The subject of genetically-modified
organisms (GMO) receives so little publicity in the sphere of public debate. This
very reason is to blame for the “massive and uncontrolled unleashing of GMOs
into our diets and our environment”. However, the general public is in
desperate need of enlightenment about a topic as crucial to one’s survival as
food.
Since 2002, the arrival of GMOs such
as the Bt corn and the Bt eggplant in the Philippine market has stirred
contention among environment groups and independent scientists against the
flawed GMO approval system in the country, which as of 2001, has approved a
“total of 67 GMOs for importation, consumption, and/or propagation”, even for
varieties banned in other countries.
In 1974, Henry
Kissinger stated, “He who controls the food, controls the people” and nowhere
is this more apparent than in the realm of GMOs and the multinational monopolies that
control them. George Siemon, CEO of Organic
Valley, the United States’ largest organic farming cooperative put it succinctly
in an article from ABC news: “There is a growing
awareness that our [food supply] system makes us all guinea pigs of sorts.”
The fact that most of us don’t know these sad realities—or worse, don’t
even know that we have the right to lay our questions
down—is a damning indication of how the GMO debate is being stifled and concealed
from public eyes. The side of GMO multinationals and promoters would
rather kill the debate than leave themselves vulnerable to controversies they
themselves cannot fully account for. In other words, the less people know about
GMOs, the less the opposition. With no other choice but defense, this side
brands the opposition as “anti-technology”, “primitive”, even “inefficient”, in
an attempt to deflect attention from the fact that there is truth to the grave
scientific uncertainties on the safety of GMOs.
Without even a pretense to solid
scrutiny, it is no wonder if there is truly a dark hidden agenda to manipulate
science, public governance and public perception for the benefit of
profit-maximizing goals rather than public good. However, time will expose
those who have been in the pursuit of truth after all. But in the meantime, media
should be at the forefront of this expose, leaving no stone unturned. The
public has the right to be distrustful and they have every right to, because
the GMOs are no laughing matter.
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