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." The agency's weaknesses "increase the risk that regulated genetically engineered organisms will inadvertently persist in the environment."

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."

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.

Jeffrey M. Smith is the author of Seeds of Deception: Exposing Industry and Government Lies About the Safety of the Genetically Engineered Foods You're Eating and Genetic Roulette: The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Foods from Chelsea Green Publishing. Smith worked at a GMO detection laboratory, founded the Institute for Responsible Technology, and currently lives in Iowa—surrounded by genetically modified corn and soybeans. For more information, visit Chelsea Green.

Comments

[Bixx]

Not sure if anyone is reading this anymore, but I had a question. Does anyone know a Mr. Hans Lombard?

On November 22, I wrote a blog post about the Austrian study that found reduced fertility in mice fed Monsanto's GM corn:
http://fanaticcook.blogspot.com/2008/11/genetically-modified-corn-found-to.html

A Mr. Hans Lombard, who described himself as an "independent agricultural analyst" representing the "ag industry" has contacted me a number of times since, telling me my post is "flawed" and "misleading" and insisting that I post that there is, in fact, no health threat associated with GM corn, that the Austrian study was flawed.

Has anyone else experienced this?

[ProblemAlert]

INFANT FORMULAS: from Ross Nutritionals, Similac and Isomil and their entire line, plus MeadJohnson, such as Enfamil and Prosobee have ROUND UP READY "RR" soy and corn products. This information is directly from the companies, which I have contacted to verify. It is NOT acceptable to be plaqued with nearly ALL processed made with with "Round-up Ready" and heavily doused with this herbicide GMO products or Bt corn, which makes its own pestiside, but especially tragic with infant formula--it is further outrage. If the practice of planting GMO soy, corn, cotton and canola doesn't stop now--there will be no option for produce enough infant formula without these dangerous health risk ingredients to our infants!

Also, unless milk and cheese are marked at rbGH-free--don't buy them!

We have to see the FDA, under the corrupt leadership of Michael Taylor, of/on employed by Monsanto, the GMO and chemical giant company allow growth hormone to taint our milk supply and "Round-up Ready forms of corn 66+%, soy 90%, cotton, canola to poison our food and not let us know what they were quietly doing.

Farmers--stop GMO for the 2009 season. Americans, Europeans and no-one wants or needs them! Ultimately, it will be market pressureGMO seeds need to be stopped in the 2009 growing season.

[Bixx]

Thank you.

You know, if eating GMOs produced very quick and tangible effects, like a bad rash or diarrhea, people might pay more attention. But it seems the effects, as I'm coming to learn, are more insidious ... slow to be recognized (if you can assign blame at all), and dangerous, both to the environment and to human health. With this disconnect, I can understand why those of us who are concerned get referred to as Luddites.

It's a shame you can't incorporate a detection molecule, as was done with natural gas, that would warn of GE substances in the vicinity, but that would defeat the purpose of having GMOs as invisible and seemingly innocuous as possible.

[Bixx]

Another great, timely post.
(The link to the USDA's "proposed ruling" seems to be broken? It gives me "Page Not Found".)

[marbac]

Another one perhaps can be explored as it holds the same destructive interferences; that of "ultraviolet light water treatment". This process parallels the same genetic mutation carried on in the world of foods. The destructive pattern deal the water molecule by this process is scary to say the least. It is hidden, unseen and unnoticed. We consume this effected water in untold quantities and without a single thought as to its effects. The energy delivery pattern is so altered that the burden on the body to reconstruct and assimilate is difficult at best. Be aware that this process is quite foreign to Nature's purification and energy charging process, where ozone, oxygen, hydrogen peroxide, movement, earth, crystals, magnetic patterns, etc., influence every molecule. More important than food is the water we consume everyday. The gift of life and the gift of water are the same. Be aware, act and be well. After all there is "Love"...the rest is "teamwork"!

[marbac]

, his message re-emphases the position taken by these "visionary experts" in attempting to take control of Nature. The pattern of all we see in Nature is not just in the beholding, but hidden deeper is the "energetic delivery pattern" of all Her offerings. Altering this pattern voids the possibility of a long healthful life. The principles behind our existence relies on the truth that the atom is at first an "energy delivery system" for all of life. This message was indicated in the words, "What God put together". In mutating these vital foods we have altered this pattern, as a result the smooth flow of energy cannot be. The resistance these altered patterns create are not compatible with our inherent energy system as humans. These foods place tremendous burdens of processing our exact systems are loath to deal with and provide unmistakable signs of non adaptability in the forms of illness and poor health. In this world of bounty and potential bounty, there have been many who have provided messages of abundance through correct "energetic" transfer.