Winston W. J. Kao ~ inventor, researcher, and educator

by Winston Kao

For the past 25 years, a few American companies have been experimenting in the field of gene manipulation. Disregarding the basic laws of nature, these companies crossbreed plants to animals, fungus, parasites, viruses and every thinkable life form.

They genetically manipulate the food we eat, in order to create their own food monopolies, with no apparent thought to the dire planetary ecological consequences that genetic manipulation is already creating. We as a race could become further unable to reproduce and could ultimately die out, due to its consumption.

These shortsighted companies did not do their large scale experimentation in airtight clean rooms, but went ahead with experimental plots exposed to open air, totally unconcerned about the environmental consequences of their experimentation. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, something like 12-15 million acres of US land currently grows genetically engineered crops. The most frequently manipulated foods? Corn, wheat, rape seed (Canola oil), soy, and tomatoes. Is it any wonder that many people have allergies to these specific foods?

What is genetic engineering? It is a kind of gene surgery, where genes, responsible for a particular feature or function, are spliced together from different organisms to change the characteristics of the recipient. With natural crossbreeding, like organisms breed with other like organisms. A brown-eyed gene is stronger than a blue-eyed gene. In the case of horses and donkeys, though they are of similar species, the resulting offspring, a mule, is sterile and unable to reproduce. This is Nature's way of limiting unacceptable forms of crossbreeding.

Genetic engineers take a gene from a flounder (fish) and inject it into wheat (plant), in order to produce a grain that resists frost better. A nematode (worm) gene is spliced to a tomato, to produce a nematode resistant tomato. When you buy produce in the grocery store, you are buying genetically engineered food. Only organic food is restricted from genetic engineering, due to the recent outcry. What do you get when you cross breed wheat (plant) with a flounder (fish)? I coined a word: "Planimal."

When was the last time that man was genetically adapted to eat a planimal that crosses all specie lines? Never, right? So, how in the world can the consumption of GE creatures possibly be safe? Has anyone done a 15 or 100 year safety test to find out the long term consequences? What will happen if one eats GE food for 5, 10, 20, 30 years, one's entire life, or 3 to 7 generations? Will man become sterile, like the GE Planimals and other of Nature's aberrations? Will we and our children develop strange and weird incurable diseases, due to the consumption of GE foods? How exactly will GE food alter our future generations? How will it affect other life forms in our environment? How can any individual or company in their right mind grow or sell GE Planimals on a commercial scale without being able to answer these questions?

In Europe, Prince Charles has spearheaded the movement against the consumption of GE foods by publicly stating his opinion. "Do we have the right to experiment with and commercialize the building blocks of life? I personally have no wish to eat anything produced by genetic manipulation, nor do I knowingly offer this sort of produce to my family or guests." Germany has not only turned away genetically engineered food, and not allowed the US to export it, but has reportedly sunk a ship in the harbor that contained a mixture of regular and genetically modified corn. All of Europe is boycotting the US export of such products. Consumer activists have blockaded ports, attacked genetically engineered crops in the field, and protested food companies. The European crusade has resulted in very tough labeling laws, and the banning of GE foods by various large companies and supermarket chains throughout Europe. In Britain, Malcolm Walker, boss of the 750 store Iceland chain, declared, "I'm not frightened to say this isn't right and we won't do it. There is no practical reason why we should be genetically modifying anything. Genetics is incredibly inexact. We are playing with fire [and] I think it's horrendous." As of April, 2000, Japan, the largest importer of US soybeans, has enacted a law demanding the labeling of any product containing genetically modified food.

Why are Americans allowing something that the rest of the world shuns? Today, we guinea pigs of the world called Americans eat GE food and feed GE feed to our animals. Where does this all end? Plants depend on soil microorganism to breakdown rock minerals, compost…etc for their food source. Animals also depend on similar soil microorganism to digest their food too. Since neither plants nor animals digest their own food, soil microorganisms are the primary digesters of this GE Planimal food. Have the soil microorganisms ever been programmed by Nature to eat Planimals? What are they going to do with these strange proteins? What types of new enzymes, vitamins, or new substances are they going to produce? And what are we (the host bodies) going to do with these never before seen, eaten, or received substances? What about our fecal matter? Is it going to become some unknown form of hazardous waste that will further mess up our delicate Eco-system? We already know that human female urine (containing synthetic estrogen) is the cause of all the five and six legged frogs that have been showing up in the US. Can anyone guess what large quantities of GE food do to our future?

Is GE food safe? Would you accept a GE food test that feeds a few chickens with GE feed and when they didn't die in a month or two, deemed the GE food safe? Farm workers and monarch butterflies have gotten sick or died, due to contact with genetically engineered crops. The pollen from genetically manipulated corn was fed to monarch butterflies on milkweed leaves, causing 44% of the butterflies to die instantly. A study in Scotland found that the life span of ladybugs was cut in half and they laid fewer eggs when they ate aphids, who fed on GE potatoes.

The most serious case of genetic engineering gone wrong, which was documented in medical literature involved a health food supplement called L-tryptophan, which was promoted as a sleep aid in the 1980s. Consumption of this GE L-tryptophan was linked to 36 deaths and the crippling of 1500 others, due to a completely new blood disease called EMS.

It is time to wake up! The only foods that you can be sure do not contain GE products are those that have been organically grown or produced by heirloom, open-pollinated seeds, as the seeds produced by GE crops are sterile. It's time to join the armies of citizens and politicians all across Europe and boycott and ban GE food! This is not an issue to play compromise with. This is not some political game that will blow over in a few years. If this GE nonsense is not put to a definite and permanent end, it could change every aspect of life on Earth! We have survived atomic bombs, but we will not remain the same from the biotech disaster! Alert your politicians today, that you will not allow the consumption of GE foods, and that you will not vote for anyone who does!