Issue # 5

 

|Genetics | Other Issues |
  

In the wake of the unprecedented public opposition to Genetically Modified (GM) Foods it appears the UK government has decided to dig in and blitz us and the media with their corporately sponsored propaganda - ‘that GM foods are good for us and our planet, and present no dangers.’

It doesn’t take much to see the lengths to which Biotech corporations have got their scabby hands on our ‘democratic’ government machinery, having witnessed the frantic scramble to gag Dr Pusztai followed by the Rowett Institute’s whitewashing of his research and findings on the dangerous effects of GM foods on health which had already sent shock waves through the food industry.

It seems that Dr Pusztai’s findings had slipped out during a TV interview he did which wasn’t meant to be part of the government’s public GM research showcase to keep consumers happy. The fact is that hardly any money has been put into public research on GM foods and all the research that is talked about has supposedly been done by the biotech companies themselves.

Monsanto, the biggest and most aggressive of the biotech companies has made the most in-roads into Western Governments including the UK government. Bell Pottinger, the company’s lobby firm, now has at least two former government advisors working for it lobbying their former colleagues, and the Prime Minister’s confidant, Philip Gould is working as a consultant interviewing MPs and senior civil servants for Monsanto. Another of the big genetic food companies, Novartis, sponsored last year’s Labour Party conference and paid for a training session to tell new MPs how to behave. It pays one New Labour MP, Nick Palmer, £5000 a year to be its parliamentary adviser.

State side the problem is even worse. Monsanto has effectively become a retirement home for members of Bill Clinton’s administration and the companies chief executive currently advises the President on trade policy.

I could go further, but I think you get the general picture. It would seem there are enough of these sordid connections to rival the Helix links on the entire human DNA. All in all this has allowed the big biotech corporations to get their way over the past 5 or 6 years, allowing the stealthy importation into Europe of GM foods to contaminate over 60% of the processed foods we buy. Further to this these companies have been lobbying hard in the European Commission and Council of Ministers to have as little labelling regulations on these foods as possible, thus forcing consumers against their democratic will to accept these foods universally, whilst covering up the potential health risks.

But the health effects represent only one facet of the dangers presented by GM foods. The issues of cross-contamination from GM crops to non-GM crops in the environment; and the abilities of companies to take effective ownership of food crops and the growing of them through the use of patents will have far worse implications for our planet and the capacity of the world’s population to feed itself.

Already in North America, where the biotech scene is a number of years ahead, we have a situation where Monsanto is taking hundreds of its farming customers to court over their alleged misuse of patented GM seeds. The most disturbing of these cases though is that of one farmer who has never purchased any of Monsanto’s seeds and yet he is being sued by the company for supposedly using their patented GM Canola seeds when in actual fact it was the pollen from neighbouring GM seed crops that had been blown over to contaminate his normal Canola crops. Is this a taste of things to come around the world in maybe just a few year’s time? and what part will Monsanto’s soon to be developed ‘terminator’ seeds (where pollen from the GM crop will carry a toxic agent to prevent any further seed generation) play in the cross-contamination of neighbouring crops when this situation is replicated in all the other parts of the world where the majority of the world’s population live on subsistence farming?

One thing is for sure. Inter-governmental organisations like the World Trade Organisation, where corporate control by the biotech industry is well established, will almost certainly ensure a clear path for companies like Monsanto and Novartis to get their greedy patents onto just about any plant from around the world where they think they can increase their profits, and thus make our worst fears a reality.

I did say almost certainly, not definitely, for there are now many organisations out there fighting to prevent this impending catastrophe - Friends of the Earth; Greenpeace; Genetic Concern; Action Aid; and Gaia Foundation to mention just a few, but they need the help of people like you if they are going to win, so get in touch.
 

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