Monday, October 28, 2013

GMOS IN THE NEWS AGAIN: EUROPEAN SCIENTISTS QUESTIONING THE WHOLE IDEA?

Many of you sent me this one, and given the financial and geopolitical context of the previous few day’s blogs, I believe this story is significant both in its own right, and significant in terms of the wider context in which I think it should be viewed. Consider this article, and its signatories:
No scientific consensus on GMO safety (See also Global Scientists Issue Stunning GMO Safety Warning)
1 First signatories to the statement “No scientific consensus on GMO safety”
The article confirms what most of us has known all along: the calm reassurances from corporate scientists and bought-and-paid-for government agencies on the safety of GMOs was another example of how big money corrupts science and perverts it, and in the process, damages the reputation of science itself, and those are the hidden implications spelled out in rather more lengthy and academic fashion in these statements:
The statement comes in response to recent claims from the GM industry and some scientists, journalists, and commentators that there is a “scientific consensus” that GM foods and crops were generally found safe for human and animal health and the environment. The statement calls these claims “misleading”, adding, “This claimed consensus on GMO safety does not exist.”
“Such claims may place human and environmental health at undue risk and create an atmosphere of complacency,” states Dr. Angelika Hilbeck, chairperson of the European Network of Scientists for Social and Environmental Responsibility (ENSSER) and one of the signatories. “The statement draws attention to the diversity of opinion over GMOs in the scientific community and the often contradictory or inconclusive findings of studies on GMO safety. These include toxic effects on laboratory animals fed GM foods, increased pesticide use from GM crop cultivation, and the unexpected impacts of Bt insecticidal crops on beneficial and non-target organisms,” Dr Hilbeck continues.
In spite of this nuanced and complex picture, a group of like-minded people makes sweeping claims that GM crops and foods are safe. In reality, many unanswered questions remain and in some cases there is serious cause for concern.
Prof C. Vyvyan Howard, a medically qualified toxicopathologist based at the University of Ulster and a signatory to the statement, said: “A substantial number of studies suggest that GM crops and foods can be toxic or allergenic. It is often claimed that millions of Americans eat GM foods with no ill effects. But as the US has no GMO labeling and no epidemiological studies have been carried out, there is no way of knowing whether the rising rates of chronic diseases seen in that country have anything to do with GM food consumption or not. Therefore this claim has no scientific basis.”
This much would seem evident. Indeed, as my co-author Dr. Scott D de Hart and I argued in our book Transhumanism: A Grimoire of Alchemical Agendas, common sense alone would have dictated careful study of the effects of GMOs over generations both of plants, environmental impact, and humans, and this was simply not done. The result? “The claimed consensus on GMO safety does not exist” precisely because ”…the US has no GMO labeling and no epidemiological studies have been carried out, there is no way of knowing whether the rising rates of chronic diseases seen in that country have anything to do with GM food consumption or not. Therefore this claim has no scientific basis.”
Bingo.
But that statement also calls into question the reason that there are quiet noises in the pro-GMO community for labeling, for such a move would allow a pernicious kind of “human studies” research project to be conducted by the public, and to the risk of the public, at little to no cost to the companies now rethinking their opposition to labeling.
But there is a wider geopolitical context here, and it is, I suggest, that of the gradual though inevitable realignment now underway, that alignment which will see the tiny cracks between the US-European alliance grow into fissures, and eventually into fully-fledged fault lines.  The opposition to GMOs has come chiefly from European countries, Latin America, and certain nations, notably India – itself a BRICSA member – and the reason is clear.
Dr de Hart and I pointed out that the idea of GMOs came from the American corporate sector as a means for dominating the world’s food supply, and agricultural land, by means of patent law, but the scheme would work only so long as natural seeds could be driven out of the market. It was, blatantly, the cartelization of agriculture in the hands of a few companies, mostly American, and the agenda all along was geopolitical in nature. For the GMO effort to proceed apace in Europe would have ultimately spelled the end to European sovereignties, and have constituted a vice grip on the European Union from which it would have been difficult to extricate itself.
But the extrication is well under way, and all that remains is for Europe and the BRICSA nations to insist that their non-GMO products have access to Latin American and North American markets…
And if you don’t think that’s coming, think again:
Mexico Bans GMO Corn, Effective Immediately

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