Vatican study endorses GMOs for food security

Pontifical Academy of Sciences ought to buy and read this book:

Seeds of Deception: Exposing Industry and Government Lies About the Safety of the Genetically Engineered Foods You're Eating (Paperback)
by Jeffrey M. Smith;
Yes! Books (September 2003)
ISBN-10: 0972966587; ISBN-13: 978-0972966580

Recent news headlines have focused on the disagreement between the U.S. and Europe over genetically modified foods: the U.S. exports them, but the European Union doesn't want to import them, believing their safety remains unproven.

Are genetically modified foods safe?

Longtime anti-GM foods campaigner Smith presents the "opposing" case. He offers cases where GM produced results that were at best unexpected (increased starch content in potatoes), at worst grotesque (pigs without genitals).

He describes how one corporation reportedly tried to bribe Canadian government scientists into approving genetically engineered bovine growth hormones they deemed unsafe; how some scientists have reported their careers were threatened as a result of their refusal to approve certain GM products in the U.S.; and how "conflicts of interest, sloppy science, and industry influence" can distort the approval process. The cases Smith presents are scary and timely.

"Seeds of Deception" lays bare the blockbuster food safety issue of the 21st century. Every American should read this book. -- James S. Turner Esq., author of "The Chemical Feast: The Nader Report on the Food and Drug Administration"

This book, which is the best written on the subject, is essential reading for food activists and concerned consumers. -- Ronnie Cummins, National Director of the Organic Consumer's Association

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Having read a number of articles and books on genetically engineered foods, I found this book to be very comprehensive and very well written. I highly recommend it if you are interested in your health.

As a biologist who has worked with DNA, and respect it, I place great value on Smith's easy to understand explanation on the genetic engineering process on DNA. Smith has also carefully researched FDA reports and quoted several people in his analysis of GMOs and their impact on society.

With methodological precision, his research reveals the close ties of the U.S. government with biotechnology industry in several aspects of GMO production.

Even more disturbing is the influence of biotechnology companies such as Monsanto, Novartis, Dow, and DuPont having on the government - they gave more than 3.5 million dollars (from 1995-2000) towards campaign contributions, with 3/4 going to Republicans.

His research also reveals the impact of the genetically modifed amino acid L-tryptophan in 1989-1990 that debilitated thousands of people with EMS, a disease that produces severe muscle pain, and even death. Forty people died from taking this L-tryptophan. This product was never labled that it was genetically modified and the Japanese manufacturer - Showa Denko KK did not use the proper filtration level to remove the impurities. Subsequent from these health risks, the product was removed from shelves.

My favorite quotes from this book came from George Wald, Nobel Laureate in Medicine. He said for genetic engineeering - "The results will be essentially new organisms, self-perpetuating and hence permanent. Once created, they cannot be recalled" and "Up to now, living organisms have evolved very slowly and new forms have had plenty of time to settle in. Now whole proteins will be transposed overnight into wholly new associations, with consequences no one can foretell, either for the host organism, or their neighbors." Those are powerful words and cannot be forgotten.

Read this book. It will change your life. You owe it to yourself and your family.

reply

Bangladesh cancelled Deal with Monsanto

Monsanto - Handled with CARE?

or,

CARE - Handled by MONSANTO?

Major US Relief Agency holds talks with troubled agbiotech multinational-- Who's helping Who?
Date: Mar 09, 1999

CARE, the high-profile U.S. food aid non-profit, is holding talks today with Monsanto Corporation at the company's world headquarters in St. Louis, Missouri (US).

According to information received by RAFI, Monsanto's CEO Robert Shapiro contacted CARE's President, Peter Bell, inviting CARE officials to discuss ways in which Monsanto may be able to use its technologies for the benefit of food security in the South.

Whether this is an attempt to resurrect Monsanto's scheme to provide micro-credit (soft") loans to Third World farmers in order to market its proprietary pesticides and genetically-modified seeds remains to be seen.

Monsanto is one of the world's leading Gene Giants ­ dominant in both crop chemicals and seeds.

The company's best known product, Roundup (glyphosate), is the world's top selling herbicide and a multi-billion dollar profit engine for Monsanto.

The company's patents on Roundup are expiring, however, and Monsanto is looking for new ways to maintain its market share and to advance sales of its controversial transgenic (genetically-modified) soybean, maize, cotton, and potato varieties. Using genetic engineering, Monsanto has bred seeds that tolerate Roundup spraying. It is estimated that the contentious market strategy has won Monsanto at least 85% of the booming U.S. transgenic seed market, and experts suggest, a similar share of the global transgenic market.

Cash 'n CARE?

In June 1998, Monsanto announced that it would develop a special microcredit programme with the Grameen Bank of Bangladesh that would have made it financially feasible for cash-starved farmers to take out loans to buy Monsanto's advanced technology products. The Grameen Bank has won international accolades for its championing of credit programmes to rural women who would not normally be seen as credit-worthy by conventional banks.

Within a month of the Monsanto-Grameen announcement, however, the Bangladeshi institution cancelled the deal bowing to intense public pressure within South Asia and around the world.

Once More with Feeling? "At the time, we heard rumours that CARE and possibly some other development aid agencies were discussing similar deals with Monsanto," Pat Mooney, RAFI's executive director says, "but we were told that CARE backed away from the table when Grameen threw in the towel." "Now we are informed that an international team of CARE officials from their New York office, but also from some of their major regional offices, have gone to St. Louis to discuss a major initiative with Monsanto," Mooney adds, "This could be a real problem."

GMO's in Every Pot?

Last year, more than 27.8 million hectares of farmland around the world was sown to genetically modified crops. Seventy seven percent of this land was sown to transgenic seeds designed to tolerate herbicide spraying. While the biggest market for biotech seed is in the USA and Canada, South countries such as Argentina, Mexico, South Africa, and China have also adopted the controversial seeds. Trials of Monsanto's transgenic seeds in India have led to mass demonstrations and intense debate in the media and in government. Similar debates are underway in Brazil. In Europe, environmentalists, farmers, and consumers have joined together to oppose the use of transgenic seeds.

GMO's Handled by CARE?

Blocked in Europe, is Monsanto trying to use well-known aid agencies to win acceptance for its GMOs among farmers and consumers in the South?

"Monsanto officials genuinely believe they have products that will solve the problem of food shortages in the next century," Hope Shand of RAFI says. "The company may not be acting cynically. They believe they can make money and solve hunger through GMOs at the same time," Shand explains, "If the meeting with CARE is to use the food aid agency to test and distribute their genetically-altered seeds among poor farmers, both CARE and Monsanto are making a terrible mistake."

What exactly the goal is for the St. Louis talks? Are they to establish soft loan programmes tied to Monsanto products, or to use CARE's field offices to facilitate trials of genetically-engineered herbicide-tolerant seeds? "Either way," Pat Mooney concludes, "neither party has the credibility to pull this venture off. CARE will be lambasted for jeopardizing the food security of farmers and Monsanto will be accused of using CARE as 'cheap labour' for its commercial goals. Whatever their intent, this indeed will be the result. I've talked with CARE negotiators in New York and I'm hopeful that they understand the issues and will not let their good name be used to pressure farmers into adopting Monsanto's unsustainable approach to agriculture."

CARE Bears?

Monsanto is transforming itself from being a traditional chemical company into a dominant player in the Life Industry.

In recent years, Monsanto has spent more than $8.5 billion in acquiring seed companies across the world. Many market analysts believe however, that Monsanto has over-extended itself and is now weighed under by a huge debt burden. In the midst of the world's longest running bull market, Monsanto is on some investor's bear lists.

Last year, Monsanto announced that it would merge with American Home Products ­ another chemicals-turned-biotech corporation more than twice Monsanto's size. The deal was eventually called off. Last week, the New York Times reported that Monsanto was holding preliminary discussions with DuPont ­ a vastly larger multinational now attempting to extricate itself from energy subsidiaries in order to buy into the Life Industry. The message to many investors is that Monsanto is a company in trouble and looking for allies.

Monsanto, headquarters in St. Louis, Missouri (US) has 32,000 employees, a market capitalization of $28 billion and 1998 revenues of $9 billion. The company is reportedly in merger discussions with DuPont.

CARE, headquarters in New York (US) is a major non-profit, international relief organization. In 1998, CARE delivered $339 million in aid to over 35.3 million people in 51 countries.

RAFI, the Rural Advancement Foundation International, is an international civil society organization headquartered in Canada. RAFI is dedicated to the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, and to the socially responsible development of technologies useful to rural societies. RAFI is concerned about the loss of agricultural biodiversity, and the impact of intellectual property on farmers and food security."

http://www.etcgroup.org/en/materials/publications.html?pub_id=376

LURED INTO ANOTHER CYCLE OF DEPENDANCY THROUGH "EVIL" SELF DESTRUCTIVE SEEDS

“The reality behind the shipment of GMO (genetically modified organisms) as food aid” to Africa .

4 march 2005

An aptly quoted piece from the Zambian Daily Mail formed this thematic poser of the gathering. “It is interesting to note that for the first time, Zambia was forced to accept a gift. Doesn't this worry us as recipients that the giver is insisting that we take the GM (genetically modified) foods? Are the Americans just concerned about our stomachs or there is something behind the gift,” ran the lines like a riddle in the November 5, 2002 edition of the daily. And participants tried to piece it together, drawing from the experiences of countries within Africa and beyond.

The overwhelming conclusion from the forum organised by Friends of the Earth (FoE) Africa , was that GMO are the manifestoes of a new colonialism, the surreptitious continuation of a political and economic tendency that is threatening all humanity. The controversy over GM foods in Africa began in 2000, but became topical in 2002, when several Southern African countries refused GM food aid despite calamitous food shortage.

The United States - which is the world's largest producer of GM foods - tried to push the argument that the choice for Africa 's starving populations was between GM food and hunger. But the FoE Africa Strategy Meeting made to explode the basis of the GMO exponents' arguments.

Mr Lopez Vilar Juan of Friends of the Earth International (FoEI) set the tone of the discussions with a blow-by-blow analysis of how GMO are a mere struggle against the right of farmers to save and reuse their seed. He said genetic engineering or modern biotechnology companies, led by Monsanto of United States, are out to take away control over crops from farmers and force them into a cycle of dependence since they would necessarily have to go back to the biotech companies for seed to plant. It is this trend that is currently being transferred to Africa , FoE warns.

In Africa , traditionally, at the end of each farming season, rolls of well-stocked barns adorn farmers' backyards, farmhouses, and storehouses, marking a smooth transition to the next planting season. People toil at sundry store places each day to preserve seeds that are used for the next planting season.

FoE says this right to return to the barn, rather than to Monsanto or some other modern biotech companies or market, for seed to replant is about to be taken away from the African farmer with the infiltration of GM crops that would sooner or later become the legal property of their producers after replacing traditional seeds on the African farmlands.

http://www.foei.org/en/media/archive/2005/gmoafrica.htm/?searchterm=GMO

LORD,DELIVER US FROM EVIL.
LORD, DELIVER US FROM THE PONTIFICAL ACDEMY OF SCIENCES

Monsanto Rules the Fields

Monsanto is the largest GMO producer on the planet: 90 percent of the 140 million acres under biotech cultivation worldwide were sowed with the company’s corn and soy. For Monsanto and other biotech firms, profits rely heavily on consumer acceptance. Companies claim that they have foregone an estimated US$300 million in exports to Europe thanks to the EU’s moratorium.

This battle is not only about Europe: consumers and farmers across the globe are calling for local control over food and agriculture. The recent example of countries in southern Africa and elsewhere rejecting US food aid contaminated by GMOs illustrates the growing rejection of US attempts to force GMOs onto an unwilling global public.

Getting cosy with decision-makers

Given the profits at stake, its not surprising to find that Monsanto and the US agribusiness lobby have made a concerted effort to ensure that the US government protects corporate interests.

In the US, Monsanto’s close ties with the government are the result of money well spent: in 2000, the company dished out US$2,002,000 on lobbying and donated lavishly to well-placed politicians. This generosity appears to have paid off with direct access for Monsanto to US government officials and negotiators, as well as representation on the government’s Agricultural Policy Advisory Committee for Trade and the US Drug Administration’s Biotech Advisory Panel.

Monsanto is active in all of the major US agribusiness and biotech lobbies, including BIO, the US Grains Council, and the Food Industry Codex Coalition. All of these lobby groups are opposed to the EU’s protective stance on GMOs: BIO complains that the moratorium “threatens the viability of the global trading system”, and the US Grains Council and the National Corn Growers Association urged the US government to launch a WTO dispute against the EU due to its “hysterical” position on GMOs. Monsanto is also a member of Europabio, the main European biotechnology lobby group, which also argues that the moratorium is “indefensible”.

Monsanto has a close and powerful ally in the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF), ranked by Fortune magazine as one of the most powerful organizations in Washington. Despite its cultivated appearance as a ‘grassroots farmers’ organization’, the AFBF has extensive corporate connections and its policy positions reflect the concerns of corporate agribusiness. The AFBF has repeatedly lobbied the US Administration to take action in the WTO against the EU’s GMO policies.

Monsanto’s high-level influence with the US government is strengthened by a ‘revolving door’ through which staff drift between industry and government. For example, Michael (Mickey) Kantor, a former Secretary of the US Department of Commerce and former US Trade Representative, is now a member of Monsanto’s Board of Directors. Michael Taylor, who previously worked as an attorney for Monsanto, was Deputy Commissioner for the US Food and Drug Administration when it controversially approved Monsanto’s BST milk-enhancing hormone, and later returned to Monsanto as a Vice President. These connections are not limited to the US Administration: Monsanto’s former Chief Counsel, Rufus Yerxa, was appointed deputy to the WTO Director General in August 2002. The Financial Times described Yerxa as “…just the man [the WTO Director General] will need should the US ever bleat to the WTO about EU restrictions on genetically modified food.”

These familial connections between Monsanto, the US government and the WTO doubtlessly facilitated the launching of the current dispute with the EU over GMOs.

The public launch of the trade war was covered with Monsanto’s fingerprints: several speakers at the press conference were linked to Monsanto, including the so-called “small farmer” from South Africa, who in fact regularly speaks on behalf of Monsanto at various pro-biotech platforms.

Tactics like this are a slap in the face to real small farmers, as well as consumers around the world, who will be the true losers if corporate interests are allowed to prevail in this food fight.

http://www.foei.org/en/publications/link/trade/8.html

Cardinal Renato Martino had said in his interview published in the L'Osservatore Romano on 1 January 2009, "the responsibility for the food crisis is "in the hands of unscrupulous people who focus only on profit and certainly not on the well-being of all people."

GMO is UNETHICAL
and a SIN AGAINST THE POOR...
TERMINATOR SEEDS ARE USED IN BIOLOGICAL WARFARE TO "CONTROL" AND STARVE THE THIRD WORLD COUNTRIES

http://www.gmwatch.eu/archives/51-Latest-pro-GM-conference-at-Vatican.html

This is probably what Cardinal Renato Martino had in mind in his interview published in the L'Osservatore Romano on 1 January 2009 when he said that, "the responsibility for the food crisis is "in the hands of unscrupulous people who focus only on profit and certainly not on the well-being of all people." He went on to say that a more just system of distribution and not the manufacturing of genetically modified foods is the key to addressing the problem. "If one wants to pursue GMOs (genetically modified organisms) one can freely do so, but without hiding (the fact) that it's a way to make more profits."

At the ethical level I suggest that a technology which, according to Professor Richard Lewontin of Harvard University, "introduces a 'killer' transgene that prevents the germ of the harvested grain from developing," must be considered a grossly immoral act [3].

This technology is a sin against the poor and against previous generations of farmers who, from the beginning of agriculture freely shared their knowledge of plant life with their contemporaries, and with us.

It is a sin against the life spontaneities of nature itself and against the God of life and all creativity.

To deliberately set out to create seeds that self-destruct is an abomination that no society which calls itself civilized should tolerate.

If anything went wrong the terminator gene could spread to other plants and jeopardize food security.

No wonder many people look on terminator seeds as a form of biological warfare on subsistence farmers. Terminator technology has not yet been incorporated into commercial seeds, but each year the biotech corporations try to get it accepted by regulators.

Notes:

1. Brittenden, Wayne, "Terminator seeds threaten a barren future for farmers,"

2. Quoted in John Vidal, "Mr. Terminator Ploughs in," The Guardian, 14 April 1998. page 14.

3. Jean-Pierre Berlan and Richard C.Lewontin, "It's business as usual", The Guardian," 22 February 1999, page 14.

Statements on the dangers of GM by scientists

But first the view of a non-scientist - Phil Angell, the director of corporate communications at Monsanto:

"Monsanto should not have to vouchsafe the safety of biotech food.
Our interest is in selling as much of it as possible."

• Professor Richard Lewontin, professor of genetics, Harvard University, "An ecosystem, you can always intervene and change something in it, but there's no way of knowing what all the downstream effects will be or how it might affect the environment. We have such a miserably poor understanding of how the organism develops from its DNA that I would be surprised if we don't get one rude shock after another."

http://members.tripod.com/%7Engin/foodstatements.htm

• Dr Suzanne Wuerthele, US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) toxicologist, "This technology is being promoted, in the face of concerns by respectable scientists and in the face of data to the contrary, by the very agencies which are supposed to be protecting human health and the environment. The bottom line in my view is that we are confronted with the most powerful technology the world has ever known, and it is being rapidly deployed with almost no thought whatsoever to its consequences."

• Professor Norman Ellstrand, ecological geneticist at the University of California, "within 10 years we will have a moderate to large-scale ecological or economic catastrophe, because there will be so many products being released."

• Dr Harash Narang, microbiologist and senior research associate at the University of Leeds, who originally pointed to the possible link between mad cow disease (BSE) and CJD in humans, "If you look at the simple principle of genetic modification it spells ecological disaster. There are no ways of quantifying the risks... The solution is simply to ban the use of genetic modification in food."

• Dr. Erik Millstone, Sussex University, "The fundamental problem of the way in which GM foods have been approved is that they haven't really been tested properly at all. All that has happened is something which I would characterise as an exercise in wishful thinking." see Dr Millstone's article on this

• Dr Ian Gibson MP, former Dean of Biology at the University of East Anglia, has called for a ban on GM foods until longer term safety testing has taken place. He has also expressed concern about the inclusion of GM ingredients in school meals: “There is an awful lot unknown about hazards of new [GM food] crops and until it is fully tested we should not be subjecting people to risks, least of all young children.” click here for an article about the concerns of a leading European regulator

• "With genetic engineering familiar foods could become metabolically dangerous or even toxic.” Statement by 21 scientists including the following, Professor Brian Goodwin, Professor Jacqueline McGlade, Professor Peter Saunders and Professor Richard Lacey

• Professor Richard Lacey, microbiologist and Professor of Food Safety at Leeds University - one of the scientists who predicted the BSE disaster from early on - has spoken out strongly against the introduction of genetically engineered foods because of “the essentially unlimited health risks”. click here for an article on the risks of genetic engineering and why they are not worth taking

• Professor Arpad Pusztai, world-leading nutrintional science expert, formerly of the Food, Gut, and Microbial Interactions Group, Rowett Research Institute, "If it is left to me, I would certainly not eat it. We are putting new things into food which have not been eaten before. The effects on the immune system are not easily predictable and I challenge anyone who will say that the effects are predictable." see Pofessor Pusztai's article on why GM is not safe, predictable or precise

• Professor Colin Blakemore, Waynflete professor of physiology at Oxford University and former President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, has said of the genetic engineering of food crops: “We shouldn’t be complacent in thinking that we can predict the results."

• Professor James (the main architect of the UK Food Standards Agency) has commented on genetically engineered food: "The perception that everything is totally straightforward and safe is utterly naive. I don't think we fully understand the dimensions of what we're getting into." He has also said, ""There is... a need to develop more effective and appropriate screening methods to alert companies and government agencies to the unexpected consequences of the often random insertion of genetic traits into plants." Professor James has also remarked that the current regulatory system is open to challenge simply because “we are making all sorts of judgments with so little evidence at hand.” click here for an article on the regulatory surrender of government

• Dr Andrew Chesson, vice chairman of European Commission scientific committee on animal nutrition, "Potentially disastrous effects may come from undetected harmful substances in genetically modified foods." click here for an article about the concerns of a leading European regulator

• Dr. Gerald B. Guest, Director of the FDA Center for Veterinary Medicine (CVM),"...animal feeds derived from genetically modified plants present unique animal and food safety concerns ... Residues of plant constituents or toxicants in meat and milk products may pose human food safety problems. "

• Professor Gordon McVie, head of the Cancer Research Campaign:"We don’t know what genetic abnormalities might be incorporated into the genome [the individual’s DNA]. I’m more worried about humans than about the environment, to be honest. One of the problems is that because it’s a long-term thing, you need to do long-term experiments." click here for an article on the inadequate safety testing of GM foods

• Dr Vyvyan Howard: expert in fetal and infant toxico-pathology at Liverpool University Hospital, "Swapping genes between organisms can produce unknown toxic effects and allergies that are most likely to affect children"

• Dr Mae Wan-Ho, geneticist in the UK Open University Department of Biology says: "Genetic engineering bypasses conventional breeding by using artificially constructed parasitic genetic elements, including viruses, as vectors to carry and smuggle genes into cells. Once inside cells, these vectors slot themselves into the host genome. The insertion of foreign genes into the host genome has long been known to have many harmful and fatal effects including cancer of the organism." read a summary of Dr Ho in discussion with other molecular biologists

• Professor Dennis Parke of University of Surrey School of Biological Sciences, a former chief advisor on food safety to Unilever Corporation and British advisor to the US FDA on safety aspects of biotechnology writes: "In 1983, hundreds of people in Spain died after consuming adulterated rapeseed oil. This adulterated rapeseed oil was not toxic to rats". Dr Parke warns that current testing procedures for genetically altered foods including rodent tests are not proving safety for humans. He has suggested a moratorium on the release of genetically engineered foods.

• Dr Peter Wills, theoretical biologist at Auckland University writes: "By transferring genes across species barriers which have existed for aeons between species like humans and sheep we risk breaching natural thresholds against unexpected biological processes. For example, an incorrectly folded form of an ordinary cellular protein can under certain circumstances be replicative and give rise to infectious neurological disease".

• Dr Michael Antoniou, Senior Lecturer in Molecular Pathology at Guy’s Hospital says, "The generation of genetically engineered plants and animals involves the random integration of artificial combinations of genetic material from unrelated species into the DNA of the host organism. This procedure results in disruption of the genetic blueprint of the organism with totally unpredictable consequences. The unexpected production of toxic substances has now been observed in genetically engineered bacteria, yeast, plants, and animals with the problem remaining undetected until a major health hazard has arisen. Moreover, genetically engineered food or enzymatic food processing agents may produce an immediate effect or it could take years for full toxicity to come to light." Dr Antoniou recently warned MPs against believing there was any safe alternative to a ban on GM foods, "We should not lull ourselves into a false sense of security: we should not think that by regulating something which is inherently unpredictable and uncontainable it automatically becomes safe!" see Dr Antoniou's article on the hazards of genetic engineering

• Dr. George Wald, Nobel Laureate and Higgins Professor of Biology, Harvard University, wrote "Up to now, living organisms have evolved very slowly, and new forms have had plenty of time to settle in. Now whole proteins will be transposed overnight into wholly new associations ..going ahead in this direction may be not only unwise, but dangerous. Potentially, it could breed new animal and plant diseases, new sources of cancer, novel epidemics."

• The British Medical Association has questioned "whether there is a real need for genetically modified foodstuff", warning that "an artificial market may have been created by researchers and producers."

POTRYKUS, please note:

"There are still hungry people in Ethiopia, but they are hungry because they have no money, no longer because there is no food to buy ....we strongly resent the abuse of our poverty to sway the interests of the European public."

Tewolde Berhan Gebre Egziabher of the Institute of Sustainable Development in Addis Ababa,

in response to a comment in late 1997 by a British scientist who claimed that those who want GMOs banned are undermining the position of starving people in Ethiopia.

http://www.organicconsumers.org/ge/sciquotes.htm

The Debate about Genetically Modified Foods

The magazine Nature has just published the following statistics for the year 2,000:

1.1 billion inhabitants of planet Earth are now existing at starvation level.
1.1 billion inhabitants of planet Earth are now classed as ‘obese’.
The GM food debate has now been placed in this context.

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Those who are in favour of GM foods say

Westerners have the luxury of choice. They tend to be well fed.
Food output has to increase by 60 per cent by 2025 to prevent millions from starvation
Transgenic crops will improve crop yields so that at least 3 billion more people will be fed by 2030
Engineering vitamins into foods helps fight malnutrition and disease, saving millions of lives
Food will cheaper and more plentiful for everyone
It will also be possible to make food taste better
And last longer
And retain their nutrients
Modification of crops has been going on for centuries (Notably with wheat, tomatoes etc.)
People readily accept medicines that have been modified and don’t think twice about swallowing pills for the slightest discomfort. And these new products improve life on this planet radically.
Experimenting with DNA, genes and cells in itself aids research and helps combat rampant diseases.
GM foods can actually alter or reduce the use of pesticides, and thereby lessen the impact of chemicals on the environment.
Decades of damage by heavy industry are being remedied by the use of GM crops.
Although pests do build up immunities and resistances to GM products, expert scientists have already considered this and have made provision for it.
It was originally scientists themselves who voiced qualms about genetic engineering and genetic modification, but now there have been TESTS and the public would not be subjected to any product that was not 100% SAFE.

****************************************************************************

Those who are against GM Foods say:

Delegates from Cameroun, Benin, Senegal, Cote d’Ivoire, The Congo, Masagascar, Burundi, Ethiopia, Sudan, Mozambique, Tchad, Algeria, Zambia, Lesotho, Tunisia, Angola, and Morocco released a statement as early as 1998 objecting that ‘the image of the poor and hungry from our countries is being used by giant multinational companies to push a technology that is neither safe, environmentally friendly nor economically beneficial to us’.

It is true that the foods have been tested, BUT:

1.No amount of TESTS can show now that IN THE LONG term GM Foods are SAFE TO EAT
2.No amount of TESTS can show now that IN THE LONG term the growing and manufacture of GM Foods will be SAFE FOR THE ENVIRONMENT
3.No-one knows what kind of contamination will result from the growing of GM crops.
4.Modification of crops has indeed been going on for centuries, but GM foods ‘cross the species barrier’. That is to say: With traditional breeding genes crossed within the same species, for example,the process of cross-pollination was used, which occurs naturally plant to plant.

5.With GM a gene from a firefly, or an Arctic fish, or a bacteria in the soil is transferred to a plant. It may be handy to have a plant that glows, or doesn’t freeze, or is immune to weed-killer, but we do not - and cannot - know what effect that will have on the environment as a whole.

6.The process is not reversible

7.Pests can build up an immunity to
The bio-technical and pharmaceutical corporations are even claiming these modifications as their ‘intellectual property’, which adds to their excessive power. In some cases a chain of events could mean that farmers actually the right to grow their own seeds freely, and dependant on the products of big corporations.
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The monarch butterfly became the symbol of the anti-GM food movement in May 1999 when researchers at Cornell University in the United States issued a study claiming that pollen from genetically modified corn could kill these precious insects.

In June 1998 a test was developed in Britain whereby the exact GM content of any product could be determined.

In August 1998 Professor Arpad Pusztai of the Rowett Research Institute announced that genetically modified potatoes had affected the immune system of rats. (he had inserted a pesticide called lectin into the potatoes and the rats who ate those modified potatoes incurred significant damage to their immune systems and reduced organ growth.

He declared that he would not eat any GM food that had not undergone at least as exhaustive a trial as the one he had conducted. Twenty internationally acclaimed scientists agreed with Dr. Puzstai.

In the United States John Fagan PhD, a molecular biologist who has spent more than 20 years working with DNA techniques renounced $1.8 million dollars in grants for further research, and took an ethical stand against GM foods.

A number of scientists supported him, including George Wald, a Nobel Prize winner.

In England, Prince Charles spoke out against GM foods. He was applauded by environment groups but criticised by a number of scientists and even a bishop or two took a pop at him.

http://www.jackklaff.com/gm.htm

Professor Richard Lacey, microbiologist, doctor, and Professor of Food Safety at Leeds University has become one of the best-known figures of food science since his prediction of the BSE (mad cow disease) crisis made more than seven years ago.

Recently Professor Lacey has spoken out strongly against the introduction of genetically engineered foods, because of 'the essentially unlimited health risks' -- "The fact is, it is virtually impossible to even conceive of a testing procedure to assess the health effects of genetically engineered foods when introduced into the food chain, nor is there any valid nutritional or public interest reason for their introduction.

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
ALLIANCE FOR BIO-INTEGRITY, et al.

Plaintiffs v. DONNA SHALALA, et al. Defendants.
Civil Action No. 98-1300 (CKK)
DECLARATION OF Dr. Richard Lacey, M.D., Ph.D.

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
ALLIANCE FOR BIO-INTEGRITY, et al.

Plaintiffs v. DONNA SHALALA, et al. Defendants.
Civil Action No. 98-1300 (CKK)
DECLARATION OF Dr. Richard Lacey, M.D., Ph.D.

I, Richard Lacey, state:

1. I reside at [ ] Leeds, UK.

2. I earned both a B.A. in biochemistry and an M.D. from the University of Cambridge and a Ph.D. in genetics from the University of Bristol. Since 1971, I have been a member of the Royal College of Pathologists, and since 1983, I have been Professor of Medical Microbiology at the University of Leeds. (I have been on Emeritus status since 1995.)

3. I am an expert in food safety issues, and my background makes me specially qualified to assess the potential risks of genetically engineered food products. I served four years on a U.K. government advisory panel on food as it relates to human and animal health, and I have written five books on food safety, including one published by Cambridge University Press in 1994 containing a detailed discussion of genetically engineered food. (This book has been translated into Japanese and Polish.) In addition, I have written over 200 articles published in standard scientific journals and attended and spoken at numerous scientific conferences both in the U.K. and abroad. (A list of my publications and honors is attached.)

4. In 1989,I anticipated that there could be serious health risks to the British cattle and human populations from the practice of feeding cattle rendered meat from sheep and other animals. I published my warnings in Food Microbiology, 1990. In this article, I explained the nature of the malady that could result. This was the first prediction of what eventually became the "mad cow" epidemic in the United Kingdom.

5. It is my considered judgment that employing the process of recombinantDNA technology (genetic engineering) in producing new plant varieties entails a set of risks to the health of the consumer that are not ordinarily presented by traditional breeding techniques. It is also my considered judgment that food products derived from such genetically engineered organisms are not generally recognized as safe on the basis of scientific procedures within the community of experts qualified to assess their safety.

Paragraphs 6 through 10 explain why these new foods entail higher risks, and paragraphs 12 through 15 explain why none of them is generally recognized as safe.

15. As far as I can ascertain, the current policy of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is primarily based on these two assumptions. Therefore, although it claims to be "science-based," this claim has no solid basis in fact. The only way to base the claims about the safety of genetically engineered food in science is to establish each one to be safe through standard scientific procedures, not through assumptions that reflect more wishful thinking than hard fact.

16. In accordance with 28 U.S.C. § 1746, I declare under penalty of perjury that the foregoing is true and correct.

Executed on: May 28, 1999.

[signed]________
Dr. Richard Lacey

http://www.twnside.org.sg/title/lacey.htm

Bishop Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo ought to read

Eminent Scientists Comment on the Dangers of Genetically Engineered Foods
(Prepared by the Natural Law Party of New Zealand)

*1. Professor Richard Lacey, microbiologist, medical doctor, and Professor of Food Safety at Leeds University has become one of the best-known figures of food science since his prediction of the BSE (mad cow disease) crisis made more than seven years ago. Recently Professor Lacey has spoken out strongly against the introduction of genetically engineered foods, because of 'the essentially unlimited health risks' _ "The fact is, it is virtually impossible to even conceive of a testing procedure to assess the health effects of genetically engineered foods when introduced into the food chain, nor is there any valid nutritional or public interest reason for their introduction."

*2. Professor Mae Wan-Ho, of the UK Open University Department of Biology says, "Genetic engineering bypasses conventional breeding by using artificially constructed parasitic genetic elements, including viruses, as vectors to carry and smuggle genes into cells. Once inside cells, these vectors slot themselves into the host genome. The insertion of foreign genes into the host genome has long been known to have many harmful and fatal effects including cancer of the organism."

*3. Professor Dennis Parke of University of Surrey School of Biological Sciences, a former chief advisor on food safety to Unilever Corporation and British advisor to the US FDA on safety aspects of biotechnology writes: "In 1983, hundreds of people in Spain died after consuming adulterated rapeseed oil. This adulterated rapeseed oil was not toxic to rats". Dr Parke warns that current testing procedures for genetically altered foods including rodent tests are not proving safety for humans. He has suggested a moratorium on the release of genetically engineered organisms, foods, and medicines.

*4. Dr Peter Wills, theoretical biologist at Auckland University writes: "Genes encode proteins involved in the control of virtually all biological processes. By transferring genes across species barriers which have existed for aeons between species like humans and sheep we risk breaching natural thresholds against unexpected biological processes. For example, an incorrectly folded form of an ordinary cellular protein can under certain circumstances be replicative and give rise to infectious neurological disease".

*5. Dr Joseph Cummins, Professor Emeritus of Genetics at the University of Western Ontario warns: "Probably the greatest threat from genetically altered crops is the insertion of modified virus and insect virus genes into crops. It has been shown in the laboratory that genetic recombination will create highly virulent new viruses from such constructions. Certainly the widely used cauliflower mosaic virus is a potentially dangerous gene. It is a pararetrovirus meaning that it multiplies by making DNA from RNA messages. It is very similar to the Hepatitis B virus and related to HIV. Modified viruses could cause famine by destroying crops or cause human and animal diseases of tremendous power."

*6. Dr John Fagan, an award winning microbiologist and cancer researcher, Professor of Microbiology at Maharishi University of Management, has renounced $3 million in US government research grants to publicise the dangers of misuse of biotechnology. He advocates a science-based precautionary approach requiring the labelling of all novel foods. He says "without labelling it will be very difficult for scientists to trace the source of new illness caused by genetically engineered food".

*7. The British Retail Consortium which represents over 90% of food retailers in the UK has issued a policy statement calling for clear labelling of foods produced using genetic engineering: "Retailers in the UK and Europe as a whole are clear that the preservation of consumer choice is paramount, and that substantial work over several years on product ingredient traceability should not be compromised". The Consortium has decided to boycott suppliers of raw ingredients who cannot guarantee that natural foods are kept separate from those produced using genetic engineering.

*8. Dr Norman Ellstrand, Professor of Genetics at the University of California, is one of the world's leading authorities in genetic engineering. He comments on the economic implications for farmers of gene exchange between crops and weedy relatives. "We see this as a multi-million dollar problem. In Europe, there is already a big problem with gene flow between wild beet and cultivated beet. Oil-seed rape also has close relatives and is going to cause problems in the future. One would expect that the kind of genes that are now being engineered are going to be the ones that have a higher potentiality for causing trouble".

*9. Dr Michael Antoniou, Senior Lecturer in Molecular Pathology at a London teaching hospital says, "the generation of genetically engineered plants and animals involves the random integration of artificial combinations of genetic material from unrelated species into the DNA of the host organism. This procedure results in disruption of the genetic blueprint of the organism with totally unpredictable consequences. The unexpected production of toxic substances has now been observed in genetically engineered bacteria, yeast, plants, and animals with the problem remaining undetected until a major health hazard has arisen. Moreover, genetically engineered food or enzymatic food processing agents may produce an immediate effect or it could take years for full toxicity to come to light." Because genetically engineered foods reproduce themselves and can never be recalled from the environment, Dr Antoniou warns of an unprecedented health risk for humanity

_________________________________________________________
Richard Wolfson, PhD, email: rwolfson@concentric.net
Campaign to Ban Genetically Engineered Food, Natural Law Party
500 Wilbrod Street, Ottawa, ON Canada K1N 6N2
Tel. 613-565-8517 Fax. 613-565-6546

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Organic Consumers Association (OCA)
6101 Cliff Estate Rd., Little Marais, Minnesota 55614
Activist or Media Inquiries: (218) 226-4164, Fax: (218) 226-4157
Ronnie Cummins E-mail: alliance@mr.net http://www.purefood.org

MONSANTO & POTRYKUS HIJACK VATICAN

Bishop Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo says: "das weiss ich nicht"

"Bishop Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo believes there will be a lively debate and some disagreement" according to http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0902003.htm

Bishop Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo said "there are very few scientists who oppose the use of genetically modified organisms".

John Vidal Wednesday 20 May 2009 00.10 BST
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2009/may/19/vatican-gm-foods

Bishop Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo is the chancellor of the Vatican's Pontifical Academy of Sciences, the official voice of Catholic science.

Alas, he appears to have no idea how far his organisation has been hijacked by the genetic modification (GM) companies and their chums.

This week, the academy is hosting a "week of study" about food, and Sorondo says the intention has been to gather "an objective" group of experts.

Ho-hum.

Of the 40 people invited, all are well-known GM enthusiasts, claims Spinwatch, an independent organisation that "monitors the role of public relations and spin in contemporary society".

One of the participants, Eric Sachs, is a Monsanto employee;
another, Robert Paarlberg, is an adviser to Monsanto's CEO;
and several others work for companies heavily backed by Monsanto.

So who could have invited this esteemed group to Rome?
It seems the organisation was left to Ingo Potrykus, developer of GM "Golden Rice". This is the man who accused opponents of GM of "crimes against humanity".

Bishop Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo is the chancellor of the Vatican's Pontifical Academy of Sciences, the official voice of Catholic science.

Bishop Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo qualifies for the Pieter Bruegel Award.

A hand painted copy of the Painting:

http://www.artbible.info/art/large/556.html

"The Blind leading the Blind" (Mathew 15:14) will be awarded at a special function with five other "SINGLE ISSUE" BISHOPS (eligibility is restricted to Bishops from states of the former Confederacy in the "BIBLE BELT" that are still holding out against abolishing Capital Punishment)

Jesus had told his disciples that it was not necessary to wash hands before eating. Scribes and Pharisees who heard about this were infuriated, as it was a clear breach of Jewish law. When the disciples informed Jesus about that, he replied that the Pharisees were blind leading the blind, and that all would end up falling into the ditch. The disciples should pay no attention to them.

Pieter Bruegel here depicts the subject literally. The painting is also a study of the different stages of falling, a technical challenge that Bruegel seemed to be fascinated by toward the end of his life.
The expressions on the faces range from trust to surprise and shock.

The church in the background emphasizes Bruegel's message: do not blindly follow leaders that lead you away from the Church, or you will end up in trouble.

Bruegel usually painted details with great care, after studying the subject extensively. Ophthalmologists (eye doctors) are said to be able to recognize five different eye diseases in this painting.

Scientific Clarity is needed

"There is a lot of propaganda being used by the two sides," Bishop Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo, the Potifical Aacademy's chancellor, told Catholic News Service April 29. "And for exactly that reason some scientific clarity is needed" to determine how safe these organisms are.

according to:
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0902003.htm

Bishop Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo may get some clarity if he refuses to be "BRAINWASHED" by MONSANTO AND POTRYKUS but takes the time to read:

Uncertain Peril: Genetic Engineering and the Future of Seeds (Paperback)
by Claire Hope Cummings; Beacon Press; Reprint edition (March 1, 2009)
ISBN-10: 0807085812
ISBN-13: 978-0807085813

Former environmental lawyer and one-time farmer Cummings offers a persuasive account of a lesser-known but potentially apocalyptic threat to the world's ecology and food supply—the privatization of the Earth's seed stock.

For almost a century, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has provided seeds at no cost to farmers who then saved seeds from one harvest to another, eventually developing strains best suited to local or regional climates.

But Cummings also tells how seeds became lucrative, patentable private properties for some of the nation's most powerful agribusinesses.

Cummings bemoans the plague of sameness intensified by the advent of such fitfully regulated companies as Monsanto, which now not only own genetically modified seed varieties, but also sue farmers when wind inevitably blows seeds onto their neighboring fields.

According to Cummings, this tyranny of the technological[ly]elite threatens agricultural diversity and taints food sources. Among the author's many startling statistics is that 97% of 75 vegetables whose seeds were once available from the USDA are now extinct.

Cummings heralds plans for a Doomsday Vault to shelter existing natural seed stock, and finds comfort in organic farming's growth, but her authoritative portrait of another way in which our planet is at peril provides stark food for thought.

Bishop "MONSANTO" Sanchez Sorondo appears to be "IGNORANT" of the TACTICS used by MONSANTO:

Blocked in Europe, is Monsanto trying to use the VATICAN to win acceptance for its GMOs among farmers and consumers in the South?

Ten years ago, MONSANTO tried the same gimmick:
http://www.etcgroup.org/en/materials/publications.html?pub_id=376

Potrykus is still waiting for his "POT OF GOLD"

Bishop TERMINATOR SANCHEZ, alis Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo does not seem to have a clue as to what

TERMINATOR SEEDS from MONSANTO are.

Terminator corn or soybeans or cotton seeds could be genetically modified to ‘commit suicide’ after one harvest season. That would automatically prevent farmers from saving and re-using the seed for the next harvest. The technology would be a means of enforcing Monsanto or other GMO patent rights, and forcing payment of farmer use fees

http://www.financialsense.com/editorials/engdahl/2006/0828.html

"Then, in a manner reminiscent of Big Brother in George Orwell’s novel, 1984, D&PL claims, ‘One application of the technology could be to control unauthorized planting of seed of proprietary varieties…by making such a practice non-economic since non-authorized saved seed will not germinate, and, therefore, would be useless for planting.’ D&PL calls the thousand-year-old tradition of farmer-saved seed by the pejorative term, ‘brown bagging’ as though it is something dirty and corrupt."

"Translated into lay language, D&PL officially declares the purpose of its Patent No. 5,723,765, Control of Plant Gene Expression, is to prevent farmers who once get trapped into buying transgenic or GMO seeds from a company such as Monsanto or Syngenta, from ‘brown bagging’ or being able to break free of control of their future crops by Monsanto and friends. As D&PL puts it, their patent gives them ‘the prospect of opening significant worldwide seed markets to the sale of transgenic technology in varietal crops in which crop seed currently is saved and used in subsequent seasons as planting seed.’

"Instead, the farmer or the country whose farmers depend on Monsanto patented GMO seeds must pay a license fee to Monsanto each year to get new seeds. ‘No tickee, no laundy,’ as the old Brooklyn poet would say."

"Terminator is the answer to the agribusiness dream of controlling world food production. No longer would they need to hire expensive detectives to spy on whether farmers were re-using Monsanto or other GMO patented seed. Terminator corn or soybeans or cotton seeds could be genetically modified to ‘commit suicide’ after one harvest season. That would automatically prevent farmers from saving and re-using the seed for the next harvest. The technology would be a means of enforcing Monsanto or other GMO patent rights, and forcing payment of farmer use fees not only in developing economies, where patent rights were, understandably, little respected, but also in industrial OECD countries."

"With Terminator patent rights, once a country such as Argentina or Brazil or Iraq or the USA or Canada opened its doors to the spread of GMO patented seeds among its farmers, their food security would be potentially hostage to a private multinational company, a company which, for whatever reasons, especially given its intimate ties to the US Government, might decide to use ‘food as a weapon’ to compel a US-friendly policy from that country or group of countries."

"Sound far-fetched? Go back to what then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger did in countries like Allende’s Chile to force a regime change to a ‘US-friendly’ Pinochet dictatorship by withholding USAID and private food exports to Chile. Kissinger dubbed it ‘food as a weapon.’ Terminator is merely the logical next step in food weapon technology."

"The role of the US Government in backing and financing Delta & Pine Land’s decades of Terminator research is even more revealing. As Kissinger said back in the 1970’s, ‘Control the oil and you can control entire Continents. Control food and you control people…’

"In a June 1998 interview, USDA spokesman, Willard Phelps, defined the US Government policy on Terminator seeds. He explained that USDA wanted the technology to be ‘widely licensed and made expeditiously available to many seed companies.’ He meant agribusiness GMO giants like Monsanto, DuPont or Dow. The USDA was open about their reasons: They wanted to get Terminator seeds into the developing world where the Rockefeller Foundation had made eventual proliferation of genetically engineered crops the heart of its GMO strategy from the beginnings of its rice genome project in 1984."

The Bishop of Cameroon ought to read this too on Peter Raven,"a paid traveling salesman for Monsanto" .[6]

http://www.spinprofiles.org/index.php/Peter_Raven

Peter Raven is the Director of the Missouri Botanical Garden[1] and a past President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has been a recipient of numerous awards and honours. TIME magazine honoured him for his tireless championing of conservation and biodiversity as a 'Hero for the Planet'.[2]

Although Raven is passionately concerned about the extinction of living organisms - warning that two-thirds of the world's species may be gone by the middle of the next century - his solution to a problem brought on by carelessness and commerce, is simple: the mastery of biology allied to the power and efficiency of corporations. "Major companies will be, are, a major factor if we are going to win world sustainability," he told a journalist,[3] and the commercial development and acceptance of GM crops is something he's convinced sustainable agriculture requires.

It's an issue on which he comes out fighting. In May 2003, speaking at the Natural History Museum in London at an event sponsored by Sense About Science, Raven attacked Greenpeace over its opposition to GMOs, telling his audience:

Last month, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), once one of America's most venerable and respected civil rights groups, confronted Greenpeace at a public event and accused it of "'eco-manslaughter' through its support of international policies limiting development and the expansion of technology to the developing world's poor".[4]

In fact, the once-respected CORE was hijacked during the 1970s by elements that have since used it as a Republican right pro-corporate lobby.

If Raven is hard on Greenpeace, he's less critical when it comes to Monsanto. "There is nothing I'm condemning Monsanto for,"[5] he says. And he has praised the company's efforts to win public acceptance for GMOs: 'The company has ... won many more believers around the world in what they're doing and attempting to do.'

An old friend of Raven's, geneticist Wes Jackson, says of him:

I just wish Peter was more reflective... The fact that living substance, germplasm, can become the property of a corporation is going to come at a cost. I think the boundaries of consideration need to be broader than Peter's willing to make them. In a certain sense he's a paid traveling salesman for Monsanto .[6]

Raven has good reason to smile on the company. According to TIME magazine:

When Raven first came to the garden in 1971, he had 85 employees and a budget of $650,000. Today there are 354 people on staff, and the budget is $20 million.[7] That expansion has been assisted by millions from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and substantial corporate support, not least from Monsanto.

The Garden, in fact, is based in Monsanto's home town of St. Louis. According to Raven there are other reasons for the strength of Monsanto's support. Although, 'we don't do biotech work other than bioprospecting', he says, 'The basic research we do here at the Garden makes us a major resource for the biotechnology industry'. Raven, together with Monsanto, was also the driving force behind a nearby plant biotech research institute on whose board he sits.

The Raven-Monsanto equation includes the Garden's multimillion-dollar research centre - The Monsanto Center.[8] And it doesn't stop there. As the St Louis' paper, the Riverside Times, noted in 1999:

The Garden received $3 million from Monsanto in their last fundraising campaign... Monsanto also contributed land and a large chunk of the $146 million startup money for the Danforth Plant Science Center [a project Raven was instrumental in getting off the ground]. Monsanto matches its employees' contributions to the Garden ($225,000 last year) and contributes to the operating fund ($25,000 last year). Trustees give privately, too, and in past years the Garden has had Monsanto CEO Robert Shapiro, Monsanto vice president Tom K. Smith and Monsanto research-and-development director Howard Schneiderman on its governing board. Now the Garden is collaborating with Monsanto's nutrition sector on a food library, collecting samples of all plants used worldwide as foods and medicines. (The World Resources Institute lists Monsanto as a bioprospector since 1989 and lists its collector, as of 1993, as the Missouri Botanical Garden.) When Confluence, an environmental quarterly, criticized Monsanto, the Garden's PR woman pulled it from their literature table.[9]

At the time that was written, Raven's wife was Monsanto's Director of Public Policy, Kate Fish, leading to jokes that even Raven's sex life came corporate-sponsored.

Raven played a key role in getting the Golden Rice publicity bandwagon rolling, after its inventor Ingo Potrykus had his paper publicising the project rejected by the journal Nature.

Raven is a key member of the Vatican's Pontifical Academy of Sciences and was among the invited speakers at a special Vatican study seminar held in November 2003 entitled "GMO: Threat or Hope?"[10]. The seminar came under criticism from African priests for bias.[11]

According to David Andrew, former Executive Director of the National Catholic Rural Life Conference and the Peace and Justice Coordinator for the Congregation of Holy Cross:

At the time of the conference I spoke with Archbishop Raymond Burke, then the Archbishop of Saint Louis and a strong critic of biotechnology and corporate control in agriculture. He had been the President of the National Catholic Rural Life Conference. He told me that shortly after he arrived in Saint Louis he met Peter Raven at a social event. Raven approached him and said: "Archbishop, I understand that you are opposed to GMOs." The Archbishop told him, that, yes, he was. And, Raven answered: "I'm going to convert you."[12]

Andrew also notes:

Peter Raven, when speaking at a conference of the National Religious Partnership on the Environment that I attended, introduced himself as having a "Catholic background." At that time he was accompanied by his fourth wife, just having divorced his third wife, who had a position as a public relations director for Monsanto. The Catholic "background" doesn't include the "family values" of the Holy See. But, Peter Raven has been finding it easy to give voice to his ideas within selected walls of the Vatican.[13]

He was also involved in a still more controversial week-long study week organised by the Pontifical Academy for May 2009

1.↑ Home Page, Missouri Botanical Garden website, accessed March 27 2009
2.↑ Roger Rosenblatt, "The World Is His Garden: Better Tread Carefully", TIME.com, 19 April 1999, accessed March 27 2009
3. ↑ Jeannette Batz, "Peter and the wolf", RFT News, 3 November 1999, accessed March 27 2009
4.↑ Peter H. Raven, "The Environmental Challenge", Talk presented at the Natural History Museum, London, England, 22 May 2003, sponsored by Sense about Science, accessed March 27 2009
5.↑ Jeannette Batz, "Peter and the wolf", RFT News, 3 November 1999, accessed March 27 2009
6.↑ Jeannette Batz, "Peter and the wolf", RFT News, 3 November 1999, accessed March 27 2009 (GMWatch's emphasis)
7.↑ Roger Rosenblatt, "The World Is His Garden: Better Tread Carefully", TIME.com, 19 April 1999, accessed March 27 2009
8.↑ "Monsanto Center", Missouri Botanical Garden website, accessed March 27 2009
9.↑ Jeannette Batz, "Peter and the wolf", RFT News, 3 November 1999, accessed March 27 2009
10.↑ Jeffrey L. Fox, "Vatican debates agbiotech", Nature Biotechnology 22, 4-5 (2004), doi:10.1038/nbt0104-4
11.↑ Philip Pullella, "African priests criticise Vatican GMO conference", Reuters, 11 November 2003, accessed March 27 2009
12.↑ David Andrews, CSC, "The Pontifical Academy of Sciences Continues Foolhardy Biotechnology Advocacy", Op-Ed News, 29 January 2009, accessed March 27 2009. Also available via Tiny Url
13.↑ David Andrews, CSC, "The Pontifical Academy of Sciences Continues Foolhardy Biotechnology Advocacy", Op-Ed News, 29 January 2009, accessed March 27 2009. Also available via Tiny Url
14.↑ "Transgenic Plants for Food Security in the Context of Development", 15-19 May 2009 - Casina Pio IV, Vatican City
15.↑ Fr. Seán McDonagh, "Further reflections on the GMO Conference in the Gregorian University in September 2004", 14 January 2009, accessed March 27 2009

correction....It is the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum which is run by the Legion of Christ .The school of Bioethics is a subdivision of this institution and it is from there that the Legion always has a spokesman present and commenting to the media on these GMO summits.

http://archives.foodsafety.ksu.edu/agnet/2003/11-2003/agnet_nov_30.htm.top
GMO development: a moral duty ?
November 28, 2003
Crop Biotech Update
If genetically modified organisms represent an opportunity for development, especially for poor countries, it might be a moral duty to develop and disseminate them.
Father Gonzalo Miranda, dean of the School of Bioethics of the Regina Apostolorum Pontifical Athenaeum, expressed this view at a symposium held at

the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.
Father Miranda spoke about biotechnology?s role in the development of the poorer countries and emphasized that ?the Church invites us to go beyond mere justice and equity and undertake the path of solidarity. He said that "solidarity" should ?facilitate not only the dissemination of seeds for improved crop varieties but also the dissemination of knowledge and technology.
With regard to Christian ethics, Father Miranda stressed that "God has put man as a gardener of creation, who must act with responsibility to cultivate and take care of creation." "Some people think that genetic manipulation of living beings is an ethically reprehensible act because it tends to alter what is natural, but the Church's anthropological view leads to different conclusions," Father Miranda explained. If man intervenes, without abusing or harming nature, it can be said that "he intervenes not to modify nature, but to help it to develop according to its essence, that of creation, that willed by God."

http://www.junkscience.com/nov03.html.

"Using Genetically Modified Organisms Could Be a Duty, Says Bioethicist, If They Pose Opportunity for Development" - "ROME, NOV. 21, 2003 - If genetically modified organisms represent an opportunity for development, especially for poor countries, it might be a moral duty to disseminate them, says a bioethicist. Father Gonzalo Miranda, dean of the School of Bioethics of the Regina Apostolorum Pontifical Athenaeum, expressed this idea last week when addressing the symposium held at the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, on "Genetically Modified Organisms and the Social Doctrine of the Church." In an interview with ZENIT, Father Miranda spoke about the function that biotechnology might have in the development of the poorer countries and emphasized that "the Church invites us to go beyond mere justice and equity and undertake the path of solidarity." "If GMOs represent a real opportunity to foster the development of all countries, especially the neediest, it would be a real moral and solidaristic duty to favor their dissemination," he said. "To block them a priori in virtue of merely ideological postures or disgraceful economic interests would not only be a lack of solidarity but also a grave injustice," the priest noted." (Zenit.org)
"Friday, September 24, 2004
Venue: The Pontifical Gregorian University, Piazza della Pilotta, 4, Rome, Italy.
The Vicar General Luis Garza LC has family fortune interests in GMOs. Therefore, how is it this conference, as the one in 2003, continues to portray positive ethical and moral views concerning the GMO debate from the LC run School of Bioethics,subdivision of the Legion run Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum. is that Ethical?
http://www.pmac.net/romo.html
http://www.rickross.com/reference/loc/loc55.html
http://blog.beliefnet.com/viamedia/2005/05/questions-about-lc_comments.html
http://dirtsecrets.wordpress.com/2009/03/30/chapter-17/
http://wapedia.mobi/en/Alfonso_Romo
http://www.gene.ch/info4action/2000/Feb/msg00001.html
http://books.google.com/books?id=8aiTuzKYZu8C&pg=PA93&lpg=PA93&dq=alfons...

....and now the Pope's new encyclical calls for a "global authority" "with teeth" to control the economies of nations.Power corrupts,absolute power absolutely corrupts.
One wonders how if GMOs will plug into a global authoritarian regime?