http://www.nationofchange.org/usda-give-monsanto-s-new-gmo-crops-special-speed-approval-1330267848

If you thought Monsanto’s lack of testing on their current GMO crops was bad before, prepare to now be blown away by the latest statement by the USDA. Despite links to organ damage and mutated insects, the USDA says that it is changing the rules so that genetically modified seed companies like Monsanto will get ‘speedier regulatory reviews’. With the faster reviews, there will be even less time spent on evaluating the potential dangers. Why? Because Monsanto is losing sales with longer approval terms.

I actually normally ignore the issue of FrankenFoods. One thing caught my attention recently was this:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrew-kimbrell/agent-orange-corn-biotech_b_1291295.html

The idea of corn that is resistant to agent orange, or more accurately some of the chemicals in agent orange, scares the shit out of me. Are they really planning to spray a version of agent orange on our crops? What would that mean as the chemicals leech into the soil? What would that mean for the chemicals getting into our food?

A number of environmental sites have picked this up and have started petitions against this. If you agree that this is a bad idea, here's one link. Or, just search for "agent orange resistant corn" (without the quotes) and you'll get plenty of hits.

http://action.foodandwaterwatch.org/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=9513

Why do I normally ignore FrankenFood? Well, we've been creating them for thousands of years. Now we're doing it faster with direct tampering with the genes. But, standard agricultural practices created the corn and wheat we know today. Their natural forebears would be unrecognizable and inedible to us.

Oh, I do also worry about the idea of crops genetically modified to grow drugs, especially if there's risk of the crops spreading into the wild. No form of corn has that risk since corn, as we currently know it, is incapable of reproducing in the wild. You must go to Monsanto or similar every year to buy the kernels. The plants cannot reproduce on their own at all. We die, corn dies within a year, every last stalk.

Valid concern Scotty while showing appropriate balance, so this should be very troubling to all.  A point:  how does Monsanto prevent this gmo corn from cross fertilizing something in the wild?  I guess I can conceptualize the neutering of the corn kernel, I just haven't read of it being done until now.

And the number of artificialities keeping the over population just multiply even if the corn cannot?

Yeah, I think we'll see it==a major collapse of something and hopefully not a cascade thereafter.

Current TV had a nice 30 minute show on a mine waste water runoff problem in China.  The first downstream village had a cancer death rate of 75% of those dying.  Exponentially more than normal and while not formal proof it sure is common sense that some cancers are environmentally caused.

Evidence all around us.

Edit:  I know sterilzation of insects has been done for a long time.  Plants too?

Valid concern Scotty while showing appropriate balance, so this should be very troubling to all.  A point:  how does Monsanto prevent this gmo corn from cross fertilizing something in the wild?  I guess I can conceptualize the neutering of the corn kernel, I just haven't read of it being done until now.

Cross-fertilizing with what in the wild? Modern corn cannot fertilize at all with anything, even itself. It requires human intervention. The flower just never ever opens. So, no neutering is required. And, Monsanto likes it that way. Every year, you must buy your seed from them to plant your corn. No worries there. Other plants may be a risk, but not corn.

http://www.sindark.com/2008/01/13/the-sex-life-of-corn/

The Monsanto corn and soya do cross fertilise - many cases of farmers who did not buy the stuff ( they were growing certified free from GM corn for the organic food market) and who keep seed corn from the previous crop to do the following years crop ( the way farming has done since the first farmers thousands of years ago, there was no patented corn and terminal ( to some degree, it does not always fail to germinate) seed for purchase) who have been sued because they got pollen from a GM crop upwind that fertilised the corn ( BTW, it will grow wild if untended, just that the yield will be smaller, and it will not stay a monoculture crop year after year) and introduced the UNWANTED genetics into what had been a separate variety. Corn is not all yellow, it comes in hundreds of varieties, in various colours and shapes. Only common thing is they are all grasses.

And to THINK that corn came from the America's...NOT from the old world..