AlterNet / By Ronnie Cummins
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Outrageous Lies Monsanto and Friends Are Trying to Pass off to Kids as
Science
The claims made in a book from the biotechnology industry are laughable.
But these blatant lies are passed off as 'science' for schoolchildren.
March 20, 2012 |
It's not enough that the biotech industry -- led by multinational
corporations such as Monsanto, Dow, Syngenta, BAS, and Dupont -- is
poisoning our food and our planet. It's also poisoning young minds.
In a blatant attempt at brainwashing, the Council for Biotechnology
Information (CBI) has widely circulated what it calls a Biotechnology
Basics Activity Book for kids, to be used by "Agriculture and Science
Teachers." The book -- called Look Closer at Biotechnology -- looks like
a science workbook, but reads more like a fairy tale. Available on the
council's Web site, its colorful pages are full of friendly cartoon
faces, puzzles, helpful hints for teachers -- and a heavy dose of
outright lies about the likely effects of genetic engineering on health,
the environment, world hunger and the future of farming.
CBI's lies are designed specifically for children, and intended for use
in classrooms.
At a critical time in history when our planet is veering toward a
meltdown, when our youth are suffering the health consequences (obesity,
diabetes, allergies) of Big Ag and Food Inc.'s over-processed, fat-and
sugar-laden, chemical-, and GMO-tainted foods, a time when we should be
educating tomorrow's adults about how to reverse climate change, how to
create sustainable farming communities, how to promote better nutrition,
the biotech industry's propagandists are infiltrating classrooms with
misinformation in the guise of "educational" materials.
Brainwashing children. It's a new low, even for Monsanto.
You don't have to read beyond the first page of Look Closer at
Biotechnology to realize that this is pure propaganda:
Hi Kids! Welcome to the Biotechnology Basics Activity Book. This is
an activity book for young people like you about biotechnology -- a
really neat topic. Why is it such a neat topic? Because biotechnology is
helping to improve the health of the Earth and the people who call it
home. In this book, you will take a closer look at biotechnology. You
will see that biotechnology is being used to figure out how to: 1) grow
more food; 2) help the environment; and 3) grow more nutritious food
that improves our health. As you work through the puzzles in this book,
you will learn more about biotechnology and all of the wonderful ways it
can help people live better lives in a healthier world. Have fun!
Before we take a closer look at the lies laid out in Look Closer at
Biotechnology -- lies that are repeated over and over again, the better
to imprint them on young minds -- let's take a closer look at the book's
publisher. The Council for Biotechnology Information describes itself
as "a non-profit 501(c)(6) organization that communicates science-based
information about the benefits and safety of agricultural biotechnology
and its contributions to sustainable development."
According to the Internal Revenue Service, a 501(c)(6) organization is a
"business league" devoted to the improvement of business conditions of
one or more lines of business. The mission of a 501(c)(6) organization
"must focus on the advancement of the conditions of a particular trade
or the interests of the community."
The bottom line is that CBI exists to advance the interests of the
corporations that it was formed to promote -- in this case, the biotech
industry. While it purports to communicate "science-based information,"
in fact, that's not its mission at all. Its mission is to maximize the
profits of Monsanto and the biotech industry.
Not surprisingly, CBI is funded largely by the biotech, chemical,
pesticide, and seed industry giants: BASF, Bayer CropScience, Dow Agro
Sciences, Dupont, Monsanto, and Syngenta.
There's nothing new about corporations lying to the public. Corporations
routinely lie to their employees. They lie in advertising. They lie in
the lopsided so-called studies and research projects that they self-fund
in order to guarantee the outcomes that support their often false, but
self-serving premises. They buy off politicians, regulatory officials,
scientists, and the media.
Although here we're focusing on the biotech industry trying to brainwash
our kids, CBI certainly does not limit its propaganda to just children.
CBI recently contributed $375,000 to the Coalition Against the Costly
Labeling Law -- a Sacramento-based industry front group working to
defeat the California Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act of
2012. If passed in November, this citizens' ballot Initiative will
require food manufacturers and retailers to label foods containing
genetically engineered ingredients, as well as ban the routine industry
practice of labeling or advertising GE-tainted foods as "natural" or
"all natural." CBI, the Farm Bureau, and the Grocery Manufacturers
Association are campaigning furiously to preserve their "right" to keep
consumers in the dark about whether their food has been genetically
engineered or not, and to preserve their "right" to mislabel
gene-altered foods as "natural."
Clearly, the Council for Biotechnology Information has little or no
regard for "science-based" information. But lies aimed directly at kids
-- under the guise of science education? In our schools?
Let's take a closer look at the claims made in Look Closer at Biotechnology.
Lie #1: "Biotechnology is one method being used to help farmers grow
more food." (page 7)
This statement is patently false.
In 2009, in the wake of similar studies, the Union of Concerned
Scientists examined the data on genetically engineered crops, including
USDA statistics. Their report -- Failure to Yield -- was the first major
effort to evaluate in detail the overall yields of GE crops after more
than 20 years of research and 13 years of commercialization in the
United States. According to the definitive UCS study, "GE has done
little to increase overall crop yields." A number of studies indicate in
fact that GE soybeans, for example, actually produce lower yields than
non-genetically engineered varieties.
Research conducted by the India research group, Navdanya, and reported
in The GMO Emperor Has No Clothes turns up the same results:
Contrary to the claim of feeding the world, genetic engineering has
not increased the yield of a single crop. Navdanya's research in India
has shown that contrary to Monsanto's claim of Bt cotton yield of 1500
kg per acre, the reality is that the yield is an average of 400-500 kg
per acre. Although Monsanto's Indian advertising campaign reports a
50-percent increase in yields for its Bollgard cotton, a survey
conducted by the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology
found that the yields in all trial plots were lower than what the
company promised. (Page 11).
The claim that GE crops increase agricultural yields is a blatant lie.
Equally untrue is the industry's claim that it is motivated by the
desire to feed the hungry of the world. As the Union of Concerned
Scientists points out: "For the most part, genetic engineering
techniques are being applied to crops important to the industrialized
world, not crops on which the world's hungry depend." Where does all the
genetically engineered soy and corn -- two of the largest GE crops --
end up? In animal feed, processed junk foods -- and school lunchrooms.
Precious little goes to feed the hungry in impoverished regions.
One of the sub-arguments related to increasing yields is the biotech
industry's claim that GMO crops are more resistant to pests -- hence
more of the crops survive. In Look Closer at Biotechnology kids are told
that agricultural biotechnology is a "precise way to make seeds with
special qualities. These seeds will allow farmers to grow plants that
are . . . more resistant to pests . . ." In fact widespread
commercialization of herbicide-resistant and Bt-spliced GE crops has
engendered a growing army of superweeds and superpests, oblivious to all
but the most powerful and toxic pesticides.
What we should be teaching kids in science class is what scientists have
been warning for years -- that any attempt to increase resistance to
pests through genetic engineering will ultimately fail. Insects -- and
diseases -- will build up a tolerance over time, and evolve into
stronger and stronger strains. That's how nature works -- and even
Monsanto can't fool Mother Nature. Organic agriculture, on the other
hand, utilizing crop rotation, biodiversity, natural fertilizers, and
beneficial insects, reduces crop loss from pests and weeds, without the
collateral damage of toxic pesticides and fertilizers.
Recently, 22 leading scientists told the US Environmental Protection
Agency that it should act with "a sense of urgency" to urge farmers to
stop planting Monsanto's genetically engineered Bt corn because it will
no longer protect them from the corn rootworm. Bt corn is genetically
engineered with bacterial DNA that produces an insecticide in every cell
of the plant, aimed at preventing corn rootworm. Except that corn
rootworms have now developed resistance to these GE mutants.
Just as scientists had predicted years ago, a new generation of insect
larvae has evolved, and is eating away at the roots of Monsanto's Bt
corn -- a crop farmers paid a high price for on Monsanto's promise that
they would never have to worry about corn rootworm again. Scientists are
now warning of massive yield loss and surging corn costs if the EPA
doesn't act quickly to drastically reduce Bt crops' acreage and ensure
that Monsanto makes non-GMO varieties of corn available to farmers.
"Massive yield loss" doesn't sound like "more food" -- whether you're 12
years old or 112.
What we should be telling kids is what responsible scientists and
farmers -- experts at the United Nations -- have been saying all along:
Eco-farming can double food output. According to a UN study:
Eco-farming projects in 57 nations showed average crop yield gains
of 80 percent by tapping natural methods for enhancing soil and
protecting against pests.
Projects in 20 African countries resulted in a doubling of crop
yields within three to 10 years.
Sound ecological farming can significantly boost production and in
the long term be more effective than conventional farming.
Lie #2: "Biotechnology can help farmers and the environment in many
ways." (page 8)
Two lies for the price of one.
Biotechnology -- specifically genetic engineering -- helps neither
farmers nor the environment, according to the majority of legitimate
scientists and economists. In fact, the opposite is true. Genetic
engineering of seeds has wreaked havoc on the environment and brought
misery to hundreds of thousands of small farmers all over the world.
The majority of farmers in developing countries struggle to afford even
the most basic requirements of seeds and fertilizers. Their survival
depends on the age-old practice of selecting, saving and sharing seeds
from one year to the next. When multinational corporations move into
areas previously dominated by small farmers, they force those farmers to
buy their patented seeds and fertilizers -- under pretense of higher
yields, and under threats of lawsuits if they save or share the seeds.
Every year, they're forced to buy more seeds and more chemicals from
corporations -- and when the promises of higher yields and higher
incomes prove empty, farmers go bankrupt.
Compounding their corporate crimes, when Monsanto's patented seeds
contaminate the non-GMO crops of small farmers (because the seeds drift
across property lines) Monsanto routinely sues farmers for growing their
patented seeds illegally, even though the seeds were actually unwanted
trespassers. Further, the company has ruined the livelihoods of small
farmers by harassing them for illegally growing patented seeds, even in
cases where no patented seeds have been grown, either knowingly or by
accident.
As Monsanto and others have expanded worldwide, into India, China,
Pakistan, and other countries, the effect on small farmers has been
devastating. In India, for instance, after World Trade Organization
policies forced the country in 1998 to open its seed sector to companies
like Cargill, Monsanto and Syngenta, farmers quickly found themselves in
debt to the biotech companies that forced them to buy corporate seeds
and fertilizers and pesticides, destroying local economies. Hundreds of
thousands of India's cotton farmers have committed suicide.
And according to a Greenpeace report, poorer farmers in the Philippines
were sold Monsanto's Bt corn as a "practical and ecologically
sustainable solution for poor corn farmers everywhere to increase their
yields" only to find the opposite was true: Bt corn did not control
pests and was "not ecologically sustainable."
Which brings us to one more of the Council for Biotechnology
Information's lies to kids: That agricultural biotechnology is good for
the environment.
Study after study, over more than a decade, has warned us of just the
opposite. Even the pro-biotech USDA has admitted that GE crops use more
pesticides, not less than non-GE varieties. Genetic engineering results
in evermore pesticides being dumped into the environment, destroying
soil and water, human and animal health, and threatening the
biodiversity of the planet.
How about telling kids instead that numerous reports, including one from
the German Beekeepers Association, have linked genetically engineered Bt
corn to the widespread disappearance of bees, or what is now referred to
as Colony Collapse Disorder? And while we're at it, maybe we should
remind kids of the Albert Einstein's quote: "If the bee disappeared off
the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life
left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more
animals, no more man."
Maybe we should also tell them that glyphosate, the active ingredient in
Monsanto's herbicide, Roundup, the most widely used herbicide in the
world, kills Monarch butterflies, fish, and frogs, destroys soil
fertility, and pollutes our waterways and drinking water.
The fact is, widespread use of Monsanto's Roundup in all agricultural
and urban areas of the United States is destroying the environment, pure
and simple. US Geological Survey studies released this month show that
Roundup is now commonly found in rain and rivers in agricultural areas
in the Mississippi River watershed, where most applications are for weed
control on GE corn, soybeans and cotton. Here's the real truth, from an
article published this past week: Monsanto's Roundup is actually
threatening the crop-yielding potential of the entire biosphere.
According to the article, new research published in the journal Current
Microbiology highlights the extent to which "glyphosate is altering, and
in some cases destroying, the very microorganisms upon which the health
of the soil, and -- amazingly -- the benefits of raw and fermented foods
as a whole, depend."
Lie #3: "Scientists are using biotechnology to grow foods that could
help make people healthier." (page 11)
This is the perhaps the most outrageous lie of all. Telling kids that GE
foods are more nutritious is tantamount to telling them Hostess cupcakes
and Coca-Cola are health foods.
Genetic engineering -- of human food and food for animals that humans
eat -- has been linked to a host of diseases and health issues,
including auto-immune disorders, liver and kidney damage, nutritional
deficiencies, allergies, accelerated aging, infertility, and birth defects.
There's a growing and alarming body of research indicating that GMO
foods are unsafe, and absolutely no research whatsoever proving that
they are safe. And yet the USDA and FDA continue to approve, and just
this past month even agreed to speed up approval of these crops that
scientists and physicians increasingly link to poor health.
Instead of force-feeding kids lies in bogus activity books, how about
having them read some truthful articles?
The study Bt Toxin Kills Human Kidney Cells says Bt toxins are not
"inert" on human cells, and may indeed be toxic, causing kidney damage
and allergies observed in farmers and factory workers handling Bt crops.
The article supports previous studies done on rats, showing that animals
fed on three strains of GE corn made by Monsanto suffered signs of organ
damage after only three months.
Or how about this: "19 Studies Find That GMOs Aren't Up to Consumer
Safety Protection Standards" which reports:
It is abundantly clear that both GMOs made to be resistant to
herbicides (aka "Roundup Ready") and those made to produce insecticides
have damaging impacts on the health of mammals who consume them,
particularly in the liver and kidneys. We already know that from the
trials of 90 days and less. In looking a little deeper into the info, we
found a number of issues that point to a probable increased level of
toxicity when these foods are consumed over the long term, including
likely multi-generational effects.
Multi-generational effects. Eating GMO foods harms not only our health,
and our kids' health -- but quite possibly their kids, too -- even if we
stop eating them today.
In a recent report to the United Nations General Assembly Human Rights
Council by Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Olivier De Schutter,
Schutter outlines the case for sustainable agricultural practices (the
antithesis of industrial agribusiness, with its GE crops and heavy
reliance on chemical fertilizers and pesticides). He also addresses the
links between health and malnutrition. In the report, Schutter shows why
undernutrition, micronutrient deficiency and overnutrition are different
dimensions of malnutrition that must be addressed together through a
life-course approach. From the report's summary:
Existing food systems have failed to address hunger, and at the
same time encourage diets that are a source of overweight and obesity
that cause even more deaths worldwide than does underweight. A
transition towards sustainable diets will succeed only by supporting
diverse farming systems that ensure that adequate diets are accessible
to all, that simultaneously support the livelihoods of poor farmers and
that are ecologically sustainable.
Corporate greed plus a complicit government have allowed for the rampant
poisoning of our food and environment, and the demise of sustainable
agriculture practices -- practices sorely needed if we are going to feed
the world's population, and avoid a world health crisis. And we've
exported the same misery and destruction to foreign countries far and wide.
Propaganda like the CBI's Look Closer at Biotechnology has brainwashed
many of our kids into thinking that the biotech industry has people --
not profits -- in its best interests. The book's claims are laughable.
But framing blatant lies as "science" for children in schools borders on
criminal.
For parents and teachers out there, here's an alternate lesson plan.
Because world hunger is a concern, because saving our planet does
matter, and because better health is a worthy and achievable goal, let's
ask our kids to think critically, instead of accepting at face value
"information" attractively packaged by multinational corporations.
Don M. Huber, emeritus soil scientist of Purdue University puts it in
terms everyone, kids included, can understand. Huber talks about a range
of key factors involved in plant growth, including sunlight, water,
temperature, genetics, and nutrients taken up from the soil. "Any change
in any of these factors impacts all the factors," he said. "No one
element acts alone, but all are part of a system." "When you change one
thing," he said, "everything else in the web of life changes in
relationship."
This is what we should be teaching the future stewards of our planet.
Ronnie Cummins is founder and director of the Organic Consumers
Association. Cummins is author of numerous articles and books, including
"Genetically Engineered Food: A Self-Defense Guide for Consumers"
(Second Revised Edition Marlowe & Company 2004).
[permaculture] Outrageous Lies Monsanto and Friends Are Trying to Pass off to Kids as Science | Food | AlterNet,
Lawrence F. London, Jr., 03/23/2012