"Suppose, in a restaurant, you were served a dish of black mashed potato. Chances are you would reject it. In fact, you would be horrified! Even if it was explained to you that this new black color indicated an extra-nutritious kind of potato, you would probably resist, preferring a traditional mound of whitish yellowish potato. But if you were given a mound of mashed potatoes that had been genetically modified to include pesticides in order to prevent insects eating them, you would tuck into it because you wouldn't know that this was not the traditional potato of your childhood. And restaurants do not tell you if their food is genetically modified. Not because they are hiding it from you; most of the time they can't tell you because they don't know either." p.45

"It is because of the known risks and all the uncertainty that some countries have banned the growing and selling of genetically engineered foods. Many residents of these countries are higly suspicious of GMOs and are especially watching American children to see if there are any long-term affects. The children of North America have now become the world's lab animals on whom to sudy the long-term effects of eating GM products." p. 62

- Jane Goodall in her book, Harvest for Hope

GE Defined:

"Genetic engineering (GE) is a most powerful technology. It allows scientists to transfer genes between species which could never naturally breed. Using 'recombinant DNA' techniques, genes from bacteria have been put into corn; spider genes into goats, rat genes into lettuce and human genes into mice, bacteria, and trees, to name just a few 'transformations'.

"It is an expensive and inefficient process because the GE creature carries, of necessity, mutations wherever foreign genes have been inserted into its DNA. Thus, most engineered organisms die. But when it works, the 'donor' genes (there is never just one gene transferred) are expressed and the 'host' plant or animal acquires remarkable new properties: Food crops make their own pesticides; spider silk can be harvested from goat's milk, mice develop human cancers; bacteria make human insulin, lettuce makes Vitamin A and trees scavenge metals from contaminated soil with human blood proteins.

"With naive enthusiasm, proponents of GE have not considered how creating novel organisms - even useful organisms - might also create health, environmental or social problems. Foods with hidden allergens or toxins; plants which secrete novel chemicals into soil and water; damage to native plants and animals through crossbreeding, loss of consumer choice, interference with the right to practice religious food restrictions, and corporate control of the food supply are just a few of the legitimate issues raised by GE.

"Europeans have debated the pros and cons of GE for a decade and have instituted some controls on its use. But the U.S. government has not fostered discussion of genetic engineering with the American people, and has consistently refused to require labeling of GE foods, even though food has been engineered for almost 10 years, and 70% of processed foods now in supermarkets contain GE ingredients. USDA is encouraging corporations to engineer new fruits and vegetables, and has allowed the planting of food crops engineered to make industrial chemicals and drugs at secret locations around the country."

by Suzanne Wuerthele, Ph.D., (with permission - 05/2005)
Chair, Genetic Engineering Committee
Rocky Mountain Chapter, Sierra Club

Biopiracy:

"Biopiracy is the Columbian 'discovery' 500 years after Columbus.  Through patents and genetic engineering, new colonies are being carved out.  The land, the forests, the rivers, the oceans, and the atmosphere have all been colonized, eroded, and polluted.  Capital now has to look for new colonies to invade and exploit for its further accumulation.  These new colonies are, in my view, the interior spaces of the bodies of women, plants, and animals."

     - Physicist Vandana Shiva from the introduction to her book Biopiracy

Biopiracy is the illegal appropriation and patenting of life -- plants, animals, soils, humans -- by transnational corporations, universities and governments using indigenous knowledge to facilitate their research. Biopiracy is an often-overlooked violation of the human rights and the autonomy of indigenous peoples all over the world. As a result, underdeveloped countries with indigenous populations and rich environments are now becoming the laboratories for new drugs, seed varieties, chemicals, and cosmetics.

     - From Global Exchange 2001

Jonas Salk, discoverer of the first safe and effective polio vaccine, refused to patent it for his personal profit! He wished to see it disseminated as quickly and as widely as possible and patenting would have hampered this. When asked who owned the patent, Salk replied: "There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?"

Hazards of Genetically Engineered Foods and Crops:
Why We Need A Global Moratorium

"Gene engineers all over the world are now snipping, inserting, recombining, rearranging, editing, and programming genetic material.  Animal genes and even human genes are randomly inserted into the chromosomes of plants, fish, and animals, creating heretofore unimaginable transgenic life forms."

     - Ronnie Cummins, BioDemocracy Campaign & Organic Consumers Association

The CBS Evening News ran a report about the threat of "Super Salmon" (gene-alatered to grow larger and quicker)
escaping into the wild and genetically polluting a species already near extinction. The CBS report expressed some hope that
our government was scrutinizing the proposed release of such Salmon.

     - May 08, 2002

Who's Afraid of Frankenfood?

"Americans have seemed indifferent to genetically modified foods, not that they have much choice: half of all soybeans, about a third of the corn crop and substantial quantities of the potatoes grown in the U.S. come from plants that have been genetically altered."

     - Frederic Golden, TIME Magazine, November 29, 1999,   p. 49

Genetic Blueprints Aren't Mere Utilities:
Biotechnology: We can't let a few conglomerates control the codes of life and trade them as commercial goods;

"The concentration of power is already impressive.  The top 10 agrochemical companies control 81% of the global agrochemical market.  Ten life science companies control 37% of the global seed market.  The world's 10 major pharmaceutical companies control 47% of its market.  Topping the life science list are 10 transnational food and drink companies whose sales exceeded $211 billion in 1995."

     - Jeremy Rifkin, author of The Biotech Century: Harnessing the Gene and Remaking the World, from an LA Times Commentary on Wednesday, July 8, 1998 Home Edition, Metro Section, p. B-7

Definitions:

• Bioethics: biology combined with diverse humanistic knowledge forging a science that sets a system on medical and environmental priorities for acceptable survival
• Cloning: is the copy of a recombinant molecule of DNA. It is the asexual reproduction from a cell mother, using genetically identical cells between it to the cell ancestor. The word cloning comes from the Greek "klonos" which means branching or budding - kind of like "sprout"
• Gene: the unit of DNA with capacity to synthesize a protein
• Genetic Engineering: the set of techniques capable to allow the identification, manipulation, and multiplication of genes of the living creatures' organisms
• Genoma: all the contained genetic material in the chromosomes of an organism is known as genoma. It can still be defined as the set of genes of a species
• Telomeres: caps of DNA at the ends of chromosomes which are believed to determine how long an organism lives
• Transgenic Animal: any animal into which cloned genetic material has been transferred
• Xenotransplantation: the transplantation of nonhuman organs into humans

Links and References:

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