Mitra Ebadolahi Ebadolahi is a
third-year international development studies and history student
who believes that the forces of good will kiss evil on the lips.
She encourages comments at mightymousemitra@yahoo.com.
Let’s play a game. When I say a word, you say the first
thing that comes to mind. Then we’ll repeat. Ready?
Summer? Vacation.
Beaches? Picnics.
Bananas? Antibiotics.
Wait a minute! Antibiotics don’t have anything to do with
bananas!
Oh, don’t they?
At this very moment, scientists are working to create a new
“antibiotic banana” that may help humans fight
infectious diseases. If their endeavors are successful, we may soon
be able to skip the doctor’s office and go straight to the
grocery store to cure our ailments.
Sound too good to be true? Well, maybe it is. How, for example,
could antibiotic banana plants impact monkey, bird and insect
species?
In just 10 years, biotechnology has become one of the fastest
growing industries in the United States. With endless possibilities
for profit, biotech firms are scrambling to pump billions of
dollars into research and development schemes, touting the
“gene revolution” as the solution to everything from
environmental degradation to global hunger.
Many genetically modified organisms have already been developed,
including corn, cotton and soy plants that produce their own
pesticides. According to researchers, these varieties are more
environmentally-friendly and economically efficient, requiring
fewer chemical pesticides and producing bigger, more
“perfect” crops.
 Illustration by JENNY YURSHANSKY/Daily Bruin
Unfortunately for the planet’s consumers, these corporations
have forgotten their own capitalist maxim: “you don’t
get nothing for free.” As GMOs infiltrate our diets,
specialists warn that the new “Frankenfoods” may
permanently damage our health and ecosystem, regardless of
biotech’s claims to the contrary.
Ecologically, the possible impacts of biotechnology have not
been adequately researched. One biotech giant, Aqua Bounty Farms,
has developed a new salmon that can mature four times faster than
normal fish. Biologically, female fish are attracted to larger
males, which are assumed to be the fittest and most capable of the
species. As geneticist William Muir notes, “fish just 25
percent larger will get 400 percent more matings than a fish of
average size.” (“Harvest of Fear” www.pbs.org)
Yet these “artificial” salmon produce the lowest number
of offspring. The introduction of Aqua Bounty salmon into the wild
could rapidly decrease or even wipe out this endangered fish
species.
GMOs can never be recalled once they are released from corporate
labs, since they are living organisms capable of reproduction. If
we are truly concerned about the possible ecological implications
of genetic engineering, we must conduct serious research before
these living technologies are incorporated into the natural life
cycle.
Consuming inadequately-researched GM products may seriously harm
human health and expose millions of people to unknown dangers.
Under present FDA policies, GM products do not have to be labeled
and do not undergo the same rigorous safety tests other foodstuffs
must pass before being released to consumers. Consequently, if a
gene from a peanut is spliced into soy beans, people with peanut
allergies may have severe reactions to unlabeled GM soy, even
though they might consider soy safe.
Because American farmers mix GM and non-GM crops during harvest
and storage, it has become virtually impossible to separate
modified varieties from natural grains. Separate storage facilities
and accurate food labeling systems cost a pretty penny; as a
result, agribusiness lobbyists have pressured the U.S. Food and
Drug Administration to allow companies to continue marketing
unlabeled GM products. The FDA recently voted to maintain these
inadequate policies, allowing biotech corporations to continue to
exploit unsuspecting consumers.
To make matters worse, GMOs permeate the typical American diet.
When was the last time you had a Coke? Most sodas contain corn
syrup, derived from GM corn. Like ketchup on your French fries?
Heinz and Del Monte use GM tomatoes in their pastes. Had any
Frosted Flakes lately? Kellogg’s thinks GM corn flakes are
grrrreat! Salad dressing? Chocolate? The list of GM foods, produced
by manufacturing giants like Nabisco, Quaker, Hershey’s and
Campbell’s, goes on and on.
In other parts of the world, GMOs have been restricted. In 1998,
massive protests led European Union officials to place a moratorium
on the commercial growing and import of GM crops. Recently, the
World Trade Organization and other free trade avengers have
pressured the EU to rescind this ban, but manufacturers are still
required to clearly mark all GM products with standardized labels.
Throughout Europe, high levels of consumer resistance have led many
corporations to abandon the use of GMOs altogether.
Here in the United States, polls indicate that 88 percent of
consumers support more pre-market testing of GMOs, and 85 percent
want GM foodstuffs to be clearly labeled. So much for the
democratic process (www.greenpeace.org).
Finally, multiple arguments refute the biotech industry’s
claims that GMOs will solve global poverty or hunger. Economically,
GMOs can force farmers to become dependent on biotech corporations.
Since GM seeds are a business venture, they are patented and sold
for profit. Because “self-fumigating” plants produce
pesticides indiscriminately, pest toxins are emitted constantly
throughout the growing process, regardless of actual pest levels.
Ironically, flooding fields with these insecticides can help bugs
develop resistance more rapidly than normal evolution allows.
Resistance renders old pesticides useless, forcing farmers to
replant fields with new GMOs producing different pest
repellents.
Farmers must then purchase new seeds, and the entire cycle
repeats. Poor farmers in developing countries have virtually no
access to these technologies, and the “perfect” GM
crops they compete with drive their own meager incomes down even
further.
Biotechnology is a multibillion dollar industry, and there is an
intense, competitive pressure among corporations to maximize
profits and minimize costs. Consequently, critical (but expensive)
tests are eliminated while new GMOs continue to be patented and
sold to farmers.
Ironically, the realities of biotech clearly show how expensive
industrialized agriculture and the unequal access to capital
worldwide collaborate to keep peasant farmers trapped in cycles of
poverty and dependency. In order for world hunger to truly be
eradicated, sustainable, local farming practices must be promoted
and human wealth must be more equitably distributed.
The most basic assumption of biotech corporations like Monsanto
and AgrEvo are that humans can and should freely manipulate living
organisms in order to produce new products for human consumption.
According to this view, natural resources exist solely for the
benefit of humankind, which grants people free reign to exploit,
plunder and alter nature.
In a parallel universe, there are many who believe that humans
are simply one part of an incredibly complex and fragile ecosystem,
which, if damaged, is irreparable. If GMOs are not carefully
researched, we might never know their possible consequences until
it is too late. In order to safeguard our environment, and develop
feasible alternatives to industrial agriculture’s
shortcomings, we must exercise our consumer power to hold biotech
corporations accountable. If complacency won’t kill us,
Frankenfoods just might.