GMO Foods A Ticking Time Bomb

By James Donahue

What people do not know or understand about Monsanto’s genetic modification of the foods we are now growing on our farms is that company researchers used deadly bacteria and viruses to force new species and chemicals through the plant cell walls and then mixed in antibiotics to stabilize the product for human and animal consumption.

The scientific community outside Monsanto’s doors is extremely concerned about the potential long-range effect these crossed species of plants, some even mixed with animal DNA, may have on the world plant kingdom. It has already been shown that GMO corn, canola and other grass-based plants are cross-pollinating with non-GMO plants and even weeds, and thus spreading the deadly virus and bacterial type cells.

There also is great concern about the effect the antibiotics locked within these foods will have on humans and animals.

Armed with heavily financed political and legal support in government and the Supreme Court, and a bank of aggressive lawyers, Monsanto has managed to overpower efforts to stop the company’s damaging impact on the agricultural community not only in North America but in other countries around the world. Any scientist that speaks out against Monsanto’s practices and raise an alarm about their looming impact on world health and food production find themselves under legal assault. They can’t afford to fight and become destroyed both financially and personally.

Failure to stop this monster from marching across the land and leading us all into a looming disaster may mean total extinction, some researchers are suggesting.

Dr. Ron Epstein, retired professor at San Francisco State University, warned recently that "the main environmental problem with genetically engineered food plants and animals is that, when they escape into the wild, they permanently disrupt ecosystems which are the products of billions of years of evolution."

Epstein wrote that "the most recent conservative scientific estimates estimate that genetically engineered plants will probably cross-pollinate with wild relatives, thereby escaping into the wild and permanently disrupting ecosystems at about one percent a year. That means they will probably cause major environmental problems in about ten years."

He said the viruses within the GMO plant cells are a specific issue. "By their very nature," Epstein wrote, "viruses invade the genetic material of their hosts and often break apart and recombine using part of the host’s genetic material to create new viruses. When this happens with genetically engineered plants and animals outside the laboratory, new viruses will be created that incorporate genetically engineered genetic material. The viruses will then spread and, because they could not have been naturally produced, there may be no natural defenses against them. They may then cause widespread death of certain plants or animals, or even humans."

What can be done about this ugly threat? Until corporations are stopped from pumping billions of dollars into the nation’s political campaigns, probably very little. As one writer put it: "Just like the early days of PCBs, DDT, Agent Orange (all Monsanto produced poisons) Monsanto has successfully fooled the general public and regulatory agencies into believing that RoundUp, and the genetically modified crops that help sell RoundUp, are "safe."

In case you don’t know, RoundUp is a poison weed killer engineered into the Monsanto seed.