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TechnoratiMonsanto Planting Cyber Seeds
Earlier this month, a blogger named Brad fired a virtual salvo at Jeffrey Smith, the author of "Seeds of Deception" and one of the most vocal crusaders against genetically modified foods.
In a 600-word post, Brad questioned the credibility of an online petition on Smith's website, urging the administration of President Barack Obama to require labeling of biotech foods. He called the petition "sheer political theater" and prodded the activist for purportedly being a yogic flying instructor.
More than 30 comments followed in the next few weeks. On one level, the exchange was just another online debate about GMOs. But this one was notable because of who initiated and hosted it: Monsanto Co.
For years, environmental and food activists have made good use of YouTube video and Facebook to skewer Monsanto in the blogosphere. Now, the biotech giant is turning the tables.
The company's blog, Monsanto According to Monsanto, made its debut Feb. 10, and it is the company's latest tool to engage critics on hot-button issues such as food labeling. The title spoofs a documentary by French journalist Marie-Monique Robin that has been viewed more than 47,000 times on YouTube.
Beside the blog, Monsanto has hired a full-time social media specialist, Kathleen Manning. It has almost 600 followers on the Web-based short messaging system Twitter, started a YouTube channel and launched a Facebook page. The company is also developing a version of its website for cell phones and Blackberries and is creating MonsantoTV.
Glynn Young, a Monsanto manager in his second stint with the company, is heading the effort. Before rejoining the company in 2004, Young, 57, worked for St. Louis Public Schools, where he had a trial by fire in crisis management earlier this decade after the district slashed its budget, cut staff and closed schools.
Monsanto's presence on the Web has evolved during the last few years. But only last year did the company decide to delve into social media as it witnessed the upheaval of traditional media and realized that its existing outreach vehicle - news releases - wasn't enough.
"We asked ourselves, 'Is this a space we should be participating in?' The answer was 'yes,'" Young said.
While some consumer companies have used blogs and Twitter to promote their products, Monsanto views social media as a forum to discuss key issues with critics, investors and customers.
"There was this big conversation going on (on the Internet), and we weren't a part of it," said John Combest, a manager in public affairs at Monsanto and one of the bloggers.
There was one particular instance that opened the company's eyes to the power of social media. It happened at last summer's Farm Progress Show in Boone, Iowa, when the company learned, much to its surprise, that some Wall Street analysts had been following an agronomist's blog that chronicled the progress of Monsanto's "Golden Acre" plot, which showcases some of its crops under development.
But just Google the company's name and it quickly becomes obvious that blogs and social media haven't been kind to Monsanto, based in Creve Coeur.
Monsanto has been in the cross hairs of social activists for decades, going back to its days as a maker of Agent Orange and PCBs. That didn't change with the company's new focus on biotech and agriculture.
A decade ago, activists expressed themselves by torching fields of genetically modified crops and throwing tofu cream pies at Monsanto's chairman. These days, activists are challenging the company through the use of YouTube videos and countless blogs that demonize GMOs.
Facebook, the social networking site, is full of anti-Monsanto groups, including one, Millions Against Monsanto, with more than 22,000 members. Another group's avatar depicts CEO Hugh Grant with a handful of soybeans. Below the words: "No Food Shall Be Grown That We Don't Own." It seems there's a way to revile the company in any language.
Nora Ganim Barnes has studied corporate use of social media at the Center for Marketing Research at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, and urges companies to not let online criticism go unchallenged.
"We advise companies to listen to what's being said about them in social media and get into social media to reply," she said.
One example of a company that effectively did that is PC maker Dell Corp. Dell-bashing escalated a few years ago, giving rise to the term "Dell Hell." When the company finally started its own blog, it became the forum of choice for critics.
Monsanto similarly appears to be trying to steer discussion about critical issues to its blog so it's easier to influence the debate, Barnes said.
"Now they're controlling the posts, they're answering the questions, they're directing them to different places within Monsanto and maybe another site," she said. "They've taken control of the situation."
The company and its critics agreed on one thing: Food is an emotional issue. Knowing that, Monsanto hopes using social media will help put a human face on the company and connect with people who might perceive it as a monolith trying to dominate global agriculture.
Bonnie Azab Powell, a food politics journalist in California and co-founder and editor of The Ethicurian (www.ethicurean.com), a three-year-old blog about food, sees that as a challenge.
"I admire their effort and I'm sure they have a lot of money to spend," she said. But "the hostility toward the company is very real, and it's not going to be corrected by investing heavily in social media."
There are six dedicated bloggers at Monsanto. But any employee is allowed - even encouraged - to participate. A frequent contributor is Daniel Goldstein, a pediatrician who works as Monsanto's senior scientist in residence.
The "official" bloggers go by their first names and are represented by personalized South Park avatars. That decision, Young said, "engendered a lot of discussion at levels above me."
Comments on the blog (blog.monsantoblog.com) are patrolled and answered, but they'll be permitted to stand unless they contain profanity or personal attacks. That's true even if they criticize the company, Young said.
"As long as it's trying to engage in a civil way, that's fine," he said. "But we're not going to let unsubstantiated vitriol go unchallenged."
Bloggers also watch what is said about the company on other agriculture and biotech-themed blogs, such as Biofortified.org.
Just last week, Monsanto made a splash at OpEdNews.com. The company cross-posted three of its blog posts on the liberal website. Also last week, the site's editor and publisher, Robb Kall, posted a poll for readers asking them if the company should be allowed to cross-post its blog entries.
"One could argue that getting them into a conversation is a good thing," he wrote. "Or one can argue that they have billions to promote their message and OEN should not help them sell their propaganda." As of Friday, 420 readers had responded; 236 of them voted against letting Monsanto post articles on the site.
To be sure, Monsanto acknowledges it is still feeling its way around in the world of Web 2.0. "It's a sea change for us," Young said. "We're kind of going at this in baby steps."
In the end, the company knows it might not win over its critics. But it will continue to engage them.
"We're not asking people to love us," Young said. "And we don't mind critics, but we'd like more informed critics."
41 Comments so far
Show All...a few thoughts from a gm farmer: "No matter what resistance management strategies will be used, pests will adapt and overcome the agronomic constraints. Diseases and pests have always been amplified by changes toward homogeneous agriculture." This is absolutely true. To put it in technical terms, one can overpower Mother Nature for a time, but she always comes back (personally I hope and trust not as a Bride of Frankenstein). "INDUSTRIAL AGRICULTURE IS MADNESS if we look at the true costs..." These statements are quite possibly true, I don't know, but having all small farmers and no larger ones, would likely leave most of these figures more or less unchanged, and in one or two cases worse. I do however think it is excruciatingly sad that 90% of taxpayer subsidies go to the biggest farmers. While I realize it makes no economic or ecological sense, I love the ability to buy a red pepper in the winter. Also, as I mentioned elsewhere, changing patent laws is the best way to scale back the gm tide.
Here's how factory farming beef industry defends application of growth-promoting hormones, through a state university:
http://beef.unl.edu/FAQ/200807020.shtml
Basically, what they say is that growth-promoters are absolutelly harmless.
Snippets:
"...FDA has set a tolerance on estrogen levels in beef from cattle receiving an estrogen-containing implant. The safe level is 21 billionths of a gram. On average, a serving of beef actually has a fraction of that allowable level - .3 billionths of a gram - nearly 57,000 times lower than what the FDA allows, and thousands of times lower than what our bodies naturally produce, not to mention a fraction of what is present in many other foods such as soybean oil, cabbage, cereals and grains."
"The human body produces hormones in quantities much greater than could ever be consumed by eating any food. In fact, the average man or woman daily produces 35,000 times more hormones than could be present in beef or other food."
Even if it's true, I'd prefer natural food over industrially grown one.
I have not done any research on a question I've had, so perhaps I should. I've wondered for a long time why the age of children's sexual maturity, the onset of adolescence, has so dramatically dropped in the last 30-50 years. I hear about "animal growth hormones" being fed to animals we eat and whose milk we drink and really wonder if there's a connection.
"I've wondered for a long time why the age of children's sexual maturity, the onset of adolescence, has so dramatically dropped in the last 30-50 years. I hear about "animal growth hormones" being fed to animals we eat and whose milk we drink and really wonder if there's a connection."
Firstly, is there any real evidence that children's sexual maturity has really changed? Secondly why are you limiting the time period to the last 30-50 years? Why not the last 100 years? 200 years? And how about the onset of sexual maturity in other cultures? Other cultures, at least in the past, where people married, and had children, at (very) young ages?
You are correct that the onset of puberty has been decreasing for a long long time. But as I said, I haven't done much research. I have certainly noticed it in my lifetime.
There are now occasionally girls who develop menarche and breasts by age three. At age six it happens more often.
Nobody can give definitive answers why. I've seen television, diet, divorced parents, mother's diet during pregnancy, and external pressures all cited as the reason. Growth hormones given to animals whose flesh we eat and milk we drink are also cited.
Humans have been using bovine growth hormones as well as estrogen, another hormone, since the 1930s to increase milk production and growth in cows and other animals, like chickens.
http://envirocancer.cornell.edu/Factsheet/Diet/fs37.hormones.cfm
We even know that the hormones in birth control pills are excreted in the urine and eventually end up in rivers and streams. Studies have shown the feminizing effects of these "freed" hormones in the water supply on fish, animals, and humans. (See Sioux Rose's comment just below about the trickle-down effect on humans of feed additives by agribusiness.)
Some day the research will zero in on what the food and drug industries have caused in human beings, and I don't think we'll be happy about all of it.
Don't get me wrong, I'm well aware of the feminising effect of various substances in the environment, food, water etc, as a result of modern day industrialisation and industrial farming. I'm not questioning that. I've been aware of those studies for the past 10 years or so.
Sioux Rose
ANNEY: I posted this info a while back, maybe you missed it. Young boys were developing BREASTS in Puerto Rico, which naturally bothered the parents in such a machismo-based land. It turned out that hormone levels in chicken feed were very high and the boys ingesting the chickens/eggs developed breasts.
The US still exports lots of chemicals banned in our own mainland, but oftentimes the DDT and other chemicals, like Malathion, wash back to us in the form of what won't wash away on imported produce.
1) INDUSTRIAL AGRICULTURE IS MADNESS if we look at the true costs...
• 1 000 tonnes of water are consumed to produce one tonne of grain
• 10 energy units are spent for every energy unit of food on our dinner
table
• 1 000 energy units are used for every energy unit of processed food
• 20% of all greenhouse gases in the world come from current agriculture
• US$318 billion of taxpayer's money was spent to subsidize agriculture in
OECD countries in 2002, while more than 2 billion subsistence farmers in
developing countries tried to survive on $2 a day
• 90% of the agricultural subsidies benefit corporations and big farmers
growing food for export; while 500 family farms close down every week in
the United States
GM crops are promoted by the same companies that profit from this perverted system: Vandana Shiva called it rightly “a war against eco-systems”.
Transnational corporations want broad international markets for a single product, thus creating the conditions for GENETIC UNIFORMITY in rural landscapes. In addition, patent protection and intellectual property rights are inhibiting farmers from re-using, sharing and storing seeds so only aat few varieties will dominate the seed market.
We know from the history of agriculture that plant diseases, insect pests and weeds become more severe with the development of monoculture, and that intensively managed and genetically manipulated crops soon lose genetic diversity. Given these facts, it is not surprising that resistance to transgenic crops is beginning to evolve among insects, weeds and pathogens, as has happened with pesticides.
No matter what resistance management strategies will be used, pests will adapt and overcome the agronomic constraints. Diseases and pests have always been amplified by changes toward homogeneous agriculture.
2) GENETIC ENGINEERING is based on FALSE ASSUMPTIONS:
• Each gene is an independent unit of information. Each gene adds one trait to the build-up and behaviour of the organism.
• The information of each gene is expressed straightforwardly without any kind of interaction.
• The genes are stable. They do not change unless mutations occur because of damage such as radioactive irradiation. Therefore the genes are normally passed to the next generation without any changes.
• Genes or sets of genes cannot change in response to the environment.
According to these asssumptions (genes as the great "dictators" of life) it is meaningful to hunt genes that cause undesirable properties and it is as well meaningful to insert new and desirable genes in an organism in order to "tailor" "better" organisms. But all these basic assumptions of genetic determinism have been contradicted by scientific findings.
The expression of each gene is the result of interaction with the totality of the internal and external environment.
Genes are variable, changing their behaviour and even their structure because of influences from other genes or because of influences from the conditions in the cell and the environment. So a gene is not a context-independent carrier of a specific property as was commonly believed when genetic engineering was invented over 20 years ago. Insertion of a gene to a different species may therefore give unpredictable effects.
Because of the context dependence of a gene it is impossible to predict and master the effects of gene insertion. It may seem that the desired property has been added to the new food plant. But in addition, a number of unexpected other changes may have occurred. There are also other factors that add to the likeliness of unexpected changes Including possible appearance of some harmful substance that may be difficult to detect reliably because of the limitations of present safety assessment technologies
Most importantly, the gene in this network of interactions is not stable. There are a number of different mechanisms that are designed to destabilize the genes under certain conditions inside and outside the body. The DNA may mutate and new pieces may be inserted or pieces may be deleted or multiplied many times.
Sequences of the genetic code may be rearranged or combined with other sequences. Some genes can jump around between different places in the chromosomes. Some genes can convert other genes to their own DNA sequence. Geneticists have coined the phrases "fluid genome" to describe this behaviour of the totality of the genes, the genome.
These fluid genome processes are not at all haphazard, accidental or meaningless. They occur, under the control of the cell, as adaptive responses to various conditions.
For example, plants exposed to herbicides or insects to insecticides are able to respond by mutations that make them resistant to the harmful influence. This has been interpreted as an expression of reverse information flow from the environment to the DNA. Contrary to the old concept, it has been found that starving bacteria and yeast cells have developed what have been called "directed"or "adaptive muations". They responded directly to substances that they are normally unable to metabolize by mutating so that they became able to feed upon this new nutritional source.
More information:
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/FAQ.php
An important contribution to understand the geopolitical perspective of GE /food control can be found here:
http://www.mindfully.org/GE/2005/Geopolitics-GM-Food6mar05.htm
toqueville
Thank you for this excellent information about unexpected activity of genes within plants and responding to environmental factors.
Your second link says this:
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The present debate over the nature of biotechnology and genetic modification of basic food such as maize or soybeans, misses the most essential point. The conversion of world agriculture by a small elite of biotech companies, most US-based, has little to do with corporate greed. It has very much to do with geopolitics and plans of some people to control world population growth over the coming decades.
The nature of American power projection in the world today rests on the development of key strategic advantages which no other combination of nations can challenge, what the Pentagon planners term, "full spectrum dominance." This includes global military dominance. It includes dominance of the world's limited, and rapidly depleting petroleum supplies. It includes control of the world's reserve currency, the dollar. And today it most definitely includes future control of world agriculture through control of GM patents and GM crops.
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While I believe that greed IS an overwhelming motive among seed corporations who are developing GM crops, I've no doubt that those higher up the food chain include agriculture in their dreams of "full spectrum dominance". They are the ones who will make sure the coffers of greedy agribusiness corps are filled to overflowing, any way they can.
Until those without conscience are stopped or brought down by the law and are no longer enabled by their superiors also without conscience or accountability, we must fight them vigorously.
I have some hopes that others in science can address the GM contamination of crops and give us some answers for neutralizing or destroying its characteristics.
The information at this link gives me hope:
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http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/42059/title/Fighting_fungal_weapons%2C_not_fungi
Researchers have created several compounds that target an enzyme that [destructive] fungi use to thwart plant defense systems.
Right now the research appears to be focused on
"the oil-producing rapeseed and canola as well as broccoli, turnip, cabbage and cauliflower. In response to stress, these plants produce brassinin, a protective chemical. But some fungi can break down brassinin, causing the damaging blackleg and black spot diseases on these valued crops.
"[Scientists] isolated the fungal enzyme that destroys the plants’ protective brassinins. Then the researchers evaluated nearly 80 plant compounds, screening for those that would inhibit the fungal enzyme. Camalexin, a compound from the plant commonly called false flax, was the strongest inhibitor of the fungal enzyme. Plants in the mustard family do not naturally produce camalexin, and the fungi that attack mustards seem unable to metabolize it. The scientists then used camalexin as a template to create several chemical compounds that specifically inhibit the fungal enzyme. These compounds are now being tested on several crops.
"The compounds have no antifungal activity," said Pedras. This is good, she notes, because many fungi are beneficial for crops. "I want strictly enzyme inhibition … the beauty of these enzymes is they are incredibly selective," she said. The research may allow agricultural scientists to be just as selective in targeting the fungal behavior that they aim to control."
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The researchers are NOT crossing unrelated plants to fight funguses but are carefully delving into plant functions and discovering what characteristics can be isolated to successfully fight destructive agricultural processes without harming plants, animals, or the earth.
SCIENCE: .... who is calling the shots?
Science is organized knowledge. Nature is organized wisdom.” Immanuel Kant
Economic dictatorship and naive worshipping of scientific and technological “progress” has brought us to the brink of an ecological catastrophe.
Before new potentially dangerous technologies are applied we must ask ourselves: What really constitutes technological progress and who decides? Which new problems could result from its application? Which people or institutions will suffer from it?
Which people / institutions will gain considerable power through the application of a technology? How much more “growth” do we need? Will it ever be enough? Can “growth” (which science is supposed to serve) be an organizing principle of a society?
It means nothing less than a reorientation about what life is really about.
Food For Thought / Quotations
“We are not masters of the technologies that drive the global economy. They condition us in many ways we have not begun to understand. Institutions that could monitor or counteract their dangerous sides are lacking. It is more than doubtful whether any modern society can restrain technological developments even if its consequences are injurious to vital human needs..
The spread of new technologies throughout the world is not working to advance human freedom. Instead it has resulted in the emancipation of market forces from social and political control”.
A basic shift in economic philosophy is needed”.
(John Gray: FALSE DAWN - The Delusions of Global Capitalism)
“Defiance of ecological laws is the opposite of progress”.
(E. F. Schumacher: Small is Beautiful)
Leonardo da Vinci
“Those who take for their standard anything but nature, the mistress of all masters, weary themselves in vain. Human subtlety will never devise an invention more beautiful, more simple or more direct than does nature because in her inventions nothing is lacking, and nothing is superfluous.”
Leondardo was a great scientist and engineer and surely not hostile to new technologies but his intensive studies of “natural design” (e.g. anatomy of birds to understand why they can fly) did not result in losing his reverence for life (nature). On the contrary – he understood that it is a form of hubris to believe that the human race can “improve” nature. (see also Bionics)
It is precisely this humility that our scientific community is lacking today and the insane idea that science can “control” the awe-inspiring complexity and interconnectedness of biological systems although it has not even figured out how they work, is frightening. Humans are extremely bad at “systemic” thinking, they prefer linear, monocausal relations (one cause, one effect) but this is not how ecological /biological systems work.
We are on the brink of a global ecological catastrophe yet the same way of thinking that brought us here is supposed to “solve” the problems it created in the first place.
The great fallacy of “genetic engineering” can be summed up in one sentence:
THE GREATEST DANGER LIES NOT IN IGNORANCE BUT IN THE ILLUSION OF KNOWLEDGE.
Albert Einstein
More Information:
http://www.fas.usda.gov/gainfiles/200501/146118437.pdf
http://www.indsp.org
http://www.psrast.org
www.monbiot.com (Corporate Phantoms)
www.iher.org.au http://www.prorev.com/genetic.htm
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Monsanto_and_the_Campaign_to_Undermine_Organics
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/FAQ.php
Sioux Rose
TOQUEVILLE: Most excellent postings! Many thanks.
Can't resist this:
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"We're not asking people to love us," Young said.
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That shouldn't be a worry.
My sister worked for many years at Monsanto. Among her various projects was an effort to improve the nutritional qualities of soy.
My sister firmly believed that what she was doing was benefitting humanity.
However, she was completely unable to accept any of the voluminous scientific documentation confirming the dangers of GMO's, information about the suicides of Indian farmers indebted to Monsanto, genetic contamination of organic farms, illegal planting and smuggling of seeds around the world, and numerous other issues. Educating her was a long, tortuous and futile exercise in cognitive disonance and denial.
I came to appreciate that this is the real complexity of the problem: the company is made of simple, basically good people who believe they are actually helping feed the world.
Genetic engineering, like splitting the atom, penetrates into the fabric of universal intelligence. This intelligence is incomprehensibly deep, unfathomable to the human mind. This level of Creation is sacred and inviolable.
These tools do not belong in the hands of simple people, or anyone at all, even if they are well intentioned. They especially do not belong in hands of those are not willing to practice what they themselves claim, which is scientific methodology. A pure scientist, unlike my sister, acknowledges emerging facts, and does not succumb to the groupthink that is required to hold a one sided view of reality.
And no, the top people at the corporation do not eat their crops...they shop at Whole Foods in St. Louis.
Do people who work for Monsanto feed their own children foods grown from genetically modified seed knowing that the long term affects of these products are unknown? Do the folks in Congress ingest these foods as they know they are supporting their own campaign coffers? Will the White House be planting GMO seeds in the new garden on the White House lawn? Will the White House be serving GMO foods to their guests at White House functions?
Will Michele Obama be feeding Malia and Sasha GMO foods?
Progressive policy proposals in reaction to the Monsontonian laissez-faire capitalist destruction include a ban on genetically modified plants that are able to pollinate naturally evolved plants. Monsonto will have to develop its own unique species that are unable to cross-pollinate and the costs of this development will be borne by Monsonto shareholders, not the public. Then we'll implement zoning restrictions to limit the many other damages of Monsonto production. Progressives are promoting enthusiastically local production by small enterprises to minimize the people's dependence on elites. All farmers/gardeners may save their own seed for replanting. Gardeners choose heirloom varieties. These have been selected to reliably pass their desirable traits on to their progeny. Farmers, ignore the advice of your university extension offices and contact your peers in other countries as sources for heirloom varieties.
To borrow the old PNAC quote, 'barring a new Pearl Harbor,' little is likely to happen unless some catastrophic event occurs. If we could somehow bar their research, they would simply move to another nation. Personally, I plant, raise, and eat gm products and feel they have their good points and bad. If you want to slow them down, change patent laws to make them less profitable for Monsanto.
"If you want to slow them down, change patent laws to make them less profitable for Monsanto."
Or, you could just require that all GMO foods be labeled. Or, allow makers of non GM foods to state that their foods are non GM. And then let consumers make their own decisions. After all that is the free market at work. Should not all believers and supporters in the free market support this? Why, when it comes to GM foods, are so many supporters of the free market, suddenly not so enthusiastic anymore of the rights of consumers to make informed choices?
Monsanto is located in a very Republican part of St. Louis County. It is represented by Todd Akin in Congress. Akin is ultra conservative.
Most environmental groups focus on either the East or West but seldom the Midwest.
It would be good to have pro-environment groups organize to support and fund an environmental candidate to challenge Akin.
St. Louis County is like a small town with respect to it's power structure. Old families and corporatists maintain control. It is a tightly knit group of persons who maintain their grip on power. Monsanto is a part of that old structure. So it will take a national and international effort to challenge Monsanto since they are so well insulated locally.
With the collapse of the financial system and because of the depression the military corporations will be reduced in power. So control of food and water are the new battle grounds. The Elites will do everything they can to control the food supply and by extension their grip on power. There are few issues more important than challenging Monsanto and other seed companies directly to break their power and to maintain natural bio-diversity. This fight is as important as the fight against slavery, for ultimately that is what it is.
There are two arguments here that really have little to do with each other. One is the Monsanto business model which is difficult to defend. The other is the value of genetic modification as a means to develop more productive plants. When Monsanto asks its critics to be more informed, it is this point where the critics, as evidenced in the preceding comments, are absolutely ignorant of what they are talking about.
You will notice that most of the objections have been pseudoreligious (playing god, natural, etc.) rather than actually reality based. The other day Pres. Obama replied to a question about why he waited several days to express his outrage at the AIG bonuses. His response was that he liked to know what he was talking about. The same thing needs to apply to the critics of GM food. Obviously there are some ways that GM is used that are nonfunctional, but that isn't because of GM. It's because of the particular application. The technique itself can and has been used to cause a lot of benefit of increased nutrition, increased digestibility, increased protein content, increased resistance to drought, increased tolerance of poor soils, and so on and so on. To pretend that since a particular gene happened to come from a fly that it is a special fly gene is to show your total ignorance of genetics. Humans and yeast share a lot of genes. Does that mean we are somehow Frankenstein monsters with a partial yeast genome?
Well here are 2 questions for you. Do you agree that GM foods should be properly labeled as such, thus allowing consumers to make their own decisions? Do you agree that producers of NON GM foods should be allowed to state that their foods are non GM?
If not, why not?
Why are the supporters of GM foods, on the whole, so resistant to GM foods being labeled as GM foods? Or, non GM foods being labeled as non GM? Why are they so fearful of the free market? Why are they so fearful of consumers making informed choices?
Your point is well taken, that criticism should be informed.
You assume that opponents to the MONSANTO effort are not informed? You assume that no independent research have studied the impact GM food have on the humans and animals who eat them?
If you care, please attend to the investigative documentaries by the film-makers, genetic specialists, farmers, and scientists who are informed and who do impart their information on the effects of MONSANTO's products.
MONSANTO condoned the science behind their production of 'Agent Orange',as an example. Why on earth, on that basis alone, would I trust them to grow my food? Why would you?
Professional critics of GM foods DO know what they're talking about. All kinds of research that Monsanto refused to do is being done by others, with alarming outcomes.
http://www.csa.com/discoveryguides/gmfood/overview.php
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Environmental activists, religious organizations, public interest groups, professional associations and other scientists and government officials have all raised concerns about GM foods, and criticized agribusiness for pursuing profit without concern for potential hazards, and the government for failing to exercise adequate regulatory oversight. It seems that everyone has a strong opinion about GM foods. Even the Vatican19 and the Prince of Wales20 have expressed their opinions. Most concerns about GM foods fall into three categories: environmental hazards, human health risks, and economic concerns.
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If you want to grow and eat GM foods, I suggest you move to a deserted island with no other land within a couple of hundred miles and do it there. This is, in fact, similar to a suggestion many have made about those companies pushing to inflict their GM crops on the rest of the world. Test your freaky insect/plant gene combinations away from the rest of us.
If my dog repeatedly shit on your lawn, would you like that? How about on your porch? How about if it followed you into your house and shit on your bed and then I charged you for stealing 'fertilizer'?
Or how about if it (the dog) just stayed home, shit a lot, barked a lot and stunk a lot? A kind of pseudo-stink and pseudo-noise, since I like my dog and its smell and bark doesn't bother me?
That should all be okay with you, eh? Dogs (like science) are man's best friend. After all.
nedlud
I hope and pray there is a special Hell for Monsanto-types and I hope and pray equally, that we can get them there as soon as possible.
Because they (and similar corporate/bureaucratic/ideological mind-sets) are creating a hell for the rest of us here on earth....
nedlud
Yeah its a slanted article. It makes Monsanto out to be the victim.
Its scary times.
What can be more common sense than not playing deity with genomes.
You have people cloning dogs and they appear on television without fear of harassment.
People worship science too much. They worry about the politicizing of science but what we need is the POLICING of science. Its upside down. In England they go after the anti-vivisection and anti GMO people.
Biotech needs to be treated like illegal drug manufacturing(which we have to thank scientists for, since they marketed cocaine and heroin as over the counter remedies before they discovered they didnt understand nature as well as they thought).
But you have the problem that the anti GM camp is so fractured. Some are against gmos because they worry about human health, others are worried about contaminating the wilds and hurting other species. Others are scientists who want to make a living by promoting more research(like the scientists who said they wanted to do more non human animal tests because GMO scientists were doing clinical trials on children. Completely despicable games and sporting with life in the name of opportunism).
Because science is worshiped--especially in pursuit of miracle cures, the voices of logic and reason against anti-Nature extremists like Monsanto are quelled.
Even issues like embryonic stem cell research are related to this.
Biotech science has run amuck.
Science and technology aren't the problem. We are blessed by them in many cases.
It is greed and lying and a will to dominate life to its detriment that are the problems.
The seed corporations are on a quest to control the world's agricultural crops if they can do it. That's greed and a power play, not science. Science being used badly, yes, like nuclear weapons.
These days, activists are challenging the company through the use of YouTube videos and countless blogs that demonize GMOs.
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The use of that word, "demonize", is unnecessary. It implies that GM crops are good but are being bad-mouthed by zealots who don't know what they're talking about.
NOTHING could be farther from the truth.
For instance, Monsanto and its brothers in crime are combining vegetable and insect genes to insert "natural" insecticides into corn and crops. This kind of cross-breeding never happens in nature, and it is having alarming effects on insect life and on the lives of animals that feed on insects. Bees and bats are disappearing.
Also the pollen of the altered (genetically-modified) crops, corn, for instance, pollinates other corn crops, wiping out their characteristics and their existence. The pollen has crossed as much as 60 miles to contaminate other corn crops.
Local indigenous corn crops of Mexico are in just this crisis because of American seed corporations' spread into Mexico. Natural selection over the millenia made the natural maize crops ideal for their location in Mexico, but in various tests, 10%-15% of the farmers' corn crops are no longer the varieties they planted -- they've got the Monsanto insecticide genes in them now.
And yes, Monsanto HAS sued farmers whose crops have been contaminated by Monsanto pollen, even used Pinkerton employees to tresspass in non-Monsanto seed farmers' fields to collect samples of their crops for testing.
Crooks and Liars had an excellent discussion on Thursday about Monsanto's actions, with a guest representative from Monsanto, Brad Mitchell.
http://crooksandliars.com/nonny-mouse/monsanto-and-hr-875-take-two
If you can wade through the comments, you'll see that every argument he puts forward about Monsanto's innocence of any wrongdoing about issues people are concerned about is crushed, with sources given.
Sioux Rose
ANNEY: Excellent points. I would like to add, however, that we are yet to understand the health impact on persons because this technology is so very new. It was thought that Thalidimide, as one example, would pose no significant risks; and that's because the risks impacted the next generation. In general, research occurs for perhaps 5 years and when no major body of side effects is noted (or the research is suppressed), then the product is marketed. We see this same thing CONSTANTLY with pharmaceutical drugs. They're "considered safe" and sold to millions essentially turning consumers INTO Guinea Pigs. Then as the data starts coming in and thousands show affliction, the product is taken off the market. Sometimes lawsuits follow, but these giant corporations are very good at delaying outcomes to lawsuits as we see in the entity of Exxon, and the big tobacco makers, among others. In each case, producers of harmful products hide behind a variety of clauses to never own any genuine level of accountability.
If for instance a generation from now disgusting side effects become legion, what will Monsanto do? Say, "sorry," or hide from culpability as they do now over the impacts Agent Orange has had upon two generations of Vietnamese citizens. If Nader had more political influence in this nation, no company would be free to pollute our bodies or natural ecosystems until it became CLEAR that their products were healthy to all, nor would profit be allowed to come before persons.
SiouxRose
What really worries me is that just about everyone in the US consumes GM corn or soy products now, unknown to them. Processed commercial foods containing corn and soy are all developed from GM crops, corn oils, potato chips, anything that substitutes soy products for milk products, etc. Only a few crops are legal for commercial agricultural growers to use so far and no home gardeners can purchase them, but the big push is to open the door to other GM crops in the US now. But agriculture isn't Monsanto's only arena.
The proposed legislation would require labeling if growing additional GM crops is legislated, but Monsanto and the other large seed corporations are fighting even the labeling tooth and nail. Monsanto doesn't want anybody to be able to reject an agricultural product that has been genetically-modified, if the labeling experience with Monsanto's Bovine Growth Hormones in milk is the future of labeling.
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https://hfa.org/campaigns/dairy.html
Because hormone-treated cows are pushed to the limits of endurance, their immune systems are weakened. Producers respond by administering more antibiotics and other drugs to keep the over-stressed animals alive.
Milk from BGH-injected cows is more likely to contain dangerous residues of the more than 80 different drugs, many of them antibiotics, used to treat sick cows. From infancy to adulthood, people are dosed with antibiotic residues that contaminate baby formula, milk, cheese, and other dairy products.
The FDA and the dairy industry claim that they test raw milk for drug contamination. But this testing is wholly inadequate. They only look for a few of the scores of drugs actually administered to dairy cows.
Furthermore, the FDA allows drug-contaminated milk to be sold as long as the residues are at a “safe” level. These so-called “safe” levels have been shown to cause increases in drug resistant strains of virulent diseases.
This alarms medical experts, such as Dr. Stuart Levy of Tufts University. Dr. Levy warns of the growing human health crisis posed by "antibiotic resistance." As disease organisms are exposed to the antibiotics used on dairy cows and other farm animals, they become increasingly resistant to drug treatment. Although exact numbers are not known, over ten thousand people probably die in the U.S. each year due to antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria. And the number of deaths is rising annually.
The FDA has been notoriously lax in dealing with the misuse of antibiotics and other drugs in the dairy industry. It is estimated that there are more than 80 different drugs currently used by milk producers. Several of these drugs are passed on to people through milk, as well as through meat from slaughtered dairy cows and calves.
Many people have had debilitating allergic reactions to these antibiotics. In addition, one of the drugs routinely found in milk is sulfamethazine. Promoted by the drug industry as "safe and effective," sulfamethazine is now known to be carcinogenic.
The FDA, however, refuses to require that milk and dairy products from BGH-injected cows be labeled, instead leaving it to the states to decide whether to regulate labeling. The FDA's refusal to label BGH-induced milk undermines the public's right to know how food is produced and how farm animals are treated.
The economic and political forces behind BGH have even worked to prevent the labeling of milk that is free of synthetic hormones. Monsanto has gone so far as to sue dairies that label their milk as being free of the artificial hormone. In addition, 4 states – Hawaii, Illinois, Nevada, and Oklahoma – banned BGH-free labeling.
A group of dairy companies, led by Ben & Jerry’s ice cream sued Illinois and the city of Chicago in May 1996 over the ban on labeling. In August 1997 Illinois agreed to settle the lawsuit and allow labeling after Ben & Jerry’s agreed to modify the “BGH-free” wording on its labels. The compromise language reads: “We oppose recombinant bovine growth hormone. The family farmers who supply our milk pledge not to treat their cows” with the hormone.
Add Maine to your list of States having to deal with Monsanto's lawyers. One of our milk companies, Oakhurst, had the audacity to state on it's labels that it was free of BGH.
Monsanto claimed that labeling the milk like that implied that BGH was unhealthy.
Monsanto was able to keep that on it's label, but had to say that there was almost no difference between BGH free and BGH containing milk.
How does a small dairy company take on Monsanto's legal department? Is that justice?
A friend of mine in Spain hates Monsanto. She makes it sound like another arrogant huge Amerikan Corporation stomping on stupid, ignorant, illiterate, non-english speakers... Yeah, let's hear it for American-style uber capitalism.
Sioux Rose
ANNEY: You have done your homework. I follow these trends, too, as a reader of Mother Jones and one with a mostly natural, vegetarian diet. You only failed to mention the irradiation of foods, another "under the radar" hazard being routinely practiced by those in the "industrial food" trade!
As we see with the "too big to fail" bank rationale, the climate of trespass is so vast in terms of what Americans are being exposed to via their diets, that from a legal perspective, it will become inordinately difficult (perhaps impossible) to establish the SINGULAR culprit to declining health. Thus the many (too big, too much) protect one another in essential crime. It is a crime against nature, and eventually an attack on human physiology. You and I recognize that one is wise to venture on the side of caution, to practice the "harm none" ethos; but a company like Monsanto, that made its profit on the chemicals of war has proven itself to be without conscience, which is to say sociopathic. Obviously they could care less about innocence until PROVEN guilty; so meanwhile it will be the kids with early onset Diabetes and the strange genetic mutations that at first will seem like odd anomalies, but grow in number.
Although this is not exactly Mother Nature's recipe for bringing population numbers down, I believe in the long-term it will have the same effect.
A bill was introduced in the Montana Legislature that would have at least given farmers a certain level of private property protection from Monsanto in the event of GM contamination. Unfortunately some politicians can be bought off with a steak dinner...
http://www.newwest.net/city/article/monsanto_hosts_dinner_for_montana_legislators_on_seed_sampling_bil...
I wonder how Monsanto would explain their suing small farmers in a bid to make those small farmers buy their seeds. There was a whole documentary on Link TV about how Monsanto took samples of canola off farmers properties without permission and if they found evidence of their product they would sue. The small farmers had no way of knowing that the wind had blown Monsanto seeds on to their properties and had no idea that Monsanto was building a case against them. If Monsanto thinks that a few blogs are going to clean up their image they are going to be very dissappointed.
P.S.
Monsanto won those cases if you can beleave that. If I was one of those farmers I would have counter sued Monsanto for not keeping their product under control and off my property.
Yes, The Future of Food. It's a great documentary, I screened it for one of the student orgs I was in last year. And it's good to know other people on here know about Link TV...one of the only organizations I've contributed to.
They won because they outspent the Defense.
If I were a farmer, I wouldn't have much money to spend on defending myself. MONSANTO knows that. They have unlimited funds from which they can sue farmers, which is why they are slap-happy with the suits.
Wind will blow, and it will blow seeds, and no human effort, to date, can confine what seeds the wind carries. MONSANTO-patented seeds will land on your organic farm, and contaminate your farm and Monsanto can come to your farm, allege that you are growing their patented seeds, and sue you.
You will not have the money to counter-sue.
This is what I have gleaned from those who have experienced this personally.
The Percy Schmeiser case before the Supreme Court of Canada had a split decision. The court upheld the Monsanto gene patent for round up ready canola 5-4 but did not award costs or technology fee or profits from Percy's farm mainly since he did not use round up on his contaminated crop.
In Canada plants cannot be patented only genes. The court found Monsanto owns and controls the gene where-ever it is found, such as in a plant on a contaminated field.
This finding that Monsanto is responsible for its gene has led to a class action suit by the Organic Agriculture Protection Fund in Saskatchewan. Due to contamination they can no longer grow organic canola, giving the gene owner a liability issue. Since they are responsible for allowing the canola gene to contaminate Western Canada the outcome of this suit is critical for Monsanto's future. Consequently Monsanto withdrew their GM wheat application in Canada and the US in 2004.
http://www.saskorganic.com/
They also won because they have the FDA on their side. The FDA has been termed "Monstanto's eastern branch office". The FDA has also tried to stop dairys from labelling milk as free of bovine growth hormone, arguing that "Milk is milk.".
I'm concerned about the proposed law that says it will protect our food supply. I buy organically grown fruit and vegetables from farmer's markets and our local health food store. The proposed restrictions may make it more difficult for organic farmers and small farmers in general.
Some proposals include irradiating produce, especially green vegetables to kill the e coli. Irradiation will kill the phytonutrients that make the vegetables so nutritious. Solving one problem by generation another.
Slight correction: wind blows the pollen, not the seeds. The pollen fertilizes the plants in the field where it drifts to.
And I think you're absolutely correct about why Monsanto won such lawsuits -- they brought in bevvies of "experts" and wasted everybody's time as the poor farmer's defense money ran out.
As is the case with economic empires the world over, Monsanto pays people to propagandize for them and, when they can get away with it, take out the opposition altogether. They don't want a balanced conversation, they want control of our food sources. Plain and simple. They need to be broken up -- whittled down to size and investigated.
And, the "Post-Dispatch," true to all MSM outlets, doesn't challenge anything Monsanto says. They just carry-on with the "he-said, she-said" model which does nothing to get at the truth. Ask Percy Schmeiser about Monsanto, reporters. Or if that's too much work, just Google "Percy and Monsanto."
It would appear as if Monsanto has thrown down the gauntlet to it's critics in an arena that is new to them. It is now incumbent upon the anti-GM food forces to make them regret it.