Just two weeks ago Monsanto won its case in the Supreme Court against an Indiana farmer for violating their patents by replanting genetically modified "Roundup Ready" soybeans. These seeds make growing soybeans easier because they allow farmers to indiscriminately spray Monsanto's Roundup herbicide on their fields without worrying about killing their crops.
Now Japan and Korea have suspended US wheat imports from the Pacific Northwest because a strain of GMO wheat that Roundup cannot kill has been found on an Oregon farm. Monsanto supposedly abandoned nine years ago, but Monsanto's Frankenwheat has come back from the dead. And Europe is now threatening to require all US wheat to be tested before being imported.
Other countries are not so sanguine about the safety of genetically modified crops. America has bought into them big time because we care more about profit more than the possible adverse health effects of consuming large quantities of genetically engineered plants.
The scientific jury is still out on whether such crops are safe -- mainly because companies like Monsanto quash that research immediately, just as many states make it illegal to videotape illegal practices on factory farms. Monsanto has soybean farmers over a barrel: the farmers are convinced they need Monsanto's GMO seeds in order to compete, but they have to buy that expensive patented seed from Monsanto. If they replant the seed they'll get sued like the farmer in Indiana.
While it's still not clear that GMO crops are inherently bad, it is becoming more obvious that insecticides and herbicides (like Roundup) are not as safe as Monsanto pretends they are. There are potential links between pesticide exposure and neurological conditions such as Parkinsons and autism, ADHD in children, Alzheimers in adults, and immunosuppressive disorders. The herbicide Atrazine has been implicated in the feminization of amphibians and potentially humans.
Monsanto wants us to think that the poison in Roundup just washes away and could never be incorporated into the soybeans themselves, but I have my doubts. It's becoming increasingly obvious that even minute concentrations of environmental toxins are behind many of the once-obscure medical conditions that have become so mysteriously prevalent in recent years. Developing fetuses are extremely sensitive to even the most minute concentrations of chemicals that resemble natural estrogens.
Perhaps farmers in Oregon should file a class-action lawsuit against Monsanto for contaminating their fields with weeds that cannot be killed, and sue for damages for loss of income because they can't export their crops.
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