Roger J. Wendell
Defending 3.8 Billion Years of Organic EvolutionSM
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Genetic Engineering Cloning and Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) (Tinkering with nature and 3.8 billion years of organic evolution) |
On Tuesday morning, August 29th (2008) National Public Radio's Morning Edition ran a piece about
"Minty E. Coli and Other Bioengineering Feats." It featured some veiled potty humor, giggles, and a
goofy quote from physicist Freeman Dyson about how just about anybody in the future will be able to
create new forms life. Well, in response I fired off this email that afternoon:
Robert Krulwich 's piece about MIT students genetically altering intestinal bacteria, to smell like mint or bananas, was both disappointing and frightening. Disappointing in that too much giggling and humor was used to ease us into accepting Frankenstein science. Frightening in that Krulwich and his college friends barley gave transgenic bacteria (bacteria with foreign DNA injected into them) a second thought - simply justifying the creation of new life by assuring us that their job, as engineers, is to "build things."For over three billion years evolution has been moving along just fine without the genetic manipulations of 20 year old college students, pharmaceuticals giants or agribusiness. Mr. Krulwich, NPR and MIT could do us all a big favor by not only showing more respect for living systems, but carefully evaluating the need to inject foreign genes into anything - including bacteria.
Anyway, as I suspected, the only response I would receive would be from some server robot at NPR. Here's what it told me:
npr-autoreply@npr.orgDear Listener,
This is an automated response from NPR's Morning Edition. The production staff has received your message and it will be processed shortly.
Thank you,
NPR Services
This page:
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First off, before we waste each other's time, let me start by telling you where I stand. I believe in the following: |
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On March 2, 2004 the voters of Mendocino County, Calfifornia approved the nation's first ban on the raising and keeping of genetically engineered crops or animals!! |
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The intent of this page, and other resources,* is to foster positive change in the way we view and treat all living organisms. - Roger J. Wendell, Colorado (1998)
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I've conducted live, on-air, interviews on this and |
Sadly, the government of the European Commission, without the consent of the people,
approved the importation of genetically modified corn in mid-May 2004. Apparantly,
this move was an attempt to appease big business interests - at the detriment of it's
own people. Click Here to see what the BBC had to say about it...
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"Recently I saw a BBC television documentary about cloning. Using computer-generated imagery, this film showed a creature scientists were working on, a sort of semi-human being with large eyes and several other recognizably human features lying down in a cage. Of course, at present this is just fantasy, but, they explained, it is possible to foresee a time when it will be possible to create beings like this. They could then be bred and their organs and other parts of their anatomy used in 'spare parts' surgery for the benefit of human beings. I was utterly appalled at this. Oh, terrible. Surely this is taking scientific endeavor to an extreme? The idea that one day we might actually create sentient beings specifically for that purpose horrifies me. I felt the same at this prospect as I do at the idea of experiments involving human fetuses."
- His Holiness The Dalai Lama, in his book Ethics for the New Millennium, pp. 156-157
"The genetic engineering and patenting of animals reduces living beings to the status of manufactured products. A purely reductionist science, biotechnology reduces all life to bits of information (genetic code) that can be arranged and rearranged at whim. Stripped of their integrity and sacred qualities, animals who are merely objects to their "inventors" will be treated as such."
- Organic Consumers Association GE Fact Sheet, 1999
Cloning is wrong and we know better! Whether you base
your opposition to cloning on religious, scientific, environmental,
or moral reasons we can all agree that it must be stopped.
"Suppose, in a restaurant, you were served a dish of black mashed potato. Chances are you would reject it. In fact, you would be horrified! Even if it was explained to you that this new black color indicated an extra-nutritious kind of potato, you would probably resist, preferring a traditional mound of whitish yellowish potato. But if you were given a mound of mashed potatoes that had been genetically modified to include pesticides in order to prevent insects eating them, you would tuck into it because you wouldn't know that this was not the traditional potato of your childhood. And restaurants do not tell you if their food is genetically modified. Not because they are hiding it from you; most of the time they can't tell you because they don't know either." p.45"It is because of the known risks and all the uncertainty that some countries have banned the growing and selling of genetically engineered foods. Many residents of these countries are higly suspicious of GMOs and are especially watching American children to see if there are any long-term affects. The children of North America have now become the world's lab animals on whom to sudy the long-term effects of eating GM products." p. 62
- Jane Goodall in her book, Harvest for Hope
GE Defined:
"Genetic engineering (GE) is a most powerful technology. It allows scientists to transfer genes between species which could never naturally breed. Using 'recombinant DNA' techniques, genes from bacteria have been put into corn; spider genes into goats, rat genes into lettuce and human genes into mice, bacteria, and trees, to name just a few 'transformations'."It is an expensive and inefficient process because the GE creature carries, of necessity, mutations wherever foreign genes have been inserted into its DNA. Thus, most engineered organisms die. But when it works, the 'donor' genes (there is never just one gene transferred) are expressed and the 'host' plant or animal acquires remarkable new properties: Food crops make their own pesticides; spider silk can be harvested from goat's milk, mice develop human cancers; bacteria make human insulin, lettuce makes Vitamin A and trees scavenge metals from contaminated soil with human blood proteins.
"With naive enthusiasm, proponents of GE have not considered how creating novel organisms - even useful organisms - might also create health, environmental or social problems. Foods with hidden allergens or toxins; plants which secrete novel chemicals into soil and water; damage to native plants and animals through crossbreeding, loss of consumer choice, interference with the right to practice religious food restrictions, and corporate control of the food supply are just a few of the legitimate issues raised by GE.
"Europeans have debated the pros and cons of GE for a decade and have instituted some controls on its use. But the U.S. government has not fostered discussion of genetic engineering with the American people, and has consistently refused to require labeling of GE foods, even though food has been engineered for almost 10 years, and 70% of processed foods now in supermarkets contain GE ingredients. USDA is encouraging corporations to engineer new fruits and vegetables, and has allowed the planting of food crops engineered to make industrial chemicals and drugs at secret locations around the country."
by Suzanne Wuerthele, Ph.D., (with permission - 05/2005)
Chair, Genetic Engineering Committee
Rocky Mountain Chapter, Sierra Club
Biopiracy:
"Biopiracy is the Columbian 'discovery' 500 years after Columbus. Through patents and genetic engineering, new colonies are being carved out. The land, the forests, the rivers, the oceans, and the atmosphere have all been colonized, eroded, and polluted. Capital now has to look for new colonies to invade and exploit for its further accumulation. These new colonies are, in my view, the interior spaces of the bodies of women, plants, and animals."
- Physicist Vandana Shiva from the introduction to her book Biopiracy
Biopiracy is the illegal appropriation and patenting of life -- plants, animals, soils, humans -- by transnational corporations, universities and governments using indigenous knowledge to facilitate their research. Biopiracy is an often-overlooked violation of the human rights and the autonomy of indigenous peoples all over the world. As a result, underdeveloped countries with indigenous populations and rich environments are now becoming the laboratories for new drugs, seed varieties, chemicals, and cosmetics.
- From Global Exchange 2001
Hazards of Genetically Engineered Foods and Crops:
Why We Need A Global Moratorium
"Gene engineers all over the world are now snipping, inserting, recombining, rearranging, editing, and programming genetic material. Animal genes and even human genes are randomly inserted into the chromosomes of plants, fish, and animals, creating heretofore unimaginable transgenic life forms."- Ronnie Cummins, BioDemocracy Campaign & Organic Consumers Association
The CBS Evening News ran a report about the threat of "Super Salmon" (gene-alatered to grow larger and quicker)
escaping into the wild and genetically polluting a species already near extinction. The CBS report expressed some hope that
our government was scrutinizing the proposed release of such Salmon.- May 08, 2002
Who's Afraid of Frankenfood?
"Americans have seemed indifferent to genetically modified foods, not that they have much choice: half of all soybeans, about a third of the corn crop and substantial quantities of the potatoes grown in the U.S. come from plants that have been genetically altered."- Frederic Golden, TIME Magazine, November 29, 1999, p. 49
Genetic Blueprints Aren't Mere Utilities:
Biotechnology: We can't let a few conglomerates control the codes of life and
trade them as commercial goods;
"The concentration of power is already impressive. The top 10 agrochemical companies control 81% of the global agrochemical market. Ten life science companies control 37% of the global seed market. The world's 10 major pharmaceutical companies control 47% of its market. Topping the life science list are 10 transnational food and drink companies whose sales exceeded $211 billion in 1995."- Jeremy Rifkin, author of The Biotech Century: Harnessing the Gene and Remaking the World, from an LA Times Commentary on Wednesday, July 8, 1998 Home Edition, Metro Section, p. B-7
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