Around the world, 200 million acres were planted in GM crops last year. Among the benefits are decreased poisonings from hand-spraying of pesticides; decreased erosion because of less need for tillage; decreased fuel use; reduced fungal infestations and thus less mycotoxin exposure; less acreage under cultivation; less back-breaking labor for farmers; and increased income for impoverished families.
Paul Driessen and Cyril Boynes of CORE give some real-life examples.
South African farmer Richard Sithole says: “Now I don't have to buy any chemicals. With the old maize, I got 100 bags from my 15 hectares. With Bt maize, I get 1,000 bags.”
A GM cassava plant being tested in Kenya is absolutely resistant to the mosaic virus that now destroys 35 million tons of this staple crop every year. One farmer looks forward to the day of its approval so that he can complete his children's education and build a new house and a better shed for his cattle.
All this translates into “enslaving farmers,” claim anti-biotech activists. Hordes of such activists–supported by some $70 million per year from foundations, organic food interests, European Union governments, and even U.N. Agencies–are bent on keeping this technology out of Africa, which will be home to three-quarters of the world's hungry people within 10 years. Methods include moratoriums and threats against agricultural imports from countries that grow biotech crops, complex and expensive requirements for labeling all GM ingredients and tracking them from seeds to stores, and even outright lies about safety.
During the height of a famine, the Zambian and Zimbabwean governments rejected food aid in the form of gene-spliced corn, contending that it was better to starve to death than to eat something toxic. (The real reason: it might contain superior seeds that Zambian farmers might plant, causing the EU to reject imports of potentially “tainted” crops.) Millions of children are barred from getting vitamin-rich “golden rice,” thanks to regulations promoted by Greenpeace and others. Meanwhile, they develop blindness due to vitamin A deficiency. As a fungus threatened to devastate farmers and cause mass starvation in Uganda, a fungus-resistant GM banana plant was kept out of the country by the government, under pressure from the EU (TWTW 2/12/05, www.sepp.org).
Environmental extremists have even coined a new word designed to frighten people about GM crops: Frankenfoods. The Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S.D.A. require massive testing of all products developed through advanced biotechnology–even though almost everything we eat except wild berries and game has been genetically modified by man, using techniques far less precise or predictable.
“`Completely safe' is a never realized ideal,” point out Henry I. Miller and Gregory Conko in their book The Frankenfood Myth: How Protest and Politics Threaten the Biotechnology Revolution. Yet GM foods are “safer” than their natural counterparts. The massive regulatory overkill itself has deadly consequences:
“If today's rich nations decide to stop or turn back the clock [on GM foods], they will still be rich. But if we stop the clock for developing countries, they will still be poor and hungry. And many of their inhabitants will be dead.”
There will be winners and losers in the battle. Whatever the outcome, the winners will include class-action lawyers. For a summary of “current lawsuits on the Frankenfoods front,” see www.organicconsumers.org/ge/gelawsuits.cfm.
In a remarkable speech to the World Health Care Congress on Jan 30, 2005, Muhammad Yunus, Ph.D., explained how the Grameen Bank contributed to great advances in health in Bangladesh (see www.worldcongress.com).
An economics professor, Yunus decided to leave the classroom and see for himself why people were dying because economics was not working. He saw people suffering for lack of a tiny bit of money. They had to borrow from moneylenders who squeezed them for every bit they could earn. That's how he got the idea of lending money to poor people, without collateral, for income-generating activities. As banks said that wasn't their job, he had to start his own bank. From a very small beginning, the Grameen Bank has four million borrowers, 96% of them women. So far, 50% of them have moved out of poverty.
The Grameen Bank also came up with “16 Decisions” that borrowers agree to. These include sending children to school and digging a latrine. On the back of the passbook is a picture showing how to make oral rehydration solutions to treat diarrhea. The bank provides loans for sinking a tube well for safe drinking water, and pitcher filters that reduce the arsenic content. Next came penny packets of seeds for vegetable gardens. When people started growing vegetables, night blindness quickly became rare.
The main reason why Grameen bank members couldn't move out of poverty was illness. The Bank now requires subscribers to spend $3 per year for health insurance. With the premiums, the Bank built a health unit and has so far covered 80% of the cost.
Bangladesh is eventually hoping to attract rich international patients, whose fees will help to subsidize better services to the poor. It has its eye on the 45 million uninsured Americans as prime customers. Dr. Yunus dreams of a special jet service to and from Bangladesh, or of renting some islands in the Caribbean for expanded facilities.
According to a study led by Lone Simonsen of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, influenza mortality in the over-65 population has increased since 1969 even as influenza vaccine coverage has increased. Although there are confounding variables, including the aging of the population and some virulent strains in the 1990s, authors concluded that “mortality benefits of influenza vaccination may be substantially less than previously thought” (Science 2005;307:1026).
The 23rd annual meeting of DDP will be held at the Orleans Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, NV, July 16-17, with a welcome reception on July 15. Call (800) 675-3267 for reservations. Be sure to mention the “DDP Annual Meeting” to receive our group rates of $49 (7/14/04), $99 (7/15, 7/16), and $59 (7/17, 7/18). A tour of the Nevada Test Site is scheduled for Monday, July 18. Bus transportation will be provided. Advance sign-up is required for admission to the Site. See the enclosed draft program, and watch the web site for updates and tapes and CD-ROMs from previous meetings.
DDP, 1601 N. Tucson Blvd. Suite 9, Tucson, AZ 85716, (520)325-2680, www.oism.org/ddp