Even Royal Eugenicists Can't Stop GM Foods

British government tells Prince Charles to prove GMOs are a problem

James Corbett
The Corbett Report

18 August, 2008


	Prince Charles lashes out against GMOs.

Just days after accusing Big Agra of conducting a giant experiment with nature by developing genetically modified foods, Prince Charles is now under attack by his own government. In a move that should send shivers down the spine of all Britons, Phil Woolas—the British environment minister and presumably the man tasked with keeping Britain safe from real environmental hazards—has told Prince Charles that he must "provide the evidence" that GMO crops are dangerous.

What is at stake here is more than Mr. Woolas' position that an environmental disaster must occur before the government acts, a viewpoint that is in direct contradiction to currently accepted international environmental law and in contradistinction to his fearmongering over the unproven threat of climate change (given his 2007 claim that "the threat of climate change is so great, that two years may be too long" to wait to act on it). What is really at stake here is what more evidence Mr. Woolas needs to see to prove that GM foods do constitute a potential environmental disaster of a type and kind never seen before on the planet. Consider that:

-Attempts to create GM peas were abandoned when it caused allergic lung damage in mice. [link]

-Rats fed on GM soy ended up stunted, dead or sterile in a two-year scientific study. [link]

-GM oil seed rape was never approved in Britain after trial results showed it would be harmful to the environment and wildllife. [link]

-A four-year German study found that GM genes could jump the species barrier and cause bacteria to mutate. [link]

-A scientific study found that Bt corn disturbed numerous biological parameters in test rats, including significant changes in organ weight and urine chemistry. [link]

-Professor Norman Ellstrand, ecological geneticist at the University of California, and Dr. Harash Narang, a microbiologist at the university of Leeds have both echoed Prince Charles' assertion that GM foods are a potential ecological disaster, along with dozens of other scientists and researchers who admit that GM foods have not been properly tested. [link]

-GM foods are created using Antibiotic Resistant Marker (ARM) genes which can lead to the creation of antibiotic-resistant diseases. [link]

If Mr. Woolas is not inclined to look at that scientific evidence, here are links to several dozen more studies showing some of the potentially disastrous effects of GMO foods, from random transgenic mutations to the unpredictable activation of genes by promoter genes. Of course, the odds are Mr. Woolas is in fact not prepared to look at any research that would threaten the biotechnology industry's multi-billion dollar cash cow, the GM crop market.

Woolas tips his hand when he pulls out the old canard that GM crops are part of an "Africa strategy" that will feed the poor in the developing countries. Perhaps Woolas is unaware of recent research which proved that GM soy produces 10% lower yield than regular soy and that GM crops actually increase pesticide use.


	Doomsday Seed Vault on Svalbard.

That Woolas attempts to promote GMO as the answer to African famine makes sense when we consider the surprising sources of funding for the so-called Doomsday Seed Vault on an Arctic rock claimed by Norway known as Svalbard. The unlikely sources of funding for this project are revealed in William Engdahl's meticulously-researched article "Doomsday Seed Vault in the Arctic." In it, Engdahl shows how the promotion of the "Gene Revolution" in Africa has been funded by the very same people that have funded the Doomsday Seed Vault in Svalbard, including the Rockefeller Foundation, Monsanto and Syngenta. The very existence of something called the Doomsday Seed Vault, funded by the very companies who are now developing GM crops, should give environmental ministers like Mr. Woolas pause for consideration.

Of course, Prince Charles himself is no saint and is in no position to wax philosophical about the earth's problems, being a tireless promoter of the eugenicist myth of global warming. Faults aside, Prince Charles should be commended for pursuing a real environmental issue and not the ridiculous parlour tricks he has used in the past to promote phoney concerns over life-giving carbon dioxide. Now if only Woolas would do the same.

Related works from The Corbett Report:

Shut up and eat your GMOs (podcast episode)

Dr. Neil Carman on GMOs (interview)

Climate scientist compares CO2 hysteria to terror hysteria (article)