New paper makes a damning case against genetically modified food crops
source: http://www.ethicurean.com/2009/06/03/lotter-gmopaper/
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- JanforGore
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Now many are out here once again trying to warn people of another environmental/ health threat that has stealthily crept into their supermarkets, homes, and bodies, put there by the same moneyed corporate interests with political ties and profit motives that supercede morals, principles, or scientific integrity.
As with the climate crisis now as well the same question begs to be answered regarding GMOs: Will the truth about their effects and how they were released into our environment without our consent be made known and seen too late? Will humans who "trust" government in order to not have to worry about anything that deters them from their own distractions simply allow the destruction of biodiversity? Have we truly become that apathetic about our own lives?
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JanforGore
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Alas, public debate about the safety of growing and eating genetically modified organisms (GMOs) remains stalled at where climate change was circa 1993, back when Al Gore published “Earth in the Balance” to a deafening silence. Americans tend to dismiss serious discussions about the risks of GMOs with a “doom and gloomers” shrug. They’re here, they’re queer, get over it.
This is a mistake. It’s one that Europeans, the Japanese, and plenty of other industrialized and developing nations have avoided. As with climate change, the longer American citizens refuse to learn about this issue, the hotter the water we frogs are sitting in gets. Writes technology reporter Denise Caruso in her excellent book, “Intervention: Confronting the Real Risks of Genetic Engineering and Life on a Biotech Planet“: As long as scientists can justifiably “declare that we, the innumerate public, lack the mental capacity to understand what they, the experts, do…there can be no common ground for understanding between those who create risk and we who must bear it.” And if the current economic meltdown, caused by financial instruments too complex for any mere mortals other than hedge fund managers to understand, has taught us anything, it’s that an ignorant public is begging to get shafted.
A paper just published May 25 in the peer-reviewed International Journal of Society of Agriculture and Food gives people the tools with which to grasp the science behind transgenic food crops, what questions we should be asking, and a potential path out of this mess. In it Don Lotter, a UC-Davis trained scientist, makes a persuasive case that the transgenic seed industry is built on fundamentally flawed science, and that companies like Monsanto have used their vast market power to reshape university research, manipulate public opinion, and coerce regulatory agencies into reckless acceptance of risky technologies. And that scientists have looked the other way while they did so.
“The Genetic Engineering of Food and the Failure of Science” paper ought to be required reading for any American citizen who didn’t sign the consent form about the risks of the “largest diet experiment in history,” as he calls it. That includes you, me, your kids, every member of Congress, and every researcher who still believes in independent science.
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- 2 years ago
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JanforGore
