GM

GM  (Bio tech)
Type	technology
Interest of	• Alliance for Science • Big pharma • Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation • Derrick Broze • Children's Health Defense • DuPont • Jonathan Latham • Milagro de Mier • Monsanto • Oxitec • Powerbase • Rockefeller Foundation • Vandana Shiva
Subpage(s)	•GM/Food
organism which had its DNA or RNA changed by artificial means

A Genetically Modified Organism is a organism which had its DNA or RNA chemically manipulated so that it reproduces the modification by natural or artificial reproduction.

Official narrative

GMOs are simultaneously:

1. So similar to existing organisms, that no safety testing is needed as regards food, due to "substantial equivalence"
2. So innovative and unique as to be the "intellectual property" of whoever first filed a legal claim of ownership with the appropriate establishment authority.

Problems

Evidence is growing that GMO's present a hazard to the earth's biosphere, and that many organisations supposed to deal with such concerns (e.g. the FDA) are not doing so because they are effectively captured by big agriculture.

Patents

Corporations are trying to claim ownership of DNA/RNA sequences, both natural and artificial.

Outdated model

Craig Holdrege, Director of The Nature Institute, argued in 2014 that "current science is re-contextualizing what was conceived of in an atomistic way in order to do justice to the realities of the living organism. For this reason, the idea of the discrete gene becomes an obstacle to evolving understanding. Paradoxically, during the decades in which the gene concept has been dissolving and genetic processes have been viewed in increasingly dynamic terms, genetic engineering has operated with the older, much more static view of the gene as the cause of distinct traits ("gene for" herbicide resistance, etc.)"

Viruses

Full article: Gain-of-function

Genetic modification of viruses is euphemistically termed "Gain-of-function" research. It has been carried out at BSL4-labs such as the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Crops

By 2016, nearly 40 nation states have banned GM crops.

On August 18, 2020, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) published a petition by researchers seeking federal approval to release their genetically engineered (GE) Darling 58 (D58) American chestnut tree into U.S. forests. The D58 would be the first GE forest tree approved in the U.S. and the first GMO intended to spread in the wild. Researchers claim the transgenic D58 tree will resist the fungal blight that, coupled with rampant overlogging, decimated the American chestnut population in the early 20th century. In fact, the GE American chestnut is a Trojan horse meant to open the doors to commercial GE trees designed for industrial plantations.

While American chestnut trees are known to live hundreds of years, D58 trees have only been growing since 2017, calling into question the assertion that "Darling 58 has been studied in detail and no plant pest or environmental risks have been observed."

Food

Full article: GM/Food

A 2015 poll reported that nearly 90% of Americans want mandatory labeling on genetically modified foods.

Animals

The company Oxitec has been producing genetically modified mosquitoes on an industrial scale for some years in Brazil, a country which experienced a huge rise in microcephaly in 2016 - possibly related to the mosquito borne Zika virus. Milagro “Mila” De Mier, who started a petition online to oppose the project was found dead in a swimming pool in Washington DC in April 2018.

Military purposes

A December 2018 report stated that the US Navy was researching GM microorganisms to assist in detection of submarines.

Humans

Reporting on a study by the Hinxton Group, the BBC headlined a story in 2015 "GM embryos 'essential', says report".

 

Examples

Page name	Description
CRISPR gene editing	Breakthrough technology making gene editing easy and fast.
DNA Vaccine	DNA-changing vaccine technology. First time allowed for use in 2021, despite no late-stage trial results having been published.
Genetic Extinction Technology
Optogenetics	A biological technique that involves the use of light to control neurons;A Virtual Reality System for Controlling Living Cells
RBGH	Bovine growth hormone to increase milk production. Bad for cows, not to great for humans either.
RNA Vaccine	A vaccine based on changing the human RNA. The concept has long been of high military interest.

 

Related Quotations

Page	Quote	Author	Date
Peter Daszak	“Well I think... coronaviruses — you can manipulate them in the lab pretty easily. Spike protein drives a lot of what happen with coronavirus, in zoonotic risk. So you can get the sequence, you can build the protein, and we work a lot with Ralph Baric at UNC to do this. Insert into the backbone of another virus and do some work in the lab.”	Peter Daszak	9 December 2019
Mae-Wan Ho	“What makes genetic engineering biotechnology dangerous, in the first instance, is that it is an unprecedented, close alliance between two great powers that can make or break the world: science and commerce. Practically all established molecular geneticists have some direct or indirect connection with industry, which will set limits on what the scientists can and will do research on, not to mention the possibility of compromising their integrity as independent scientists. . The worst aspect of the alliance is that it is between the most reductionist science and multinational monopolistic industry at its most aggressive and exploitative. If the truth be told, it is bad science working together with big business for quick profit, aided and abetted by our governments for the banal reason that governments wish to be re-elected to remain in ‘power.’”	Mae-Wan Ho	1997
Walter Isaacson	“For the first time in the evolution of life on this planet, a species has developed the capacity to edit its own genetic makeup. That offers the potential of wondrous benefits, including the elimination of many deadly diseases and debilitating abnormalities.”	Walter Isaacson	2020
Vandana Shiva	“When Bill Gates pours money into Africa for feeding the poor in Africa and preventing famine, he’s pushing the failed Green Revolution, he’s pushing chemicals, pushing GMOs, pushing patterns.”	Vandana Shiva
Vandana Shiva	“The gradual spread of sterility in seeding plants would result in a global catastrophe that could eventually wipe out higher life forms, including humans, from the planet.”	Vandana Shiva
Vandana Shiva	“If you look at the graph of the growth of G.M.O.s, the growth of application of glyphosate and autism, it’s literally a one-to-one correspondence. And you could make that graph for kidney failure, you could make that graph for diabetes, you could make that graph even for Alzheimer’s.”	Vandana Shiva
Transhumanism	“Even if half the world’s species were lost [during genetic experiments], enormous diversity would still remain. When those in the distant future look back on this period of history, they will likely see it not as the era when the natural environment was impoverished, but as the age when a plethora of new forms—some biological, some technological, some a combination of the two—burst onto the scene. We best serve ourselves, as well as future generations, by focusing on the short-term consequences of our actions rather than our vague notions about the needs of the distant future.”	Gregory Stock	1993
Craig Venter	“Agriculture as we know it needs to disappear...We can design better and healthier proteins than we get from nature.”	Craig Venter	30 May 2012

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