Recently the Wall Street Journal published a story that was a thinly veiled promotional piece for GMO technology. Here is our response:
Regarding your August 22 article, “Meet Mr. Frankenfoods:”
This piece—little more than a GMO promotion; let’s be generous and call it an “advertorial”—starts with erroneous definitions and ends with woefully inaccurate information.
For you to equate conventional cross-breeding with transgenic gene modification is egregiously and demonstrably incorrect, and displays a profound misunderstanding of the issues involved. Cross-breeding two strains of tomatoes is not the same as surgically implanting genetic material from an Atlantic Cod into a tomato.
Your article correctly shows the rapid rise to dominance that GM crops have enjoyed. Unfortunately, you then go on to tout the safety of these crops, and cite studies that seem to support such claims. You fail to point out that all this research comes from the biotech industry itself! Independent research does not support GMO safety. In fact, animal studies prove quite the opposite. Scientists are seeing birth defects, high infant mortality rates, and sterility in hamsters, rats, and livestock fed GMO soy and corn, and some hamster pups even begin growing hair inside their mouths. No GMO food has ever been certified as safe by the FDA.
Contrary to industry claims trumpeted as fact in this article, GM crops have led to an increase in the use of herbicides, not a decrease. They have also created strains of weeds that are virtually impervious to Monsanto’s Roundup and other toxins. This has led Monsanto, Dow, and others to develop even stronger poisons. This ongoing toxic escalation poses incredible threats to our ecosystem. It has already been linked to honeybee colony collapse disorder.
This technology is not the boon that its proponents and their stockholders would like us to believe. Americans need to understand the very real risks they and their families face from this type of genetic tampering.
Sincerely,
Gretchen DuBeau, Esq.
Executive and Legal Director
The Alliance for Natural Health USA