Spilling the Beans newsletter - Bush’s environmental legacy on GMOs is ...

[Guest guest]

Spilling the Beans, December 2008 

(Also available at Jeffrey Smith’s blog on Huffington Post.)

________________________________

 

Subscribe to e-newsletter Spilling the Beans

________________________________

 

Bush’s environmental legacy on GMOs is irreversible

 

In a few hundred thousand years, after all weather effects of 21st century

climate change have disappeared from the earth’s surface, after our quietly

smoldering nuclear waste has been extinguished, two destructive impacts

traceable to George Bush’s policies will yet remain.

 

The first is extinctions. Species that have died out, including the subset

resulting from Bush’s environmental policies, will forever deprive our

evolving biosphere of their contribution.

 

The second is genetically modified organisms (GMOs)—animals, plants, bacteria,

and viruses, who’s DNA have been mixed and mangled by insertions from foreign

species. Once released into the ecosystem, by intention or accident, the genetic

pollution self-propagates. No recall by the Obama administration can clean up

Mexico’s indigenous corn varieties, now contaminated by our genetically

modified (GM) corn. No executive order can remove or even identify the wild

mustard plants now carrying altered genes bestowed on it by the pollen from its

cousin, GM canola.

 

We all know stories that illustrate the exponential effects of invasive species.

Here’s my favorite, recalled in my book Genetic Roulette:

 

On Christmas Day 1859, the Victorian Acclimatization Society released 24 rabbits

into the Australian countryside so that settlers could hunt them for sport and

feel more “at home.†The rabbits multiplied to well over 200 million,

spreading out over 4 million square kilometers. That Christmas present now costs

Australian agriculture about $600 million per year.

 

Will GMOs of today show up as the “Australian rabbits†of the future? While

their impact on our ecosystem and diet is largely unstudied, that has not

stopped the current and past administrations from presiding over the release of

millions of acres of GM crops. Not only does each plant carry a gene from

bacteria or viruses, its DNA has hundreds or thousands of mutations resulting

from the disruptive process of genetic engineering. Reports suggest that the

side effects of GMOs are quite dangerous.

 

Bush policies institutionalize GMO contamination

 

If we were to ban GMOs today, as is more than justified, some contamination from

commercialized GM food crops will nonetheless carry forward in the gene pool of

those (and related) species. This includes contaminants from our largest farmed

GM crops, including soybeans, yellow corn, cotton, and canola, as well as the

smaller crops: Hawaiian papaya, zucchini, and crookneck squash. Newly added—in

this year’s harvest—are GM sugar beets and white corn. There are also GM

tomatoes and potatoes no longer on the market, but whose genes and seeds, to

some degree, continue to persist “out there.†But the dirty laundry list

actually includes over 100 different experimental GM crops, field trialed at

more than 50,000 sites in the US since 1986.

 

Although the government is supposed to make sure that these trials won’t

contaminate the surrounding environment, a 2005 report by the USDA Office of

Inspector General harshly condemned the USDA’s abominable oversight.

“Current regulations, policies, and procedures,†said the report, “do not

go far enough to ensure the safe introduction of agricultural biotechnology.â€

The agency’s weaknesses “increase the risk that regulated genetically

engineered organisms will inadvertently persist in the environment.â€

 

But George Bush’s pro-biotech response was to further weaken the agency’s

GMO oversight—and he’s trying to do it quickly, before Obama steps in.

The proposed ruling makes gene escape more likely, even from GM crops designed

to produce pharmaceutical drugs and industrial chemicals.

 

Monsanto admits more contamination

 

As a backdrop to Bush’s rushed proposal, Monsanto just admitted that an acre

of its field trialed, not-yet-approved GM cottonseeds, was inadvertently

harvested and mixed with approved cotton. It then entered our food chain as

animal feed and cottonseed oil. Oops.

But the FDA, EPA, and USDA employed another of the Bush administration’s

institutionalized abdications of GMO oversight. They declared the cottonseed

contamination safe, in spite of insufficient data to support their claim.

 

If Bush gets his new USDA rule into effect, let’s hope Obama heeds the advice

of the Union of Concerned Scientists, which “recommends that the new

administration make revocation, revision and strengthening a top priority.â€

 

No that won’t fully clean up our altered gene pool. But it will start to

contain the runaway long-term genetic pollution that is now out of control.

 

 

 

________________________________

 

© copyright Institute For Responsible Technology 2008

Jeffrey M. Smith is the author of publication Genetic Roulette: The Documented

Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Foods, which presents 65 risks in

easy-to-read two-page spreads. His first book, Seeds of Deception, is the top

rated and #1 selling book on GM foods in the world. He is the Executive Director

of the Institute for Responsible Technology. www.responsibletechnology.org,

which is spearheading the Campaign for Healthier Eating in America. Go

to www.seedsofdeception.com to learn more about how to avoid GM foods.

________________________________

 

Spilling the Beans is a monthly column available

at www.responsibletechnology.org. The website also offers eater-friendly tips

for avoiding GMOs at home and in restaurants.

Permission is granted to publishers and webmasters to reproduce issues of

Spilling the Beans in whole or in part. Just email us

at column to let us know who you are and what your

circulation is, so we can keep track.

 

The Institute for Responsible Technology is working to end the genetic

engineering of our food supply and the outdoor release of GM crops. We warmly

welcome your donations and support.

 

Go to www.responsibletechnology.org or click hereif you'd like to make a

tax-deductible donation. Click here if you would like to become a member of

the Institute.

________________________________

 

 Send this Email to a FriendWrite a Comment on This Email

 

________________________________