Control of the food supply

reply to post by Truth1000


another words, we're fd

If we cannot trust our food supply, does anything much matter? If we can't eat, we're all in trouble.

Overall conclusion of PSRAST


Based on the three above mentioned documents.

Scientific knowledge about the effects of genetic engineering of food is far too incomplete to enable safe application of the technology:

The knowledge about DNA is very incomplete. It is completely insufficient for an understanding and prediction of the effects of genetic manipulations. Important, presently unpredictable and unimaginable complications involving environmental as well as health effects of GE organisms cannot be excluded.
Molecular biology predicts that unexpected, and in the worst case harmful, substances may appear due to GE. This prediction has been supported by experimental observations. There is not enough knowledge to estimate the risk for the appearance of harmful substances. It cannot be excluded that the risk is of a significant magnitude, meaning that present exposure of people to GE food without adequate safety testing, may sooner or later cause a large scale disaster.
There is not enough knowledge about the environmental safety of GE crops or any other GE organism especially in a long term perspective. But there are a number of observations indicating the possibility of harmful and irreversible ecological damage, in the worst case at a large scale.
For these reasons, we don't find commercial application of gene technology for food production responsible and justifiable. Especially so as present GE crops and foods are of very limited, if any, value to mankind. Neither do we find any release of GE organisms into nature responsible and justifiable.

The commercial application of gene technology for the artificial development of organisms is highly premature. Therefore, all such organisms should be withdrawn from the market and be studied only under strictly confined laboratory conditions until enough is known to be able to judge whether it is possible to develop environmentally safe organisms, useful to mankind, in this way. This is likely to take several decades. Increasing evidence is indicating that it is not realistic to expect that this is possible.



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Illustrative quotes

"We know far less than one per cent of what will be known about
biology, human physiology, and medicine.

My view of biology is 'We dont know #.' "

Dr. J. Craig Venter, Time's Scientist of the year (2000). President of the Celera Corporation. Dr. Venter is recognized as one of the two most important scientists in the worldwide effort to map the human genome.

Source: "The Genome Warrior", The New Yorker Magazine, June 12, 2000.




"We do not now how organisms make themselves. We are still... in the dark ages about how organisms regulate their genomes to produce adults."

Richard Strohman, Professor Emeritus of Molecular and Cell Biology at University of California, Berkeley. He has been at Berkeley since 1959, serving as chair of the nation's top-ranked zoology department and director of the Health and Medical Sciences Program.

Source: Toward a new paradigm for life. Beyond genetic determinism. By Richard Strohman.



"These findings demonstrate the fragmentary nature of current knowledge of genome structure and function and regulation of gene expression in general, and the limited understanding of several physiological, ecological, agronomical and toxicological aspects relevant to present-day and planned genetic modifications of crops."

Source: Visser, A. J. C.; Nijhuis, E. H.; Elsas, J. D. van; Dueck, T. A. "Crops of uncertain nature? Controversies and Knowledge Gaps Concerning Genetically Modified Crops. An Inventory. "Plant Research International (No. 12, 2000) 70 pp.
To abstract.


www.psrast.org...

Come on, people, how many references do you need to understand how serious this poblem is?

This is a global threat to unsuspecting people across the planet, including to millions upon millions here in the U.S.

It is simply another case of the masses being controlled by the international corporations. EXCEPT, if they screw this up, there's not oil in the Gulf, there's starvation for BILLIONS!!!!

It appears that if I had wanted people to actually learn anything from this post, I should have used the term "Retarted."

Yes it's scary if our food supply is just terminated.

This is a global threat to unsuspecting people across the planet, including to millions upon millions here in the U.S.

Truth1000

Well said.

Bill S510 in the US is linking to the Codex, and that looks like it will herald the seed takeover of crops. I can foresee the monopolizing of food industry further through the "administrative fines" applied against smaller businesses, which will discourage small growers from continuing business, or starting in the first place. It's similar to small drug stores and banks having their own trials which force them to close up shop, leaving a vacuum for larger corporations to buy up. It's aggressive takeover, backed by unfair laws, and launched from the WHO.


[edit on 16-5-2010 by Northwarden]

Consider this: it takes huge amounts of money to create and research GE crops. Therefore, does this fact favor the smaller companies, and countries, or does it favor the international seed cartels, that are run by the corporate leaders who seek ever more power over even the powers of individuals nations?

This can actually be a dangerous topic. I knew a scientist back at NASA that was pretty high up in the hydroponics research at the Cape. He spoke at a regional scientific meeting in Florida, expressing some serious concerns he had about GE programs. He eventually lost his job, was black-balled, and even had death threats against him. He ended up moving to somewhere in Asia to work because of everything the GE forces did to destroy him for his opposition to their plans!

Has anyone had ANY second thoughts about whether it is important who controls the world's ability to feed ourselves and our children?