Obama, like Bush, may be ag biotech ally

No Go on the GMO front. When will enough people wake up to the fact that they are the guinea pigs for these laboratory to store-shelf products? A handful of companies, led by MONSANTO, make Billions of $$$ off of the typical consumer who does not have the time or inclination to investigate what they are consuming in a world whose earth, air & water have become heavily polluted - like our food chain.

As someone has pointed out, our immediate defense against these constant assaults on our health is to grow your own, buy organic when possible & most importantly - buy local where you at least have some control over who you support with your purchase, see their operation in action & meet the actual people that provide you with sustenance. This is an uphill battle that must be fought from the ground up with grassroots support & the extra effort from people connected by wonderful sites such as CURRENT.

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.” ~ Margaret Mead

Thanks, Queenofit
As soon as I am back on my own computer I plan on looking this over.
It's damn hard to buy fruits and veggies unless you buy organic, which I try to do anyway.

SoundBigFoot,
There are certain types of trees, not genetically modified, that work real well for a filtering process of wastewater, but on a small scale.
They remove much of the nitrates, nitrites and phosphorus, because they use so much of those for their own growth.

Back to the point here. Like Jan says, we have to work harder. We have to have the research in hand when we write to our senators and congressmen.
We need to get them to understand the ramifications of GMF.

I read some where a wile back that a team of engineers in Europe, genetically altered a kind of tree so that it would suck polluted water threw its roots and metabolize it into air. That doesn't sound so bad. I think I read that in Discover magazine a few months back.

"Genetically Modified Food, Genetically Modifies You!" - David Icke

I'm going to spend the next four to eight years telling honest progressives, "I told you so".

Obama will be "better than McCain" (not saying much) especially on the econoomy, and will not dissapoint us on whatever Supreme Court appointments he might make while Democrats are in power...but that's about it. He will dissappoint us many times over on just about every other issue (health care, the environment, Iraq) that matters to us.

The agricultural biotechnology business could hardly have had a better friend than George W. Bush.

His administration challenged the European Union's anti-biotech regulations and avoided imposing rules domestically that would hinder the industry's growth, with the exception of the most controversial products, such as pharmaceutical crops.

But there are clues President-elect Barack Obama could be an ally of the industry, too, especially in the effort to put biotech crops into widespread use in Africa. These hints come from both statements of policy and the type of people from whom he's taking advice.

Consider:

- Obama explicitly endorsed genetically engineered crops in an answer to a candidate questionnaire initiated by the American Association for the Advancement of Science and other scientific groups. He said biotech crops "have provided enormous benefits" to farmers and expressed confidence "that we can continue to modify plants safely."

- His top scientific advisers during the campaign included Sharon Long, a former board member of the biotech giant Monsanto Co., and Harold Varmus, a Nobel laureate who co-chaired a key study of genetically engineered crops by the National Academy of Sciences back in 2000.

- Obama has endorsed the idea of a second Green Revolution, a concept understood to include biotechnology, to feed the world's growing population. In an exchange of letters last June with Norman Borlaug, the Iowa-born plant breeder who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for the first Green Revolution, Obama said he was "deeply committed to greater agriculture research and global agricultural development."

- Former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, an outspoken proponent of agricultural biotechnology, is considered a leading candidate to become Obama's agriculture secretary. The Biotechnology Industry Organization named him its governor of the year in 2001.

- Obama has called for doubling foreign development aid to $50 billion and establishing a special initiative to provide farmers in poor countries with affordable fertilizer and "improved seeds."

Obama's official statements on development are "pretty strong on agricultural science," said Robert Paarlberg, author of the recent book "Starved for Science: How Biotechnology is Being Kept Out of Africa."