By Steve Kerr
The scientists and technocrats who want us to consume genetically modified (GM) foods, do so because they stand to become rich if people buy their products, not because there is any sound scientific knowledge that such food is safe to eat.
Scientists have the ability today to modify deoxyribonucleic acid or DNA ¯ the "computer program" that directs the formation of all life ¯ at the level of the specific amino acids that make up the three complex proteins whose ordering in a strand of DNA determine genetic traits.
Unfortunately our ability to manipulate genes at the protein level far exceeds our understanding of the functions of those proteins and the effects of such genetic manipulation.
We understand nothing about the subtle relationships in nature that are disturbed when we modify organisms so that they may behave differently than their natural evolution has dictated.
Farmers and scientists monitoring a field of GM canola in Saskatchewan have noticed that butterflies that pollinate natural canola do not like the genetically engineered variety. If a butterfly notices the difference, why should it be OK for us to eat?
In mid-April 1998 Monsanto announced that it was recalling small quantities of genetically engineered canola seed which contained "an unapproved gene that had found its way into the product by mistake." What other mistakes are we to suffer in the future?
Swiss research into a genetically modified strain of maize, designed by Novartis as a poison to the larvae of the corn borer, has shown that it can kill beneficial insects as well as pests, and therefore disrupt the entire food chain.
In Scotland Dr. Puztasi, a former cheerleader for the bio-piracy industry, has discovered that rats consuming GM potatoes had weakened immune systems and gut problems.
Despite the image of precision conveyed by the word "engineering", genetic manipulation is like throwing darts at a distance in the dark.
Scientists trying to insert new amino acids into proteins and foreign genes into the DNA of other organisms are really only able to "throw" the gene or amino acid at the "target" and hope that it will "stick". Are we to leave our health on the dartboard with them?
At the root of this madness is the close relationship between science and capital.
Science today is done in privately funded laboratories at the behest of private corporations bent on making fast profits.
With university funding drying up, corporations are stepping in to fill ground evacuated by the state.
Corporations such as Novartis, Unilever and others pump cash to university managers such as the University of Toronto's Robert Prichard who want to increase the prestige of their institutions.
That the research being supported leads directly to applications which harm human health and threaten the entire delicate web of life on earth is of no particular concern.
Science serves to justify and rationalize the immediate needs of the profit system in the form of an unquestionable set of assumptions that are really class based.
"Trust the managers and the scientists. We know what we are doing. After all, they only let you be a doctor on merit, right?"
To accept this as true is to be blind to the interlocking class interests of the scientific establishment and the managers of capital.
The scientific results that don't fit are squashed. The integrity of a few brave people such as Dr. Puztasi and the resolve of the informed working class is all that stands between today and a GM future of sickness.
Now the Chrétien Government is about to announce a huge gift to biotech companies in the form of money for "research and development". The scientists manipulate genes because it pays.
Pass the pork Jean.