NATURE is literally forced at the point-of-a-gun to permanently accept mutant biological shrapnel or die. Only the survivors, be they microbes or caged lab rats are allowed to multiply and pass on their new genes while a potentially unlimited variety of species are being cross-linked for use. An alarmingly escalated pattern of ‘blight’ and disease which threatens world food supplies and human survival appears to closely precede the mass introduction of transgenics wherever they take root. I’ll write more about this pattern in future posts — for now, here’s a sample roll call of transgenic progress.
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“..Monsanto researchers encountered enormous diffculties in introducing [a mutant gene] into soybean cells… In the face of this resistance from nature, [they] decided to bring out..a “gene gun” invented by two Cornell University scientists…When John Sanford and his colleague Ted Klein came up with the idea for this last-ditch weapon, they were considered crazy, even though laboratories at the time were prepared to do anything to force the desired DNA to penetrate the target cells… But nothing was working. The gene gun is now the insertion tool most frequently used by the ‘artillerymen’ of genetic engineering. It works by attaching genetic constructs to microscopic gold or tungsten* bullets and shooting them into a culture of embryonic cells… As Arnold Apotheker points out..,’In their determination to subjugate nature, humans use the technologies of war to force cells to accept genes of other species’.” [pp140-141] >>>Monsanto found its pesticide-resistant mutant gene near its most highly glyphosate-contaminated production plant. So what about us? Is the purpose of forced healthcare to search for mutant DNA?
..”The New York Times was able to get its hands on a draft of a secret document, dated October 13, 1986, in which the company’s directors established a veritable battle plan to impose GMOs in the United States. Among the primary objectives were ‘creating support for biotechnology at the highest U.S. policy levels’, and ‘working to gain endorsements..in the presidential platforms..in the 1988 election’… On June 2, 1987..Monsanto researchers conducted their first field test of transgenic crops in Jerseyville, Illinois… George H.W. Bush assumed the presidency in January 1989… Dan Quayle..presented American policy on GMOs…’We are taking this step as part of the President’s regulatory relief initiative..’ [and published by the FDA as] its regulatory policy on ‘foods derived from new plant varieties..developed by methods of genetic modifications are regulated within the existing framework..utilizing an approach identical to that applied to foods developed by traditional plant breeding.’ ” [p143-145] “..the techniques of genetic manipulation have absolutely nothing to do with the genealogical selection that has been practiced by breeders since the..mid-nineteenth century… genealogical selection is based on natural laws”.. [p136, The World According to Monsanto, 2008, Marie-Monique Robin]
Spying on our cells – “Gold, DNA Mix Could Result in Biological Nano Spies” http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2008-07/gold-dna-mix-could-result-biological-nano-spies; A current use of nanogold is “laser-guided” treatment: NanoPulse Biosciences: “We at NanoPulse Biosciences harness the power of optically excited nanomaterials by pulsed lasers to develop some of the most precise targeted-therapeutic technologies available… NPB’s diverse product portfolio and intellectual capital is based on two scientific technologies: noble-metal nanoparticles and short-pulsed lasers. Currently, NPB is working with The University of Texas at Austin to obtain exclusive licensor of the ‘Plasmonic Laser Nanoablation Methods’ patent… Disease-specific targeting of functionalized gold nanoparticles enables highly selective and precise treatment.” http://nanopulsebio.com; NanoPulse cofounder Daniel Eversole wrote: “Gold nanoparticles have shown great potential as in-vivo, optically-active, biospecific probes with highly controllable and tunable optical properties for simultaneous molecular imaging and phototherapy. The strong plasmon resonance has led to the development of a variety of nanoparticle-based cancer therapies we term Plasmonic Laser Phototherapy (PLP). “ http://www.linkedin.com/in/dseversole
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“Just as some people live by the sword, we shall live by science” —Chaim Weizmann
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The Transgenic Human?
Maxine Singer and Paul Berg
“In 1972, one of [Maxine] Singer’s colleagues and personal friends Paul Berg of Stanford University was the first to create recombinant DNA molecules… In the early 1990s.. Singer issued an article encouraging the public to try the first genetically engineered food to reach American supermarket shelves.” http://www.answers.com/topic/maxine-singer
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Berg wrote in his Nobel Prize autobiography:..”After 6 years in St. Louis, I moved to Stanford University’s Medical Center (1959) to help Kornberg set up the new department of biochemistry. In time, my interests shifted from..microorganisms to mammalian cells and I spent a year experimenting with Polyoma and SV40..with Renato Dulbecco at the Salk Institute. Soon after, I returned to Stanford [and] conceived of using SV40 as a means for introducing new genes into mammalian cells… My colleagues and I succeeded in developing a general way to join two DNAs together in vitro; in this case, a set of three genes responsible for metabolizing galactose in the bacterium E. coli was inserted into the SV40 DNA genome. That work led to the emergence of the recombinant DNA technology ” http://polioforever.wordpress.com/sv40-monkey-virus/ >>>SV40 monkey virus was a vaccine contaminant in the 1950s & 60s, now thought to be possibly contagious as well as heritable.
“So it was at Stanford, not in St. Louis, that the first genetic manipulations took place. In 1972, as Monsanto was preparing to launch Roundup, Paul Berg succeeded in ‘recombining’ DNA– that is, putting together two fragments of DNA from different species into a hybrid molecule. A little later, his colleague Stanley Cohen announced that he had succeeded in transferring a frog gene into the DNA of a bacterium… These discoveries, which broke a law that had been considered inviolable, the impossibility of crossing what was known as the ‘species barrier’, created great excitement, along with deep concern, in the international scientific community. The worries turned into an uproar when Paul Berg announced his intention to insert a carcinogenic virus, SV40, from a monkey into an E.coli cell*, a bacterium that colonizes the human digestive tract. Some scientific authorities, such as Robert Pollack, a cancer virus specialist, worried: “What will happen if the manipulated organism inadvertantly escapes from the laboratory?” The general outcry led to a temporary moratorium on genetic manipulation and, on February 25, 1975, the first international conference on recombinant DNA… But, at no point did they broach ethical questions, which were excluded from the outset. It was as though the biologists had already decided to ‘limit the involvement of the public and the government in their affairs to the minimum’. The message was soon received loud and clear by the future world leader in biotechnology.” [pp133-134, The World According to Monsanto]
*Berg’s “success” was a done deal long before 1972. SV40 was the “cancer-causing” virus transferred to polioviruses used in the Salk and Sabin vaccines –viruses known to have been cultured on human HeLa cells (immortalized cancer cells). Berg’s original work with SV40 seems to parallel its discovery in 1960 and its public outing as a vaccine contaminant in 1963. While Berg supposedly perfected his recombinant techniques using SV40 as a carrier ‘mule’, Maxine Singer was on a year’s sabbatical at the Weizmann Institute (1971-72) while Albert Sabin was its president (1970-72), working on SV40 research which proved that the host cell transferred its genes into the SV40 virus (creating a defective virus that was still able to replicate and pass on its genes ). The polio vaccines of the 1950s and 60s were not just a radiation experiment, or an anti-cancer vaccine as the government insiders may have believed, but in fact an unacknowledged transgenic alteration of the human population, presented as an after-the-fact occurrance in scattered, stepwise scientific studies.
“Molecular biologists knew very well that plant organisms possess defense mechanisms designed to protect them from the intrusion of foreign bodies, including, of course, genes coming from other living species. From the very beginning, those biologists understood that genetic manipulation could not be carried out without using an intermediary, or a ‘mule’, able to transport the selected gene and make it enter by force into the target cell. For this purpose, they turned to [bacteria with] the capacity to insert some of its genes into.. cells to cause tumors… In 1974, a Belgian* research team succeeded in identifying the plasmid (a ring of DNA) constituting the vector by which the gene that induces the tumor is transferred from the bacterium to the [host]. In St. Louis, as in laboratories around the world at the time, they then attempted to isolate in the plasmid the gene responsible for the tumors and replace it with the gene of interest by adding a gene ‘promoter’, a sequence of DNA that triggers the expression of the gene to be triggered.” [p137, The World According to Monsanto]
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Definitions:
“Transgenic: Having genetic material (DNA) from another species. This term can be applied to an organism that has genes from another organism. It is understood that the foreign genes are in the transgenic animal’s germ-cell DNA and so can be transmitted from one generation to the next.” http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=11295 ”
“Transfection: The introduction of DNA into a recipient eukaryote cell, and its subsequent integration into the recipient cells chromosomal DNA..” http://www.lexic.us/definition-of-/transfection
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Recombinant DNA technology: A series of proceedures used to join together (recombine) DNA segments..from 2 or more different DNA molecules..”
http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=5247
Example of an applicaton:
“Recombinant virus-like particles as
drug delivery system; The drug delivery system described here is based on a virus-like particle consisting of the recombinant protein of Polyomavirus VP1… The VP1 protein acts as a major
ligand for certain membrane receptors during virus infection… VP1 proteins provide a
targeting a well as a drug
binding site when used as a..drug
carrier for gene therapy.”
http://lib.bioinfo.pl/pmid:14111749
Horizontal gene transfer “is any process in which an organism [or virus] transfers genetic material (i.e.DNA) to another cell that is not its offspring… common among bacteria..[and] thought to be a significant cause of drug resistance… Also, [intestinal] bacteria appear to exchange genetic material with each other within the gut in which they live..”
http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Horizontal_gene_transfer;
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“[T]his direction was followed by the Democratic administration of Bill Clinton, whose campaign director was Mickey Kantor, later U.S. trade representative and commerce secretary..[who] became famous for the harsh comments and the threats he made against his European counterparts when they announced their intention to label GMO products. In this area, his greatest ally was Dan Glickman…Appointed secretary of Agriculture just after Monsnto’s transgenic soybeans had gone on the market, Dan Glickman was the one who authorized all subsequent GMO crops …in September 2004 he had been apponited CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America, which brings together the six majors in Hollywood. [p165-166]
“[In 1992]..the FDA..felt that the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, which ensures the safety of all foods except meat, poultry and egg products, which are regulated by the [U.S.] Department of Agriculture (USDA), had enough authority..to deal with new technologies..[using] the ‘principle of substantial equivalence’… Roundup Ready soybeans as an example..is a plant which has a modified [mutated] enzyme that is essentially the same enzyme that’s already in the plant: it has a very small mutation..[pp146-147] …[A]s Maryanski acknowledged, the document published by the FDA in 1992 was in no way a regulation, since its purpose was primarily to provide justifications for not regulating GMOs… drafted so the biotechnology industry could propagate the myth that GMOs are regulated, which is completely false. [p156] …Decided on at the highest levels..this huge enterprise of disinformation was carried on by an unshakable team: James Maryanski and Michael Taylor. [p159].
…Mickey Kantor, U.S. trade representative from 1992-1997 and commerce secretary from 1996-1997, immediately thereafter joined [Monsanto’s] board of directors.. [p163, The World According to Monsanto]
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“On January 31, 1992, Samuel Shibiko of the Toxicology Section of the FDA wrote: ‘We cannot assume that all gene products, particularly those encoded by genes from non-food sources, will be digestible. For example, there is evidence that certain types of proteins..are resistant to digestion and can be absorbed in biologically active form.’ ” [p154, The World According to Monsanto]
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1992 — “Bioengineers at one company learned that the Arctic flounder produces an antifreeze to protect itself in freezing waters. They plan to find the gene that regulates production of the antifreeze and introduce it into
strawberry plants.”
http://www.biotech.iastate.edu/biotech_info_series/bio8.html
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1994— FDA approved Flavr Savr tomato on May 17, 1994: “The tomato was fed in laboratory trials to mice who, normally relishing tomatoes, refused to eat..and had to be force-fed by tubes… seven of forty mice died within two weeks.” http://www.raw-wisdom.com/50harmful ; “a significant number of them..developed stomach lesions…The cultivation of the transgenic tomato..turned out to be a catastrophe: yields in California were so low that the inventors decided to move production to Florida…Flavr Savr was then shifted to Mexico… [and]’Since 1996, Flavr Savr tomatoes have been taken off the fresh produce market in the United States. The manipulation..had unintended consequences such as soft skin, strange taste and compositional changes…In the interim, Calgene* had fallen into the pocket of Monsanto, which had definitely buried the doomed tomato.” [p149, World According to Monsanto]*”.. produced by the Californian company Calgene and submitted to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1992″ http://www.answers.com/topic/flavr-savr ; the Fish Tomato “was created when a tomato plant..was infected with bacteria containing recombinant DNA” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fish_tomato
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Over 20 engineered crops are now being commercialized and quickly brought to market… While transgenic seed introductions in the major field crops (corn, soybeans, cotton and potatoes) have taken the early lead, specialty crops in fruits, vegetables, and forages are not far behind. Major agribusinesses such as Novartis, Monsanto, Dekalb, and Pioneer Hi-Bred International, are putting the full efforts of their research..into engineered crops.”
http://filebox.vt.edu/cals/cses/chagedor/soy97.html*
Seeds of Doubt – “In June 1996, the University of California, Davis, began an unprecedented effort to help the West African nation of Mali, using the promising and controversial new tool of agricultural biotechnology…disease-resistant rice to help feed the impoverished country…So far – like UC Davis’ effort to aid Mali – biotechnology has not delivered.”
http://www.sacbee.com/static/live/news/projects/biotech/text.html *
“[E]xamples of unpredicted immunogenicity or toxicity are two food products. In the 1990s, in feeding trials with rats (and mice), genetically engineered (GE) tomatoes in the US (Calgene) as well as GE potatoes in the UK [6,7] were found to cause damage to the gut and its mucosal cell lining. In both cases, the transgenes used were coding for proteins regarded as harmless when ingested by mammals. Another major risk in the IMR project is
horizontal gene transfer”
http://current.com/news/92662233_gmos-that-drink-your-blood.htm*
”In 1996, Genzyme Transgenics Corp., working with Bristol-Myers, announced the birth of a
genetically altered goat, which carried the gene for an
anticancer drug. Beginning in 1996, Bristol-Myers scientists collaborated with BioServe Technologies, a NASA-funded non-profit, to explore the use of space for developing commercial products.” [Bristol-Myers-Squibb
http://citizen2009.wordpress.com/2009/11/16/big-pharm/ ]
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1998 — “Transgenic
potatoes engineered to generate an immune response to E.coli infection have passed their first test in human beings… [The potatoes were] developed at the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research [BTI]*..[and the human trials] were conducted at the University of Maryland Center for Vaccine Development.”
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1998/04/980428080000.htm ; *the BTI was founded in 1920 by William Boyce Thompson (1869-1930), the first Director of the New York Federal Reserve Bank (1914-1919) and owner of Newmont Mining, 3rd largest mining operation in the world (for some time) behind DeBeers and Anglo-American. Thompson financed Tobacco Products Co. and Cuban Cane Sugar Co.
http://www.yonkershistory.org/8_2_2.html ;
http://bti.cornell.edu/
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“The fact remains that the transgenic potatoes had unexpected effects on the [test] rats’ organisms… First, the rats in the experimental groups had brains, livers, and testes less developed..as well as atrophied tissue, particularly in the pancreas and the intestine. We also found a proliferation of cells in the stomach, and that is troubling because it can facilitate the development of tumors caused by chemical products. Finally, the immune system of the stomach was overactive which suggests that the rats’ organisms were treating the potatoes as foreign bodies… Apparently, contrary to what the FDA claimed, the insertion technique was not a neutral technology because by itself it produced unexplained effects.” –Arpad Pusztai, [pp180-181, The World According to Monsanto]
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“In the late 1980s, the group of Gonsalves at Cornell..and Hawaii started a research project to develop transgenic
papaya resistant to PRSV [Papaya Ring Spot Virus] by biolistic transformation method…By May, 1998, PRSV-CP gene transgenic papaya
Rainbow and
SunUp were deregulated..and granted approval..”
http://www.agnet.org/library/eb/566/___________
1999 — “In its lab the Cornell team..fed monarch butterfly larvae with milkweed leaves, their favorite diet, dusted with Bt corn pollen. ‘Four days later, 44 percent of the larvae had died, and the survivors had lost their appetite… none of the larvae exposed to leaves..with natural pollen had died.’ …Cornell team’s results were confirmed by a University of Iowa study published on August 19, 2000..with milkweed leaves gathered in proximity to transgenic crops…’We found that after five days exposure to Bt pollen, 70 percent of monarch butterfly larvae died ” [pp230-231, The World According to Monsanto]
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Genetically modified forests: “
ArborGen is the world’s biggest
GM tree company. Formed in April 1999 as a joint venture between Monsanto, International Paper, Westvaco and Fletcher Challenge… [Also] Formed in 1999,
GenFor is a joint venture between Chilean technology think tank Fundación Chile and Cellfor (Canada).”
http://chrislang.org/2004/12/20/genetically-modified-trees-chapter-3/#ArborGen
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2001—
Jellyfish gene in a monkey: Gerald Schatten, “The biologist who took a gene from a jellyfish and inserted it into a rhesus monkey egg, creating the world’s first transgenic primate.. will join the..faculty of the University of Pittsburgh..[and] continue to focus on how to transfer foreign genes into monkeys… These genetically engineered monkeys promise to be particularly effective animal models of disease..[for human] health problems..”
http://www.post-gazette.com/healthscience/20010510schatten2.asp;
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Transgenic
Rice and Potato Plants Expressing Human Cytochrome [enzyme] — “The transgenic plants metabolized exogenous chemicals, including herbicides, which they were able to tolerate..”
http://www.agnet.org/library/tb/159/tb159.pdf*
“GM canola, has, in fact, spread much more rapidly than we thought it would. It’s absolutely impossible to control.” –Martin Entz, U Manitoba [p216, The World According to Monsanto]
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2002 —
Spider gene “switches on” in the mammary glands of
dairy goats to make “milk silk” for the materials industry, marketed as ‘Biosteel’ super-strong fiber. “The mammary gland is a perfect natural factory for the synthesizing and production of proteins….’In the future, animals will be our factories,’ Turner says..’Very cheap factories.’
http://www.organicconsumers.org/patent/spidersilk061702.cfm
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“Bactofection, a novel technology for introducing genes into cells using live, attenuated
invasive bacterial vectors, has been licensed to Microscience Ltd. by the University System of Maryland (USM)…Microscience, based in Berkshire, United Kingdom, will use its proprietary attenuated
Salmonella serovar
Typhi and serovar
Typhimurium derivatives to deliver a range of DNA antigens … The inventors of DNA Bactofection are with UMBI’s Institute of Human Virology….Robert Gallo, director, UMBI’s Institute of Human Virology, comments, “Bactofection has the potential to get vaccines to people in developing areas of the world where they may have been unaffordable and unavailable”…
http://www.umbi.umd.edu/news/2002/2002-09-06_microscience-ltd-license-vaccine-delivery-technology.php
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[In Egypt]..”Dr. Bahieldin used microprojectile bombardment to transform immature embryos of Egyptian and American bread wheats with genes for salt and drought tolerance..”
http://www.ageri.sci.eg/topic6/wheat.htm“..all our foreign customers, led by Japan and Europe, have clearly stated they did not want transgenic wheat… Canada could have gone out of business..” [p226, The World According to Monsanto]
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Xenotransplantation: “
Embryonic pig liver, pancreas, and lung as a source for transplantaion.. represent an atractive option for organ transplantation..” Weizmann Institute of Science
http://www.pnas.org/content/102/8/2928.full___________
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2007 —
Chicken eggs make human drugs: “engineered chickens may become a more economical and effective method of drug production than current industrial techniques… The genes for the desired proteins were injected into the embryos of newly-laid eggs…The eggs hatched, giving the researchers a transgenic cockerel..who was mated with normal hens to produce more transgenic hicks that also carried the genes. The protein is only found in the whites of a chicken egg… ‘There is also some evidence that proteins [from] chickens may have characteristics closer to those..in human protein than if they are produced in bioreactors,’ said [Roslin Institute team leader, Helen] Sang.”
http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/966/chicken-eggs-make-human-drugs
“Biotechnology now allows us to genetically engineer animals so that they produce proteins that are human pharmaceuticals. For certain drugs that are difficult to produce using existing methods or are needed in large quantities, production in GE animals offers the most efficient and practical solution… Other applications include making animal organs compatible with humans, a technology known as xenotransplantation. Research is being conducted to produce transplant organs in pigs that may be a source of organs for humans.”
http://www.bio.org/foodag/animals/GE_An_Pharm_0908.pdf___________
2009 — “Only a few countries have the technology to clone farm animals and
Iran is one of them, having proven its capabilities..[with its] first cloned sheep in 2006..at the Royan Institute. The success rate of cloning proceedures at Royan Institute is comparable with pioneer countries in this field such as New Zealand, Denmark and the USA… Producing the first transgenic goat cells that contain a genome for producing t-PA is another achievement of Royan Institute, which gives the hope of producing transgenic goats that can secrete drugs..in their milk. The Institute is also ready to revive animal species which are exposed to extinction by using cloning technology.”
http://www.thecattlesite.com/news/27787/first-cloned-calf-born-in-iran
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GM mosquitoes:
Oxitec is introducing sterile males into India: “The sterile insect technique (SIT), as it is called, may work in the lab but not in the field… it will be disastrous if the released sterile males get back their fertility as a result of random gene mutations. “Probability of such an accident cannot be dismissed when millions of GM mosquitoes are released day after day or week after week,” [Pushpa Bhargava, renowned biologist] says. He says fertility can also be restored with terrible consequences, by the antibiotic tetracycline that may be found in soil or water bodies because, according to Oxitec, its GM mosquitoes are designed to stay sterile only as long as its diet does not contain tetracycline.”
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2010 — “The first attempts at GE in animals resulted in some physiological problems in the transgenic animals… studies focusing on the health and welfare of the GE livestock are lacking in the literature… The hLZ [human lysozyme] line was generated by pronuclear microinjection with a transgene consisting of the hLZcDNA linked to a bovine..promoter..[and] transmitted in a Mendelian fashion..currently in the fifth generation”
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2970820/
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“..the genetic engineering of these foods can take a safe food and make it toxic… not only that..but there can be novel allergens.. new allergens never seen before… This food is not safe.” –Andrew Kimbrall [minute 12]
http://wideeyecinema.com/?p=4984
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May 2011 — Stink bug spread worries growers across nation…”If I was a mad scientist doing gene splicing and putting together a bug that would really be nasty and I was turning it loose on my enemy, I probably couldn’t do a better job,” Bartlett said. “One might define this thing as the bug from hell.”
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110520/ap_on_bi_ge/us_food_and_farm_stink_bugs
Aug 11, 2011 —
“Researchers say they have created the first ever animal with artificial information in its genetic code.. [which] could give biologists ‘atom-by-atom control’ over the molecules in living organisms… Sebastian Greiss and Jason Chin have re-engineered the nematode worm’s gene-reading machinery to include a
21st amino acid, not found in nature. Dr. Chin..describes the technique as ‘potentially transformational’..[built] on techniques first developed at the Scripps Research Institute, in La Jolla [San Diego, CA]..where Dr. Chin worked 10 years ago… But that was in the bacterium E.coli; until now, no one had succeeded in doing the same in a whole animal… Dr. [Mario] de Bono suggests the approach could now be used to introduce..designer proteins that could be controlled by light …tiny laser flashes.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14492948
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GMO FOOD Warnings
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Jennifer Lake's Blog 