Why Genetic Engineering Must Stop Now

Video Transcript:

Science has, during the last few decades, presented as with a steadily increasing and apparently endless variety of moral dilemmas and practical threats. The subject of genetic engineering is a perfect example of how politicians have betrayed us all and are, through their refusal to take on big industry, threatening our very future. In just a few decades, genetic engineering has evolved so rapidly as a branch of science, if science is the right word for a form of alchemy which seems to me to pay little or no attention to logic, that the future of our species is now threatened. Genetic engineering enables scientists to transfer genes between species in an entirely unnatural way. Human genes can be transferred to pig, sheep, fish or bacteria and genes from bacteria, slugs, elephants, fish, tomatoes and anything else can be put into human beings. Genetic engineering really took off in the 1970s and the technique involves putting genes from one species into another and in order to do this, the genetic engineers put the genes they want to move into viruses, they then put the virus into the animal or plant which is to be the recipient. It's important to understand that genetic engineering is nothing at all like conventional breeding techniques. Listen to the boastful extravagantly arrogant claims of genetic scientists and you might believe that they had all the answers to hunger disease and all our problems. They taught grandly about eradicating starvation by creating new high yield pest resistant versions of existing foods and manipulating genes to banish for physical ailments, aggression and depression. They will, they say, be able to control the overpopulation problem purify water supplies, remove crime from our streets and deal with deforestation. Genetic engineers have even talked of modified strains of bacteria able to eat up plastics, heavy metals and other toxic wastes. Vast amounts of money have been poured into identifying the human genome, the genetic blueprint for human life. There's even been talk that we'll be able to clone ourselves so that we need never die. More or all and ethical questions have been brushed aside as the unnecessary anxieties of ignorant luddites who either don't understand what's going on or are temperamentally opposed to progress. But if it all sounds too good to be true and all rather reminiscent of the sort of cheap promises with which confidence tricksters make their money, that is because it simply isn't true. Genetic scientists don't have the answers to all of our problems on the contrary. They've created a hugely successful money making myth which keeps them in fat grants and huge salaries. It's important not to underestimate the importance of money in the world of genetic engineering. None of this would matter too much. If what they were doing was harmless but fiddling around with genes is an exceedingly hazardous business, fiddling around with genes can cause cancer for example. It's time that the insane burbling of the geneticists were exposed for what they are. I've been writing about the horrors of genetic engineering for over 40 years, but most doctors critics and journalists have so far been too frightened to oppose the torrents of undiluted praise for genetic engineering. When genetic engineering first hit the headlines, the public was promised that there would be strict rules about what could and couldn't be done. But the rules that were intended to protect us have been bent, pushed aside and ignored. Regulations were, it was claimed slowing down progress interfering with the competitiveness of the developing new industry and getting the way, getting in the way of individual scientists keen to get on with their plan for improving the world. Genetic engineers claim there's no need for caution that only the narrow-minded and the reactionary have reservations about this exciting new branch of scientific endeavor. But the fact is that the genetic engineering industry has succeeded in persuading politicians and administrators that there's no need to segregate genetically engineered produce from naturally grown produce and yet the risks associated with genetic engineering are numerous and widespread. There's little doubt in mind that genetic engineering is at least partly responsible for the problem of antibiotic-resistant organisms, and there's even less doubt that genetic engineering is responsible for some, and possibly many, of the new infective organisms now threatening human health. Under normal circumstances, viruses are species specific of virus that attacks a cat won't normally attack a human being. But the genetic engineers have changed all that. They've deliberately glued together different bits of viruses in order to cross species barriers. These genetically engineered viruses can then become virulent again, and genetically engineered viruses are extremely infectious. None of this happens by accident. This is how genetic engineering works. I first warned about this in a hazard about this hazard in a book I wrote in the early 1990s. Nothing's changed. Naturally, the men and women in white coats who were convinced that they know best, trusters, nothing can go wrong, have been releasing genetic material that they've been fiddling with into the environment for decades. We thought that the dumping of waste chemicals was bad news and it was, but the jumping dumping of genetic mishapes and offcuts will, I believe, create a problem infinitely larger than the dumping of chemical waste or even nuclear waste. Genes once they start moving and reproducing can keep spreading, recombining and affecting new species forever. Once the door has been opened, it can't be shut, and the door has been opened wide. Don't worry, said the genetic engineers. Genetic material is easily digested by gut enzymes. Sadly, they were wrong about that too. Genetic material can survive a journey through an intestine and find its way via the bloodstream into all sorts of body cells. And once inside a new body that genetic material can begin to affect host cells, if you eat a genetically engineered tomato, could the foreign genes in the tomato end up in your cells? There is an obvious possible consequence. Exactly what are the risks? I'm afraid your guesses as good as mine and our guesses are just as good as the guesses made by genetic engineers. They don't have the foggiest idea what will happen, but they know as well as I do that something terrible could happen. What about the altered genetic material in new types of food? What happens to genetically altered food when it's eaten? Will the genetically altered material find its way into our own genetic material? Could genetically engineered food cause illnesses? Could genetically engineered food affect the human immune system? Asking the questions is easy and endless, but no one knows the answers. Genetically engineered foods have already been shown to be toxic. One major hazard is that plants which have been genetically engineered to be resistant to disease may be more likely to produce allergy problems. A soybean genetically engineered with a gene from a Brazil nut was found to cause allergy problems when eaten by people sensitive to Brazil nuts, a strain of yeast genetically altered in order to ferment more quickly acquired cancer inducing qualities, contaminants in the Naminio acid led to 1500 people falling ill and to the deaths of 37 individuals. And yet politicians have been done nothing to protect the public. The people paid to look after the world have rolled over before the big checkbooks of the companies which mess around with genes. No one tests genetically engineered foods to see whether or not they're particularly likely to cause problems. The new food is tested when it's put on the market. You and I are the unwitting test subjects if we eat these foods. Even drug companies have to do some tests before they can launch new products. But food companies seem to be entirely free of controls. Amazingly, the politicians and administrators whom we pay to protect us allow the manufacturers to get away with the argument that it would be impossible to segregate and identify genetically engineered foods. Segregation of bulk commodities is not scientifically justified in his economically unrealistic, but the industry is involved in genetic engineering. Certainly, the politicians and the bureaucrats. If you say so, the problems are only just beginning but already they are frightening. Potatoes were genetically engineered to be resistant to herbicide. The resistance spread to weeds within a single growing season thanks to the irresponsible overuse and abuse of pesticides and the widespread introduce of crops genetically engineered to produce naturally insecticides. More than 1,000 agricultural pests have now acquired so much resistance that they're immune to chemical control. Crops which have been genetically engineered to tolerate herbicides have already begun to make weeds immune to the same herbicides. If the big seed companies and the politicians have their way, then farmers throughout the world will be growing the same variety of genetically engineered soil, the same type of genetically engineered potato and the same genetically engineered corn. That's not a prediction which is difficult to make. It's exactly what the big seed manufacturers are planning. And when the world's single crop of soil, potatoes or corn is destroyed by an insect or plant disease which is immune to every pesticide known to man, and remember there are already 1,000 insects and plant diseases which satisfy that requirement, countless millions around the world will die of starvation. It's time for all the messing around with genes to be halted. This isn't luddism, it's common sense and self-preservation. I leave you with one final thought. Mon Santo is one of the best known companies turning out genetically modified seeds. And guess what? The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is a big investor in Mon Santo. I have always regarded Mon Santo as the most evil company on the planet and I thought of it this way for several reasons. First, Mon Santo has long been a leader in the development of genetically modified plants. These terrify me because as far as I've been able to find out, they've never been properly tested to see what long-term consequences there might be. What damage could there be to crops in a few years' time? Could they become more susceptible to disease? And are there any risks to the people who eat genetically modified food? For some years now, Mon Santo has taken to patenting its seeds and as a result, small farmers who've traditionally grown their crops from their own seeds have found that they've been unable to do so. There have been, said to have been, thousands of suicides as a result of this, as farmers found that they weren't allowed to grow the seed, they had saved from their own crops, but had to buy seed they couldn't afford to buy. I've reported on this many times in the past, and of course, Mon Santo is the manufacturer of Roundup, a dope, doubtless, effective, but equally doubtless, nasty weed killer. Unfortunately, there have been a number of claims that Roundup causes cancer and there were 125,000 lawsuits as a result. The German company Bayer bought Mon Santo a little while ago and Bayer is alleged to have paid £63 billion for Mon Santo, but to have paid £10.9 billion. Bayer is alleged to have paid £63 billion for Mon Santo and to have paid £10.9 billion to settle the claims relating to Roundup. The bottom line is that I cannot imagine why anyone who really cares for people and the planet would put any money into Mon Santo or Bayer, as Bill Gates has done. Oh, and Bill Gates has funded research to create genetically modified mosquitoes, and if that doesn't keep you awake at night, then you really haven't been paying attention. The result of that research, the world now has a large population of hybrid mosquitoes, and there's a real risk that the mosquito population will be more resistant to mosquito control measures. Thank you, Mr Gates. Thank you for watching an old man in a chair. If you can, please press the thumbs up button. 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