Genetic engineering and environmental racism.

• Author: Fitz, Don

Biodevastation 7 in St. Louis, May, 2003

As drought plagued southern Africa in summer 2002 biotech companies lost no time in exploiting hunger for profit. The US offered to "help" by donating food from GMO (genetically modified organism) crops. But African scientists knew there was a catch. They had seen demonstrations showing that Europe wanted no part of the technology. They knew that GMOs were associated with health and environmental dangers. Worst of all, the Percy Sehmeiser case suggested that if GMO seed was planted in Africa, the next generation of GMO plants could result in farmers owing "technology fees" to biomaster Monsanto.

Countries throughout Africa denounced the food-for-control ploy of the US. US spokespersons brayed that African leaders were letting their people starve. After massive US bullying, most African countries agreed to accept GM corn if it was milled (ground so that seeds could not be planted). Zambia refused GM food of any kind. The conflict scored a tremendous moral victory in exposing the cynical complicity of the US government in fronting for corporate greed.

Opposition to GMOs coheres in 1998

For decades, biologists have known that a gene can be removed from a cell, modified, and reinserted into the same cell or a different cell from another species or even the other kingdom (plant and animal). As the technology developed rapidly, during the 1980s and 1990s, scientists warned that the process was inherently risky. Its critics spelled out in detail the range of health, environmental and social problems that genetic "engineering" could bring.

In 1998, many of those critics came together for "The First Grassroots Gathering on Biodevastation: Genetic Engineering." The Gathering was in St. Louis, the home town of Monsanto. Monsanto is the world's most aggressive proponent of GMOs. The company's spokespeople claim that genetic engineering is necessary to feed the world's growing population.

At the 1998 Gathering, researchers explained how shooting a gene into an inexact location in a foreign species produces unpredictable results. Farm advocates spoke of how genetic engineering produces lower yield, not the higher yield promised by Monsanto. Health experts warned that genenetic engineering is used to allow greater quantities of herbicides, which affects the health of farm workers. Genetically engineered foods produce toxic reactions as well as food allergies, which are most serious in children.

Those at the event learned how genes can escape from domestic crops to their wild relatives, giving weeds immunity to herbicides. Genetically engineered microorganisms can unpredictably kill crops and...