Another point that should be made here is the fact that proponents of GM foods resist all attempts by others to make them label their product. And this is the crux of the matter. In Europe where people demanded that GM foods be labelled, the huge food conglomerates like Nestle, etc, decided it would be too much trouble and thus they just don't use them, whereas in the US and Canada, where it has been hushed up, and labelling forgotten, these same companies put them in their products. If our governments demanded that they be labelled so the consumer can decide (which is only fair), I think you'd see these companies forgetting about GM foods.

When a product is not labelled, there is no traceability, and that is one of the reasons GM food proponents do not want them labelled. Say we have a huge outbreak where dozens of people die, and hundreds more are sick, and it is some GM food that is the cause. We look closely and what do we find that links these cases together? Nothing. Because there is nothing that connects a myriad of products to the one common factor, the GM food. No one knows this product has GM organisms so why would we think that might be the reason. On the other hand, if all these products are labelled as containing GM organisms, then when we look, we go AHA, they all have GM organisms, that must be the reason all these people are dying and getting sick. Proper labelling of these products is therefore vital, and yet like sheep, people just accept lameass reasoning from their elected officials. Come on people, do you not care what you are eating anymore?

Incidentally, with traceability comes liability.

GM foods have never been tested to see if they are safe. The FDA made an assumption that a GM product is the same as a natural product. An apple is an apple....but is it? The Japanese refuse to use GM foods, and one trade ambassador suggested the Japanese are watching what happens in the US to see the result of this live experiment....

Persoanlly I don't like being treated as a guinea pig. I guess dkm does.

Has anyone considered the government knows exactly what they are doing by introducing this potentially killer product to its' own populace? Imagine how much money can be saved if all those people who collect old age pensions and healthcare after turning 65, died at 64...

dkm's point is THE justification for the existence of GM crops - science to the rescue of a burgeoning global population!

There is also the profit motive driving agribusiness to greaters efficiencies, and ultimately, madness.

And don't forget the primordial urge of Dr. Frankenstein to play with nature, which is the raison d'etre of science.

Suzuki tries very hard to be objective. As a scientist himself he is not a priori opposed to GM.

The issue that seems to most concern him is the lack of oversight.

Where is the people's government to enforce the interests of the environment, other species, and humanity?

There may not be, and very likely isn't a political solution to overpopulation, but we do have the ways and means to oversee the GM industry before the Horsemen arrive and lay waste to our delusions.

We should do what we can while we can do it, just so we can say we tried and feel better. Take back control of the people's government!

Right on!

But we have handed the reigns to private industry.

Therefore, we have ceded control of our food future to Dr. Frankenstein.

There's no need to belabor the consequences.

Foamweapons and CAfarmer.
Thank you for your great info.
In the US Census 2001, Mississipi had 31% of total population with a BMI over 30(Obese),with most Southern States 26-29% range. In 2005, it found that more than 33% of all US pop. was now there.
When I moved to TN from Canada in 1997 I weighed 220 lbs when I moved back to Canada in 2004 I wiihed 315 lbs. That's obese even at 6'2"
My 21 year old male patient was 525 lbs. Another 8 year old boy grade 4 was 184 lbs 4'". His brother 14 yrs,was 5'4" and weighed 244 lbs. Mother said they liked to eat.We need wider airline,bus car seats,etc wider clothes, more gastric banding ,knee replacement etc We will sink the Continent (I live in Canada).

CAfarmer, Ubrew12, and Peter W thank you for your informed response to the contentions made by dkm. You raise all the good points, but left me one! Conservation! Apart from the obvious obesity in America, how about all the waste? I use the name SIOUX because I identify with many Indigenous teachings, like honoring what we have and using what we need. Not more. It more than astounds me when I eat dinner out and see what Americans throw away. As children many of us heard that we should clean our plates (as per the non sequitir) because children are starving in other parts of the world. There is a truth in this. If we, in America, used less perhaps there would be more to go around. I remember one client of mine on a trust fund whose fridge was filled to the gills. She sat down and ate lunch in front of me without asking if I wanted anything to eat! I have another friend who overbuys produce and whenever I visit, they throw TONS of fruit and vegetables away. I believe this is a spiritual sin. People use so much paper towel and forget the trees. WASTE is a big problem in America. If people were more careful about what they consumed, that, too would impact growing patterns. Other writers have pointed out the waste in transportation costs to get products that are non-native across the nation to a niche market a thousand or so miles away. And the "shotgun" wedding of species nature never intended to marry is another HUGE no-no whose ultimate effects are yet to be realized. Thanks for sharing INFORMED opinions, guys.

The unintended consequences of GM crops will become apparent. But will humankind be able to recover?

What can I say ,but that I was under the impression that these Frankin crops were still in the experimental stage.

I knew many countries were fighting to keep then out of their fields.

Imagine we American just like the fall of Rome with the overuse of lead in their eating utensils, just might be heading down that same destructive path with our Frankincrops and Frankinforest.
But with this action it seems we want to take the rest of humankind with us.

Now let me get this straight again about how humans are superior to everything else on this planet. wasn't it about Because We can Think? and of course our thumbs which it seems most of us are spending so much time rotating on them.
Why do I even bother? Oh maybe for my own sanity. That is if I can trust my own diagnosis

dkm, I think the major difference between GM and conventional breeding is the integration of genes from totally different species. There is no natural process that would embed the genes of an arctic fish into a tomato, but this is the vision of transgenics. Given the vast areas of biochemistry that are still poorly understood, I think Suzuki is right to be cautious.

I think your point about food quantity is absolutely valid. Conventional agriculture can give you greater yields, if you're prepared to tolerate the long-term soil erosion. But I think the real solution is Biontensive organic farming, which is low-input and can offer incredible productivity, especially for small-scale farmers.

Personally, my greatest concern is the social impact of GMO crops. The patenting of life forms, and the patenting of food, have the potential to be profoundly undemocratic. Farmers lose their independence when they depend on Terminator technology. In poor countries, governments already have a hard enough time treating food as a basic human right. Imagine a world where the food supply is controlled by companies like Monsanto and Syngenta, and it becomes impossible to choose grow organically because you can't find pure enough farmland.

I'm much more comfortable with conventional breeding in *combination* with gene assaying, where researchers can study the genes that emerge in the crops, and intelligently select the best ones. The most exciting aspect of this method is that it's patent-free.

I hope Madhoosier is being satirical! Does anybody really believe that pesticides are safe for amphibians "when used according to label directions"? Physical defects in frogs have been connected to Roundup and plenty of other herbicides/pesticides yet they are still on the market.
Ethanol is a perfect reason to justify the use of GM corn. The Golden Rice debacle didn't quite work out and save millions of cases of blindness, so now big corn is going to save us from the hands of Middle Eastern terrorists and oil extortionists (oh that's right the oil extortionists are U.S. companies, aren't they?)
The Precautionary Principle says if a new product is not proven to be safe, it should not be used without further testing. The industrial model in use throughout history says it's OK to use a product until a sufficiently huge human or environmental toll has been proven without a doubt (and then, in the case of DDT, continue to use it in Third World countries anyway).
GM products have not been proven to be environmentally safe or healthy for humans because the tests have simply not been done! Like ghostbuster wrote, the corporations won't spend the money - and the USDA and the patent office won't go up against the corporations, so these crops are slipped into the food chain without public notice!

What seems to be killing us in the industrialized nations is obesity; in the third world, starvation. Everything we do has a risk and a benefit, including breeding. The West shuddered when China put in the one-child policy--loss of freedom--yet, it was a good idea except for the killing of female children (interestingly, in controlling animal over-population, such as deer, culling females is common). No one would suggest that alternative as it is morally repugnant. So is obesity on one side of the ocean and starvation on the other. Poor agricultural practices occur whether organic or conventional; the latter has given us plenty of cheap, good food but at a price. Now, corn is being sought after as fuel. Cheap fuel. Large conventional farms are buying smaller (but not Ma and Pa) organic farms--covers the whole market doesn't it, just as big pharms are buying up alternative medicines--but nothing really gets solved because the market makes the decisions. And it will and is with GM crops. No time to check things out--takes time and therefore profits out of the pockets of CEOs. I grow my own garden; I over plant so that eventually there is enough to feed the insects, the slugs, and me, but that isn't very efficient. Most people cannot grow their own gardens, or buy dubious fresh organic products--14 day old peppers from somewhere--and pesticides are more harmful to the bug world than to us because there are usually very little of them left on produce that won't be washed off completely--in fact, vegetables have their own, more highly concentrated carcinogens used to ward off insects. More people will die from obesity-related illnesses than consumming extremely small traces of pesticides, yet they fear them not the Big Mac or worse, the smoke at the end of the meal. One has to weight risks and benefits. No free rides, I am afraid, either biologically, or politically.

I'm sure the decline in amphibian populations just happens to correspond with the widespread use of Roundup, IT'S A FREAKIN COINCIDENCE. Having lived in farm country my entire life I'm also sure that it's a coincidence that you don't have to wash the bugs off the windshield of your car with every fill-up. After all, to be approved for use a product like Roundup would be tested to make sure that it didn't kill amphibians when used according to label directions, wouldn't it?

And it's not like most of these crops are even eaten or enter the food chain, by the harvest of 2008 America will have enough ethanol refineries on line to convert every bushel of corn we now export into SUV juice, the billion people that survive by eating America's corn exports (the U.S. accounts for 75% of the world's corn exports) can always spend three times their income for their food. (Like many Americans who've borrowed three times their income to buy boats and designer clothes.)

My original concern about GM foods seems to mirror Suzuki's: they constitute 'introduced species'. Ecologists estimate that 1/3 of the biodiversity die-off that has occurred in the last 150 years is due to introduced species (the other 2/3 is habitat destruction). When you genetically engineer frost tolerance into strawberries, for example, its just a matter of time before this shows up in the native population, extending the range of strawberries at the expense of other natural species. I'd prefer to advance my foods without destroying natural bio-diversity, if at all possible. We've been down that road before, and have rued the direction it took us.

60% of corn in the U.S. is genetically modified. It seems like a majority of non-organic products, including bread, condiments, granola bars, cereal, all processed food and all frozen dinners have High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) in them.

HFCS comes from this GM corn. Some of this GM corn can cause horrible health problems: http://www.newstarget.com/021784.html

America is different because we put HFCS in all foods, when other nations use sugar. For example if you bought Heinz Ketchup in Canada, it has sugar in it, whereas in America they use HFCS, because HFCS costs less due to huge corn subsidies to corporate agriculture.

If within the next 5-10 years, there isn't an outbreak of major health problems across the U.S. from the contaminated food supply (and all the GM corn we eat) I will be very surprised. Let's hope I'm wrong, but overall I think America is pretty screwed.

In answer to some of dkm's concerns:

Yes the world population has doubled, but food production is still not the problem. There is enough food, just not in the right places. Producing huge amounts of grain in the U.S., bolstered by government subsidies makes it possible for grain buyers to produce pseudo-foods like high fructose corn syrup cheaply. It does little to help starving children and it is devastatingly unhealthy to our own population (read diabetes, cardiovascular disease, obesity).
GM food production will continue to support this system because GM crops can only be produced in the industrial systems prevalent in the U.S. We are happily exporting this technology along with the equipment to use it to the rest of the world (along with copious supplies of the aforementioned unhealthy "food" products. Instead we should be exporting sustainable farming techniques which help small farmers to produce local food which their neighbors can afford.
Small farmers CAN produce enough food to feed the world.
Have a look at the food production happening in Havana, Cuba on inner-city lots. Look at the methods being supported by Heifer International. Check out Appropriate Technology Transfer for Rural Areas (ATTRA).
There are simple answers to food security that don't involve GM crops, deforestation, herbicide spraying or environmental devastation.
"Give a man a sack of GM corn and you feed him for a month. Teach a man to grow organic spelt and he can feed himself and a few of the neighbors."

Plant a garden or if you can afford it buy organic locally grown food.

Loss of profitability and regulation are the only two brakes that can be put on the excesses of capitalism. You can only count on own your direct action.

No article I have ever read on the subject of GM organisms, including this one, has ever made the case for why GM is so dangerous, but traditional methods of plant breeding are not. No one has ever even attempted to make a valid distinction, rather they transgess into religion, philosophy, "natural" (whatever that means), or similar nonscientific rants. This article itself is not totally upfront. He does admit that Bt crops support more nonpest insect life than conventional crops, but then he goes on, "Of course, insecticide-free control fields still had the greatest number of insects overall." What he forgets to mention is that the extra insects were the ones that were eating the plants. Notice that he didn't comment on food production in the insecticide-free controls compared with GM fields.

Face it, people. We have doubled the world population in less than 40 years, and it will keep on growing. The amount of arable land is not increasing, rather, thanks to "development," it is actually decreasing. How do you expect to increase crop yields enough to prevent more deforestation, desertification, and other environmental catastrophes that will themselves doom humankind? The Four Horsemen will not be denied. Bush has chosen war. The Luddites are choosing famine. Pestilence is on the move thanks, in part, to Global Warming and to overcrowding. And Death follows them all. If you want to stave off the inevitable for another century or two, you need to come up with a food source, and, in the absence of a Calvin's transmogrifier, GM is the only game in town, and it needs to be used by organizations that care about people, not just corporations.

Suzuki's warning is extremely serious.

Using transgenic organisms to save a couple of bucks is insane when these orgamisms could seriously threaten our eco system.

It's time to rethink capitalism and free markets.

And scientists wonder why the bees are disappearing...

It's such a shame that so many believe that the world isn't big enough for all the creatures that are here.

Suzuki also didn't mention that when consuming GE crops the mutant DNA can transfer to the bacteria in the intestine and pose grave health risks.

Mother Jones has done excellent articles on this topic. Two points the above article does not mention is that when farmers PREFER organic methods and these Franken-seeds blow by wind or water to their land, spies from the biotech companies try to FINE them for using biotech seeds that are under copyright! Also, while it's all so charming to hear about BT, the same thing is going on with SOY which is a stable food to many nations and a prefered protein for vegetarians. It stands to reason that if herbicides become bonded to a plant, some of it will be ingested by people eating that tofu! This IS a health problem... although it might take a lot more product to be consumed before a vegetarian lays out on the floor upside down rocking his limbs, the SAME toxic biological process is certainly caused (if on smaller scale) by ingesting these grotesque anti-life chemicals. I'll take my produce pesticide/herbicide free... and wash off the bugs as need be. Check out the FINDHORN GARDEN in Scotland for a really metaphysical application of organic gardening!

Suzuki!
Used to watch your show all the time. A Planet For the Taking might have bene 20 years old but its as timely as ever.

Science has run amuck. They want to release GM mosquitos into the wild in order to fight malaria. Just cannot fathom the infantile wreckless thinking of scientists and their supporters who think they know everything about nature and can play around with it.

Interesting comparison with the articles today on stem-cell research. Our leaders show more concern for a single discarded human embryo than for the well-being of our planet.