola crop referenced above.[88]
Monsanto is pursuing suits against other farmers as well.[89] Organic farmers have followed the lead of Monsanto, and have begun their own suits.[90]
At the same time, the efficacy of Roundup is slipping quickly.[91]
Update: The Supreme Court of Canada will hear the case of Percy Schmeiser in January 2004. And the political climate for this case is much better than it had been in the past. It is highly likely that he will win this battle and the war that Monsanto waged against him. . . . More
Corporate ethics and responsibility to society
Physicist/author Margaret Wertheim makes the point that the technology will put them out of what little work they now have.
“Several billion of the world's people still live on the land. What will happen to their livelihoods — and to their very lives — if they are made redundant by large-scale industrialized farms? Where will they find work? Will already-overcrowded Third World cities be able to absorb this immense influx of poor, ill-educated people?”[92]
No reduction in use of synthetic pesticides
Crop losses from pests have not decreased with the yearly increases in pesticide applications. Some crop losses stand at nearly 30% despite the overuse of pesticides—about of active ingredients worldwide. According to UC Berkeley Dr. Miguel Altieri, "several agricultural scientists have arrived at a general consensus that modern agriculture confronts an ecological crisis." Crops grown in monocultures cannot defend themselves from pest attacks. In the introduction of his book, Altieri states that "A key problem facing the public is that biotechnology companies and associated scientific bodies are making false promises that genetic engineering will move agriculture away from a dependence on chemical inputs, reduce environmental problems, and solve world hunger. Such promises are founded on philosophical and scientific premises that are fundamentally flawed, and these premises need to be exposed and criticized in order to advance toward a truly sustainable agriculture."[93]
More pounds of herbicides are applied on the average acre of Roundup-Ready soybeans (Monsanto’ GMO variety that is resistant to Roundup herbicide) compared to the average acre planted to conventional soybean varieties. Average per acre pounds of herbicide applied on RR soybeans exceeds by 2- to 10-fold herbicide use on the approximate 30% of soybean acres where farmers depend largely on low-dose imidazolinone and sulfonylurea herbicides. Herbicide use on RR soybean acres is gradually rising as a result of weed shifts, late-season weed escapes leading to a buildup in weed seedbanks, and the loss of susceptibility to glyphosate in some weed species.[94]
“Claims in favor of GM crops often involve environmental benefits for agriculture through reducing the need for agri-chemicals and promoting the practice of sustainable agriculture. However, these statements are based on a reductive view of sustainability since a global environmental assessment is usually missing. Current engineered pest resistance relies on vulnerable, monogenic mechanisms that would rapidly result in the selection of resistant pests and would need to be replaced in the short term. Herbicide resistance is prone to similar drawbacks. Emergence of weeds resistant to herbicide through outbreeding and gene dispersal would impose the replacement of both the transgenic crops carrying the herbicide resistance gene and the herbicide itself. Instead of sustainability, these approaches promote transient, disposable pest management systems with short-lived, ephemeral crop varieties and herbicides or pesticides.”[95]
GMO Pollution
Bt toxin from GMO corn has been found in concentrations that were 5 times higher than in drainage waters and sediments near agricultural land.
The Québec study showed that earthworms are harmed by this Bt pollution because they are particularly vulnerable to the toxic effects of the Bt insecticide. This news further confirms previous studies indicating that Bt corn poisoned not only the corn borer but also monarch butterflies.
You Are What You Eat[96]
A study commissioned by the UK Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF), at Leeds University found that DNA is not degraded under most processing conditions. This means that GE products eaten by livestock is not decomposed
“Current animal feed is likely to contain substantial amounts of undegraded DNA, and secondary horizontal transfer of intact antibiotic resistance genes to bacteria and other organisms cannot be ruled out. Other components of transgenic DNA may also have significant health impacts on livestock and human beings up the food chain.”
MAFF recommends:
“In view of the potential health impacts due to the secondary horizontal transfer of transgenic DNA on livestock and human beings, all current animal feed should be withdrawn immediately. Steps should be taken to ensure that no GM material will be fed to animals directly or incorporated into commercial animal feed.”[97]
Since livestock is being fed GE feed that contains undegraded foreign DNA that was inserted into it, the next logical question is to question whether or not that foreign DNA survives the digestion processes of the livestock. And the answer is that the DNA most certainly can survive digestion. Nutrition scientists of the Friedrich-Schiller-University in Jena/Germany detected DNA fragments of genetically engineered corn in organs and meat of chicken.[98] It then passes through the digestive processes of humans:
"In contrast to earlier views of long-standing, DNA is not fragmented in the intestine but rather remains stable surprisingly long. DNA ingested with food can be excreted only after partial digestion. Moreover, it can also pass into the blood and be taken up by leukocytes and cells of the liver and spleen."[99]
A famous study by Dr. Arpad Pusztai found that rats fed a diet of GE potatoes caused an abnormal increase in the number of normal cells in normal arrangement of connective tissue surrounding the small intestine. The rats in his study that ate GE potatoes that express GNA lectin experienced decreased organ weights and immune damage. Dr. Pusztai’s work was discredited by the agbiotech industry, which also had him discharged from his research position at [100]
Sources for lectin include: wheat, wheat germ, quinoa, rice, buckwheat, oats, rye, barley, millet and corn, legumes, including all dried beans such as soy and peanuts, dairy, potato, tomato, eggplant and pepper, milled grains, flours, oils, vinegars, peanut butter, cereal or legume oils (soy, canola, corn), additives, thickeners, grain vinegar and products containing grain vinegar, grain alcohol including grain based vodka, and all beers and ales.
GMO Contamination of the Natural World
Uncertainty is extremely high at each level of GMO production.[101] The unknown dwarfs the known. But we are told repeatedly that they are safe. Biotech scientists and their sponsoring agbiotech corporations are presently incapable of predicting the risks of their actions. There has been no long-term testing of GE foods at any level. No corporation, academic institution, private laboratory, or governmental agency has done so because it would necessitate the forestalling of a big moneymaker in favor of profit.
Let me offer a simplified illustration of the absurdity of these claims of safety. Consider the human body’s complexity and infinite interconnectivity with itself, those around it, and its entire environment—both natural and manmade—as compared with state-of-the-art human technology. The number of genes in the human genome ranges between 27,462 and 153,478 (as of July 2001). There are about 100 trillion cells in the human body. If all DNA in the human body were put end to end, it would reach the Sun and back more than 600 times. There are 80,000 chemicals in commercial use, and only a small percentage of them have been tested. Then consider ASCI White, the most powerful computer on earth. To calculate the movements of a mere 240 molecules (600 atoms) in an explosion-produced mixture of hydrogen fluoride and water vapor for 1-trillionth of a second, scientists have had to tie up the most powerful supercomputer available for about 15 days.Not being a mathematician, I will not attempt to scale up the time requirements for predicting adverse outcomes of GE foods, but it would certainly be longer by many magnitudes of order. Most likely, ten years would be inadequate to study an organism to be released into the vast world of nature. Then, considering the state-of-the-art computer, it will be a very long time before they will be powerful enough to handle the task. [See box at right.]
The greatest absurdity in allowing the widespread sowing of GE foods is that they have received no such scrutiny. GMO safety research budgets are about 1% of total spending. Virtually no long-term testing has been done on any GE foods. And if the regulatory agencies have seen any of the so-called long-term testing, it has not been made public. Contrary to the claims of Industry—that the biotech industry is the most regulated industry in history, it is quite the opposite—the least regulated.
Pigs that had been genetically modified to develop a type of diabetic blindness and injected with enough barbiturates and chemicals to kill a 500-pound pig, were made into sausage in High Springs, Florida. The sausage was served at funeral dinner, but was discarded because "it didn't taste right."[103]
Corn that had been genetically modified to contain a pesticide in each and every one of its cells—StarLink corn by Monsanto(?)—was found in tacos at a supermarket. It created a flurry of media coverage that continues today.
Canola has become herbicide-resistant through cross-pollinization with canola that has been genetically engineered to resist Monsanto’s Roundup®. This is an enormous financial problem for the farmer whose field is contaminated. Many markets for crops mandate that they be GMO-free, meaning that the DNA of genetically engineered crops cannot be found in them. Monsanto’s response is that they “[work] with the farmer to address the situation to their satisfaction." However, the method they employ discourages farmers from complaining. Monsanto does indeed contact the farmer and visits the farm. But the farmers are treated as if they know nothing about farming. They are grilled about every aspect of their farm and told that they don’t know how to keep their seed free from such contamination. Monsanto also does this same type of questioning for each individual field the farmer has, which takes a lot of time the farmer doesn’t have. [104]
Biotech Industry is Self Regulating
common sense.
Pollen from GMO plants has been shown to travel miles, but the “area of refuge” required by the EPA for Bt Corn varieties is only several hundred feet. This is a completely unrealistic safety measure.
Patents
Is it Unique or is it Equal? …That Depends.
Agbiotech corporations use whatever rules fit the situation when they need permission or protection. Mostly it depends who is doing the questioning. When they are before the FDA, asking for approval to plant millions of acres of GMO apples, they are equal—an apple is an apple is an apple. This is called substantial equivalence. It is also used at the time of packaging. By doing so, they avoid the need for labeling because, through the use of the substantial equivalence clause, there is no difference between a GMO apple pie and its one made from natural apples.
Then, as if some miracle had occurred, when that same GMO apple is presented to the US Patent Office, it becomes unique. Patents offer rights and protections; thereby create wealth for holder of that patent.
The Substantial Equivalence Doctrine
Confidential documents made public in an on-going class action lawsuit have revealed that the FDA’s own scientists do not agree with concept of "substantial equivalence between GE and normal seeds.
“FDA does not receive notice of GM-plant pesticides, and its 1992 Policy Statement suggests that it requires very little notice for foods derived from the vast majority of GM plants. If a manufacturer or an importer decides that a genetic modification results in the addition of a food additive to food, i t must provide notice to FDA by way of a petition for approval of that food additive prior to marketing the food. So far, however, only one food additive petition has been filed for GM foods the Calgene petition for approval of the kanamycin resistance gene. At present, the voluntary approach adopted in the 1992 Policy Statement allows manufacturers and importers to market GM foods that they determine to be GRAS without informing FDA. FDA invites companies to request consultations with the agency, but it does not insist upon them. On May 3, 2000, after worldwide protests placed GM foods high on the political agenda, FDA published a press release promising to issue a notice of proposed rulemaking to require notice to the agency of GM food GRAS determinations, but the promised notice has not yet appeared in the Federal Register. The agency has in fact expressed doubts in the past about its authority to require manufacturers and importers to provide notice to it of their GRAS determinations.
One need not be a fierce skeptic of GM foods to conclude that the existing regulatory regime allows manufacturers and importers a great deal of discretion in deciding whether to notify regulatory agencies of their plans to introduce GM plants into the environment and into commerce. Although a company that desires to play it safe will provide notification to USDA, EPA and FDA in close cases, no serious consequences are likely to befall companies that decline to provide notice to those agencies if they can plausibly argue that their plants are not regulated articles or plant pests (in the case of USDA), are GRAS in the case of FDA, or come within the agency-created exemptions in the case of EPA. Consumers are therefore ultimately at the mercy of the proponents of the technologies to exercise their judgment wisely in deciding whether to inform regulatory agencies of the introduction of GM plants into the environment or the food supply. In the case of imports, the fact that GM foods are not likely to be detected at the borders means that consumers must in effect place their trust in the regulatory regimes of the exporting countries to evaluate the safety of GM foods imported into this country. Many consumer and environmental groups do not trust the companies to make wise decisions in this regard. Given the aggressive development of GM foods in some countries like China, consumers may not trust importers and exporting countries to make decisions with the best interests of U.S. consumers in mind.”[105]
Substantial equivalence does not deal with the subtle or unexpected changes that are inherent to GE foods. It is based on subjective determinations made by the corporations themselves and low-level bureaucrats, and upon a policy of encouraging GM foods, rather than scientific principles. There are no standardized objective tests that a regulator could employ to determine equivalence or to measure substantiality.[106]
The concept of substantial equivalence as used for GE foods, is a reductionist method for their rationalization. It ignores the how GE foods have been produced. Food is not just a chemical or a machine as set out by Descartes, in his 1637 Discourse on method. He viewed living organisms as sophisticated machines ruled by the laws of physics and chemistry, thus reducing all life to what he could understand. Reductionism refers either to a philosophical approach that attempts to reduce complex phenomena to the simplest possible explanation or to the belief that such reduction constitutes the only valid style of explanation. But humans relate to food beyond the level of the mechanics of nutrition or immediate toxicity. Food is our tie to the environment. And food is a strong part of human society. In addition other things, we relate to each other through food.[107]
In February 2001, the Royal Society of Canada Expert Panel on the Future of Food Biotechnology recommended that there should be “rigorous scientific assessment of their potential for causing harm to the environment or to human health. Such testing should replace the current regulatory reliance on ‘substantial equivalence’ as a decision threshold.”[108]
Hungarian-born researcher Dr. Arpad Pusztai explained what he thought about the concept of GE foods being substantially equivalent to natural foods. As an example, he uses the testing of animals for deleterious health effects caused by GE foods fed to them:
“[T]he main problem is that the researchers appear to have done their utmost to find no problem. They were using mature animals which are not forming body tissues and organs. Adults only need a small amount of protein because their bodies are in equilibrium, in homeostasis. But a young growing animal needs a great deal more protein because it's laying down muscle and tissues, and forming its organs.
With a nutritional study on mature animals, you would never see any difference in organ weights even if the food turned out to be anti-nutritional. The animals would have to be emaciated or poisoned to show anything. In this study, they gave the rats a commercial feed that contained 20% protein, of which only one-tenth was replaced by GM soya protein. Most of this high overall dietary protein was used by the rats for energy, thus masking any possible effect of the GM soya protein. You need to stress the animals if you want to see the effects of a feeding trial in a short enough time. This is my field, so you can take it for granted that if I had had the chance of refereeing that paper, it would never have passed.
Another problem was the way they did the post-mortem. They never weighed the organs; they just looked at them ˜ what they call "eyeballing". I must have done thousands of post-mortems so I know that even if there is a difference in organ weights of as much as 25%, you wouldn't see it. In my lectures I used to put up two identical computer-drawn rats side by side and put two different sized organs in them, and I asked the audience which rat was bigger, and they always got it wrong. You have to weigh them.”[109]
FDA: “It’s not a potato, it’s a pesticide"
The FDA states "if a new food product developed through biotechnology does not contain substances that are significantly different from those already in the diet, it does not require premarket approval." It goes on to say a trait of resistance to a pest or a pesticide is subject to regulation by the EPA, thus alleviating itself from a nuisance issue.[110]
EPA: “It’s a not a pesticide, it’s a potato”
When New York Times journalist Michael Pollan did his research for a 1998 article on GE foods, he was rather startled by answers he received from the regulatory agencies.
"Since my Bt potatoes were being regulated as a pesticide by the EPA rather than as a food by the FDA, I wondered if the safety standards are the same. "Not exactly," Maryanski explained. The FDA requires "a reasonable certainty of no harm" in a food additive, a standard most pesticides could not meet. After all, "pesticides are toxic to something," Maryanski pointed out, so the EPA instead establishes human "tolerances" for each chemical and then subjects it to a risk-benefit analysis.
When I called on the EPA and asked if the agency had tested my Bt potatoes for safety as a human food, the answer was . . . not exactly. It seems the EPA works from the assumption that if the original potato is safe and the Bt protein added to it is safe, then the whole New Leaf package is presumed to be safe. Some geneticists believe this reasoning is flawed, contending that the process of genetic engineering itself may cause subtle, as yet unrecognized changes in a food."[111]
Must be restated…add refs and URLs….
http://www.mindfully.org/Farm/Green-Revolution-Reg-Vacuum.htm
In a memo to FDA Biotechnology Coordinator James Maryanski in 1992, FDA compliance officer Dr. Linda Kahl argued that genetically engineered crops and traditional crops were not the same. "The process of genetic engineering and traditional breeding are different, and according to the technical experts in the agency, they lead to different risks," Dr. Kahl wrote.
In a separate memo, Dr. Louis Pribyl, an FDA microbiologist, commented that a draft of the FDA policy "read very pro-industry, especially in the area of unintended effects." It is "industry's pet idea that there are no unintended effects that will raise the FDA's level of concern." But, Prybil wrote, "there is no data to back up their contention." See below…
In court filings, the FDA has dismissed the memos as coming from "low-level FDA employees" and said their comments were not part of the formal record on which the agency based its decision. A judge is expected to decide upon the lawsuit against FDA early this year.
GE foods Have Lower Yields
Dr. Charles Benbrook reviewed the results of over 8,200 university-based soybean varietal trials in 1998. What he found was that "[u]nder most conditions extensive evidence shows that RR soybeans produce lower yields than possible if farmers planted comparable but non-engineered varieties." They produced between 5.3% and 10% less than conventional varieties. He also believes that "this downward shift in soybean yield potential could emerge as the most significant decline in a major crop ever associated with a single genetic modification."[112]
Corporate Piracy
In what should be viewed as both as resource and cultural piracy, US patent laws allow corporations to take the biological and natural resources and heritage of communities without permission. As well, it can be considered economic piracy, because it destroys the markets of those it steals from.[113]
Regulatory Aspects
http://www.mindfully.org/GE/Royal-Society-Canada-Questions.htm
An expert panel convened by the Royal Society of Canada has serious doubts about many aspects of the biotech industry ranging from a lack of peer review and secrecy, to their control of academic research.
Royal Society of Canada Expert Panel on the Future of Food Biotechnology
7.2 The Panel recommends that the design and execution of all testing regimes of new transgenic organisms should be conducted in open consultation with the expert scientific community.
7.3 The Panel recommends that analysis of the outcomes of all tests on new transgenic organisms should be monitored by an appropriately configured panel of "arms-length" experts from all sectors, who report their decisions and rationale in a public forum.
8.1 The Panel recommends the precautionary regulatory assumption that, in general, new technologies should not be presumed safe unless there is a reliable scientific basis for considering them safe. The Panel rejects the use of "substantial equivalence" as a decision threshold to exempt new GM products from rigorous safety assessments on the basis of superficial similarities because such a regulatory procedure is not a precautionary assignment of the burden of proof.
8.2 The Panel recommends that the primary burden of proof be upon those who would deploy food biotechnology products to carry out the full range of tests necessary to demonstrate reliably that they do not pose unacceptable risks.
8.3 The Panel recommends that, where there are scientifically reasonable theoretical or empirical grounds establishing a prima facie case for the possibility of serious harms to human health, animal health or the environment, the fact that the best available test data are unable to establish with high confidence the existence or level of the risk should not be taken as a reason for withholding regulatory restraint on the product.
8.4 As a precautionary measure, the Panel recommends that the prospect of serious risks to human health, of extensive, irremediable disruptions to the natural ecosystems, or of serious diminution of biodiversity, demand that the best scientific methods be employed to reduce the uncertainties with respect to these risks. Approval of products with these potentially serious risks should await the reduction of scientific uncertainty to minimum levels.
8.5 The Panel recommends a precautionary use of "conservative" safety standards with respect to certain kinds of risks (e.g. potentially catastrophic). When "substantial equivalence" is invoked as an unambiguous safety standard (and not as a decision threshold for risk assessment), it stipulates a reasonably conservative standard of safety consistent with a precautionary approach to the regulation of risks associated with GM foods.
9.1 The Panel recommends that Canadian regulatory agencies and officials exercise great care to maintain an objective and neutral stance with respect to the public debate about the risks and benefits of biotechnology in their public statements and interpretations of the regulatory process.
9.2 The Panel recommends that the Canadian regulatory agencies seek ways to increase the public transparency of the scientific data and the scientific rationales upon which their regulatory decisions are based.
9.3 The Panel recommends that the Canadian regulatory agencies implement a system of regular peer review of the risk assessments upon which the approvals of genetically engineered products are based. This peer review should be conducted by an external (non-governmental) and independent panel of experts. The data and the rationales upon which the risk assessment and the regulatory decision are based should be available to public review.
9.4 The Panel recommends that the Canadian Biotechnology Advisory Commission (CBAC) undertake a review of the problems related to the increasing domination of the public research agenda by private, commercial interests, and make recommendations for public policies that promote and protect fully independent research on the health and environmental risks of agricultural biotechnology.
Safety
In January of 1992, Dr. Linda Kahl, an FDA compliance officer criticized the FDA’s logic that GE foods are the same as traditionally bred plants.
“[T]here is no data that could quantify risk….[The FDA is] asking the scientific experts to generate the basis for this policy statement in the absence of any data…. [T]he first and only clue [that there is danger to the public health] will be the 'body count', so to speak…. There is no data that addresses the relative magnitude of the risks…. Are we to insinuate that practitioners of genetic engineering do not need to adhere to the most basic level of good laboratory techniques simply because the traditional breeding community cannot also provide that data?….[The FDA is trying to] fit a square peg into a round hole [by forcing] an ultimate conclusion that there is no difference between foods modified by genetic engineering and foods modified by traditional breeding practices.[114]
Allergies
York Nutritional Laboratory (YNL) in England tested 4,500 people for allergic reactions to foods and found a 50% increase in the year 1998. This was an increase from 10:100 to 15:100 in just one year. After performing such testing for 17 years, soy is not placed in YNL’s “top ten” foods that caused allergic reactions. Others on the list are yeast, sunflower seeds and nuts. People experienced irritable bowel syndrome, digestion problems and skin complaints including acne and eczema, along with chronic fatigue syndrome, headaches and lethargy. Soy is found in more than 60% of the processed foods marketed today.
"This is a very interesting if slightly worrying, development. It points to the fact that far more work is needed to assess their safety. At the moment no allergy tests are carried out before GM foods are marketed and that also needs to be looked at."
Dr Michael Antoniou, senior lecturer in molecular pathology at Guy's Hospital, Central London.[115]
The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) featured an article on the allergenicity of soy modified to contain a protein from the brazil nut. Because the trait was discovered before marketing began, there was no danger to the consumer. This is an ideal situation because it was discovered before being mass-marketed. But in reality, all genetically engineered organisms are unique. As such, there can be no predictions made about how the added genes will react within the host organism, or how the new living entity will react to its environment. In the NEJM editorial, Marion Nestle, Ph.D., M.P.H. called for increased regulatory oversight.
“This situation illustrates the pressing need to expand basic and clinical research on food allergies. More information about incidence, prevalence, dietary exposure, antigenicity, immune responses, diagnosis, and treatment would help researchers, regulators, and biotechnology companies predict whether transgenic proteins are likely to cause harm. In the special case of transgenic soybeans, the donor species was known to be allergenic, serum samples from persons allergic to the donor species were available for testing, and the product was withdrawn. The next case could be less ideal, and the public less fortunate. It is in everyone's best interest to develop regulatory policies for transgenic foods that include premarketing notification and labeling. Industry benefits when the public is convinced that transgenic foods are safe, and stronger federal regulations would encourage such public confidence.”[116]
The kind of oversight that this NEJM editorial calls for has not materialized.
Regulators Can’t Test or Regulate GE foods
Corporate media campaigns boast of rigorous and thorough testing of GMO food products’ safety, however it cannot actually be done. Presently, the FDA, EPA, and USDA have no means to test GE foods for one even aspect of safety. In January of 2002, EPA, director of the Human Studies Division at EPA's National Health & Environmental Effects Research Laboratory Linda S. Birnbaum confirmed that there is insufficient knowledge to test these novel life forms.
Attention was brought to this issue because StarLink corn was found in a great number of products and fields that it had no place in. The great controversy was because it was illegal for StarLink corn to be used in human foods. Forced recalls of products illegally containing StarLink corn cost Aventis several hundred million dollars. They had to reimburse farmers and compensate food producers. Newly found StarLink-containing products are still being found a year after the recall.[117] Originally approved for use as animal feed, StarLink has never been proven safe for human consumption, or that it will not cause an allergic reaction in humans.
In September of 2000, Kraft Foods recalled its Taco Bell taco shells that were in grocery stores all across the US. From the onset of these findings, Aventis claimed in many public statements that StarLink was safe.[118] Day after day, week after week, and month after month, StarLink corn turned up in everything from Taco’s and Kellogg’s Corn Flakes to Sausage and Chips. The FDA reported recalls of StarLink-contaminated products well into 2001.[119]
While StarLink corn was grown on less than 0.4% of the total US acreage—about 300,000 acres[120]—it was found to contaminate nearly 25% of the entire US corn crop when finally searched for by USDA inspectors. The National Corn Growers Association was even surprised by the degree of contamination.
"It really tells you how much grain is co-mingled, that's the lesson from it. It's amazing how a very few kernels get mixed in with millions of bushels. None of us are convinced that we'll be able to abandon the testing for domestic food use and exports any time in the near future."[121]
The lesson of this continuing incident is that no person, animal, or plant is protected from these genetically mutated genes once they are released anywhere in the environment in any way. The FDA and EPA cannot force a corporation to test for adverse effects when they don’t know what effects to look for and there are no tests even if they knew what to look for. Nobody has enough knowledge of the process or its resultant products to have released any of them in any amount. Yet a great proportion of our lands are planted with GE foods that we know extremely little about. How they act in the wild is completely different than in the test tube. The variables of interactivity are infinite.
NYT article
http://www.mindfully.org/GE/FDA-Officials-Disagreed.htm
A review of GMO technology by the Plant Research International B.V. in Wageningen, The Netherlands, “demonstrate[s] the fragmentary nature of current knowledge of genome structure and function and regulation of gene expression in general, and the limited understanding of several physiological, ecological, agronomical and toxicological aspects relevant to present-day and planned genetic modifications of crops.” They found that there have been extremely few studies of GE foods comparing the functioning of crop plants originating from several different (xeno) transformation events, and of the few reports that were found, there is conflict.[122]
In the fall of 2000, I attended a lecture by Richard Strohman, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California at Berkeley. He explained in very simple language why genetic engineering is not safe and should not be released into nature. His reasoning was not that we know enough to categorically condemn genetic manipulations of life, quite the contrary; he focused on the unknowns, and again, the importance of asking the right questions.
"The reason why Monsanto can claim scientific soundness is that they are only answering the technical question, `Can I move this gene and this characteristic from A to B?' They are not asking the questions that the current understanding of cell biology demands. You can ask the technical question and get the answer you are looking for. You can take a gene from A and put it into B. We know that. But that's the only question we can answer with certainty. We now realize that there are a whole host of other questions.”
Furthermore Professor Strohman believes that:
"We're in a crisis position where we know the weakness of the genetic concept, but we don't know how to incorporate it into a new, more complete understanding. Monsanto knows this. DuPont knows this. Novartis knows this. They all know what I know. But they don't want to look at it because it's too complicated and it's going to cost too much to figure out."[123]
In a recent Science article, a similar sentiment regarding the knowledge accumulated to date on how the cells works was voiced. If only the regulators would read such material! Better still, federal legislators should be taking notice of such statements.
"[D]espite growing knowledge about the molecular components of the cell, the dynamics of even simple cellular networks are not well understood. For instance, a quantitative explanation of the high sensitivity and exact adaptation observed in bacterial chemotaxis is still lacking. Similarly, many other cellular networks, such as the ones responsible for signal transduction, regulation of gene expression, or metabolism, are poorly understood from a quantitative point of view." - C. Guet, et al. Combinatorial Synthesis of Genetic Networks Science v.296, n.5572, 24may02
Trojan Gene Hypothesis
The Trojan gene theory by Muir, et al, warns that one GE fish released could wipe out local fish populations. Since the last Ice Age, salmon have migrated thousands of miles and return to their home river. GE salmon can grow up to 10 times faster than normal salmon and attain a size advantage of five times larger than normal salmon. Because they attain a larger size, more quickly, they are more attractive as a mate than the normal fish. The severely limited capabilities of genetic engineering result in inherent genetic defects that are completely unexpected and unpredictable. One such defect is that a great percentage of these fish do not reach sexual maturity. The combined effect of greater sexual attractiveness and shortened life could result in the extinction of an entire local population. The loss of a species would have a cascading negative effect throughout the local community, which in turn, would continue throughout the ecosystem.
“The predicted time course for extinction of a wild-type population after the release of transgenic individuals varies as a function of the rate of transgene spread, which is influenced by the relative mating advantage of transgenic males and by the severity of viability reduction in transgenic young.” [124]
A typical industry response from industry is that technology will assure the safety of GE foods. A/F [antifreeze] Protein Corp., genetically engineers fish at Aquabounty Farms, on Prince Edward Island. They have applied to the FDA to sell GE salmon. They have 15 million GE salmon eggs set to go to market. Elliot Entis, president of A/F Protein, allayed environmentalists’ fear by saying that existing technology will sterilize “almost 100%.” But the Muir study indicates that only one GE fish is required to take down a whole species.
According to Mr. Entis, “[A/F Protein’s] studies have not found that their salmon end up being larger than wild salmon at sexual maturity, meaning they would not have a mating advantage. He also calls the Trojan gene hypothesis beside the point: Fish breeding technology can render the biotech fish almost 100 percent female and infertile, he said, and that means they simply can't reproduce.”[125]
The Genetic Engineering Process
Genetic engineering is an inefficient process. The first step, selecting a gene for certain desired traits, is accomplished with sufficient accuracy. But from then on, all is hit-or-miss. The selected gene is shot, with what could be likened to a cannon, into the chromosomes of the host organism. It takes thousands of attempts before the gene is located within the cell enough accuracy to attain evidence of the desired trait being active.
The survival rate in one study was fourteen of four hundred lambs. Six were alive a week later. And only three remained after six months.
What do FDA Scientists Think?
Dr. Louis J. Pribyl, an FDA microbiologist, reviewed (6mar92) the Federal Register notice of an FDA biotechnology regulatory document. He had many concerns, negative comments, and strong warnings. The FDA ignored all of them, and the popular media made only extremely limited mention of them. Dr. Pribyl pointed out that the then-proposed FDA regulatory document was a sham:
"This document reads like a biotech REDBOOK!! The initial intent of the document was to present scientific considerations and to avoid telling industry what tests to run and how to go about doing it, but the flow charts do just what (initially) was to be avoided. -It reads very pro-industry, especially in the area of unintended effects, but contains very little input from consumers and only a few answers for their concerns, many of which would be answered by supplying the scientific grounding principles."
He also completely negates the FDA/industry premise that there will be no unintended effects:
"This is industry's pet idea, namely that there are no unintended effects that will raise the FDA's level of concern. But time and time again, there is no data to backup their contention, while the scientific literature does contain many examples of naturally occurring pleiotropic effects. When the introduction of genes into plant's genome randomly occurs, as is the case with the current technology (but not traditional breeding), it seems apparent that many pleiotropic effects [the appearance of unpredicted compounds in the transgenic plant] will occur. Many of these effects might not be seen by the breeder because o£ the more or less similar growing conditions in the limited trials that are performed. Until more of these experimental plants have a wider environmental distribution, it would be premature for the FDA to summarily dismiss pleiotropy as is done here."[126]
What do scientists think?
At a recent academic conference on GE foods I attended at UC Berkeley, Dr. Ignacio Chapela expressed very strongly that he feels universities have been taken over by corporations, and that researchers have been reduced to corporate lackeys.
“This is a reality [GE foods] being released into the environment. I want to express my urgent position. Too long we have played a media game on TV when the biological reality is being played out all over the world with artificial microbes. These constructs are showing up in the strangest places. (he mentions Mexico and a few other countries) There is NO (emphasis added) precedence to what is being done. Do we, will we, can we survive in a GMO world?
This is a crisis situation—a biosphere being radically modified. The Ag/Bio MNCs [multinational corporations] are the replacement of the Nation/State. It negates the enlightenment principles...is the formation of a new governance. We [those in attendance, or possibly more specifically, academics] in Berkeley are playing a major role in this reformation. The university is nothing but a locus of investment for economic growth and development. We are that whether we like it or not.”[127]
What do government officials really think?
USDA Secretary of Agriculture, Dan Glickman’s role at the USDA was that of a high profile promoter of agbiotech. His confession to the press upon his departure is a frightening glimpse into the power that agbiotech corporations have over the regulatory process:
"What I saw generically on the pro-biotech side was the attitude that the technology was good and that it was almost immoral to say that it wasn't good because it was going to solve the problems of the human race and feed the hungry and clothe the naked. And there was a lot of money that had been invested in this, and if you're against it, you're Luddites, you're stupid. There was rhetoric like that even here in this department. You felt like you were almost an alien, disloyal, by trying to present an open-minded view on some of the issues being raised. So I pretty much spouted the rhetoric that everybody else around here spouted; it was written into my speeches"[128]
What do officials from other nations think?
After Monsanto began a £1 million advertising campaign to persuade the European public that biotech will feed the world's growing population, 24 leading African agriculturalists and environmental scientists representing their countries at the UN issued a statement to counter Monsanto's arguments. They say Monsanto is using the poor to emotionally blackmail skeptical Europeans by making claims that which are blatantly untrue and unproven.
"We do not believe that such companies or gene technologies will help our farmers to produce the food that is needed in the 21st century. On the contrary, we think it will destroy the diversity, the local knowledge and the sustainable agricultural systems that our farmers have developed for millennia and that it will thus undermine our capacity to feed ourselves."
The African statement calls on Europeans and others to stand in solidarity to resist the gene technology, especially the Terminator Technology that destroys the capability of crops to reproduce from saved seeds.
"This is a crime against nature and humanity and should be resisted and terminated" said Dr. Tewolde Gebre Egziabher, African spokesperson in many international fora2. Prof. Wangari Mathai of the Green Belt Movement Kenya said: "History has many records of crimes against humanity, which were also justified by dominant commercial interests and governments of the day. Despite protests from citizens, social justice for the common good was eroded in favour of private profits. Today, patenting of life forms and the genetic engineering which it stimulates, is being justified on the grounds that it will benefit society, especially the poor, by providing better and more food and medicine. But in fact, by monopolising the 'raw' biological materials, the development of other options is deliberately blocked. Farmers therefore, become totally dependent on the corporations for seeds."[129]
What does the Clergy think?
The Catholic Bishops of South Africa feel that because there is no long-term safety testing of GE foods and for reasons of precaution, "It is morally irresponsible to produce and market genetically modified food."
“In November 2000, the Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference (SACBC) issued a press statement supporting the campaign calling for a five-year freeze on genetic engineering and patenting in crop and food production. The Bishops' stand is mainly based on the precautionary principle. So far, no rigorous long term testing has been carried out to ascertain the effects of genetically engineered crops and foods on humans, animals, plant-life and soil. Doubts about the safety of the new bio-technologies have been confirmed by the results of scientific studies and many scientists are warning that genetically modified organisms (GMOs) pose risks to health, for example, increasing the incidence of allergies, toxic reactions and antibiotic resistance.
In 1999 the British Medical Association called for an open-ended moratorium until there is greater scientific certainty about the safety of GM seeds and derived products. In February 2001 the Royal Society of Canada added its voice to the call for a moratorium. Many scientists around the world have joined the call, along with farming organisations, especially in the USA, which are advising farmers to discontinue GE practices.
Because safety-testing on these foods is not strict, their long-term effects on our health and on the environment are unknown. Unlike chemical or nuclear contamination, new living organisms, bacteria and viruses will be released into the environment to reproduce, migrate and mutate. They will transfer their new characteristics to other organisms. These changes can never be undone or contained. The effects of genetic mistakes are largely irreversible and irretrievable. Therefore, at this stage - as the Bishops declare in their statement, "It is morally irresponsible to produce and market genetically modified food."[130]
Who is Responsible?
In order to find the solution to feeding the growing masses of the world, we must all look within ourselves to first see the problem. The solution will then make itself known.
Much of what we take for granted—the material wealth and life of leisure—are the cause of suffering for those whose lives are sacrificed so that we may live like royalty. In order for us to enjoy such extravagances as never before seen—the gas-guzzling cars and SUVs, frequent flying, multiple TVs and VCRs, fancy restaurants many times a month, homes with many thousands of square feet—millions of people must work nonstop in multiple jobs for wages that are impossible to live on in almost any fashion.
The $150 Nike athletic shoes most people wear is a good example that many can easily relate to. The Nike workers at a Vietnam factory making these shoes earn about $10 per week. Working conditions are unhealthy and dangerous. They are constantly exposed to mind-warping, hormone mimicking chemicals that can cause a wide range of negative health effects such as reduced fertility, mental retardation, loss of short-term memory, various cancers, and more. They must live in absolute squalor for lack of sufficient income. They eat a substandard diet, if they eat at all. To be sure, they do not like their jobs or their employer. Nike claims that they pay a fair wage to their workers and give them a safe place to work. They say that the workers do not need as much to live on as those in the US. When CorpWatch visited the factory and spoke with the workers. The workers they spoke with complained about working conditions, including heat, chemical exposures, poor ventilation, forced overtime, and verbal abuse by managers. And leaders of the trade union were selected and paid by management. [131]
Nike is but one example in the employment
Multinational corporations and institutions—the World Bank, IMF, and G-8—reinforce the logic of profit and exploitation of the land and people. The free market does not work for the betterment of all, as the proponents contend. If it were true, then poverty and hunger must be the preference of the poor.
If one is to believe the logic of economic leaders such as Milton Friedman, that the market best allows for the expression of individual preferences in the production of goods and services, then it must be the preference of much of the world's population to suffer from hunger in the midst of plenty.
This system does not work for the betterment of all, as proponents of the "free market" would contend? In a telling exchange reported in the book with Milton Friedman, a leading economist of the free market school, the authors answer his claim that the logic of the market best allows for the expression of individual preferences in the production of goods and services. The authors reply that it could hardly be the preference of much of the world's population to suffer from hunger in the midst of plenty.[132]
Globalization = Corporatization
The reality of globalization is not what the mythmakers present on the evening news, with scenes of multiracial hands joined, singing, "We are the world." Globalization, as used by the likes of the WTO and IMF, is a cancer sucking the lifeblood from democracy all over the world, making it next to impossible for the poor to earn a living wage. This is hard-core globalization—not the glossy image that sits in the minds of most US citizens. It enslaves countries through IMF bailouts after they find themselves saddled with unmanageable debt. In order to get the IMF money to pay of the horrendous debt, a country basically gives up its economic sovereignty. They must generally end public subsidies for basic items such as food, which doubles the its price. Sometimes they must devalue their currency, giving the poor even less economic power. State jobs are drastically cut, adding to the already unbearable unemployment. Then they raise interest rates, which kills the small local businesses and increasing unemployment even further. Finally, the IMF insists that a country open up to foreign investment, which further devastates local small businesses and increases unemployment yet again.[133]
Fidel Castro, President of Cuba, articulates the suffering of the world’s poor:
“Globalization is an objective reality underlining the fact that we are all passengers on the same vessel, that is, this planet where we all live. But, passengers on this vessel are traveling in very different conditions.”
“Trifling minorities are traveling in luxurious cabins furnished with Internet, cell phones and access to global communication networks. They enjoy a nutritional, abundant and balanced diet as well as clean water supplies. They have access to sophisticated medical care and to culture.”
“Overwhelming and hurting majorities are traveling in conditions that resemble the terrible slave trade from Africa to America in our colonial past. That is, 85% of the passengers on this ship are crowded together in its dirty hold suffering hunger, diseases and helplessness. Obviously, this vessel is carrying too much injustice to remain afloat and it pursues such an irrational and senseless route that it cannot call on a safe port. This vessel seems destined to clash with an iceberg. If that happened, we would all sink with it.”
“After World War II, Latin America had no debt but today we owe almost one trillion dollars. This is the highest per capita debt in the world. Also the income difference between the rich and the poor in the region is the greatest worldwide. There are more poor, unemployed and hungry people in Latin America now than at any other hard time in its history.”
“Presently, 727 billion US dollars from the world Central Banks' reserves are in the United States. This leads to the paradox that with their reserves the poor countries are offering cheap long-term financing to the wealthiest and most powerful country in the world while such reserves could be better invested in economic and social development.”
“The International Monetary Fund is the emblematic organization of the existing monetary system and the United States enjoys veto power over its decisions.”
“Fifty years ago we were promised that one day there would no longer be a gap between developed and underdeveloped countries. We were promised bread and justice; but today we have less and less bread and more injustice. The world can be globalized under the rule of neoliberalism but it is impossible to rule over billions of people who are hungry for bread and justice.
The pictures of mothers and children under the scourge of draughts and other catastrophes in whole regions of Africa remind us of the concentration camps in nazi Germany; they bring back to us memories of stacks of corpses or of moribund men, women and children. Another Nuremberg is required to put to trial the economic order imposed on us, the same that is killing of hunger and preventable or curable diseases more men, women and children every three years than all those killed by World War II in six years.”[134]
The people setting the present course of globalization do not consult us. If we do not voice our disapproval, we are allowing the process to continue on its present path. Initially, it would seem to be the path of least resistance. But, each opportunity missed has the effect of adding another degree of complexity to the solution.
We’d better start listening to the voices of the people
It is no stretch of the imagination to say that politicians lie, cheat, steal, gamble, and have interesting sex lives. So why do so many people believe them? Why do they follow these people whose only ambition is the squandering of useless plastic objects and massive quantities of money? We had better begin to heed the warnings that have become crystal clear. September 11th will not be forgotten by most of us, but how many understand that the US is by far the largest terrorist in the world? Read the words of Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, or Michael Parenti. WRITE MORE HERE>
Irene Zubaida Khan, head of Amnesty International, was interviewed by IRIN, a UN organization:
“If people are going to be safe in New York, then the people in Afghanistan have to be as well. They have to have their human rights respected. That is the lesson we see out of this crisis. I think because of this realisation there is an enormous degree of international cooperation in Afghanistan now. The challenge will be to sustain this focus.”[135]
Dr. Wambugu
I believe Dr. Wambugu’s intentions are good, but her solution is an added distraction from the root causes of hunger. Her sincerity is not suspect, but her logic is definitely unsound. She is paraded all about the globe by the agbiotech industry in an effort to win acceptance of agbiotech crops. They would not do so unless they believed it meant profit.
As their “poster child,” she does quite a convincing job if her audience is unaware of the possible causes of hunger. Her articles and those about her are sown throughout the media, including that which our children’s young and impressionable minds will see.[136] In her 11sep01 LA Times commentary, she says, “the United Nations Human Development Report 2001 unequivocally states that biotechnology offers ‘the hope of crops’” [with better traits]. The operative word is “hope,” because very little of what the agbiotech industry has promised has come to fruition, and many unexpected negative incidents have occurred.
Dr. Wambugu, a leading plant geneticist in Kenya, helped create the genetically altered sweet potato. She is presently, the director of the African Center of the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA), which is funded by biotech companies like Pioneer, Monsanto, Novartis and AgrEvo as well as government agencies like the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Val Giddings, a vice president of BIO (Biotechnology Industry Organization), was quoted as saying, "I wish we could clone her." [137]
BIO is the primary biotech trade association representing more than 900 biotech companies, academic institutions, state biotechnology centers and related organizations in all 50 U.S. states and more than 27 other nations. The executive director for food and agriculture at BIO, Dr. Michael J. Phillips, represents the agbiotech industry on domestic policy and international trade issues. He was once a scientist with the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). He was in charge of a crucial study of how regulators would oversee the hundreds of new organisms industry is creating. His unannounced and abrupt departure to join BIO shocked the NAS. It is an example of conflict of interest and the “revolving door”[138] between industry, academia, regulatory agencies, and legislators.
This type of behavior is quite typical of the biotech corporate world. To be sure, the biotech industry was begun by the theft of genetic material from UCSF when Peter Seeburg, one of the world's most eminent molecular biologists, stole the genetic material from his study of human growth hormone at UCSF to jump-start Genentech. Not long after this theft, Genentech miraculously announced is had produced human growth hormone. UCSF sued Genentech in May of 1999, claiming that company's product infringes on the university's discovery. Under oath, Peter Seeburg said, "It was dishonest. I regret it, but that's the way we did it 20 years ago.
I really am sorry." [139]
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In late 1998, to all intents and purposes, UC Berkeley sold the exclusive rights of its Department of Plant and Microbial Biology to Novartis, the multinational agbiotech colossus with $22 billion in sales in 1997. For a mere $50 million—half up front and the rest over 5 years—Novartis gets to observe the work of 32 faculty members and nearly 200 graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. It is given the first bid to market all and any of the department’s work. This benchmark sale places Novartis in the catbird seat, with an inside voice on what gets studied. At the same time it limits the communication that is so essential to academics. One study will not be allowed to communicate with another unless Novartis grants permission.[140] This was a very shrewd investment on the part of Novartis, as the return will be better than any other they could have made.
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