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Before You Sit Down To Dinner Tonight, You Just Might Want To Read This.........
The following snips were borrowed from http://www.wanttoknow.info/deception10pg On May 23, 2003, President Bush proposed an Initiative to End Hunger in Africa using genetically modified (GM) foods. He also blamed Europe’s “unfounded, unscientific fears” of these foods for thwarting recovery efforts. Bush was convinced that GM foods held the key to greater yields, expanded U.S. exports, and a better world. His rhetoric was not new. It had been passed down from president to president, and delivered to the American people through regular news reports and industry advertisements. The message was part of a master plan that had been crafted by corporations determined to control the world’s food supply. This was made clear at a biotech industry conference in January 1999, where a representative from Arthur Anderson Consulting Group explained how his company had helped Monsanto create that plan. First, they asked Monsanto what their ideal future looked like in fifteen to twenty years. Monsanto executives described a world with 100 percent of all commercial seeds genetically modified and patented. Anderson Consulting then worked backwards from that goal, and developed the strategy and tactics to achieve it. They presented Monsanto with the steps and procedures needed to obtain a place of industry dominance in a world in which natural seeds were virtually extinct. When eminent scientist Arpad Pusztai went public about his accidental discovery that genetically modified (GM) potatoes severely damage the immune system and organs of rats, he was suspended from the prestigious Scottish research institute where he had worked for thirty-five years. He was silenced with threats of a lawsuit while the Institute denied or distorted his findings. Between the Chapters: The Wisdom of Animals Mice avoid eating GM foods when they have the chance, as do rats, cows, pigs, geese, elk, squirrels, and others. What do these animals know that we don’t? At the end of each chapter is a one-page story describing how farmers, students, and scientists discovered that animals refuse to eat the same GM foods that we consume everyday. To implement their strategy, the biotech companies needed to control the seeds—so they went on a buying spree, taking possession of about 23 percent of the world’s seed companies. Monsanto did achieve the dominant position, capturing 91 percent of the GM food market. But the industry has not met their projections of converting the natural seed supply. Citizens around the world, who do not share the industry’s conviction that these foods are safe or better, have not "just sort of surrendered." The Washington Post reported that laboratory mice, usually happy to munch on tomatoes, turned their noses up at the genetically modified FlavrSavr tomato. Scientist Roger Salquist said of his tomato, “I gotta tell you, you can be Chef Boyardee and mice are still not going to like them.” The mice were eventually force fed the tomato through gastric tubes and stomach washes. Several developed stomach lesions; seven of forty died within two weeks. The tomato was approved without further tests. In 1989, first dozens, then thousands fell sick. About one hundred people died, others struggled with paralysis, unbearable pain, and debilitating symptoms. Authorities eventually tracked its cause: contaminants produced in one company’s genetically modified variety of the food supplement L-tryptophan. This chapter describes the evidence implicating genetic engineering as the cause of the epidemic and the efforts by industry and the FDA to divert the blame. Current regulations are so loose, they would allow that same type of deadly supplement onto the market today. Many scientists who understood the dangers, however, were not convinced by the FDA’s assurances. Geneticist David Suzuki, for example, said, "Any politician or scientist who tells you these products are safe is either very stupid or lying. The experiments have simply not been done." A January 2001 report from an expert panel of the Royal Society of Canada likewise supported the conclusions of the FDA scientists. The report said it was "scientifically unjustifiable" to presume that GM foods are safe. In March 1999, the York Nutritional Laboratory, Europe’s leading specialists on food sensitivity, reported that soy allergies skyrocketed over the previous year, jumping 50 percent. The increase propelled soy into the top ten list of allergens for the first time in the 17 years of testing. York scientists tested 4,500 people for allergic reactions to a wide range of foods. In previous years, soy affected 10 percent of consumers. Now, 15 percent reacted with a range of chronic illnesses, including irritable bowel syndrome, digestion problems, and skin complaints, as well as neurological problems, chronic fatigue syndrome, headaches and lethargy. Researchers confirmed the link with soy by detecting increased levels of antibodies in the blood. Furthermore, the soy tested in the study was likely to contain significant percentages of the genetically modified Roundup Ready variety. The British Medical Association had already "warned that the technology may lead to the emergence of new allergies." With the York’s research in hand, now British scientists urged their government to impose an immediate ban on GM food until further testing evaluated their safety. Pathologist Michael Antoniou said that the increased allergic responses "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." Muscling the Media The biotech industry uses its considerable resources to mold public opinion about genetically modified foods. In addition to promoting a one-sided image of the foods as safe and necessary, they stifle coverage about health and environmental damage. For example, a Fox TV station canceled a news series, a publisher canceled a book contract, scientific journals refused papers, and a printer shredded 14,000 magazines, all due to fear of lawsuits by Monsanto. Other stories presented in this chapter describe how the industry manipulated news that was reported. The biotech industry had found its poster child, genetically engineered rice that makes its own beta-carotene—a precursor to vitamin A. In his New York Times Magazine article, "The Great Yellow Hype," Michael Pollan says that golden rice impales Americans on the horns of a moral dilemma: "if we don’t get over our queasiness about eating genetically modified food, kids in the third world will go blind." There are other considerations as well. No published study has confirmed that the human body could actually convert the beta-carotene in golden rice. Also other nutrients such as fat and protein, often lacking in the diets on malnourished children, are needed in order to absorb Vitamin A. And it is not clear whether the genes from the daffodil, which are used to create golden rice, will transfer known allergens from the flower. Michael Khoo of Greenpeace says golden rice "isn’t about solving childhood blindness, it’s about solving biotech’s public relations problem." If the industry were truly dedicated to the problems of malnutrition and starvation, a tiny fraction of their advertising budget could have been diverted to make an enormous difference already. Khoo says, "It is shameful that the biotech industry is using starving children to promote a dubious product." What You Can Do Officials around the world who are in charge of GM food policy need to be made aware of the foods’ dangers and of how their approval was based on politics, not science. They have been subjected to relentless promotion by the biotech industry and bullying by the U.S. government to accept GM foods and crops. The revelations in this book might change that.
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