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
The truly sad part is that many of them believe these lies!! In reality a truly organic crop when planted intentionally with the proper nutrients an companion plants will outgrow the chemical laden GMO crap every time. The problem and prices are because our *ahem* government feels the need to make it dang near impossible for these growers to be truly organic, and charges them out the wazoo for trying!! I hope you keep hitting nerves with these idiots so maybe one day some of them will open their eyes and see just how much damage they are doing to the poor people they claim to care about by only providing tumor causing poisonous food at a price low enough for them to afford. Sadly it has become poison or starve. (I’ll get off my soap box now..)
it isn’t just people. The incidence of digestive problems, epilepsy, obesity and cancer in dogs and cats has also increased exponentially. Just read the ingredient list on a bag of dog food and you will understand. Sick dogs who are taken off commercial foods “magically” get well!!! Just like people. Good follow up reading is from DogtorJ.com He supports the elimination of the Big 4 from ours and our pets diets: wheat, corn, soy, and dairy. he calls it the GARD. Science diet = science death
Thank you for your work! You are supported and appreciated!
The CEO said he agreed with food choice but remember Monsanto paid billions to defeat prop 37, which would give people a choice. As we all know, it’s not about choice, it’s about greed. They want to squash every little farmer, own every seed and have complete control of all food. Has nothing to do with safety.
GM foods are wrong headed! It begins with market share and profits and ends in extravagance for some and death for others. While I DO agree with the remark that GOOD food should be reasonably priced for the average person and even the poor person, I think both sides are wrong headed. The bottom line profit issue exist on both sides, and until health is really the PURE goal, I can’t be fully devoted to either side. Take the new ratfish oil drops. Amazing stuff! To give this ONE item to my family would cost $50 every 10 days. It’s outrageous and unfair. I understand the cost of making this in small batches, but this is what needs to improve. If everyone needs, step out, mass produce it and make it happen at a reasonable price. Then you get the Nobel Peace Prize. IMHO. We need to acknowledge that nature (God) produces the best nutrition, NOT MAN,and there needs to be effort toward making this a WORLD WIDE way of life. No one is stepping out and we’re spending a lot of money lobbying. This is my beef! My raw milk shouldn’t cost $9/gallon, for example. At six gallons a week we spend $54 on just this one item for our weekly groceries. Is anyone working to improve these standards. If tons more raw milk were sold, I’m not sure the price would come down. And, it should!
…..to feed the cows, sheep, goats, chickens, pigs, ducks, etc. etc.
Who needs herbicides or GMO herbicide-tolerant crap (I mean “crop”) anyway?
Rotational grazing of grasses, and broadleaf yummies, is what cows and other ruminants thrive on. We eat them and we thrive. The universe is kind. No need to make war with pests, weeds, or each other.
What ever happened to “First, Do no Harm?” That needs to be the rule in EVERYTHING. PROVE it is safe, for the world to see. If it can’t be proved, then don’t eat it. Monsanto is just about the money and control. So obvious. So sad. To the families of the world, please take time to educate yourself on everything that affects your family. Do not put your trust in any but God. Test it to see if it is good. This means everything…education, food, medicine, religion, EVERYTHING. God bless you in your search for the TRUTH.
I almost forgot Monsanto has partners in crime, Archer Daniels Midland, and Cargil
Corn, soybeans, wheat, rice, & cotton seed, are subsidized by the government for the benefit of monsanto. These subsidies divert grazing land to row crops, reducing livestock production which in turn increases the price of meat. There is a difference between a welfare sod buster, and a real farmer.
The reason mostly that the poor in developing countries are starving is because mega-corporations have driven them off their traditional farm lands and into the polluted cities. People are starving cause they can’t feed themselves anymore, not due to a lack of GMO produce.
It is not entirely mega corporations. It’s primarily the governments, or political factions, around them.