The GMO corporate trick that’s adulterating your food

It’s bad enough that GMO (genetically modified) food doesn’t have to be labeled. But a new lab gimmick now lets Big Agra create GMO foods that totally escape meaningful inspection of any sort before they reach your dinner plate.

Very little has ever been done to restrain companies from playing dangerous games with plant genes in food scientists’ laboratories. But get ready for a brave new world. The fellows in lab coats have now dreamed up petri dish techniques that, they argue, allow them to create any type of bizarre food crop or ornamental plant they want without any interference or oversight.

A report in The New York Times discusses how corporations like the Scotts Miracle-Gro Company, Monsanto and Cellectis Plant Sciences are now formulating genetically modified plants that can’t be regulated or outlawed.

The companies say that their new techniques consist of “genome editing,” not genetic modification, so nobody can accuse them of making GMO plants.

Genome editing, these corporations argue, is outside the purview of the Agricultural Department.

“They are using a technical loophole so that what are clearly genetically engineered crops and organisms are escaping regulation,” Michael Hansen, a senior scientist at Consumers Union told The Times. The new plants “can have all sorts of ecological impact and no one is required to look at it.”

In addition, The Times reports that Jim Hagedorn, the CEO of Scotts, told analysts in 2013: “If you take genetic material from a plant and it’s not considered a pest, and you don’t use a transformation technology that would sort of violate the rules, there’s a bunch of stuff you can do that at least technically is unregulated.”

As a result, Hagedorn notes, Scotts can now market “a stunning array of products that are not regulated.”

Unfortunately, the long term effects of these products on your health may also be “stunning.” And there may be no way to know if these strange plants are on your lawn, in your food or wreaking havoc on your digestive tract.