Myron (Mike) Stagman, PhD
Concerned Citizens Information Network
www.ccin.info  (environmental website)
www.MyronStagman.com
email: artemesium@gmail.com


GMO DISEASE EPIDEMICS:

(12)  Mystery Diseases:  Nature



I.  The Face of Frankenstein's Monster

Genetic Engineering Biotechnology (GE, GM, GMOs) evades Evolution's safeguards by injecting genes of one species into a totally unrelated species, something impossible in Nature.

GM evades Evolution's safeguards, and may therefore give rise to PATHOGENS that can -- and HAVE, many times --  caused crippling and deadly DISEASE EPIDEMICS -- documented but unpublicised.

Genetic Engineering is also ideal for developing horrific biological and other military weapons --- sufficient cause to OUTLAW GM.

The Greatest Racket in History (Listen to this !): ---

GM contamination is virulent, spread by wind, bird, insect, animals and travelling  human beings.  Co-Existence with GM is completely impossible, only fools or liars would say differently.

GM has contaminated  crops in areas of North America which dwarf the UK and even Western Europe.   Planetary contamination is inevitable, if We don't stop it.

The Biotechnology corporations know oh-so-well how contamination spreads and spreads and spreads.

Now get this:   Through their political influence, these Corporations have been able to acquire the obscene, sacrilegious, and indeed revolutionary  PATENTS on LIFE-FORMS.

Before these revolutionary Patents on Life,  a farmer could have sued -- successfully without any doubt -- the Biotechnology corporation for having contaminated, poisoned his crops.

However, given these Patents on Life (here, on the seeds), the Corporation can -- and DOES, successfully -- sue the victimised farmer for (Hold your nose) "infringement of patent".

[Our tainted, corrupted political systems allow this monstrosity.]

Thus the formula the reader might keep in mind:
GM Contamination + Patents on Life-Forms  equals Corporate Ownership Rights in the crops of victimised farmers.

This formula spells the serfdom and ruin of all small family farmers on this planet.  (They are the majority of the population in Asia, Africa, and Latin America).

The Chemical-Drug-Biotechnology syndicate and its Enforcers (corrupted governments in the West and Third World, corporation-dominated organisations like the WTO, World Bank, IMF) have started a WORLDWIDE AGRICULTURAL REVOLUTION.

They want to destroy small family farming, and have only gigantic Corporate GM Plantations with farmers working as serfs.
 
[This process is underway, especially in South America where the U.S. Military has begun to intervene on behalf of GM Plantations to crush farmer opposition.]

Already, according to the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology (RFSTE) in New Delhi,  40,000 farmers in India have committed suicide primarily as a result of the Corporate Enforcers' so-called "free trade" policies --- dumping heavily-subsidised Western farm produce onto glutted Indian markets, pushing GM crops, insisting that Patents on Life-Forms be accepted so farmers must sign contracts with GM Corporations and can no longer save seeds, etc.

The Greatest Racket in History --- GM Contamination + Patents on Life-Forms equals Corporate Proprietary Rights in the crops of victimised farmers, and spells the serdom and ruin of small family farmers everywhere on this planet.

We MUST OUTLAW GM and PATENTS on LIFE-FORMS -- or else !!
(e.g. No more organic, healthy food --- you and your children will only be able to eat unsafe GM)

See the Action Plan in Part III designed to OUTLAW GM and PATENTS on LIFE-FORMS.
But beforehand, read the next in our series of "GMO Disease Epidemics".

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II.  Genetically-Engineered "Mystery" Diseases:  Nature

[Note:  This article only begins like the earlier "Mystery Disease epidemics -- Human Health".]


At least 50 new viruses attacking human health  emerged between 1988 and 1996.
       [Institute for Science in Society]

Laboratory tests show that the genetic engineering process can produce novel viruses.

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The Philippines.   "Scientists Suspect Health Threat from GM Corn" (The Guardian, 28 February 2004)
 
 "Scientists  investigating a spate of illnesses among people living close to GM fields in the Philippines believe that the crop may have triggered fevers, respiratory illnesses and skin reactions."

[Continuing to quote from the above article on the Philippines]
:
"His team [that of Terjee Traavik, scientific director of the Norwegian Institute of Gene Ecology} also said it had found genetically engineered viruses used in the GM process recombined with natural viruses to create new hybrid viruses with unpredictable characteristics..  It confirmed this could suggest that they could cause new diseases."


"Could cause new diseases" such as    California's Poison Oak Death?  The mysterious disease that caused 95% of Florida's elkhorn coral to die in a short period of time? The 50 new viruses that emerged between 1988 and 1996?  The new viruses which have emerged since 1996?

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Threats to Nature, our Natural Environment
 
"At current rates of conservation and deforestation and other forms of environmental destruction, at least one-fifth of species of plants and animals would be gone or committed to early extinction by 2030, and one-half by the end of the century."  --  The Future of Life, Edward O. Wilson, 2002.
Professor Wilson, of Harvard University, may be the foremost authority on endangered ecosystems.

Please keep this quotation in mind when reading the following:

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Mass Deaths of Monarch Butterflies

 "An example of what can happen when genetically modified crops are introduced was reported in May [1999] in the United States.  Pollen from corn into which a toxin called Bt had been genetically engineered, killed nearly half the monarch butterfly caterpillars [that] fed on it in a test at Cornell University."
       [International Herald Tribune, 5 August 1999, "Genetically Modified Food Alarmingly Out of Control"]

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Genetically-engineered Bt cotton killed 30% of the bees in the fields when field-tested in Thailand.     
     [Institute for Science in Society, London]

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Poison Oak Death --- a mysterious environmental plague
 
   Excerpts from a New York Times editorial of October 5, 2002, entitled "The Dying Oaks of California":    "The forests and woodlands of America conceal a landscape of loss. . . .the most volatile and in some ways the most frightening scourge of trees at the moment is Sudden Oak Death, which has killed tens of thousands of oaks in coastal California in just a few years. . . . Sudden Oak Death first appeared in California in the mid-1990's. . . . The potential economic damage is enormous. . . . Even now, California is facing significant agricultural quarantine.. . . .   No one yet knows where Phytophthora ramorum came from or how this cycle of tree sickness began.. . . . Phytophthora ramorum itself is new to science."
 
The words I have emphasized above could also be said about GM-Tryptophan-caused Eosinophilia-Myalgia Syndrome (EMS).

The  obvious question we ought to be asking:  Is Phytophthora ramorum and Sudden Oak Death related to a GMO, perhaps causing a mutation?  (There has been much experimentation with genetically-engineered trees in the United States, California in particular. That may well be your answer.)

Poison Oak Death has now reached northward into Oregon.

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International Herald Tribune, 26 December 1996.  "Disease Attacks Florida Keys".  Over 95% of the Elkhorn coral have died in a short period of time from a mysterious disease.

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Comment:  If one evades Evolution's safeguards, the emergence of 'unexpected' pathogens is precisely what Nature tells us is bound to happen.

This is occurring again and again and again, and will continue until we OUTLAW this nightmare technology.

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III.  Conclusion and What To Do

Human beings and Nature, as we have known them, cannot survive in a GMO-Frankenstein world.  

The nightmare technology of Genetic Engineering Biotechnology, and its incestuous Patents on Life-Forms, must be OUTLAWED.


How To Do It?

There is only one way to overcome this extremely powerful,  ruthless Corporation-Government-corporate Mass Media axis.

It is to conduct grassroots Public Education Campaigns to educate and politically activate the General Public, university / college students in particular.

The General Public !!   Stop forever talking to the Converted.  To get around the corporate media's suppression and distortion of truth,  one must talk to people and go door-to-door with leaflets and vocal messages.
And major efforts must be made to inform and activate university students.

Important Hints:

(1)   Concentrate on  university students.

 And  senior citizens.
   
I speak to you now, elder citizens like myself.    Put moral purpose into your lives and help rescue this planet and your grandchildren.

(2)   AVOID NGOs and all established organisations, especially large ones.  They are not what they seem.

Their hierarchies and decision-making are corporation-influenced if not outright purchased.

Never ever join them.  Never ever give them Money.  

  [see George Monbiot's very important article in The Guardian,  4 September 2001, "Sleeping with the Enemy:  Consumer and Environmental Groups are Getting into Bed with Big Corporations]

[Note: In developing countries there are some exceptions, but very very very few in the West. If by a miracle one of them ever conducts a genuine and sensible public education campaign, then you can help out.  But NEVER join or give money to them.]

The environmental field especially is riddled with wealthy, prestigious, deceptive organisations adept at dilutng and derailing environmental causes,  GM in particular.

[I am thinking at this moment of one such organisation I have observed over a long period of time, in my view a very slick and dangerous FOE of environmentalism, originally created by polluting Corporations to deal with the growing environmental movement.
Don't go anywhere near this one.]

When they talk about being 'practical' and seeking 'Coexistence' with GM,  let a red flag go up.

Nothing short of OUTLAWING GENETIC ENGINEERING and PATENTS ON LIFE-FORMS will save us and our planet.

Do your educational work as individuals or in small groups of people you know.

In a little of your SPARETIME (perhaps 3 or 4 hours a week, but regularly, as part of an ethical life-style):

Educate and activate the Public by writing and telephoning and just talking to your family members, friends and acquantances;

Write letters and make telephone calls to local, regional and national media;

Write, call and especially visit your legislative representatives and other government personnel,  and

Take appropriate Direct Action.


Good Luck to You.

P.S.  For a detailed Action Plan on conducting education/activation campaigns (e.g. composing A4 leaflets for distribution, lobbying your legislative representative) see "Creating a Grassroots Democracy While Outlawing Genetic Engineering"currently on the Indymedia Biotech website.  Or email me and request it.
 
For extensive information on the casualties and unprecedented dangers of Genetic Engineering, see "Genetic Engineering Fact-Sheet" on the website of the Concerned Citizens Information Network,  www.ccin.info