19 August 2006 - 8:38am
What's a little contaminated rice in the face of huge profits in genetically-modified foods?
We have yet another case of corporate experimentation with food genetics has been released into the food supply.
Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns announced late yesterday that U.S. commercial supplies of long-grain rice had become inadvertently contaminated with a genetically engineered variety not approved for human consumption.
They say that genetic modification of foods is so that agriculture companies don't have to use so many pesticides. That's not quite true, is it?
Johanns said he did not know where the contaminated rice was found or how widespread it may be in the U.S. food supply. The agency first learned about it from the company, he said, after it discovered "trace amounts" during testing of commercial supplies.
The variety, known as LLRICE 601, is endowed with bacterial DNA that makes rice plants resistant to a weedkiller made by the agricultural giant Aventis.
And this is not an isolated case.
Bayer said in a statement it is "cooperating closely" with the government on the discovery. It added that the protein conferring herbicide tolerance "is well known to regulators and has been confirmed safe for food and feed use in a number of crops by regulators in many countries, including the EU, Japan, Mexico, U.S. and Canada."
Johanns acknowledged that the discovery could have a significant impact on rice sales -- especially exports, which are worth close to $1 billion a year. Many U.S. trading partners have strict policies forbidding importation of certain genetically engineered foods, even if they are approved in the United States.
Those restrictions reflect a mix of science-based fears that some gene-altered foods or seeds may pose health or environmental hazards; cultural beliefs about food purity; and political wrangling over trade disparities.
Is it any wonder? These companies are playing with fire, and have pressured the federal government into prohibiting the labeling of these Frankenstein foods.
If other countries cut off imports, the political and economic impact could rival or exceed that of the last such major event -- the discovery in 2000 that the U.S. corn supply had become contaminated with StarLink corn. StarLink, which was engineered to be insect-resistant, was approved for use in animal feed but not for humans because of its potential to trigger allergic reactions.
That's right. The world is a science project for corporations looking for bigger and better ways to make money off of what we eat.
Do the modifications make the food more nutritious? No.
Do the modifications make the food more tasty? Quite the opposite.
Do the modifications make the food prettier? Oh yes, packaging is everything.
Do the modifications make the plants more durable to stand up to even more massive sprayings of toxic pesticides? That's the point.
Don't worry. The Bush Administration is on the job. Doesn't that make you feel better?
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Comments
I agree. Bush | Cheney | Rove, Inc. are all about corporate profits. They have no interest in keeping U.S. citizens safe.
The reason we are in Iraq has nothing to do with safety -- it is to keep the military industrial complex in business as conventional warfare loses its relevance.
Food and water are the most basic needs of humans (and animals). Yet, our the Bushies allow corporations to tinker with the safety of the food supply. There is actually a bee crisis -- farmers need bees to pollinate their crops, but bees are dying off. Genetic crops are one of the leading suspects, as the pollen they produce (or don't produce) adversely affects the bees. Without bees, there are no crops.
Most people don't know this, but corporations profit by sickening and killing consumers. Bush and Cheney have set up a secret "trust fund" for corporations; it pays $72,000 for every sick consumer, and $14,000 for every dead consumer, to the corporation that causes each illness or death. The first is a kickback from hospitals and health insurers, and it pays the most, because sick consumers draw in a lot of cash flow for health care. Dead consumers get less of a kick-back, because mortuaries don't generate as much money as health care, but the money comes in anyhow because of a diversion of income tax to a population-reduction program.
Many watchdog groups warn about "corporate profiteering" from dangerous products, but they can't tell you about this because the Internal Revenue Service will revoke their tax-exempt status if they tell you the whole truth.
A lot of the corporate products on the market help people achieve old age. The life expectancy in corporation-dominated economies has increased rapidly since World War Two, but this is not an accident. Older people get sick more often than younger people, which makes longevity a windfall profit for the health industry. Before the corporations dominated, people would just tip over and die, with hardly any profit at all.
The secret campaign for longevity through cheap, easily-available nutrition -- also provided by corporations -- had another side-effect: the obesity epidemic. This also was not unplanned. Obesity drives health care profits, and also the profits of spin-off industries offering to make fat people thin. The Bush-Cheney "trust fund" is looking at requiring Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, etc. to put money into the fund.
There's also money to be made from environmental destruction. The "trust fund" pays $12 million for every species extinction, and $500 for every acre of crop land that is destroyed. The payment for species extinction is an "advance payment" to ensure that humans are the only species left on the planet. The payment for destroying acres is also an "advance payment," to help ensure that corporate farmers are left with the only non-poisoned soil.
The rice-engineering project is only an experiment in the modification of genes. When humans take over the earth, they will need to be genetically modified well enough to encompass the entire biosphere. The "rice escape" is just a small blip in the big project.
Do you have any sources on this?
I don't have any sources on this. I made it all up. Everyone is convinced that Bush and Cheney and giant corporations have teamed up to destroy consumers and the environment. So I invented a motive for them to act that way, and a method--which is the standard conspiracy theory.
I run into anti-American, anti-business propaganda constantly, so writing such bilge is quite easy. Sometimes, I think I should become an activist. People with PETA pull in six figures.
Is how you determine what's "propaganda" based on whether the facts criticize your own dogmas? Or do you really like the idea of large-scale genetic experimentation with the human food supply?
Ms. Media,
Thanks for asking kindly. Propaganda is the misuse of facts to achieve a goal which not obvious from the text itself. So, for instance, Ted Kaczynski (the Unabomber) says that attacking biotechnology, with any means available, is the ideal method for attacking corporate America. Ted never says that he's actually against biotech. People who bomb train stations aren't actually against trains, you see.
So, when you use phrases like, "contaminated," "playing with fire" and "Frankenstein foods," I sense something less than neutral media coverage.
Now, to clear up a few things. You say that StarLink had a "potential to trigger allergic reactions," but in the end, it was proved there were no allergic reactions.
You wonder if the "modifications make the food more nutritious," and they do. They also reduce carcinogens in food.
Do the modifications make the food more tasty? Not, as you say, "Quite the opposite." The only consumers who get a chance to taste "GM food" are those who eat GM sweet corn. Otherwise, it's all just an ingredient, and the result is up to the cook. But GM sweet corn reduces pesticide spraying by half.
GM modifications do not make the food prettier, but that would be a waste of time, and as you say, "packaging is everything."
You wonder if "the modifications make the plants more durable to stand up to even more massive sprayings of toxic pesticides?" That's *not* the point. You gotta check out the difference between pesticides and herbicides, and their impact on insects that don't destroy crops. You might even discover the fact that GM crops have bankrupted some pesticide and herbicide companies.
What this has to do with the "Bush administration" boggles the mind. GM crops have been tested for 25 years, and consumed around the world for over a decade, and grown on over one billion acres. Bush's godlike properties are overrated.
Best wishes,
Schiller.
Sorry, Schiller, but you cannot prove a negative. Right off you're spouting nonsense.
Oh, and how is that? What about making crops more durable against aggressive chemical toxins makes them more nutritious?
Actually, quite a bit more than corn is genetically modified -- as you point out yourself lower in your own comment. (C'mon, now, try to be consistent!)
Pig genes in tomatoes to make them more durable in weather is one thing and have a longer shelf life. More subtle modifications to make tomatoes more red is another thing.
Many vegetables have lost much of their flavor over the past couple of decades. Moving them into something more akin to the Twinkie development process does not seem very promising to me.
Actually making food look better while it's on the shelf is a big part of it.
Okay, herbicides in this case. I'd like to see you chug a quart of it and tell me how wonderfully nutritious and flavorful it is.
If GM foods are so wonderful, then why is agribusiness working so hard to keep what it's up to secret? Why does it fight any and all labeling of GM foods? Shouldn't the customer know? Wouldn't they want the customer to know that ADM has improved upon nature's work? Why do they spend millions of dollars lobbying against organic farms and organic labeling and standards?
And we haven't even gotten into morality of forcing third world countries with entire populations living at subsistence levels to pay patent license fees for grains they've been cultivating for centuries. Food is food, and the last people I'd trust fucking with it are a bunch of corporations loyal only to dividends looking for ways to make a buck on hunger.
Hmmm... I thought I was addressing a conscience-driven, fact-conscious person intent on preserving the reputation of the media. There are no pig genes in tomatoes. All persons who claimed allergic reactions to StarLink were found to have no allergic reactions to it. There are no GM crops designed to look prettier. Toxins are chemical substances, and since they lack neurons, they are unable to be "aggressive." Agribusiness is not keeping GM crops secret. They are actually advertising them on television. ADM does't produce GM crops. Must I go on? Media girl, you should change your name, because you're making the media look bad. Some media actually check facts.
This is a blog. You know, part of that insurgency that the news media blame for everything wrong in America.
For all your self-proclaimed fact focus, you have yet to cite a single source for any of your claims.
And toxins are defined by what they do, not some ridiculous notion that they don't have neurons. Hydrochloric acid doesn't have neurons either, but I'd call it aggressive -- though perhaps not as aggressive as sulfuric acid or mustard gas or cyanide or Xyklon B.
Must you go on? Now that, dear shill, is a very good question!
My dear media girl,
I offered just as many footnotes for my sources as you did. The most aggressive chemical might be considered the one responsible for more deaths than any other. For information on it, visit
http://www.dhmo.org
They point to sites like the American Cancer Society, but if you search for DHMO on their site, the results come up empty.
Nice site, though. Reminds me of Geocities days.
Mediagirl,
You didn't look at that site too hard--it's chock full of footnotes about the dangers of dihydrogen monoxide. Colorless, tasteless, fatal if inhaled, and in its solid state kills human tissue virtually on contact. It's involved in military experiments, found in cancerous tumors, and is the main component of acid rain. It's said to be responsible for most of the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina. DHMO is truly an aggressive chemical! What is worse, it's nearly impossible to avoid DHMO in your diet. You truly must check these facts more completely!
They linked to the American Cancer Society, who has absolutely no reference.
Oh, and the flood waters did the most damage in Katrina. Or did that chemical do that, too?
Really, if they want to make a point, they need to learn how to do it creditably. That website is a mess.
Well mediagirl,
You very nearly "got it." The deadly chemical, dihydrogen monoxide, is *water.* So yes, that chemical did do that "damage in Katrina." And that chemical does all the other damage, too. Water is, according to your claim, an "aggressive" chemical. And likely the most aggressive chemical there is.
I couldn't lead you by the nose like this if you did some fact-checking. You complain about mass media complaining about bloggers, and no wonder. This blog is lazy and doesn't care about anything other than ideology.
If you want an influential blog, *be credible.* Take good advice when you can get it.
Why should I care what you think? Really?
Given your broad-brush attacks on everything said here, I confess I didn't really look too closely at your website link. Why should I? Really?
The dittohead fantasy universe game is just soooo boring.
And the rice is contaminated, dude. But hey, you want to be an apologist for agribusiness, go right on ahead. Maybe you should start a website. Splogs are the big new thing these days.