Genetically Modified Organisms: Sobering Consequences
May 3, 2014 by Administrator · Leave a Comment
“If manufacturers are so sure there is nothing wrong with genetically modified foods, pesticides and cloned meats, they should have no problems labeling them as such. “After all, cancer will kill one in every two men and one in every three women now alive,” reports Samuel Epstein, chairman of the Cancer Prevention Coalition. Like our ancestors, we act in ways that will bemuse future societies. The military-industrial complex lubricates the mass-agriculture system with fossil fuels. Tons of heavy metals and other hazardous waste is sprayed on American agricultural soil.” – Adam Leith Gollne, The Fruit Hunters: A Story of Nature, Adventure, Commerce and Obsession
During WWII, chemical companies like Chevron manufactured Mustard gas to kill enemies by disrupting troops’ nervous systems. They changed their focus to continue their profits. They decided that crops growing in the fields of America needed poisons to stop the insects that nurtured them like bees, wasps and bats—all pollinators that make crops multiply and thrive.
They campaigned with “higher crop yields” and paid off a lot of U.S. Congressmen who “okayed” the poisons via legislation. Chevron and other companies amassed a fortune with DDT and other nerve gases that crippled mosquitoes, flies and gnats, but quickly killed birds, rodents, hawks, eagles and countless other species living on the ground floor of Earth.
Why did those companies do that? Answer: billions upon billions of dollars. You could call them financial terrorists because that’s how they must be defined. They kill anyone for a few billion bucks.
Today, every single American faces cancers affecting himself, herself or a friend. I lost four friends to cancer last year and two already this year with one more hanging on for another 30 days. A doctor cut cancer out of my sister (melanoma) and me 19 years ago. Terror gripped me until I cleared that drama. To this day, I eat only organic, only filtered water, only non-GMOs, live in the country and eat nothing in a can, package or box.
The fact remains: The American Cancer Society solicits funds to eradicate cancer, but they will not “touch” the fact that we poison our foods to such an extent that our bodies respond with aberrant cell behavior, i.e., cancers in all their forms.
Every fruit and vegetable suffers chemical sprays that become part of the produce that enters your stores and you buy it. And, you eat it.
Jeffrey Smith, , said, “Did you know GMO plants such as soybean, corn, cottonseed and canola have had foreign genes forced into their DNA. And the inserted genes come from species, such as bacteria and viruses that have never been in the human food supply.
“Did you know genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are not safe? They have been linked to thousands of toxic and allergenic reactions, thousands of sick, sterile and dead livestock, and damage to virtually every organ and system studied in lab animals.”
Why isn’t the FDA protecting us?
“In 1992, the Food and Drug Administration claimed that they had no information showing that GMO foods were substantially different from conventionally grown foods and therefore were safe to eat,” said Smith. “But internal memos made public by a lawsuit reveal that their position was staged by political appointees under orders from the White House to promote GMOs. FDA scientists, on the other hand, warned that GMOs can create unpredictable, hard-to-detect side effects, including allergies, toxins, new diseases, and nutritional problems.
“They urged long-term safety studies, but were ignored. The FDA does not require any safety evaluations for GMOs. Instead, biotech companies, who have been found guilty of hiding toxic effects of their chemical products, are now in charge of determining whether their GMO foods are safe.” (The FDA official in charge of creating this policy was Michael Taylor, Monsanto’s former attorney and later their vice president.)
From everything I have studied, the worst men of humanity run Monsanto and ADM. They create synthetic sugars like Aspartame, High Fructose Corn Syrup and other chemicals that you see in “Diet Coke” and in your sugar packets at every lunch counter and restaurant in America. Top scientists implicated Aspartame as a precursor to Lupus and Fibromyalgia along with a growing list of deleterious human conditions.
Same with the tobacco barons: do you think they care that 450,000 Americans die of tobacco-induced lung cancer annually for the past 50 years? Answer: they laugh during their golf games.
While GMO barons live in luxury, Lear jets and country mansions, Americans suffer diseases by the millions. And, we die for it by the millions.
Widespread, unpredictable changes of GMOs
During GMO “Frankensteinization”, natural genes suffer deletion or become permanently turned on or off, and hundreds may change their levels of expression.
In addition:
*The inserted gene is often rearranged.
*It may transfer from the food into our body’s cells or into the DNA of bacteria inside us
*The GMO protein produced by the gene may have unintended properties or effects.
Why do they do it?
The primary reason companies genetically engineer plants: to make them tolerant to their brand of herbicide. The four major GMO plants, soy, corn, canola, and cotton, are designed to survive an otherwise deadly dose of weed killer like Round-up or Weed-B-Gone. The second GM trait: built-in pesticide.
In other words, kill the insects that allow the world to thrive. It becomes more insane the more I research this series.
GM food supplement caused deadly epidemic
In the 1980s, a contaminated brand of a food supplement called L-tryptophan killed about 100 Americans and caused sickness and disability in another 5,000-10,000 people. If GMO foods on the market cause common diseases or if their effects appear only after long-term exposure, we may not be able to identify the source of the problem for decades. No one monitors GMO-related problems and no long-term animal studies. Heavily invested biotech corporations gamble away the health of our nation for profit.
Go to to get involved and learn how to avoid GMOs. Look for Non-GMO Shopping Guide.
Start buying non-GMO today.
Help stop the genetic engineering of our food supply.
You may become involved:
By mail: Institute For Responsible Technology, P.O. Box 469, Fairfield, IA 52556 Online: by phone:
Read the book—Genetic Roulette: The Documented Health Risk of Genetically Engineered Foods by Jeffrey M. Smith.
Frosty Wooldridge has bicycled across six continents – from the Arctic to the South Pole – as well as six times across the USA, coast to coast and border to border. In 2005, he bicycled from the Arctic Circle, Norway to Athens, Greece.
He presents “The Coming Population Crisis in America: and what you can do about it” to civic clubs, church groups, high schools and colleges. He works to bring about sensible world population balance at his website: www.frostywooldridge.com
Frosty Wooldridge is a regular columnist for Veracity Voice
Suffolk Co. NY To Hear Proposal To Ban Chemtrails
November 25, 2011 by Administrator · Leave a Comment
On Dec. 6, New York’s Suffolk County government will hold a public hearing on a proposal to ban aerial spraying of aluminum oxide, barium, sulfur, and other salts into the air over the county without first filing an Environmental Impact Statement with and receiving approval from the county’s Department of Health Services, Division of Environmental Quality.
Exempted from the proposed ban are aerosol spraying operations for agriculture, and for lyme disease, Eastern equine encephalitis (EEE), West Nile virus (WNV), and other disease vector control operations.
The hearing will be held at the Riverhead Legislative Auditorium, Evans K. Griffing Building, 300 Center Drive in Riverhead, NY at 2:30 pm.
If the public is able to convince legislators of the risk from such geoengineering operations, the legislation will then be voted on at the Dec. 20th session. Otherwise, the proposed ban will be tabled indefinitely.
Initiated by Cindy Pikoulas and her husband Jim, along with Siobhan Ciresi of Long Island Sky Watch (LISW), with the assistance of chemtrail opponent Rosalind Peterson of Agriculture Defense Coalition, the bill was finalized and proposed by legislator Edward P. Romaine (1st District). (Full text below.)
Involved in Suffolk County government since 1989, Romaine is a fiscal conservative who prioritizes saving farmland and protecting the environment. In August, he organized Long Island’s first countywide farmers market, along with the Long Island Farm Bureau.
Romaine has represented the 1st District (eastern end of Long Island) continuously since 2005. He serves on the Environment, Planning & Agriculture Committee, which voted on Nov. 28 to submit the proposed law banning such aerial spraying to a public hearing.
The Piloulases and Ciresi will speak on Dec. 6 and are urging people to “pack the hearing” to show support for the ban.
“If this proposal becomes law in Suffolk County, Long Island, it would be the first in the nation. It would be a starting point for others to follow,” said LISW in a press release. “Eventually, our governments would have to investigate why our trees are dying in record numbers; why our waters contain toxic levels of aluminum, barium and strontium; why 90% of us are vitamin D deficient; why our crops are failing; and where all of this crazy weather is coming from.”
Cindy Pikoulas of LISW spoke with New York Sky Watch radio on Nov. 20, when she advised that tree samples from Suffolk show high levels of barium, strontium and aluminum. She is asking Long Islanders to have their water and trees tested for these chemicals in order to build a body of evidence that would spur investigations by health and environment authorities.
In addition to attending the Dec. 6 hearing, Long Islanders can contact their county legislators viahttp://legis.suffolkcountyny.
Are Exemptions Necessary?
Though exempted under the proposed ban, disease vector spraying may be a subterfuge for weather control operations, given the extreme rarity of EEV and WNV. According to the U.S. Dept of Health and Human Services:
“Eastern equine encephalitis (EEE) is a rare but serious viral disease caused by a virus transmitted by the bite of an infected mosquito with more severe symptoms than for West Nile virus. EEE is an arbovirus (short for arthropod-borne, meaning spread by insects). Birds are the source of infection for mosquitoes, which can sometimes transmit the infection to horses, other animals, and, in rare cases, people.
“West Nile Virus (WNV) was first seen in the US in 1999, in the New York City area of Queens. WNV can live in a number of types of birds and is passed bird to bird by certain types of mosquitoes. Occasionally, an infected mosquito will pass the virus to humans or other animals. Most healthy people do not get sick from the virus, but sometimes it may cause symptoms.”
Per the US Geological Survey, two horses caught WNV in 2011 and 12 caught EEE, none of them in Suffolk. Of humans, 43 contracted WNV in New York State in 2011, four of them in Suffolk County. Only one person contracted EEE in the entire state.
Of the other vector-borne diseases of concern to health authorities – St Louis Encephalitis, La Crosse Encephalitis, Powassan Virus, and locally-acquired Dengue Fever – no New Yorkers contracted any of them in 2011. (But 40 New Yorkers did contract Dengue Fever when traveling outside the US in 2011.)
Considering that the population of NYS is 19 million, the application of toxic chemicals purportedly to control for such rare vector-borne diseases where only 44 people became ill in 2011 seems absurd.
US health officials admit that Ugandans and Egyptians, where WNV was first discovered, develop a natural immunity before reaching adulthood. Using toxic chemicals that pollute the environment, leading to cancer and respiratory diseases, instead of allowing humans to develop immunity to such diseases, is an unsustainable and irresponsible control method.
Whether these vector control spray programs are involved in other activities such as solar radiation or rainfall management is uncertain. But, in addition to the obvious jets laying chemtrails at 30,000 feet, they may be involved in contributing to the high levels of aluminum, barium and strontium found in Suffolk waters and trees.
Below is the full text of Suffolk’s proposed legislation:
WHEREAS, there was duly presented and introduced to this County Legislature at a meeting held on [December 6], 2011, a proposed local law entitled, “A LOCAL LAW TO PROTECT AIR QUALITY IN SUFFOLK COUNTY” now, therefore, be it
RESOLVED, that said local law be enacted in form as follows:
LOCAL LAW NO. _____-2011, SUFFOLK COUNTY, NEW YORK
A LOCAL LAW TO PROTECT AIR QUALITY IN SUFFOLK COUNTY
BE IT ENACTED BY THE COUNTY LEGISLATURE OF THE COUNTY OF SUFFOLK, as follows:
Section 1. Legislative Intent.
This Legislature hereby finds and determines that Suffolk County is a leader in environmental protection and has several programs to protect soil and groundwater from contamination.
This Legislature also finds and determines that air pollution is another environmental issue that can impact the health and safety of County residents and may also contaminate soil and groundwater.
This Legislature further finds and determines that concerns have been raised that business and government entities may be discharging polluting chemicals, including barium, sulfur, salts, and aluminum oxide, into the air, which may impact weather and other environmental elements.
This Legislature finds that such particulates eventually fall from the atmosphere, exposing the public to these air pollutants and, upon landing, may contaminate soil and water.
This Legislature determines that County residents may be exposed to these chemicals while they are in the atmosphere, which can cause respiratory and other health problems.
This Legislature also finds that, to protect County residents from potential harm, any person who plans to discharge these chemicals into the airspace over Suffolk County should first file an Environmental Impact Statement with and receive approval from the Department of Health Services, Division of Environmental Quality.
Therefore, the purpose of this law is to require any person who plans to discharge sulfur, barium, salts or aluminum oxide into the airspace above the County of Suffolk to file a complete Environmental Impact Statement with the County prior to taking such action.
Section 2. Definitions.
As used in this law, the following terms shall have the meanings indicated: “PERSON” shall mean any natural person, individual, corporation, unincorporated association, proprietorship, firm, partnership, joint venture, joint stock association, or other entity or business of any kind.
Section 3. Requirements.
Any person who plans to discharge sulfur, barium, salts or aluminum oxide into the airspace above the County of Suffolk must file a completed environmental impact form, as established in Section 4 of this law, with the Suffolk County Department of Health Services, Division of Environmental Quality and with the Clerk of the Suffolk County Legislature and receive the approval of the Division of Environmental Quality prior to engaging in such discharge.
Section 4. Form Established.
The Department of Health Services, Division of Environmental Quality is hereby authorized, empowered and directed to develop an environmental impact form to be used by persons wishing to discharge sulfur, barium, salts or aluminum oxide into the airspace above the County of Suffolk. Such form shall require applicants to detail the nature and purpose of their proposed discharge and any potential environmental and/or public health impacts that may result from such discharge.
Section 5. Exemption.
The requirements set forth in this law shall not apply to any person engaging in aerosol spraying for agricultural or vector control purposes.
Section 6. Penalties.
A. Any person who violates any provision of this law shall be liable for a civil penalty of up to $2,500 for an initial violation, with a fine of $5,000 for each subsequent violation.
B. Any civil penalty may only be assessed by the Commissioner of Health Services following a hearing and opportunity for an alleged violator to be heard.
Section 7. Rules and Regulations.
The Commissioner of the County Department of Health Services is hereby authorized and empowered to issue and promulgate such rules and regulations as he or she deems necessary to implement and carry out the provisions of this law. Section 8. Applicability.
This law shall apply to all actions occurring on or after the effective date of this law.
Section 9. Severability.
If any clause, sentence, paragraph, subdivision, section, or part of this law or the application thereof to any person, individual, corporation, firm, partnership, entity, or circumstance shall be adjudged by any court of competent jurisdiction to be invalid or unconstitutional, such order or judgment shall not affect, impair, or invalidate the remainder thereof, but shall be confined in its operation to the clause, sentence, paragraph, subdivision, section, or part of this law, or in its application to the person, individual, corporation, firm, partnership, entity, or circumstance directly involved in the controversy in which such order or judgment shall be rendered.
Section 10. SEQRA Determination.
This Legislature, being the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA) lead agency, hereby finds and determines that this law constitutes a Type II action pursuant to Section 617.5(c)(20), (21), and/or (27) of Title 6 of the NEW YORK CODE OF RULES AND REGULATIONS (6 NYCRR) and within the meaning of Section 8-0109(2) of the NEW YORK ENVIRONMENTAL CONSERVATION LAW as a promulgation of regulations, rules, policies, procedures, and legislative decisions in connection with continuing agency administration, management and information collection. The Suffolk County Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) is hereby directed to circulate any appropriate SEQRA notices of determination of non-applicability or non-significance in accordance with this law.
Section 11. Effective Date.
This law shall take effect immediately upon filing in the Office of the Secretary of State.
Rady Ananda is a regular columnist for Veracity Voice
Rady Ananda’s work has appeared in several online and print publications, including three books on election fraud. She holds a BS in Natural Resources from The Ohio State University’s School of Agriculture.
The Coming Pandemic: Expect All Protective Systems to Fail
November 15, 2011 by Administrator · 1 Comment
The attacks of September 11 were quickly followed by a biological weapons attack in which government- grade weaponized anthrax killed five people and sickened numerous others. This attack, the genesis of which remains unsolved ten years later, was used to justify the United States Congress pumping over $60 billion dollars into a “biodefense “ program which has failed in every parameter that can be measured.
In fact, it appears that all purportedly protective measures, developed nationally and internationally, have fatal flaws in their design which may function to ensure the likelihood and success of a biological weapons attack.
On The Domestic Front
Even the commission created by Congress in 2007 to evaluate all defenses for chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear threats gave our biodefense program a failing grade.
Ten years after the anthrax mailings (which went to Congressmen who might have voted against the USA Patriot Act as well as to certain media outlets), the US has not even developed a second generation anthrax vaccine. Over 100 million dollars has been allocated to develop this vaccine but ten years after the biological weapons attack on our country our vaccine stockpiles consist of smallpox vaccines as well as the original anthrax vaccine (reputed to cause Gulf War syndrome) and little else (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/
Authorized under the Bush administration, Project BioWatch has developed and placed sensors in a number of large cities to serve as an advance detection system for an airborne biological attack, but this program has come under scrutiny and critics have alleged that this may be useless due to prior knowledge of the sensor locations by terror groups.
Since 9/11, there has also been a proliferation of what are called “biosafety labs” (BSL’s) level threes and fours. The 3’s and 4’s, so designated because of the enhanced safety protocols at use in the advanced level labs, handle the most dangerous bugs known to man. There are at least 17 such BSL-4’s now in the US and, according to documents released by the DOJ and DOE, over 1350 BSL-3’s. These numbers are dramatically up since the events of September 2001.
The US government maintains a list of pathogens and toxins which have the potential of causing grave harm to human or plant life (http://www.selectagents.gov/
There is evidence that the US has developed an aggressive biological weapons program, despite our government’s insistence that we abandoned our bioweapons program forties years ago, under President Nixon. The evidence may be found at Sierra Army Depot (and other military bases) where these weapons appear to be stockpiled.
Locking in on the Threat
There is growing alarm among certain sectors that the US may be planning another “event” using biological weapons, and may attempt to either blame this on the terrorists or on some sort of “natural” epidemic. It therefore becomes imperative to determine what sort of attack we may be facing and what we can do to protect ourselves.
According to Dr. Kenneth Alibek, a Russian scientist who came over to this side of the fence and is now working on biological weapons issues at Battelle, there are essentially three ways in which a biological attack could be launched. Writes Alibek:
“Biological weapons can deployed in three ways:
- contamination of food or water supplies, which are then ingested by the victims
- release of infected vectors, such as mosquitoes or fleas, which then bite the victims
- creation of an aerosol cloud, which is then inhaled by the victims (or if the targets are plants, the cloud then settles on and infects the plants).” (http://thewednesdayreport.
com/articles/research/weapons_ )of_mass_destruction-super_ diseases.htm
The probability of a general airborne attack is unlikely. An airborne attack could not be easily controlled and carries the strong likelihood of affecting unintended targets. One must therefore look at other delivery systems, which carry an ability to lock onto the desired targets and pass over those who have been predesignated to survive.
Work on reconfiguring the water system, countrywide, began right about the same time as the US signed onto the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), in the early 1970´s. This reconfigured “double line” water system provides the opportunity for a nearly “surgical” attack on predetermined targets (http://neworleans.indymedia.
A chemist in Eastern Washington State, Dave Duncan, had volunteered in 2006 to run chemical analyses on samples of water which had ostensibly come from the mixture of the two water mains. His initial tests revealed that the specific gravity of the sample was significantly skewed when compared to normal tap water. Duncan, a fundamentalist Christian, became concerned about the implications of his work, declaring that “if people were going to be killed off, it must be God’s will.” Shortly after vacating his work on analyzing the water sample, Duncan succumbed to an aggressive form of colon cancer.
Another delivery system has been uncovered, which may dovetail with the double line water system, for the delivery of a lethal dose of toxins or chemicals. For numerous medications being manufactured by Big Pharma, there are now imposter “death drugs” being quietly manufactured, as well. These look-alike doppelgangers, which appear identical to the antibiotic, analgesic, hormonal, cardiac or other common medication, will produce a heart attack and/or stroke and– most likely– subsequent death.
Both water as a delivery system and the imposter pharmaceuticals bear the necessary targeting capability. The double line water system provides the ability to selectively target households and the pharmaceutical delivery system provides the ability to selectively target individuals.
None of the 60 billion dollars pumped into biodefense in the last ten years appears to be designated to address water borne attacks. A recent announcement from DHS Chief Janet Napolitano (http://www.
On the International Scene
It appears the wagons have also circled around the involvement of the pharmaceutical companies in biological weapons work. As there are no weapons inspectors or any other implementation vehicle for the BWC, the pharmaceutical companies can carry on their death work without the intrusion of any peeping Tom inspection team. The glaring failure of the BWC to provide a means of implementing the treaty has resulted in a complete lack of oversight as to what is going on in pharmaceutical labs. In the past, attempts to set up an inspection capability for the BWC have been vigorously opposed by the United States and also by …you guessed it—the pharmaceutical companies. ()
The development and production of biological weapons would necessitate, of course, a laboratory to produce them. Certain industries maintain such labs, such as pharmaceutical companies and some food production companies. Big Pharma has consistently objected to the spectre of weapons inspectors coming into their labs, stating that such weapons inspectors could, in fact, be industrial spies bent on stealing proprietary drug information. Bending to the stated necessity of keeping the profits of the pharmaceutical companies secure along with their proprietary formulas, the BWC has so far accommodated the pharmaceutical companies in their insistence on the priority of maintaining their privacy and profit margins, granting this imperative more weight than the need to keep the world safe from biological weapons.
However, given the revelation of the “death drug” imposter pill program, we can see why the pharmaceutical industry would balk at weapons inspectors peering over its shoulders.
This December, the BWC will be meeting again in Geneva, as it does only every five years. On the table will be strengthening the “confidence building measures,” (CBM’s) which have taken the place of inspection teams as a means to ensure treaty compliance. The problem is that the CBM’s rely on the integrity of each nation to accurately report on its own programs. In plain language, that means that we must “trust” the word of countries such as the United States, Russia, Great Britain, Iran, Pakistan and South Africa to accurately report what is going on in their labs.
The very term “confidence building measures” is possibly one of the most offensive and misleading parts of the staged drama that is the BWC. Forty years after the BWC treaty originally came into existence, we still have no means of ensuring any kind of compliance with the mandates of the treaty, other than the “word” of a possible offender. In a recent interview with a former CIA contractor, who has asked his name not be used here, this top level scientist who worked for years as a CIA asset admitted that it was known in intelligence circles that the old Soviet Union under Yeltsin was violating the BWC. This was never brought to the attention of the international community through the BWC.
The three nations which serve as depositories of the BWC are Russia, Great Britain and the US. Great Britain may have recently ducked an international scandal when a South African physician, Dr. Wouter Basson, was exonerated of war crimes charges for his work developing biological weapons with Project Coast during the apartheid years. Basson was purportedly involved in developing a “blacks-only” bioweapon, which would only kill native Africans and leave white people unscathed. Sources in the US government have contacted this reporter alleging that such a weapon is now at play and has been leaked into processed foods. The substance allegedly bonds with melanin (which is present in darker skinned peoples) producing hypertension and diabetes. Indeed, the present epidemic of these two “silent killers” is nearly unknown in Africa, where the native population does not eat such a preponderance of processed foods, relying instead on more natural food sources. Africa, as we know, is being emptied out by the AIDS epidemic.
Dr. Basson, it appears, was chummy with Dr. David Kelly, the British biological weapons inspector whose sudden “suicide” (http://dr-david-kelly.
Come December, the Big Three –Russia, Great Britain and the US—will meet with other nations to convene their deadly serious effort of making the world safe from biological weapons. Or that is what they want us to believe, anyway. The reality is that, through its failure to enact implementation protocols, the BWC is enabling the development of precisely the type of weaponry that it is mandated to curtail.
Janet Phelan is an investigative journalist whose articles have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, The San Bernardino County Sentinel, The Santa Monica Daily Press, The Long Beach Press Telegram, Oui Magazine and other regional and national publications. Janet specializes in issues pertaining to legal corruption and addresses the heated subject of adult conservatorship, revealing shocking information about the relationships between courts and shady financial consultants. She also covers issues relating to bioweapons. Her poetry has been published in Gambit, Libera, Applezaba Review, Nausea One and other magazines. Her first book, The Hitler Poems, was published in 2005. She currently resides abroad. You may browse through her articles (and poetry) at janetphelan.com
Janet Phelan is a regular columnist for Veracity Voice
Biotech company secretly releases millions of GM mosquitoes in Cayman Islands
November 21, 2010 by Administrator · 2 Comments
By Ethan A. Huff | naturalnews.com…
Scientists at British biotechnology giant Oxitec recently developed a genetically-modified (GM) mosquito that, apart from a specific chemical antibiotic, is unable to successfully repopulate. And the company recently released millions of these GM mosquitoes in the Cayman Islands to see what would happen — and they did so without proper approval or announcement — prompting outrage by experts and the public over the unknown consequences of conducting such an irresponsible experiment.
Oxitec released the mosquitoes last year, but only just recently let the public know about it. The company has attempted to justify its decision by claiming its GM mosquitoes may help fight the spread of dengue fever by reducing or eliminating the wild mosquito population. But nobody knows what happens when these GM mosquitoes interact with other animals and humans, or how their altered genes will disrupt the living environment.
Seemingly content with its decision to hide the trial from the public initially, Oxitec had the audacity to announce at the recent annual meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene that its trial was “successful”. But how the company can make such a preposterous statement without knowing the long-term effects of its irreversible decision is mind-boggling.
“Oxitec considers its trial ‘successful’ just days after the experiment has ended,” explained Kathy Jo Wetter, a researcher at the Action Group on Erosion, Technology and Cooperation. “[U]nintended impacts on the environment cannot be known, and Oxitec’s unproven technology could make things worse in the long term. There is no possibility of recall if something goes wrong — who takes responsibility in that case?”
Not only are mosquitoes a necessary component of the natural food chain, representing the prey of various creatures like birds and bats, but they are also important pollinators in the same way that bees are. Even though they appear to be a nuisance, without them, the entire food chain could collapse.
