My post on the how to keep Monsanto out of your home garden seems to have really hit a nerve with supporters of GM foods.
This morning, I received an email from the CEO/President of a large soybean seed company in the Midwest who writes:
I just read your article “The Four Steps Required To Keep Monsanto Out of Your Garden”. I favor choice when it comes to the food you eat and agree with you on that part . I do not agree that it is right to attack Monsanto and all the good work that they are doing to increase yields for farmers to keep the price of food low enough so the poorest of the poor can afford to eat. If we all had to eat organic many people in this world would starve due to the higher cost of food and lower production.
I respect your views but attacking Monsanto is not in the interest of poor people and world food production. GMO’s are not bad and have passed all the standards set by regulatory systems around the world and are proven safe. Thanks for listening.
My word for word email response?
Stop drinking the Kool-Aid my friend.
GMOs are far from “proven safe” as this CEO claims and the sob story that Monsanto is somehow helping the poor and starving people of the world is nothing but a PR stunt that while effective, has no basis in truth or reality.
As Mark Twain once said, “It is easier to fool people than to convince them they have been fooled.”
There are many highly capable and obviously intelligent people that have completely bought the scam that GMOs are safe and going to feed the world baloney.
Perhaps this most recent news out of Europe will give them a much need kick in the pants to wake them up to the reality of the situation.
Independent Experts Find GM Foods Contain Dangerous Gene
The European Union’s official, independent food watchdog group, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), is reporting that the approval process for GM crops failed to identify a poisonous gene discovered in 54 of 86 GM plants.
Most alarmingly, this viral gene known as “GENE VI” was discovered in the most widespread GM crops, notably corn and soy, which are heavily used in animal feed for livestock producing meat, milk, and eggs.
How did the viral gene get into the GM crops in the first place?
The problem starts right in the laboratory where GM foods are synthesized by an army of scientists playing God with millions of unsuspecting guinea pigs blithely buying unlabeled GM laced products at the supermarket.
These scientists insert foreign genes from other organisms (plant or animal) into a target plant using a technique which allows these foreign genes to “piggyback” on common soil or plant based viruses.
Assumption is the Mother of Error it seems as these scientists had expected that the virus genes transporting the foreign genes into the target plant would not be present once the GM plant was actually grown in the field.
The EFSA research (Independent Science News) has now conclusively shown that this major assumption upon which the supposed “safety” of GMOs is based is not the case.
Not. Even. Close.
How the presence of this viral gene could have been missed by the biotech companies, government regulators, and even university scientists is beyond comprehension.
The EFSA research indicated the following:
This situation represents a complete and catastrophic system failure.
There are clear indications that this viral gene might not be safe for human consumption. It also may disturb the normal functioning of crops, including their natural pest resistance.
A reasonable concern is that the protein produced by Gene VI might be a human toxin. This is a question that can only be answered by future experiments.
Dr. Julian Little, chairman of the Agricultural Biotechnology Council (ABC) which represents the biotech companies, had this to say in response:
... nearly three trillion meals containing GM ingredients have been eaten without a single substantiated case of ill-health. The combination of these two facts can give consumers a huge amount of confidence in the safety of GM crops.
I guess Dr. Little isn’t really paying attention to the skyrocketing cases of food allergies and digestive complaints in the past decade or so, particularly allergies to corn and soy, the top two GM crops.
It’s always easier to just continue with business as usual and hide behind PR campaigns focusing on starving children and fudged reports about the “safety” of frankenfoods when the corporate bottom line (and the McMansion mortgage payment) is at stake, isn’t it Mr. CEO?
Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist
Sources
Uncovered, the “toxic” gene hiding in GM crops: Revelation throws new doubt over the safety of foods
” If we all had to eat organic many people in this world would starve due to the higher cost of food and lower production.” The reason we have “organic” in the first place is BECAUSE of companies like Monsanto and their affiliates! They are the ones poisoning our food supply with chemicals! Before them, EVERYTHING was ORGANIC because that’s the way God created it! There was nothing else, and everyone ate just fine.
Wow really? 3 million quiet guinea pig experiements somehow proves GM foods are safe? That’s what that Dr. had to say? Wow just wow.
You know you are hitting the mark when you get a reply like that. I seriously doubt the writer has any interests in poor people and their ability to eat. That is just a smokescreen for a rather pathetic attempt to use moral persuasion in the absence of any intellectual argument.
I posted this article on my fb page, and had someone reply against it. Here was one of the articles he pointed me to. Would you please read it and reply? I just don’t know what to think on any of this!
As someone who qualifies as “poor” under US federal poverty guidelines (although I would be rich under 3rd world standards), I don’t want to eat GMO foods. I’ve learned enough about these foods to know that all of the hype about GM is pretty much just that.
It’s sad how misinformed some even educated can be about GMs. My husband is in law school, and one of his professors in a technology class, IMO, is a shill for the GM industry. He came home from one of his first classes with this guy telling me about how wonderful GM foods are and all of the amazing things that they could do with it, like making vaccines in food or making blue roses. Caused a couple arguments, and we have agreed to disagree. I personally don’t care if they use GM to make blue roses, or products that I’m not going to eat, but as far as food is concerned, I’d rather not eat a science experiment. When I was poisoning myself with aspartame, I didn’t know how I was damaging myself until more than a decade later.
If we really have a food shortage, perhaps instead of having lawns we should start growing food as the norm instead. That’s what they did in the Medieval Warm period when they had an actual shortage of food; they grew food in every possible space that they could.
I kinda believe life on this planet is a matrix, dependent on each other from the top to the bottom. This balance of life has been in place for eons. Then along came government protection of corporations.
The problem with gardens instead of lawns is where you have them. A number of cases have been popping up where residents are being ticketed for having gardens in their front yards instead of lawns. Nice, neat gardens apparently belong only in the backyard where no one can see them.
True, Virginia. It’s sad that people don’t find food beautiful. I love looking at other people’s gardens.
If I was in that situation I’d build a pretty little white picket fence in front of it. Then if they still had a problem with it I’d paint things or decoupage the front outside of the fence. Ain’t pretty enough YET?!!! bastards.
Useless is deemed worthy and acceptable while nutritious and vital is deemed unsightly.
Sarah:
Interesting post, but a comment or two. First off, I’ve no love for Monsanto either, as I’ve heard many of the tales about the things they’ve done to farmers, and their fight against food labeling, etc. I also appreciate your effort to educate and enlighten, especially those who haven’t fully woken up yet to what they are putting in their bodies, but when you use phrases such as, “where GM foods are synthesized by an army of scientists playing God with millions of unsuspecting guinea pigs blithely buying” – you really come across as kind of crazy. No doubt you are passionate about what you do, but when you engage in hyperbole such as this, you are not helping those you really need to help: the casual reader and consumer who wants to make a change, or thinks there is something better out there, but isn’t quite sure where to go. Using such phrases destroys the more reasoned and calm approach you make in other parts of your response, which is a more effective approach to diffuse and dismantle the claims made by the Other Side, and win more converts to yours, rather than possibly push them away.
Please, keep up the good work, but please, keep it Real.
I completely agree here. I WANT to be able to send this to friends and family, to help them get it…but I can’t because of things like this. Hyperbole definitely discredits, even if the message is spot on. Facts, numbers, stats, well thought out discussions are awesome. But this isn’t that.
Well said. I often get tired up about things as well and forget that by not exercising restraint, I am working against myself.
Way to go, Sarah! I salute you!
I also thought it interesting when the news just (within the last week) presented an article about how half (really…50% was the figure given) the food produced in this world is wasted…either thrown out or it doesn’t get to the people who are supposed to receive it (think aid food) for one reason or another. If that is the case, would it not make more sense to figure out to fix this problem with the existing non-GMO’S crops instead of tinkering with what it took nature so many years to develop naturally?
Just thinking…
Alternative headings for your CEO’s letter (and maybe even great headlines for a newspaper or TV report):
Poor in America Forced to Eat Killer Virus OR
“Philanthropic” Monsanto’s Hidden Agenda to Sterilize the Poor OR
GMO Safety Experiments Now Under Way on Unsuspecting Americans
Do I need a liability statement here? How’s this: “Just kidding Monsanto. I only wrote it for the laughs.”
I don’t want to get sued and spend all my money on lawyers. Because if I did I might only be able to afford GMO foods, and I can’t have that!
Great information! Thanks!