GENETICALLY ENGINEERED FOODS:

     Iowa's Vegetable Frankenstein?

Clayton: The town of Famersburg is the home of Iowa Bio-Tech, Inc., a laboratory designed to break the barriers of plant genetics and create new food technologies for the benefit of mankind and, one presumes, the profits of the shareholders. For years, Bio-Tech has been a major player in global food systems as an input supplier, selling millions of pounds of pesticides all over the world, dealing in particular with those pesticides not marketable in the US due to pesticide and food safety laws, but perfectly legal to sell to developing nations overseas. In the last decade, Bio-Tech has moved aggressively to not only develop more virulent pesticides, but to genetically engineer plants which will stand up to those pesticides. They have created new varieties of cotton, corn, potatoes, and other vegetables.

     Their testing does not stop with plant life, however. Over the past few years they have pursued radical new technologies in the area of gene splicing. They have attempted to engineer "super-livestock" by combining the human growth genes into the permanent genetic code of pigs and cattle. Instead of the hoped for results, those animals ended up cross eyed, arthritic, and bow legged. The human genetic code is also being introduced into fish, along with genes from rats and cattle to create novel mutant fish designed to have better flavor and be more resistant to the pollution in our rivers and lakes. No long range tests have been done to determine the impact on not only the test fish, but the fish with which they will mate when released into the wild.

     Last year when Bio-Tech tried to create a hybrid bacteria which would aid in the production of ethanol, the bacteria actually caused the entire 200 acre test field to be rendered indefinitely infertile, with the corn crop growing only three inches tall and then falling over dead. They have actually developed a strain of sweet corn which contains within its genetic code an insect killing toxin, and the corn itself is registered with the EPA as a pesticide!! Yet, astonishingly, according to current laws, this transgenic corn need not be labeled in anyway when it is sold at the grocery store to humans.

     This technology threatens to disrupt all life on this planet. Insects, wind, and birds are right now carrying genetically altered seeds from the test fields in Clayton County in to neighboring fields, and the export of their products are spreading throughout the former Soviet Union and other nations. Once the transgenic seeds pollinate, genetically original plants and their wild relatives will be cross pollinated with them. This will cause an irreversible "gene drift" imbuing all plants and animals with unnatural genetic strains.

     It sounds like science fiction, but this company is actually putting fish genes into tomatoes, insect genes into potatoes, and human genes into lower animals all to make a bigger profit. The concerns are just as real. This is a new and imprecise technology that has already caused death, illness, paralysis, and extreme allergic reactions. No one knows how this will affect our children or our grandchildren. Much different from traditional crossbreeding of species to get heartier varieties, genetic engineering disrupts the boundaries set by nature itself, potentially causing unexpected mutations. It is also possible that the changes and new at present unidentified proteins which could render the new foods inedible to humans, and that gene drift could then cause huge areas of our current food supply to be rendered poisonous!

     Iowa Bio-Tech has spent over billion in research and development on genetic engineering since the middle '70s when it first incorporated. They believe that genetic engineering will fundamentally change the face of agriculture over the coming century. So do the insurance companies. We have learned that no insurance company has agreed to accept the risk of insuring this extremely dangerous corporation and that they are operating as "self-insured" with a large bank roll set aside for the settlement of any litigation brought against it.

     Another concern is that Iowa Bio-Tech is able to legally patent the specific codes of their altered food and animals. According to the current law of the land, Bio-Tech already owns the patent on many genes that are a part of your body. They own that part of you. Your genetic code has become a marketable commodity which you have no control over. The time to attempt to regain that control and stop the corporate investment in runaway science is now. Write to your Governor, legislators, and local elected officials and inform them of your concern and outrage. Don't let corporate greed and the insane adventures of mad scientists destroy the world. It isn't just a B movie anymore. We're in the final reel and you might just be our hero.

For more information on stopping the transgenic trend, write Theresa Garby at 22 S. Van Buren, Iowa City, IA 52240, or contact Mothers for Natural Law at PO Box 1117, Fairfield, IA 52556 e-mail: mothers@fairfield.com