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Re: Moratorium Called on Genetically Modified Foods



sals@rain.org (Sal Schettino) wrote:

>You start adding and mixing up
>animal and plant and insect and virus genes with out labeling there is no
>way to tell. To me it is so  easy to understand the difference from breeding
>and taking a gene from some unrelated species and injecting it in the embryo
>of another. Now people have a way of putting a spin on things and I feel
>some folks want us to think this is just like breeding but no where in
>nature do human genes in up in a pig or a fish gene ends up in a plant.  Why
>can't people see this difference?


I agree with you Sal, there is a HUGE difference.  Nature with its
infinite intelligence has setup up certain boundaries.  Rarely does
nature allow a large deviation from itself to occur.  It allows like
to mix with like, occasionally a tiny mutation may occur which will be
judged by the process of natural selection to determine if the new
code will displace the old code, or maybe co-exist and ultimately
blend in to the old code through like breeding with like.

What the Food producers are doing is using a totally new technology
that wields tremendous power without any controls.  Their goal is
simple.  They want to increase yield, reduce costs, and to bring a
product to market  in the most sellable condition they can.  There is
no concern for any of the dangers.  Anything goes in the field of
recombinant DNA, and there are currently no safety measures in place
to protect the consumer.  Everyone assumes that if it looks like a
tomato it must be a tomato, so lets send it to market.

The tomato you are eating may contain genetic information from any
combination of  virus, bacteria, fish, bird, animal, or plant in the
world.  Nature could never produce such dramatic changes in a million
lifetimes as we can produce in a single year.  Then the food producers
can forcefully displace whole fields, whole regions of crops with
their "new breed"  varieties allowing the more natural varieties to
disappear.  It should not take more than an IQ of 80 to realize the
stupidity of moving forward without extreme caution. I am afraid that
if we make a mistake, we may not be able to correct it. This
technology is moving along at a incredible rate.  There is certainly
potential for catastrophic mistakes to be made with the world's food
supplies, If we don't exersise caution now it may soon be too late.

I attended Dr. John Hagelins first conference on genetically
engineered foods near Oxford.   Those of you who are bashing the
opponents of careless genetic manipulation by saying they have no data
to back up their claims, who say they are just scare mongering, should
contact Dr. Hagelin or any member of the Natural Law Party.  They have
the references to back up all their data.  Dr. John Hagelin himself
was a leading genetic researcher for the National Institute of Health
in Maryland.  He declined an NIH grant with the potential value of
four million US dollars, to crusade against the dangers of genetic
engineering.  I suggest you pay attention for this will affect every
person on this planet.  You may be relatively safe in the short term
if you grow your own food. But, any negative backlash from nature
could ultimately affect you too.

Look at the money involved. The profits to be made from genetic
engineering of foods is enormous,  BIO-Agriculture corporations are
typically made up of 50% scientists and 50% lawyers.  The lawyers are
lobying hard to accomplish a number of goals.  First, to keep the
issue of genetic engineering out of the mainstream press. Second,  to
lobby the polititians to pass laws allowing them to proceed unimpeded
so they can reap the rewards as soon as possible.  If you don't
believe this then look into it for yourself.  After the conference I
attended at Mentmore Towers near Oxford, I was shown a complete list
of the members of the "Ministry of Health" which are effectively the
lawmakers in the United Kingdom that would produce any legislation
regarding genetic engineering and foods.  A full 50% of the members
were either direct employees of BIO-Agricultural companies or were
Consultants to or in some way payed by BIO-Agricultural companies.
The same is essentially true in the USA as well.  Having lived in
Washington D.C. for the last twenty years, and having worked with many
dozens of Federal, Private, International agencies in Washington D.C.
I have obtained a very clear picture of the way things work in
Washington.  It is not a pretty picture.  Anyhow, if you can add 2+2
and come up with 4 you can see something very wrong with this picture.
No one is (until now) representing the people on these issues. Hey,
after all it's our food we're talking about.

I am pleased to say that I have already witnessed an increased level
of awareness of these issues here in the U.K. since the Natural Law
Party conferences here.  The press has been very interested in this
topic, and I know of some documentaries and special reports that are
being produced by several BBC agencies.  Dr. John Hagelin will carry
his crusade back to the USA in the near future.  His team had decided
to first tour Europe to present to because the European Union is
currently working on legislation which would force member countries to
accept all forms of genetically engineered foods, and to prevent them
from labeling these foods as such.  Strangely, the member countries
would have no choice but to comply.  This does not sit well with
countries like Sweden, whose citizens are much more aware of the
dangers of modern agricultural techniques and the threats they pose to
them.  

Look my friends, we really don't know what were messing with here.  We
do not have the knowledge or the capacity to play GOD, and know the
outcome of our expirements.  It's a game of russian roulette being
played to make someone else a lot of money.  We can grow enough food
to feed the world more than twice over without doing this, so why do
it.

From the Heart....

Jim Boka

jboka@banyan.com



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