The future of the human race

A terrible plague

A terrible plague is affecting the human race. It is already causing widespread death and disease. No one knows the full extent of it because of its insidious nature.

Readers without a good background in science will probably dismiss this website as one more "kookie", "doom and gloom" site. They will nevertheless most likely suffer the effects of the "plague", but they will understand only the proximate cause of their illness (e.g. cancer).

Readers with a good background in science will probably follow the reasoning here and be motivated to take action.

The story so far

For the entire history of mankind, humans have been evolving by means of a process called "natural selection".

The way that it has worked is as follows.

For millions of years our ancestors were hunter-gatherers. People who were unharmed by the foods that occurred in nature thrived. Those who were damaged by them had poorer health. People with poorer health would be less likely to have so many children. Therefore the proportion of the population who coped well with the products of nature increased from one generation to the next. And so the health of the human race increased.

We still have those hunter-gatherer genes. There has been insufficient time since the introduction of agriculture for significant changes to have occurred. As a general rule, we still thrive well on the foods that occur in nature.

Plants have evolved too, but that type of evolution is harmless. Selective breeding by farmers, seed companies etc. has led to the development of new varieties of food plants. But the methods used (e.g. saving seeds only from the healthiest plants, F1 hybrids, and even the recently developed "marker assisted selection") just bring around the same old genes in different combinations. Our hunter-gatherer metabolism still copes well with those genes. Therefore, varieties of the stone age plants developed by those methods are safe for us to eat. For example, we can safely eat modern varieties of cabbage, even though the wild mediterranean sea cabbages from which they were bred were very different in appearance and taste.

However, genetic engineering (GE) is completely different from the above and is very dangerous.

Genetic modification (GM) is an alternative name for GE.

Genetic engineering is dangerous because it does not just bring around the same old genes in different combinations. It damages the genes themselves.

It is as though one inserted an extra paragraph into a computer document, but using a faulty word processor that caused multiple errors in other parts of the document.

The damage is random and unpredictable. It is very dangerous. Natural selection has not had time to deal with it.

The future

Genetic engineering poses a terrible threat to the human race.

Many of the foods in the shops contain GM ingredients. We cannot avoid them since there is no legal requirement for them to labelled as such.

In fact, GM foods are not regulated at all. They are classified by the FDA as Generally Recognised As Safe (GRAS), the same category as salt and pepper, and therefore requiring no testing.

In the US, anyone is entitled to use GE to develop a new variety and market it without obtaining permission from anyone or even informing anyone.

The situation is even worse than described above, since GM crops can contaminate non-GM ones being grown nearby.

Even worse still, GM crops can contaminate wild plants and so that the GM plague can continue for ever, with no chance of its being halted.

When will this process start?

It has already started, and is gathering pace. We do not know, and cannot know, the full extent of it.

Already, there has been a recent spike in cancer and diabetes, but there is no way of proving conclusively that that has been caused by GM foods. There is no way of proving that it hasn't either.

Can the process be reversed?

No, for the reasons given above. Already GM plants have spread their pollen to wild plants, and those can now infect other food crops, including those that you grow in your own backyard.

The process is likely to accelerate, since Monsanto have announced plans to introduce many new GM varieties over the next few years.

It may take millions of years for the human race to adapt to the new genes.

Propaganda

Pro-GM propagandists would dearly love to blur the distinction between GM and MAS. For example there was a recent article in the Economist under a heading "GM and after" that gave a description of MAS.

Conclusion

A terrible plague is being released upon mankind.

It is likely to produce much illness and many deaths. The illness and deaths may continue for millions of years.

There is no way of reversing the process.

What evidence is there that genetically modified foods have ever harmed anyone?