Genetic Roulette Just Became Less Risky For the FrankenFood Producers

          Bio-tech companies have been systematically poisoning our food, and recently they got more protections from liability for any harm caused by their genetically modified foods. How did this get by without much resistance and press? Well while this bill was being passed through the legislature and signed by the president most activists and liberally inclined people were busy changing their profile pictures to the red equal sign. Along with gluing their eyes to Supreme Court coverage. An already profitable yet harmful company got further protections under the law. This law which was passed was unofficially dubbed the Monsanto Protection Act. This law gives the Monsanto corporation immunity regarding any harm which comes from eating their GMOs (genetically modified organisms) even if health risks were to emerge as a consequence of eating genetically modified food. This protection comes even as Monsanto is extremely profitable, due in no small part to their aggressive and morally questionable business model. Reading this if you are new to the topic you may think I’m coming down too hard on Monsanto. I mean... they feed the world, right?

          Most people would respond to this with an uncaring response like “doesn't affect me so I don't care”. As I mentioned earlier, 80 percent (and likely more due to cross-pollination) of the crops I mentioned are genetically modified. These crops are also then fed to livestock (and the livestock may also have been genetically modified). Here is a TED talk about seeds, and how important they are in our everyday diets. So the food you eat is likely unless otherwise stated, genetically modified. There are not a lot of studies conclusively stating that these foods harm us. Although many of the studies which do not state there is harm are funded by or conducted by patent holders of the genetically modified seeds. There are many other processes our food goes through which are not proven to be bad or good for us, but those are still labeled. Here is a TED talk about our lack of labels for genetically modified food. So, this iffy modification which has not conclusively been proven to be safe to ingest has had a prolific adoption by our farmers and is not labeled. That should scare everyone.

          While growing more and more food per acre and providing technological advancements to agriculture are good. Monsanto has abused their patents and essentially bully all those who are not paying for their patented seeds on a yearly bases. I think the best example of this would be their lawsuit against organic farmers whose crop was cross-pollinated without their consent or knowledge with neighboring farmer’s Monsanto seed based plants. Organic farmers have no definitive way of knowing their crops had been cross-pollinated, and no practical way to stop it. Over 80 percent of: soybeans, corn, cotton, sugar beets, and canola seeds are genetically modified. The scenario of an organic farmer being entirely surrounded by GMO plants entirely plausible. At the very least it is likely an organic farmer has a neighboring farm or two with genetically modified seeds. This passive and practically inevitable infringement will not stop Monsanto from harassing farmers.      

          Essentially, I am trying to call attention to this over protected and potentially harmful industry. Our politicians are in the pocket of powerful bio-tech companies like Monsanto, we need to have a counter-acting force telling them enough is enough. These companies have too much legal power; and don't have enough independent high quality studies of their processes to remain hidden in our food, and they too aggressive to organic farmers.

To find your house representative's contact information go here.

For our congressional representatives, click on Al Franken's name to contact him or Amy Klobuchar to contact her (if you're from Minnesota).