BIOLOGICALLY ENGINEERED FOOD

4/25/01 — Last night on television, I watched a program on PBS entitled "Harvest of Fear." It covered many pros and cons regarding biotechnology and genetically engineered foods. I had seen articles on this over the past five years, but this program seemed to cover it more in-depth than most.

I feel that this is something we all should take a look at - educating ourselves as to the impact it can potentially have on our health and environment. We have watched as more and more pharmaceuticals are used which are biologically engineered, and now biotechnology is being used with our food supply. We are being exposed to genes never before put into the human body, with no studies of long term effects. We know that drugs are synthetic or altered chemicals. We make our choice to take them or not with the knowledge that they are not natural. Genetically modified foods are not labeled, so we consume them unknowingly. If we have a reaction to the food, we have no way of tracking it down to see if it was from a modified plant source or not. The spokesperson for Monsanto said he did not feel that there was any harm in manipulating our food chain. Dr. Jane Rissler from the Union of Concerned Scientists stated "absence of evidence is NOT evidence of no harm."

Ten companies have the lock on our food source. One of these is Monsanto, which holds 28% of the biotech patents. Many of the companies now doing biotech, were once chemical and pesticide manufacturers. They claimed pesticides were safe once too. Remember "DDT good for me"? Those same people are now saying that biotech products are better. Hmm. Monsanto tests their products by feeding the altered food to mice at 1000 times more than humans would receive, and see no evidence of harm. We are NOT mice. Our metabolisms are not the same, among many other differences. Humans are the lab animals.

In a $6 billion a year food industry, manufacturers, farmers and biotech companies are afraid that Americans will turn against genetically altered foods. For 5 years - at least - we have been eating these without our knowledge. It's time we take a look at this and decide if it is what we want. European countries are taking this very very seriously. More seriously than we are. We consume countless products which contain biologically engineered ingredients of corn, soy, and who knows what else? It's in our mayonnaise, soy products, cheese, cereals, sodas, and many many other foods eaten daily. It's also in most of our cotton.

Do we wish our scientists to bypass biological barriers by crossing species, introduce it to our kitchens and not let us know we are consuming it? This is a mass genetic experiment, with irreversible side effects. We can not "recall" a gene once it is released into the environment. AQUA Bounty Farms is growing genetically engineered salmon. They grow faster, but fewer young survive. They want to put their fish farms into ocean areas. If just one escapes, it could change the species on this planet forever.

They want to put vaccines into our bananas. Will the standards for putting it into our food chain be the same as for the FDA regulations on pharmaceuticals? Are those even stict enough? Will we even know if a vaccine is in our food? Will the new "golden rice," which is still in it's preliminary stages of development, actually help prevent the blindnessas they claim it will? Is it natural or beneficial to have rice cross with a daffodil?

Many of the seeds we buy for flowers and vegetables are engineered to be sterile. You can not grow next year's crop off of seeds from this year's plants. Think about the implications of this! We have altered our environment with some technologies that have caused irreversible effects. Billions of dollars are being spent to alter our environment further. When will we try to repair the damage already done? As a human being relying on this planet's bounty to sustain my physical body, I have serious reservations about what is being undertaken.

This technology has the potential to further change the world we live in. It brings us drugs, now is in our food chain. Plans are for using it in waste management, cosmetics, energy and other avenues. These last three are not ingested, so pose a different scenario. We have mapped out the human genome and are testing it to clone species.

I ask that you research what is happening with our food and see if it is something that you, as another human being, are comfortable with. Humans have the most potential to do positive things for this planet and ourselves. We also have the greatest responsibility to make sure that what we do is not detrimental. What we are embarking on is not reversible. Make sure it's the right choice! By not speaking up, we are saying that it is okay.

Here are a couple of links from last night's program to get you started:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/harvest/

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/harvest/etc/links.html

This information is provided for educational purposes and to promote discussion only. It is not intended to diagnose, treat or claim cure for any disease or imbalance in the body.

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