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Biotechnology is
assaulting the entire life support system of our food, health and
reproductive capacity in the world today. With the commercially driven
force of a global economy, the U.S. Government protects the "free trade"
of the biotech industry at the expense of any safety considerations.
75% of all genetically modified food
comes from the U.S. Over 60% of our supermarket foodis genetically
modified, unlabeled, and F.D.A. approved. Where previously we've been
concerned about the toxic effects of herbicides and pesticides in our food
chain, we must now paradoxicallybe concerned about the effects of
herbicide and pesticide resistant transgenic plants. There is a high
probability that genetic engineering of plants will dramatically increase
the existence of super-weeds and super-bugs. This effectively challenges
not only the viability of organic foods because of cross-pollination, but
also the sustainability of our biosphere.
Petrochemical and nuclear pollution
will soon be surpassed by genetic pollution. We know pollen from
genetically engineered corn is lethal to the monarch butterfly. Consumers
who have fallen ill from genetically modified corn are filing
multi-billion dollar class action suits against the biotech industry.
Transgenic crops may be endangering species throughout the food chain.
Perhaps most alarming is that this technology is designed to breakdown the
defense mechanism of species and to transfer genes horizontally between
species that don't interbreed. The artificial vectors constructed by
genetic scientists use antibiotic resistant marker genes derived from
infectious agents and viruses. These infectious agents are carriers for
horizontal gene transference.
Coinciding with the activities of
genetic engineering in the past 15 years, horizontal gene transference is
now thought to be responsible for the rapid spread of antibiotic
resistance and the emergence of pathogens dangerous and/or threatening to
human and animal life. With such hazards to our biodiversity and
concomitant destabilization of our ecosystem, such attempts to "re-
invent" nature needs a strong resistance movement.1 It is one
of the most pressing issues of our times and as feminists, it is of major
importance to us. As the geneticist Mae-Wan Ho has said, "Genetic
Engineering attacks the very mechanism that maintains the living
organism."2 |
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1
Jeremy Rifkin, The Biotech Century, (New York:Penguin Putnam Inc., 1998)
p. 167
2 Mae-Wan Ho, Genetic Engineering, Dream or Nightmare, (New York:
Continuum, 2000) p. 17 |
