GM crops – we are the guinea pigs!

Geneticist Professor Richard Lacey says, "I am not aware of any peer reviewed scientific literature that establishes the safety of even one specific, genetically engineered food, let alone the safety of these foods as a general class."

How could GM food be released without proper trials? Because Monsanto and Bayer are not required to conduct or publish any health studies. The U.S. Australian government doesn't enforce testing, allowing GM companies to selfregulate.

The first deaths and other casualties - 1989

Japanese company Showa Denko engineered a food supplement, L-Tryptophan, which caused a serious nerve disorder, killing 37 people in the U.S. More than 5,000 people became sick, leaving over 1,500 permanently disabled. The company did not admit responsibility but paid out over $2 billion to its victims.

In 1999 Dr.Arpad Pusztai found “that rats which had fed on genetically manipulated potatoes had suffered serious damage to their immune systems and showed stunted growth.” He was summarily sacked from the Scottish Rowett Institute where he worked as a toxicologist for over 30 years.

Australia’s CSIRO cancelled a decade-long research project, when it found its GM peas (manipulated with a gene from a bean) had a deleterious effect on mice.

In the UK, Environmental Minister Michael Meacher was sacked by Tony Blair after disclosing that “the only human trial commissioned by the (UK) Food Standards Agency found that genetically modified DNA did in fact transfer from bacteria to the gut.”

The British Medical Association called for a global moratorium on GM foods and crops. The BMA cited, among other risks, the threat of antibiotic resistant marker genes combining with bacteria in the human gut.

The Royal Society has said, "GM could lead to unpredicted, harmful changes in the nutritional state of foods.” GM canola, unwanted and unlabelled, is thrust into products such as margarine, processed foods and feed for poultry and cows.

Can we trust these companies?

Monsanto owns the patent for Roundup Ready™ canola. The Brack's led Victorian State Government, and now the S.A. Government, appear to be in favour of lifting existing bans on GM crops, but can be persuaded if we all speak up.

Monsanto was found guilty of outrageous behaviour in 2002, for releasing tons of P.C.B. chemicals into the state of Alabama, while covering up its actions for decades. The jury found Monsanto guilty on all six charges of negligence, wantoness, suppression of the truth, nuisance, trespass and outrage. Under Alabama state law the charge 'outrage' applies to conduct “so outrageous in character and extreme in degree as to go beyond all possible grounds of decency, so as to be atrocious and utterly intolerable in civilised society”

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In 2005, the US criminal justice department found Monsanto had paid $700,000 in bribes to Indonesian officials, to bypass controls in screening GM cotton crops. It paid $2 million to the US government.

In Canada, six government scientists were offered $1-2 million to decide that it was safe to drink the milk from cows treated with a GM growth hormone (rbGH). This growth hormone, which increases milk production is banned in Canada, Australia, the EU, Japan and NZ. The US approved the GE growth hormone without the need to label so the US milk supply is now contaminated with GM milk.

Monsanto was forced by a German court to publicise data it had concealed, relating to the testing of MON 563 corn when it sought approval to import it into the European Union.

Independent analysis of the new data showed rats' kidney and liver functions were disturbed and their growth slowed.

In contrast, our food safety authority, FSANZ, had gullibly approved Monsanto’s interpretation without asking for actual results.

“The Food Safety Authority must stop accepting company propaganda in the place of scientific evidence and demand to see the test data of animal feeding studies," said NZ MP Sue Kedgley.

Seeds designed to die, from Monsanto.

Monsanto and the US Government have patents on a technology that causes seeds to suicide, called Terminator Technology. These seeds have DNA designed “to create sterile seeds by selectively programming the plants to kill their own embryos.”

“The gradual spread of sterility in seedling plants, would result in global catastrophe that could eventually wipe out higher life forms, including humans, from the planet. Never before has man created such an insidiously dangerous plan to potentially control the livelihoods, food supply and even survival, of all humans on the planet,” says Vandana Shiva.

Terminator is as much a threat to the life of plants as murder is to humans. If you want to ban Terminator technology, and are outraged about the forthcoming approval of GM canola.

Michael Meacher, former UK Minister for the Environment stated, “This is a power issue. It’s about how powerful corporations use every device to extend their interests. They pirate genes from overseas, forcing communities to pay royalties for what was their own inheritance. They crush any farmers found violating their property rights, instead of compensating farmers when GM contamination destroys traditional strains.”