Prince Charles and GM Foods

Because I was busy yesterday, I was not the first to hear the comments made by Prince Charles. Also there are times when I just don't trust the way that the media reports some stories. While Prince Charles is the heir apparent to the British throne, he is often portrayed as being rather semi detached. In the past, when it became known that he talked to his plants, he was portrayed as crazy.

As I regularly talk to a Tree, and she talks back, well I must be as crazy as Prince Charles. But being serious, I too am seriously concerned about Genetically Modified organisms.

As I have said before I am not against GM per say, what concerns me and most of the world is that the testing of these organisms is not any where as through as it needs to be. The problem really started when the GM industry lobbied the US Federal Drug Administration (FDA) to get a less rigorous and hence cheaper testing and approval system. What should have happened was that these products should have been tested to the standard that drugs are. But even to the industries surprise, the FDA agreed to a claim by the industry that GM was no different to any other form of conventional breeding.

This lead to GM crops being introduced far faster than was ever expected. Equally the businesses that were and are developing GM, were saved billions of development costs.
It is the lack of testing that is the main reason why there is a significant opposition to GM.
Now back to what Prince Charles was saying. He is say count me out of having to grow this stuff. As well that he is saying that GM is an environmental disaster on the same scale as Climate Change.

As Prince Charles is to be the next King, there has been a lot of tut tutting about him meddling in politics. While I do not think that anyone should inherit power, I admire him for speaking out about this. While the GM industry has promised much, the reality is that they have not delivered on those promises. A few months ago when the industry was calling for more GM as a way of feeding the growing human population it emerged that in spite of dramatic claims of improved yields, the actual improvement is only one percent. The industry claims that it is only because the farmers are not putting all the expensive inputs onto the crops that is causing the much lower yields. Well they would say that.

The reality is that these novel crops do not and can not feed the planet. Also those farmers growing them have to sign contracts that tie them to using the fertilisers, herbicides and other inputs from that company and only that company. There is an aspect of the way that farmers in the US have taken to GM that really surprises me. I had always been under the impression that American farmers were fiercely independent and I wonder why these farmers would allow themselves to have their hands tied like this?

I suspect that the reality is that many exaggerated claims were made about GM and the industry have subsidised aspects of the agri-business to get farmers growing these crops. And it really is this exaggeration of the benefits of GM that is at the heart of the doubts that many have. Add to this the concerted effort by the Bio tech industry to stop and suppress any science that cast doubt on the safety of GM. The case of Arpad Pusztai is the best known but there have been others. What is significant about all the independent checks that have been done so far, is that GM appears to suppress the immune system.

It hear that the true significance of what Prince Charles was saying has been lost. The benefits of GM has be over hyped, the benefits have not been proved and in fact it appears to to be harmful.

I agree with what Charles says and I would go further; as we have already released this menace onto the environment and it looks as though it is harming our food sources. While the effects of climate change is partly why we are suffering from falling crop yields, it also looks as though cross pollination and cross contamination from and by GM is a factor here too. Add to this the fact that when tested GM produce seems to be having a suppressive effect upon the immune system then it looks as if the food we rely on is in fact killing us.

It is this last factor that really should alarm everyone. As it also looks as though it is killing our environment too. Throughout the globe Bees are dying, a condition that is being called Colony Collapse Disorder. The key characteristic is that the bees have a suppressed immune system and it seems that mites and viruses then kill the bees. The same effect that independent tests have shown that GM foods will do, suppress the Immune system. While the evidence at the moment is circumstantial, as no one will fund or oppose the bio tech industry, it is there and it is growing. Where GM has been grown commercially and for the greatest period is where the greatest losses of bees has happened.

The real problem is that the commercial imperative has taken over and governments have failed their people yet again. If proper testing had been carried out before hand then we would have discovered all this before we took the stopper out of that poison bottle.

I don't think that all this will lead to mass starvation or dramatic crop failures but this has to be a lesson we heed. Science can and has been a major benefit to humanity, but we need to be sure of the consequence of our actions before we act. When it comes to the environment, protecting the environment for humanity has to be our primary concern. If not just as the immune system of an animal kills off an infection, then the immune system of the planet could well kill us off.