Genetically modified or genetic murder.

While voting in the presidential elections on 6 November Californians will also be voting on Proposition 37 to decide on " Mandatory Labeling of Genetically Engineered Food Initiative ".For the first time one state in the US is asking its citizens whether they want to know what they are eating. Support for the measure is at 65% with 20% opposed. Naturally firms which manufacture these Frankenfoods, as they are known in Europe, led by Monsanto, are spending heavily on advertising against the initiative. They claim that these foods are safe because people have already been eating them without ill effects, which is absolutely false. People are eating a mixture of organically produced foods and genetically modified ones without knowing which is which. To really know if they are safe they should be tested like drugs in that one group of, say, 10,000 volunteers will eat only genetic foods while another will eat only organic ones. The study will be ongoing so that results maybe studied every 5 years to see if there are any differences in types of diseases between the 2 groups. In India Bt cotton is said to have improved yields because of resistance to boll worm. Bt derives from Bacillus thuringiensis, a bacteria found commonly living in the soil. It produces crystalline insecticidal proteins and its spores have been used as pesticide since 1920s. A gene from this bacteria was incorporated into cotton DNA so that the plant produced those proteins making it resistant to boll worm. So far so good. We do not eat cotton and if vegetables are washed before eating then the bacteria is washed away. However the Bt gene has also been incorporated into potato, corn and into aubergines, known as Bt brinjal in India. This is a different matter altogether because now the toxins produced by Bt cannot be washed away and will be ingested with the vegetable. People in India eat a lot of vegetables and half the population is vegetarian anyway. We have no way of knowing what effect these toxins will have on the human body if ingested over a long period of time. Will they cause cancer, infertility or birth defects, for example? Legionella is also ubiquitous in soil and stagnant water. Normally it is harmless but when inhaled from air conditioning ducts, especially in those with low immunity, it causes pneumonia which is frequently fatal. These genetically modified crops have another problem. They incorporate a " terminator " gene which makes them incapable of producing seeds so that farmers have to buy seeds every year. So if one crop is destroyed by drought or floods, as frequently happens in India, farmers incur heavy losses. This gene was discovered by the US Defense department and passed on to Monsanto. If we switch to genetically modified foods supplied by these foreign firms they will be in control of our food production and in theory could control our government. The name Frankenfoods is well deserved. They are lethal for us.