GMOs - Genetically Modified Organisms

Maybe the most important information you will receive in your lifetime

Richard Salbato

Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary 2009

Over the past few months I have been monitoring the Legion of Christ to see if they are obeying Rome’s mandate to remove their founder’s influence, and their vows of silence so opposed to Catholic Doctrine. I was happy to see that the leaders finally admitted to Maciel’s sexual problems, but not sure they are abandoning his methods of mind control, which in short can be called, “The ends justify the means.”

I was interested in complaints by parents of members who wanted to sue the Legion because LC leaders were encouraging their new members to abandon their school loan bills after entering the order. Not only is this immoral but because these loans were co-signed by the parents, it meant the parents had to pay the bills. Some of these bills are between $100,000 and $200,000. The children said that LC leaders saw no problem with this because (and this is my words) the ends justify the means.

What was sent to me during this investigation was even more like the former leader than this. I am referring to “The ends justify the means.” In this case it is the connection of the Legion and its founder, Maciel, with GMOs – Genetically Modified Organisms.

Like most people I always thought of GMOs as being crop selection that creates larger yields per acre of land. Crop selection is simple. You take the largest corn and use them for seeds, then you keep doing this over and over until you have very large plants and corn yields. Selection has greatly helped the world’s food supply. But GMOs are nothing like this at all.

What are GMOs?

GMOs are a result of the discovery of DNA. Using this discovery, scientists believed they could cross DNA in plants and create a new food supply or a better food supply. Maybe they had the best of intentions in the beginning but this soon turned into maybe the most dangerous science in the history of the world, including the Atomic Bomb.

Wanting to create seeds that could fight off insects or other problems that affect farmers and food suppliers, they even crossed the DNA of corn and wheat with the DNA of animals. Like the mule, however, they created seeds that cannot reproduce more seeds.

Let us understand this, if a farmer buys these seeds from the GMO producers and plant a field, they cannot use part of the field for new seeds. Some say the companies did this deliberately so that farmers had to depend on the companies that supplied the seeds. Deliberate or not, that created the world’s most dangerous monopoly. Without telling farmers that the seeds do not reproduce, farmers tried them and then ended up with no way to grow the next crop.

More dangerous than this is that a field of GMO seeds may in fact contaminate another field near by and produce a terminator gene, a plant whose seeds are genetically blocked from reproducing. Since 40% of USA farms are now GMOs this may have something to do with the mass extermination of bees.

Monopoly

Agrichemical sales have become increasingly concentrated in a handful of large MNCs. Syngenta, Bayer, Monsanto, BASF, Dow and DuPont together control 85 percent of the annual pesticide market valued at 30 billion US dollars.

Three companies -- Cargill, Archer Daniels and Bunge -- control nearly 90 per cent of global grain trade while DuPont and Monsanto dominate the global seed market. Eleven firms account for about half the world sales of seeds, of which about a quarter are sales of genetically engineered seeds.

This turns the market into a sellers' market, and consumers and farmers have little or no choice. Farmers are forced to accept whatever they are asked to use such as seeds and pesticides. A democratic market is a consumers' market, but this is a supplier’s market.

Legion of Christ and GMOs

Back when the Legion of Christ was founded in Mexico, several billionaires supported Maciel with millions of dollars. One of these billionaires is Alfonso Romo Garza. Garza is the father of Legion of Christ’s Vicar General. Garza owns rights to 25% of the world supply of these terminator seeds.

Is it any wonder that the Pontifical Academy of Science, run by a Legion of Christ so-called scientist, has not allowed any speakers against GMOs. By having what would appear is a Vatican support of GMOs the Garza family, and therefore the LC, would add billions of dollars to their wealth, not just now, but for many years to come.

Do not underestimate this, it may be the most dangerous news you will hear in your lifetime.

Notes and Quotes:

1. Father McDonagh, an Irish missionary who spent more than 20 years in the Philippines and maybe the world’s expert on seed science is the primary source of this information, and was blocked from speaking at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.

2. All genetically modified seeds are now patented; you're giving enormous control to a handful of corporations over the seeds of the staple crops of the world. It started with rice, then corn, now they're looking to wheat and potatoes. This should be totally unacceptable to anyone. Forget about the science of whether they're safe or not. To give six Western corporations, in the United States and Europe, control over the seeds of the world is outrageous. (Father McDonagh)

3. U. S. Supreme Court in 1980, with Diamond v. Chakrabarty.

4. The point of the recent "Failure to Yield" report from the Union of Concerned Scientists is that the increase in yield in crops over the last 25 to 30 years has come from conventional breeding. It has nothing to do with GMOs. (Father McDonagh)

5. My main concern, however, is giving this control to corporations. For example, 60 percent of lettuce in the United States is now controlled by Monsanto. This is frightening. In the 19th century, all kinds of securities and exchanges agencies were created to move in on monopolies. Of course, those were monopolies on things like telephones. Now they want to build a monopoly on food. That, mind you, is precisely what they're after.

The problem with regulatory agencies at the moment is that they're much too tied to political and economic interests. The United States is a very good example. It's amazing just how hard wired Monsanto is to the Environmental Protection Agency and to the Food and Drug Administration. There's a real problem there, as a researcher showed with the Bt potato. When he went to the FDA, they said, we deal with potatoes but not the GM kind, that's over at the EPA. When he went to the EPA, they said, we don't deal with foodstuff, we deal with chemicals. Between them, they couldn't figure out which one was responsible for allowing this to be brought onto the market. (Father McDonagh)

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6. Pontifical Academy for Sciences

It is. This is the Pontifical Academy for Sciences, so let's start with the 'pontifical' part. It's a Catholic organization. Who are the church's real experts in this area? I would say people like myself. I would say particularly the aid and development agencies, such as Misereor, Cafod, and Caritas. … They thought so little of this expertise in the Catholic church that they didn't invite a single person from any one of those agencies.

Further, anyone who ever claims to be a scientist should hear the other side. That goes back to Plato. What are they afraid of? Why didn't they set up a decent colloquium over there? Also, why don't they take into account numerous independent studies in the last three years which have concluded that the way to food security is not through GM crops? Why just discard all that? There's a very recent study from Africa on the yields from organic farming, saying this is the kind of thing we should be promoting. I would consider this gathering grossly incompetent.

Why do you believe they're doing it this way?

They want to get rid of the very minimal regulations that we have at the moment. They said it in the introduction to the study week, and every one of them says it in his abstract. That's their goal. Bishop Sanchez Sorondo (chancellor of the Pontifical Academy) has said that the purpose is to examine whether GM crops are safe, but I'm sorry, that's not it. The purpose is to use the prestige of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and its good name to beat on governments so that you can reduce regulation.

Are you worried that the Vatican is going to come out with an official pro-GMO statement?

Not at all. We were more concerned back in 2003, when Cardinal Renato Martino began to talk about how maybe GMOs could feed the world. We were very worried then, but not so much now. The Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, for example, may not yet have assessed the science, but they have begun to see the impact on developing countries. On January 1, there was an article in L'Osservatore Romano, in which Martino was quoted on that side of it. (Father McDonagh)

7. Fr. Sean McDonagh: GMOs are going to create famine and hunger

Gathered here over the weekend, for the Pesticide Action Network (PAN)'s 25th anniversary, many expressed concern over the predatory nature of corporate agriculture and its attempts to corner the entire chain of food production from seeds to sales of food products.

PAN is a network of over 600 participating non-governmental organizations, institutions and individuals in over 90 countries working to replace the use of hazardous pesticides with ecologically sound and socially just alternatives. Global Research Articles by Anil Netto