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Genetically Altered Food – Beware!

Dr Vernon Coleman

Science has, during the last few decades, presented us with a steadily increasing and apparently endless variety of moral dilemmas and practical threats. The subject of genetic engineering is a perfect example of how politicians have betrayed us all and are, through their refusal to take on big industry, threatening our very future.

In just a few decades genetic engineering has evolved so rapidly as a branch of science (if science is the right word for a form of alchemy which seems to pay little or no attention to logic or research) that the future of our species is now threatened. Genetic engineering enables scientists to transfer genes between species in an entirely unnatural way. Human genes can be transferred to pigs, sheep, fish or bacteria. And genes from bacteria, slugs, elephants, fish, tomatoes and anything else can be put into human beings.

Genetic engineering started in the 1970s. The technique involves putting genes from one species into another species. In order to do this the genetic engineers put the genes they want to move into viruses. They then put the virus into the animal or plant which is to be the recipient. Genetic engineering is nothing at all like conventional breeding techniques (such as are used by dog breeders who want dogs with very floppy ears or by people who want to grow black tulips).

Listen to the boastful, extraordinarily arrogant claims of genetic scientists and you might believe that they had all the answers to hunger and disease. They talk grandly about eradicating starvation by creating new high yield, pest resistant versions of existing foods and manipulating genes to banish physical ailments, aggression and depression. They will, they say, be able to eradicate homosexuality, control the overpopulation problem, purify water supplies, remove crime from our streets and deal with deforestation. Genetic engineers have even talked of modified strains of bacteria able to eat up plastics, heavy metals and other toxic wastes.

Vast amounts of money have been poured into identifying the human genome (the genetic blue print for human life). There has even been talk that we will be able to clone ourselves so that we need never die.

Moral and ethical questions have been brushed aside as the unnecessary anxieties of ignorant Luddites who either do not understand what is going on or are temperamentally opposed to progress.

But if it all sounds too good to be true — and all rather reminiscent of the sort of cheap promises with which confidence tricksters make their money — that is because it simply isn’t true. Genetic scientists don’t have the answers to any of our problems. On the contrary they have created a hugely successful money making myth which keeps them in fat grants and huge salaries.

None of this would matter too much if what they were doing was as harmless as it is useless. But harmless it is definitely not! Fiddling around with genes is an exceedingly hazardous business. Simply inserting a gene from one creature into another can cause cancer.

Genetic engineering is not something we can simply ignore until the thousands who are making the grand claims are exposed as fraudsters, or until their poorly based pseudoscience falls out of fashion. It is time that the insane burblings of the geneticists were exposed for what they are. I have been writing about the horrors of genetic engineering for over twenty years — since I first realised that scientists were making promises it was clear they couldn’t keep — but most doctors, critics and journalists have so far been too frightened (or ignorant) to oppose the torrent of undiluted praise for genetic engineering and point a firm finger at just another invisible suit of clothes for the same old naked Emperor.

When genetic engineering first hit the headlines, the public was promised that there would be strict rules about just what could and could not be done. But the rules that were intended to protect us have been bent, pushed aside and ignored. Regulations were, it was claimed, slowing down progress, interfering with the competitiveness of the developing new industry and getting in the way of individual scientists keen to get on with their plan for improving the world. It is wrong, say the scientists, to try to ban new thinking or new research.

Genetic engineers claim that there is no need for caution and that only the narrow minded and the reactionary have reservations about this exciting new branch of scientific endeavour.

But the fact is that the genetic engineering industry has even succeeded in ‘persuading’ politicians and administrators that there is no need to segregate genetically engineered produce from naturally grown produce.

The risks associated with genetic engineering are numerous and widespread. There is little doubt that genetic engineering is at least partly responsible for the problem of antibiotic-resistant organisms. And there is even less doubt that genetic engineering is responsible for some, and possibly many, of the new infective organisms now threatening human health.

Under normal circumstances viruses are species specific. A virus that attacks a cat will not attack a human being. And a virus that attacks a human being will not attack a cow. But the genetic engineers have changed all that. They have deliberately glued together different bits of viruses in order to cross species barriers. These genetically engineered viruses can then become virulent again. Genetically engineered viruses are extremely infectious. None of this happens by accident — this is how genetic engineering works.

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Edwin's avatar

Vital Stuff You Might Not Know

Dr Vernon Coleman

You can check everything below online. Please do so. But don’t rely on the mainstream media.

1. There are massive reserves of oil and gas under the land and water currently occupied by the Palestinians. There are apparently 1.7 billion barrels of oil waiting to be exploited and 122 trillion cubic feet of natural gas just sitting there. If the Palestinians are forced out of Gaza who on earth could possibly take advantage of all that oil and gas? Answers on a postcard please. All that oil and gas is worth a great deal of money.

2. Right at the beginning of this genocide I pointed out that if there is a murderer loose in your neighbourhood, you do not set about killing every innocent individual in the area. And yet that is what is happening.

3. Hamas was set up by Israel and the Americans. Only a small percentage of current Palestinian citizens (nearly half of whom were children at the time) voted for Hamas at the last elections – over a decade and a half ago.

4. Egypt warned Israel days before the attack on October 7th. Why was the warning ignored? (It’s reported that some journalists also knew.) Who was really responsible for the October 7th attack, how much did Israel know and why did the atrocities happen that day? Wouldn’t you think the Israelis would want to know? I would.

5. I have lost count of the number of war crimes committed by Israel. If any other country in the world had committed so many acts of terrorism the United States would have moved in. Instead the United States has supported Israel and its war crimes.

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