A Reckless Breed

We humans are mightily proud of our achievements. Now, even as we continue to pollute our air, earth and water the valiant defenders of progress roundly condemn those who remain cautiously skeptical about the inevitable blessings of our technological progress. For market fundamentalists science exists independent of history.

Take for instance our experience with DDT. When that toxic pesticide was released for civilian use after World War II, it was considered so benign and beneficial wedding guests took to throwing it at the lucky bride and groom instead of rice. Now we can link DDT's reckless use to poliomyelitis.

Now great debate centers on GMO crops and the free-marketeers are again mocking their critics as Luddites."The proper response to this anti-science campaign is not more regulation of biotechnology, but total rejection of the alleged need for such regulation. It is time to expose and defeat the primitive fear of technology that lurks behind the attack on genetically modified foods. It is time to kill the Frankenstein myth."-Robert Tracinski, Center for the Moral Defense of Capitalism.

Unfortunately for the neocons this time the public is fighting back.
Last July Austria officially banned Monsanto's genetically engineered maize MON 863 after laboratory tests on rats fed with the altered corn suffered significant liver and kidney damage. Monsanto Co has long discounted reports that the company's own internal research has exposed the dangers of its products. Now one such study has apparently found variations in the health of rats fed a genetically modified corn produced to protect against corn rootworm. Monsanto insists that, contrary to published reports, it supplied all required information to the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) prior to approval of MON 863 YieldGard(R) Rootworm corn.

Farmers in South Africa are reporting lost income from 82,000 hectares of genetically-manipulated corn (maize) which failed to seed.
Monsanto has offered compensation, blaming the failure of the three varieties of corn planted on these farms, in three South African provinces, on alleged 'under-fertilization processes in the laboratory". But environmental activist Marian Mayet, director of the Africa-centre for biosecurity in Johannesburg, says an urgent government investigation is needed and an immediate ban placed on all GM-foods, blaming the crop failure on Monsanto's genetically-manipulated technology.

Here in the U.S. a preliminary study at Cornell University indicates that monarch butterflies might be harmed by eating pollen from Bt corn plants. (See research papers on Monarch larvae sensitivity to Bacillus thuringiensis-purified proteins and pollen. Richard L. Hellmich, Corn Insects and Crop Genetics Unit, Agricultural Research Service-U.S. Department of Agriculture, Ames, Iowa.

As readers may recall I blogged last year on the mealybug infestation on Bt Cotton in Gujarat, India. (BT cotton is also a gift from Monsanto.) The All India Crop Biotechnology Association (AICBA), an industry association of the major companies engaged in agricultural bio-technology in the country, has now admitted that the genetically modified (GM) crop is not a "foolproof technology as yet." "It is still at an evolving stage" says R K Sinha, the association's Executive Director.

So I will repeat the question I posed previously. Are we, by genetically modifying the molecular structure of plants, sowing the seeds of our own destruction. Even assuming that quality and output are improved and increased by these biotechnological innovations is there some way to predict and then control the outcomes once we have altered Nature itself and disrupted the evolutionary process. These issues are worth vigorous debating-- certainly no less than the question of human cloning. Once the "Frankenstein" is set loose to "enhance" (or corrupt) the food supply our feeble regrets will be much too late.