In a talk sponsored by the Pax Natura Foundation, Jane Goodall thanked Steven Druker for writing his book, Altered Genes, Twisted Truth. She herself wrote the forward and she said the book substantiated her concerns that genetically engineered foods were dangerous.
"We're poisoning the land, we're poisoning animals, and I truly believe we're poisoning ourselves," Goodall said. She pointed to superbugs that have become resistant to pesticides, weeds resistant to herbicides, and isolated animal studies in Europe and Australia where she said rats and pigs suffered from a variety of health issues when consuming genetically engineered crops.
Comment: First long term study released on pigs, cattle who eat GMO soy and corn offers frightening results
"Have we been affected? What about the rise of certain illnesses and complaints in the human community, what about the increase in allergies, what about the increase of some kinds of mental disorders?" she asked.
Randy Parker, CEO of the Utah Farm Bureau Federation, says Goodall and Druker are doing a disservice to the people of Utah and around the world.
"To me this is all about extremism and scaring people," Parker says. He says without genetically modified crops, we would not have the levels of food productivity that we have today.
Comment: Oh please! Talk about using 'extreme scare tactics' to get consumers to accept GMO food! Read more about the fallacy of feeding the world with biotech/industrial based agriculture:
"I've never heard in all of the literature that I've reviewed of one single case of a GMO related plant or animal causing a health problem for a human being or for an animal for that matter," he says. "I think this is an activist, radical viewpoint."
Comment: Really?! Randy Parker must not have read ALL of the literature. The following articles were written by author and researcher Jeffery Smith; director of the Institute for Responsible Technology, he has some pretty damning evidence to counter the whole 'GMO's are safe argument':
- GMOs Linked to Organ Disruption in 19 Studies
- Pseudo-Scientific Defense of GMO Safety is Smoke and Mirrors
- Genetically Engineered Crops May Produce Herbicide Inside Our Intestines
- GMO Researchers Attacked, Evidence Denied, and a Population at Risk
- Genetically Modified Soy Linked to Sterility, Infant Mortality in Hamsters
- Monsanto's Roundup Triggers Over 40 Plant Diseases and Endangers Human and Animal Health
The 80-year-old Goodall apologized at the end of her talk for a few stumbles where she lost her train of thought, but she says she's hopeful that as the young people of today become more aware of the dangers of genetic engineering, they will eliminate GMO's from the food supply.
I'm so glad that Dame Goodall has remained a peaceful and amiable, well-versed and soft-spoken person, all these years. I've always thought well of her, for these reasons. Hopefully, at this speech, she cracked a few one-liners and also spoke in a moving way, as to bring a few tears to the eyes of the listeners, so that they got their money's worth out of the programmed and sponsored event. I am also certain that the book she is helping to sell, will go a long way to focus on our current cultural issues and frame them in a new and broader light.
And now it is time for the young people to also remain peaceful and amiable and through 'modest negotiation' and through 'careful conciliation' and through 'productive compromise' (oh, and through ' standard labeling'), and the wise listening to their elders, I too remain hopeful that the future will bring a new and glorious sunrise, thanks to the awakening of our youth....
signed,
Prof. Wendell Berry, another octogenarian and author of The Unsettling of America, among many others
p.s. She's hot! I want a piece of her ass! (did I just write that?)
(sarcasm)