Science
Politics |
- leading public interest attorney
- founder and director of the Center for Food Safety (CFS)
- fights to protect people and the environment from the threats of chemical-dependent industrialized agriculture
- often called on to testify before the United States Congress
- work has been featured in numerous publications and documentaries
- recognized by The Guardian as one of the 50 people who could change the planet
- most recent book is Your Right to Know: Genetic Engineering and the Secret Changes in Your Food
- plays a passionate but utterly scientific role in a number of films on GMOs
|
- The "non-difference"
- GE (genetic engineering) is to traditional breeding as nuclear weapons are to a sword
- Monsanto tells Patent Office it is different so it can be patented, then turns around and tells FDA it is the same.
- The "casette"
- the vector -- an invasive bacteria
- the novel DNA from completely different species
- the promoter -- from califlower mosaic virus
- the ampicillin/kanamycin-resistant marker gene
- Precision NOT -- trial & error, no control over where vector inserts DNA, naive denial of now-known complexity of genome
- Gene=trait WRONG -- genes not isolated units, genes interact, can't mess with one without affecting others; wheat has 80K genes, humans 20K, but humans more complex
- Total GM failure on important traits: nitrogen fixating, intake of water, ability to take in sunlight, nutrition, size, yield -- all involve multiple genes
- Soil bacteria -- role in all this still unexplored
- CFS role -- e.g., stopping commercialization of GE foods and biopharmaceuticals
- Monsanto Protection Act to prevent court action from stopping dangerous behavior (subsequently defeated)
- Destruction by industrial farming -- biodiversity (90% of fruit/vegetable varieties), farms, farm communities, endangered species
- Organic: no chemical controls or fertilizers, sewage sludge, GMOs, radiation
- Beyond: local and appropriate scale, socially just, humane and bio-diverse (30% greenhouse gases from farming)
- Threat to organic: Bt (needed by organics) sprayed everywhere, creating resistance
- Herbicides
- All about chemicals -- GM seed companies are chemical companies: Monsanto, DuPont, Dow, Syngenta and Bayer; use chem profits to buy seed companies (Monsanto 25% of commercial seeds, top 3 60%).
- resistant superweeds require more herbicide (now on 50% of US farms)
- Now want approval of GM resistant to 2,4-D/AgentOrange (Dow) and Dicamba (Monsanto) -- Dicamba volatilizes and cloud can wipe out adjacent conventional or organic farms.
- 2012: organics saved 40 million pounds of herbicide, but weed resistance caused 115 million excess pounds of Roundup
- Tech treadmill
-- an 80-year progression
- Hybrid corn thicker stalks, requires machinery
- Cost knocks out farmers, larger farms & more monoculture
- Enter insects, fungi and weeds
- Enter chemicals
- Bring soil depletion
- Enter fertilizers
- Oil-not-soil ag is unsustainable
- Herbicide escalation
- Beef overuse of water
- Labeling
- 30-year $multi-billion failure to provide what people want
- So labeling a real marketplace threat
- 93% US public want labeling; 1.2 million comments to FDA (largest ever)
- CT & ME labeling bills dependent on other states, CA and WA initiatives lost by only tiny amount in spite of $10's millions to defeat
- Federal level risk -- national voluntary or pre-emption of state labeling; action to prevent this is VITAL
|
