Genetically Modified Wheat Has Probably Escaped Monsanto and Is Living in the Wild

This is Serious Stuff – No Joking on This Topic

Science now has the power to genetically modify crops, without having the knowledge to understand what they are doing or to know all of the ramifications of doing so.  This presents a particular type of horror, that mankind could literally genetically destroy the basic foodstuffs of humanity.  Really, that is possible.  Heck, chemical weapons research in the U. S. and other countries has likely already developed the technology to do it.  Skeptical?  The U. S. and other countries have developed the technology to destroy life on Earth with nuclear weapons, why not with chemical ones?

With the Monsanto Corporation we have a study in greed.  The company has a corporate mission to make genetically modified seeds.  The problem they are addressing is that in order to control weeds, herbicides are sprayed on fields.  But herbicides are too stupid to know the difference between weeds and crops.  So Monsanto is working to generically modify seeds so that they will resist the herbicides. They have already done this with soybeans, and now almost all soybeans planted are genetically modified crops.  

Monsanto tried this with wheat, but discontinued the program.  One reason was probably that many countries will not allow the import of genetically modified wheat, and the U. S. exports a lot of wheat.  So what has now happened years after the program was stopped?  This has happened.

USDA says unapproved genetically engineered wheat discovered in Oregon field

 

Any problems, well not according to the government, you know, the people everyone trusts completely.

The tests confirmed that the plants were a strain developed by Monsanto to resist its Roundup Ready herbicides and were tested between 1998 and 2005. At the time Monsanto had applied to USDA for permission to develop the engineered wheat, but the company later pulled its application.

The Agriculture Department said that during that seven-year period, it authorized more than 100 field tests with the same glyphosate-resistant wheat variety. Tests were conducted in in Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington and Wyoming.

During that testing and application process, the Food and Drug Administration reviewed the variety found in Oregon and said it was as safe as conventional varieties of wheat.

And Monsanto has no problems here.

In a statement issued Wednesday, Monsanto noted that this is the first report since its program was discontinued.

“While USDA’s results are unexpected, there is considerable reason to believe that the presence of the Roundup Ready trait in wheat, if determined to be valid, is very limited,” the company said.

Oh really, and how does Monsanto know that?  They don’t of course, they are just trying to avoid a bad situation.  After all, until this strain was discovered in Oregon they didn't know that any modified seed had escaped.  

So what could go wrong here?  Well the genetically modified wheat that has escaped from Monsanto could contaminate the U. S. wheat crop.  The genetically modified wheat that has escaped could mutate into a strain of wheat that seriously injuries or kills humans?  The genetically modified wheat that has escaped could evolve into a strain that renders wheat sterile, thus ending wheat as a foodstuff with calamitous resuslts.

Is this likely?  Probably not, but consider this.  If Monsanto has allowed one strain of genetically modified wheat into the environment, what else have they allowed to contaminate the food system?  It took a long time for anyone to find out that this strain was out there, and Monsanto has shown that they cannot be trusted to contain their experiments. 

No one should take comfort in the fact that nothing has happened, yet.  A few years have gone by, a nano-second in the time span of nature, which works in units of thousands or millions of years.  That a problem could take years or decades to develop is not unusual, in fact a lengthy delay is what would be expected.  Corporate greed and stupidity may well have poisoned the future.

Monsanto has now been shown to be a company that cannot be trusted, and if the Obama Administration had any of the desire to regulate business that its critics accuse it of, it would shut down Monsanto's testing, research or involvement in any genetically modified experiments.  And it would notify the company that the government will hold Monsanto responsible for any damage it does to the foodstocks, to the environment and to U. S. trade in wheat.  But of course none of this will happen, and even if it did the business friendly courts would not uphold making Monsanto or any other company responsible for its actions.  The concept of personal responsibility applies only to low income people who are supposed to take care of their own problems.

The national press is currently consumed with a somewhat phony IRS scandal.  If the national press were a real news system, it would be consumed with this story. But then if the national press were a real news system a lot of things would be different, and people like Michele Bachmann would have been laughed out of the Congress years ago.