Prominent Scientists Say U.S. Position on GMOs Is “Horribly Exposed”

Prominent Scientists Say U.S. Position on GMOs Is “Horribly Exposed”

By Kurtis Bright

U.S. Stance On GMOs Called Out As Shoddy Science

The proposed merger of Monsanto and Bayer edges ever closer to a done deal every day. At the same time, consumer awareness grows, of just how ubiquitous and dangerous genetically modified crops and the massive doses of chemicals needed to grow them really are. Indeed, genetically modified foods, Monsanto, glyphosate, and other subjects like these are drawing unwanted scrutiny that is making some people in high places very uncomfortable.

As this process has developed, the corporations predictably have rolled out their typical denial, reassurances, and platitudes. But another entity has been complicit in the massive cover-up of the vast array of problems with GMOs: the Federal Government.

A pair of prominent researchers finally got fed up. A conference at Cornell University was the site of their defection from the mandated talking points, as they instead talked about their growing unease as study after study further breaks down the scientific basis for the U.S. approval of widely-used GMO techniques and products.

Executive director of the Bioscience Resource Project Jonathan Latham said the official U.S. position on GMOs is “horribly exposed” as a result of the latest research, stating further that contradictions even within the framework of the original research “were never resolved.”

“There was obviously a lot of political pressure and economic pressure to just sweep things under the carpet,” Latham added.

Joining Latham in his disgust with the way GMO research was conducted when biochem companies were seeking U.S. regulatory approval was Michael Hansen, a senior scientist at the Consumer’s Union. Immersed in the issue of GMOs for over 30 years at both the state and federal level, as well as in an international context, Hansen has a depth and breadth of knowledge on the subject that rivals that of anyone.

And he has sounded the alarm, saying that it’s high time for stricter regulations on GMOs.

He adds that it may already be too late.

“Most of the environmental movements of the 20th century have basically been people cleaning up disasters after the fact,” Hansen said at the Cornell event. “With pesticides and all these things that were initially considered perfectly safe, we only find out years later that they’re contaminating the environment and causing all these problems. We wanted to make sure that biotechnology was regulated properly.”

The troubling fact is, according to Hansen, most U.S. citizens don’t realize that the U.S. doesn’t hew to internationally agreed-upon safety regulations when it comes to GMO crops. The U.S. Federal Government has chosen its own strange path for its citizens, and it tracks alarmingly close to exactly what Big Agrichem wants.

“There is global agreement on required safety assessments [for food that is derived from genetically modified organisms] and yet the United States does not do them,” Hansen said. “So we are actually on the outside of the global scientific standard.”

So when you encounter concern trolls on chat boards who want to try to “educate” you about how you just don’t understand how safe GMO products really are, or how Monsanto and companies like it simply want to feed the hungry of the world, keep in mind that they are not only likely to be on the payroll of Big Agrichem or hoodwinked by those who are, they are doing so using badly flawed research and data that was gathered and processed with one goal in mind: find a way--any way--to justify the approval of widespread use and sale of GMO crops.

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