Frankenfoods!

Now, direct to your table from the people who brought you Agent Orange and Dioxin

by Jonathon Hurd

This article was originally published in Freedom Socialist newspaper.

American agribusiness giants like Monsanto, Dow, Novartis, and Syngenta would have us believe that their new biotechnology can save the environment, improve human health, and end world hunger. But the only effects to emerge so far are the extension of their control over the world's food supply and a big payoff in corporate profits.

If the promises sound familiar, they should. Some of the same companies made the same promises during the "Green Revolution" that followed World War II. New chemical herbicides, pesticides and fertilizers were going to wipe out hunger by increasing crop yields. Unfortunately, the new technology did as much to deplete the soil and poison the ecosystem as it did to boost yields.

Ironically, the industry today claims that genetically modified (GM) foods will help undo this previous damage by reducing dependence on toxic chemicals. Yet two thirds of the GM crops now available are designed to increase the sale of herbicides by making the plants resistant to chemical applications!

Genetic modification involves removing a gene sequence from the DNA of one organism and inserting it into the DNA of another. Proponents say that this is no different than the breeding of plants that has been practiced for thousands of years. But traditional techniques never produced tomatoes crossed with fish to heighten their resistance to frost, or ears of corn that manufacture their own pest-killing toxins.

Today the majority of corn raised in the US does just that, and almost the entire soybean crop is designed to withstand massive spraying of the powerful herbicide glyphosate.

GM varieties of wheat, canola, rice, potatoes and other foods are already on the market and many more are being developed, including GM fish and livestock. An estimated 70 percent of all processed foods on the supermarket shelves contain genetically engineered foods, and there are no labeling requirements in place.

In ten years of marketing GM foods to the US public, the Food and Drug Administration has never conducted a single food-safety test, and the Environmental Protection Agency has never required an environmental impact statement.

Tampering with global ecology

One of the biggest experiments in human history has begun, with consumers as the guinea pigs and the planet's ecosystem as the test site.

Of the 1.8 billion dollars spent by the US Department of Agriculture on biotech research, less than 1 percent has been used for risk assessment. The biotech industry has never published its own studies of GM foods.

Long-term investigations of the environmental consequences and health dangers done by independent scientists and business watchdog groups are only beginning to be completed. The results are not encouraging.

Among the environmental effects, scientists have found a sixfold decrease in the number of wild plants, which are important food for many insects, birds and mammals, growing in and around fields of GM crops. Toxins produced by GM plants to fight insect pests are threatening the population of non-pests like ladybirds and monarch butterflies. DNA from GM crops has infected the DNA of traditional crops and wild plants through cross-pollination. And genetically engineered seeds have contaminated the seed supplies destined for organic farms.

Meanwhile, studies still have not been done on the effects of GM agriculture on soil ecology. At this point, the real impact of GM foods on the global environment can only be imagined.

Gambling with human health

In the Philippines, villagers living near fields of GM corn have experienced severe reactions in two successive growing seasons, including fevers, respiratory illnesses and skin reactions. When they left the area their symptoms disappeared, only to flare up again when they returned. Blood samples showed increased levels of three antibodies that were evidence of a reaction to the toxin contained in the corn.

In a study released this February, scientists in Norway found traces of a virus surviving in the stomachs of rats and humans that had eaten GM foods. The virus is a delivery device that is attached to the foreign genes inserted in GM fare.

Biotech corporations have always assured the public that the virus could not be passed on to animals. This claim has now been contradicted. Scientists speculate that the virus, once in human systems, could reawaken dormant viruses of other types, destabilize chromosomes, or create a flood of toxins, allergens and carcinogens.

Biodemocracy: resisting biotech nightmare

In March, the residents of Mendocino County in California voted to make their county the first in the US to outlaw the production and use of GM crops and animals. In doing so they join the ranks of activists, scientists, farmers and local and national governments around the world that have taken similar steps.

The biotech industry, which spent between $500,000 and $700,000 to stop the ban, is now organizing to have it overturned. (Readers who would like to help defend the ban can learn more at www.organicconsumers.org/ge/mendocino031104.cfm .)

GM foods are also sparking trade controversies between the US and Europe. In the biggest case ever considered by the World Trade Organization, Uncle Sam is now demanding that the European Union abandon its ban on the growing of GM crops and pay at least $1.8 billion in compensation for lost export income over the past six years.

As the US and Europe square off, nine other counties in California are considering measures similar to the Mendocino ban. Activists hope the movement will spread across the United States.

Efforts like these are crucial to keep alive the public debate on genetically engineered substances. It is clear that we need, at a minimum, the labeling of GM foods, adequate food-safety and environmental studies, and a ban at least until these conditions are met.

Food production for human needs, not corporate greed

The incredible shortsightedness of capitalism practically guarantees that a technology this powerful will lead to catastrophic consequences.

Government regulators in bed with big business decide the direction of science and technology with no input from the vast majority, whose lives, ecosystems, nourishment and well-being are time and again disrupted and injured by the results. The revolving door between government and industry is illustrated by the likes of Ann Veneman, the current US Secretary of Agriculture who previously served on Monsanto's board of directors.

The problem lies not with technological progress, but with who decides how it is used. Every application under the current system has one underlying motive: making money.

What's needed is a revolutionary change that puts the people in charge. Democratic control of industry and technology would assure us that the criteria for making decisions about what is produced would not be based on private profit, but on the common good.

Jonathan Hurd is an electrician's assistant and nursing student in Seattle, and has been an environmental and antinuclear activist for 15 years. He can be reached at jonathon_hurd@yahoo.com.