The scene, the floor of the senate, the year, 1996. The players in our drama, the heads of the giant agribusiness Monsanto on one side, on the other, the leaders of the Senate of the United States of AmeriKa. The play begins with Monsanto testifying that the world should welcome the new miracles of the business world, Genetically Modified Organisms. The reasons given are, they will help feed the world, they will reduce the need for chemicals like pesticides, fertilizers and herbicides. GMOs will increase yields and make it easier to feed the anticipated world population in the future, and the big one, that GMO foods are "substantially equivalent" in EVERY way to non-GMO foods. The Senators, cheer, the world population rejoices, and the lives of every person on the planet is changed forever.
Silly, yeah, sort of. The scary part is that it is all true. Especially the part about how the life of every person on earth has changed. Just not for the better. Monsanto made a lot of promises to the world while the CEO and other heads of the company sat there in senate hearings about GMO foods. A LOT of promises. Not a single one of them has come true. The amounts of pesticides and herbicides as well as petrochemical fertilizers needed to grow GMO crops has increased dramatically. Yields, according to the USDA, have dropped, by as much as 15% for soy, almost as much for other crops as well. There are now super weeds out there, weeds completely unaffected by the use of herbicides and huge numbers of devastating insects are immune to the BT toxin inserted into GMO crops, while beneficial insects, like bees and Monarch butterflies populations are being devastated. And of course the bad part is that those scientists that decided to play god and had no idea how to actually do it, have made plants that now are a huge part of our environment, and at this time, would be IMPOSSIBLE to eradicate. And evidence is mounting that we should. The inserted genes have been proven to migrate into the bacteria that live in the intestines of the animals that eat the GMO plants. That means that when you eat BT toxin corn products, the normally beneficial bacteria in your gut that help with, and actually are a huge part of your body's immune system, will begin to manufacture BT toxin in your system. The first long term feeding studies of GMO crops to mammals have shown that most develop cancer. And third generations of mammals fed GMO crops are over 90% sterile.
Finally comes the big one, that Monsanto told us that GMO crops are substantially equivalent in nutritional values. That just isn't so. Testing shows just how far off they are with GMO corn having over 430 times LESS calcium as non-GMO corn, 113 times LESS Magnesium and 7 times less Manganese. All are important minerals needed by humans for growth. The worst part is the residual pesticide and herbicides now in GMO crops. Those are significant, and unfortunately, deadly.
Let's be realistic, you, me, all of us concerned consumers, will NEVER convince ANY government body to totally ban GMO foods. We don't have the money that Monsanto and other big gene tech and agribusiness companies have. And the reality of it all is that money, and big money at that, is what controls the decisions of government in favor of those that have that big money and dole it out to those that make the decisions. What we can do, is go local, push for GMO labeling in your state. We can get that done, there are states that will vote on labeling this year. Tell everyone you know just how important this is. And most important, DON'T BUY ANY OF THAT CRAP! Tell everyone you know not to buy that crap. If big business can't sell the crap, they just may learn that they shouldn't be making it.
Good luck to you all, it is you life, and your health that is at stake.
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