800 Scientists Demand Global GMO “Experiment” End
Did you hear about the 800 esteemed scientists who came together and demanded the production of genetically modified crops and products be stopped? Scientists who called on world powers to re-evaluate the future of agriculture and seek sustainability rather than corporate profits? Don’t be surprised if you haven’t, as the mainstream media won’t touch this one.
Eight-hundred scientists did make such a demand. They made it first over a decade ago and they have updated it over the years, adding signatures and release dates. Still global powers have all but ignored their calls.
The Institute of Science in Society is a non-profit group of scientists from around the world, dedicated to bringing an end to what they refer to as the “dangerous GMO “experiment. In their open letter to the world, they have highlighted why governments need to stop genetically modified crops now — before there are irreversible effects on the health of the people and the health of the earth at large.
The Open Letter from World Scientists to All Governments calls for “the immediate suspension of all environmental releases of GM crops and products, both commercially and in open field trials, for at least 5 years.”
They also want patents on organisms, cell lines, and living things revoked and banned. Such patents (a sort of corporate version of “playing God,”) “threaten food security, sanction biopiracy of indigenous knowledge and genetic resources, violate basic human rights and dignity, compromise healthcare, impede medical and scientific research and are against the welfare of animals.”
And as Anthony Gucciardi recently detailed on NaturalSociety, this would be bad news for Monsanto following the recent Supreme Court decision that they have the ‘right’ to patent life.
Scientists Speaking Out
In the beginning, after its first draft in 1999, the letter had just over 300 signatures. Since then, it’s grown significantly. At the writing of this article, the document has 828 signatures representing 84 different countries.
While we are told by Monsanto and the FDA that GMOs are nothing to worry about and instead safe tools for the future of agriculture, a growing number of esteemed scientists seem to disagree. So, who’s listening?
The letter has been presented to numerous governments and organizations, including the U.N. Commission on Sustainable Development, the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity, the World Trade Organization, and yes, even the U.S. Congress. The letter has been shared at these venues, but it doesn’t seem like anyone was listening.
The populous has to dig for information like this. We have to seek out the news sources willing to cover it, because we won’t hear about this letter on the nightly news or through a governmental agency. No, the U.S. government wants you to fear what they want you to fear (“terror” and crime, for instance), but they certainly don’t want you to fear the information and the food they are putting on your table. Or the GMOs they are funding with your taxpayer dime.
It makes me sad that there are now only two comments regarding this issue.
A lot of people read, but don't comment – I rarely comment, unless I find another comment insulting, so don't underestimate the number of people who have read this article, and even passed it along!
I pass on posts about GMOs on my FB page about 4-5 times a day. It is all over FB.
Hmm, could governments be silent/complicit/thick as a plank on other matters that affect us?
maybe the mainstream media won't talk about it, but FB has MILLIONS of users………post, share, repeat…………….remember the shampoo commercial from the 70's……….she told 2 friends and they told 2 friends, and so on and so on and so on…………………………
The corporatist goal is total dominion. That is why Monsanto and other GMO seed producers have been given legal immunity not only from independent research, but personal health damages and farmers' complaints about non-GMO field crops being contaminated by cross-pollination from patented GMO plants. But Monsanto can than sue farmers whose crops turn up with cross-pollinated produce, and those farmers not only lose the suit, they lose their farm to the corporatists. It is a plan to own and control all food stuffs on Earth!
Oh happy day! My organic seedlings are proliferating!! Romaine, Red leaf, spinach, chives, carrots, and peppers!! All looking healthy without Roundup or Bt toxin!!
FIrst off, trying to tout an open letter that's THIRTEEN years old is hardly relevant. More importantly, have you actually looked at the list of names at the end? A vast number of them appear to not even be scientists relevant to the field (if scientists at all), let alone esteemed ones.
OMG!!!
Someone's been eating their GMO corn .We don't need the letter… The awareness plan is in effect .We will harvest the masses with the truth …….
i forget what country it was in but, in protest to GMO, they burned an entire corn field. it's a start…..
Hungary
and China. They've also put GM rice on the burn list.
If GMO is so harmless and equivalent, why do govt cafeterias serve only organic.
LOL
Everyone needs to become aware of GMO and what the risks are!!!
Does it not make you wonder why food stuffs cant be labelled I they contain GMOs??? Maybe the contamination is so big that it would be easier to label food what does Not contain GMOs??
Who are the people that allow companies to patent life….how can we let this happen???
Enough!!!! Put a stop to it NOW.
the government allows it and the courts back it up.
There is only ONE way to defeat GMOs. Let your money speak for you and STOP buying food that even MIGHT contain GMOs. Monsanto and the rest of the pro-GMO companies (the majority, if not all, of the big names) only understand one thing – profits. We can moan and groan about it and waste our time trying to get food labeled, but I’d bet they only laugh at us. Stop lining their pockets and I guarantee they will understand and will not be laughing any longer. When the profits stop, the GMOs will be defeated. There is absolutely no other way that will work.
buycott is back up and works well with a few kinks but it is back in the play store one of the best ways to boycott the companies that defend gmo's around the world
Did the Australian govt. take any notice of this letter…..As I know we have GMO Canola in my regions backyard…
You think this is bad, check out plastic island….. Then you might really feel sick
Good news
Read the list of signatures. It's not 800 scientists; many of them are not scientists at all. Others have PhD's but not in the life sciences (Google'd one and found his PhD was in biblical studies). It's this kind of sloppiness that makes me never trust a word that anyone promoting "natural" or "organic" solutions says.
Do you prefer “troll”,or “shill”?
It doesn’t take a PhD to recognize stupid when you see it.
Need to dig a bit deeper here….
http://www.nature.com/news/hyped-gm-maize-study-f…
When will Global GMO "Experiments" STOP????
I'm eliminating one Corporation after another from my list of products to buy and or eat….We must STARVE these monsters!
Satan rules Monsanto and company…..meaning shareholders and followers. Enough is enough. Money is the root of all evil….Monsanto is evil..
I lean toward a ban on GMO or at the very least much tighter control over the genetic modifications. This list however of over 800 scientists does much to destroy their argument. A group of forty to fifty scientists with degrees germane to the field of plant genetics would carry much more weight than the 800 plus, many of which have a “not even close to science” degree. A long list of that nature is often used to pad a lie. The same ploy was used on climate warming.
800 scientists on the list is nothing. In the US alone there are some 600,000 scientists with degrees relevant to the GMO issue…which means 800 scientists (assuming they all even have relevant degrees) represent barely over 0.1% of the total. Interestingly, there is a similar percentage of scientists who support so-called “creation science.” In other words, 800 scientists represent the same fringe numbers as creationists.
Thus, this article doesn’t help the anti-GMO position at all…and in fact it undercuts it severely! Too many anti-GMO complaints are based on poor or nonexistent science. If we can’t do better than that, nobody should be paying attention to the anti-GMO position anyway….
Well you may have a bit of a point on that 800, and maybe not all related to the GMO debate, but they are still scientists that can read and understand studies better than the average person.
But that being said whether or not GMO is safe is very easy to figure out, but the fact that Monsanto refuses to give it’s seeds to research groups to test independantly kind of hurts their credibility as trustworthy. Also China has turned back now 3 or more huge shipments of GMO food from the US, and they are burning some fields as well. Add that to the list of countries that are banning it either fully or partially, and you have to wonder…are all these countries wrong? Or are they right? The country list grows, the shipments being refused grows, so maybe there is something there. I don’t think all these countries are stupid. I’m sure they have their scientists that have done these studies and have found something that caused these refusals, and/or bans.
If Monsanto wants credibility and to be trusted, let other independant firms test your seeds to see the truth.
I can’t respond to why (or even if) Monsanto won’t provide seeds for study, but popularity of a movement doesn’t necessarily correlate with fact or intelligent behavior. A good example is religion: there are literally billions of Muslims and billions of Christians in the world. Their beliefs are mutually contradictory, so at a bare minimum billions of people on one side or the other (or both) are wrong. That is why an argument from popularity is considered a fallacy.
If there were valid studies done linking GMO products to health issues, they would be published in the scientific literature. That’s how the process works. But since every major scientific organization agrees GMO foods don’t pose a health risk, I side with their assessments.
Well I thank you for your input, but religion is an intangible unprovable thing at this point. No disrespect to anyone or any religion, but to date we have no proof of any God or Gods or anyone/anything else yet, so that argument is a bit different.
The GMO debate is quite simple. Let different firms test the seeds, and the results will show whether it is good or bad.
And if you think that published research is not governed by higher levels of government or organizations than you need look no further than taught history, current medicine, and hey even the 911 commission report. Certain organizations and govts block or place pressure where they think is needed to get the results they need or want. That is known. So if you believe all published or rather not published information is 100 percent correct, well then I don’t know what to say.
But why all the countries banning it, or burning the crops that they had for testing? Are all those countries following along with the ‘popularity’ of being anti-GMO?! I think not. I think they have conducted their own studies and found GMO not to be safe enough at the current time for mainstream production in their countries. There has to be something there…
Well the point is that countries are refusing them for not being proven to be safe. By an independent research facility.
If you ban a product after you have proven it to be unsafe, it will have already killed more than a few people especially if the effects only show up after cumulatif usage.
We have accepted study’s in the past proving that cigarettes are healthy. And guess what, all cigarettes are now proven to be harmfull!!!
IMO the 800 lb gorilla in that’s been in the room but is now in our face is a collusion – the US-Biotech BUSINESS PARTNERSHIP. Current example: “U.S. Government Ties El Salvador $277 Million Aid Package to Monsanto’s GMO Seeds”
http://bit.ly/1kJw7j3 and
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffrey-ritterman/us-bullying-el-salvador-monsato_b_5497701.html
For the US, a means of strengthening imperialism by creating massive food dependency. (Fortunately for Russia, Putin appears to see the GE scam for what it is.)
For Monsanto and their ilk of sociopathic chemical pushers the partnership is a means to protect and continue to expand their sterility-inducing fraud. The US can play both political thug and military thug for Monsanto and ilk (in case Monsanto’s own paramilitary squad can’t handle a ‘local situtaion’).
Rape is an apt analogy. Like a rapist who won’t understand “No”, they rape DNA and they’ll rape national sovereignty as a means of propagation if they can, as in El Salvador right now.
Government Biotech > Eaters :: Win Win > Lose
* Over 7 years ago one of the first wicked leeks was an email about literally punishing France and the EU for questioning and resisting GMOs, authored by none other than the United States Ambassador to France. Remember? Never heard about it?
Another example, different country, same biotech corporitis infecting Indian government …
“India’s spying bureau serving interests of foreign corporations”
The IB (Intelligence Bureau), India’s top intelligence agency for internal security, has spent time and public money authoring a reportthat accuses citizens’ groups, NGOs, and individuals of threatening the national economic security of India. Their crime, according to the IB, is to oppose socially and environmentally destructive “development projects”, including the introduction of GMOs. Dr Pushpa Bhargava, the father of modern biotechnology in India, joined Indian citizens and civil society organisations in condemning the report.
“What you are seeing is not just a consolidation of seed companies, it’s really a consolidation of the entire food chain.”—Robert Fraley, co-president of Monsanto’s agricultural sector
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jan/03/wikileaks-us-eu-gm-crops
For your european example 😉
It is indeed an dirty trick they are playing. Instead of proving the food is safe for consumption they force countries to lower the value of safe.
Where is this list of scientists?
Oh,no, no, no!
OMG! May HE save mother earth, ameeenn!
While I agree with natural and organic solutions, I am finding that they do exaggerate quite a bit, which makes them at times unbelievable. However, because of your comment, I looked the signatures up and found that the majority of them ARE scientists or have a science or medicine background. So I’m not sure where you looked but I did find they seemed to be more accurate this time.
If GMO is so harmless and equivalent why is there such a fight against labeling it