Monday, June 30, 2014

GMO and Profits


GM crops are unpopular with European citizens and viewed with suspicion, but the industry's massive lobbying is finally paying off. Last week, the EU Environment Council accepted a proposal that could see GM crops planted in Europe as soon as next year. The proposal could alsogive Monsanto and other biotech giants the power to overturn decisions made by democratically-elected governments to ban GM crops. The proposal is being spun by the European Council as a 'compromise', but in reality it could allow GM companies like Monsanto to overturn any opposition. Experts have warned that it would weaken the legal basis upon which countries can ban GM crops, opening the legislation   prohibiting GMOs up to legal challenge. With Bayer and Syngenta already fighting in the courts to overturn Europe's ban on bee-killing "neonics",  this is a real threat.However, the European Parliament still has to vote on whether to take these proposals forward.

Within the Socialist Party there exists differing opinions on the benefits or otherwise of GMO food. There is no party-line on the issue, just the various and sometimes conflicting thoughts of our members. Fortunately, no-one subscribes to the theory that Big-Ag is involved in a conspiracy to create a docile and dependent population of automatons. We are neither enthusiasts nor alarmists. The problem with GMOs is not necessarily the GM technology but the nature of the businesses tasked with running this industry. This article By Harry J Bentham expresses much of our concerns.

​The controversy involving GMOs is that it is an extension of the problem of greed that has burdened mankind for as long as feudal lords or capitalists have been privileged to put their self-interests above the common good.

Whether or not certain GMOs on the market today actually cause cancer and infertility is irrelevant to the real debate. The problem is that we can guarantee that the companies engineering these organisms do not care if they do cause health problems (just as long as they can avoid any legal repercussions as with the tobacco industry). They are only interested in downplaying or blocking bad news, and putting out constant marketing and good news about themselves. Profit is their exclusive priority and they have to put increasing yields, shelf life and resistance to pathogens above anything else when designing crops. They have no choice than to do this, from their perspective, because the alternative is to allow themselves to be outperformed by their rivals.

The fact that corporations put their own profit above health is a systemic symptom of  the world economy, and it is already known to the majority of consumers. We face it every day. Most of the fast food served by multinational fast food companies is accepted to be unhealthy, so the claim that giant food companies have little interest in our health is not a conspiracy theory. It is the natural, rational suspicion that the agricultural producers of seeds will put profit over the long-term health of consumers and the interests of local farmers. In theory, genetic modification could lead not only to higher yields but healthier food. Unfortunately, the businesses involved only really care about beating competition and becoming the most successful supplier. This behavior poisons everything, perhaps literally, now that these companies have been entrusted to define the toxicity in crops as a defense against pests. What we can learn from this is that the problem is not GMOs, per se, but the aggressive greed of the corporations who desire the oligopoly on food production via GM technology.

The public harm caused by giant firms, especially when they practice their ability to lobby the state itself, already runs very deep in most facets of life. The more significant the tools made available to such firms, the greater the potential for harm. Even if specific specimens are not harmful and can be proven completely benign, the fact is that GMOs open up an unacceptable avenue for unprecedented harm and malignant corporate interests invading people’s innards. It is this, rather than the whole science of genetic modification, that should be opposed and protested against.

Genetic modification and synthetic biology do not need to be new instruments of oligopoly and monopoly. There is a benign alternative to foolishly entrusting the mastery and ownership of living organisms to greedy multinational leviathans. We can look into “biohacking”, a development which would transform society for the better, eliminating any need to trust an unsympathetic and self-interested corporation like Monsanto. DIY genetic engineering is already possible. DIY means the product will be entirely disinfected from corporate greed, and adhere to your own specifications. They would not be able to put their profit above your health, because they would not get the chance. With this, biohackers can already genetically modify organisms for their own benefit. The extent to which farmers can begin to modify their own crops using comparable technology is not yet clear, but the development nevertheless represents an extraordinary possibility. What if farmers and consumers could decide to genetically modify their own food? In that case, it would not be the profit-oriented poison that is being consumed at so many different levels as a result of corporate greed. Crops would be modified only insofar as the modification will meet the farmer’s own needs, and all the technology for this process could be open-source. This hypothetical struggle for DIY genetic engineering rather than corporate genetic engineering would be comparable to the open-source and piracy battles already raging over digital technology.

Of course, some new hazards could still conceivably emerge from DIY genetic modification, if the technology for it should become ubiquitous. However, the only risk would be from individual farmers rather than unaccountable corporations. This way, we would be moving away from giving irresponsible and vicious companies the ability to threaten health. Instead, we would be moving towards giving back individuals more control over their own diets. Of course, abuse would still occur, but it would not have global consequences or frighten millions of people in the way that current genetic engineering does.

In sum, there is no reason to complain that genetic modification is perilous in its own right. However, there is always peril in giving a great social responsibility to a profit-hungry corporation. In much the same way that large firms have captured the state machinery to serve their greedy interests, we should expect them to be subverting health and the public good for profit.

The complex dilemma over GMOs requires not an anti-scientific or neo-Luddite reaction, but an acknowledgment that intertwined monopolistic, statist and hegemonic ambitions lead to the retardation of technology rather than progress.

Adapted from an article by Harry J. Bentham

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh how very Marxist. Nothing wrong with the technology. It's in the hands of the wrong people, that's all, the capitalists who are using it for their own selfish, class ends.

There is no way GM can ever be safe -- leakproof that is. Transferable genes are by definition those most insecurely anchored in the organism. If a cuttlefish gene, say, can be put into a tomato, it can be transferred to a me when I eat that tomato. And if recessive it may may take generations to surface in my descendants... No thanks!

They call GM stuff "Frankenstein food". The more apt analogy lies in The Sorcerer's Apprentice, a tale by Goethe who was no mean biologist...

Over millenniium after millennium evolution has filtered out the unsuitable, now science is proposing to put it back in -- at a stroke, just for profit.

Darwin thou shouldst be living at this hour!

ajohnstone said...

"how very Marxist" - We'll take that as a compliment ;-p

Needless to say, you missed that important caveat:
"Within the Socialist Party there exists differing opinions on the benefits or otherwise of GMO food. There is no party-line on the issue, just the various and sometimes conflicting thoughts of our members."
i suggest you avail yourself of the blog's search engine and see all our previous posts on the issue.

You do realise that when you make the claim "Over millenniium after millennium evolution has filtered out the unsuitable" you suggest a policy eugenics/euthanasia of disposing of those sick and infirm from birth defects. We always meddle with nature and always have done and always will do. We need to determine the motive when we do and balance the risks. I suppose we could stop using insulin derived from pigs genes rather than simply extracting it from the pancreas of dead animals and we stop transferring that into diabetes victims.

Anonymous said...

I wonder how you can see eugenics in my statement. I meant of course unsuitable GENES, i.e. those that have been incompatible with the survival of the species within which they have naturally occurred. I don't think that makes me a eugenics advocate, just a fairly bog-standard Darwinian.

Also, again somewhat rumly, you do not address my simply argued assertion that it is possible for the genes transferred to GM food to end up in the genetic makeup of humans. Surely this factor alone is cause for rejection of the whole proposition, until a surefire method of preventing it is available. You talk of balancing risks, but for this to happen the risks need to be quantified; perhaps you could tell your readers how the risk of GM transfer to humans from food and its possible consequences can be assessed without observation of a reasonably large sample of people eating that food over several, even many, generations, in every environment to which they may be exposed, for every gene involved. A senior biologist when questioned on the subject was unable to suggest anything less...

Thank you for allowing this posting.







ajohnstone said...

I dare say those who have food allergies such as to gluten or are lactose intolerant would argue that these foods should have been banned as a health risk to too many. I have encountered many critics of vaccinations that demand medical experimentation methods that were declared illegal by the Nuremburg Trials.

On the safety issue i think you demand too much caution. We have had 30 years of GM in the food chain and a study of scientific research conducted so far has not detected any significant hazards directly connected with the use of GE crops. You may claim that accepted wisdom is wrong but that is not how science or risk assessment is determined. There has been a number of multi-generation animal research without anything undue in the findings. http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.3109/07388551.2013.823595
The Socialist Party shares the same position as the Biochemical Society that GM crops are not a magic bullet that will feed the whole world or eliminate poverty but may well possess certain specific benefits.

http://www.biochemistry.org/Portals/0/SciencePolicy/Docs/GM%20Position%20Statement%202011%20Final.pdf

As i feel that the world capitalist system causes poverty and food shortage and that these can be eliminated by socialism , i see no imperative need for GM and that we can exercise what is called the precautionary principle for the time being. But do i take a position that says 100% no to any genetic engineering? No.

Others in the the SPGB may well take a different stand. We seek a society where democracy genuinely exists and where vested interests do not lobby simply for their own pecuniary gain but that peoples well-being takes precedence. That is our priority and it encompasses much more than just one industry or technology.

I find it very strange that there are people who fully accept the scientific consensus in regards to climate change and dismiss the isolated few doubters yet deny the legitimacy of the scientific bodies when it comes to GM.