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Propaganda Strategy

Who benefits from such technology, people in need, or people who need more.

Public Relations companies employed by the genetic industry devise strategies that manipulate the public opinion with information placement in media and campaigns designed to show us the benefits of biotechnology. The reason we are led to believe is to (1) Feed the growing population of the world, especially the Third World, (2) Reduced chemical inputs, which would be good for the environment (3) Higher yields, benefiting farmers and consumers, (4) To improve the nutritional value of the food.

(1) Dr Mae-Wan Ho Biology Department Open University, U.K. November 1996, wrote in her article Perils amid Promises of Genetically Modified Foods. Dr Mae-Wan hoe Say's, despite the lowest prices on record, more than 800 million people still go hungry and 82 countries - half of them in Africa- neither grow enough food, nor can afford to import it. Infant mortality rates -a sensitive indicator of nutritional stress have been experiencing an upturn in recent years, reversing a historical trend. Large numbers of children suffer from malnutrition in developing countries. In India alone, 85% of children under five are below the normal, acceptable state of nutrition.

(2) Concerns about Roundup ready soybeans increasing the amount of toxic chemicals sprayed on US farmlands that are just as serious. Farmers using RRS seeds will now be able to dump twice as much Roundup (a toxic herbicide) onto their cropland, further damaging soil fertility and polluting the ground water. In California, Roundup has been found to be the third most commonly reported cause of pesticide poisoning among farm workers.

(3) 1976/7 Yield of genetically altered Bt cotton was lower than natural cotton crops. In the US farmers complained of massive pest infestations from insects the cotton was supposed to resist. Others suffered malformed cotton plants. In Australia, cotton growers rated the crop as very poor value; the 30,000 hectares of Bt cotton planted was only 60% effective. In the U.S.A, it has been reported that over 800,000 acres of herbicide resistant GE cotton were planted in 1977. The US Dept. of Agriculture is concerned about complaints from farmers in Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Louisiana who reported that bolls were falling off their plants. Crop failure was apparently a problem in hundreds of thousands of acres, with farmers reporting losses of up to US$1 million.

(4) Pioneer Hybrid seed company genetically altered soybeans by adding a gene from the Brazil nut. The intention was to enhance its nutritional value, but the bean never reached the market because some individuals suffered allergic reactions to the novel soybean.

Reference:

(1) Article- Farmers facing problems with genetically altered crops and products (Natural Food Commission) Website http//www.Naturallaw.org.nz/genetics/.

(2) Article- US Consumers & Farmers Battle Genetically- Engineered soybeans ( Ronnie Cummins- US Director of Pure Food Campaign and Ben Lilliston Editor director of Sustain) Website http//www.purefood.org

(3) And (4) same article as in Ref: (1)

Ethical or Religious Concern

[10] Both consumers and the biotechnology industry recognize that the transfer of genetic material/information from humans or other animals to food producing organisms will violate vegetarian, ethical, and religious beliefs of certain segments of the population. From the point of view of modern molecular biology and biochemistry, the essential component involved in such animal-plant transfers is not the material of the DNA molecule, because, of course, that material is identical in both plants and animals.

The essential component is genetic information. The biotechnology industry and regulatory bodies have attempted to skirt this issue by arguing that the recombinant gene put in the food or food ingredient is not animal material but is a copy of a gene from an animal source, claiming that no animal material has been introduced into the food. The superficial nature of this argument is obvious. It is little more than a play on words. Industrial voices elaborate on this argument stating that, indeed, many genes are common to plants, animals, and microbes, and therefore there is no real distinction between animal and plant genes. For instance they would say that both animals and plants have genes for the enzyme hexokinase.

This view exposes a superficial appreciation and understanding of the actual molecular biological facts. Although genes for proteins that are common to both plants and animals are related, there are significant differences the information contained in those genes. That is, the cow hexokinase gene is different from the tomato hexokinase gene in information content. Therefore, the structures and functions of cow and tomato hexokinase differ, as well. The fact that a change in the information content of a gene translates into a change in the function of the enzyme encoded by that gene implies that a change in genetic information, brought about through recombinant DNA manipulations, has material consequences.

It should also be pointed out that, in general genes common to a wide variety of species are not the focus of agricultural genetic engineering. Instead, there is far more commercial interest in using genetic engineering to confer on a species new characteristics by transferring to it genes that are unique to some other species. Transfer of genes that are highly similar to genes naturally present in an organism is in most cases of little commercial value

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