In an astonishing outburst, a Government minister has accused opponents of genetic modification of being ‘wicked’, reports the BBC.
Her Majesty’s Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Rt Hon Owen Paterson, MP, made the comments in an interview in the Independent newspaper.
He was referring in particular to so-called ‘Golden Rice’ which has vitamin A added by genetic modification.
Mr Paterson told The Independent that NGOs such as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth that oppose GM technology were “casting a dark shadow over attempts to feed the world”.
And he backed an open letter signed by a group of eminent international scientists calling for the rapid rollout of vitamin A-enhanced rice which he believes will help prevent the cause of up to a third of the world’s child deaths.
“It’s just disgusting that little children are allowed to go blind and die because of a hang-up by a small number of people about this technology,” he said. “I feel really strongly about it. I think what they do is absolutely wicked.”
The BBC says, in its story on Mr Paterson’s claim, that opponents of GM rice can point to the World Health Organisation’s advocacy of routine administration of vitamin A supplements in countries where deficiency is a problem.
‘Vitamin A is needed for healthy skin and eyes and to help strengthen the immune system so that the body can fight infections. Deficiency can lead to blindness, illness and death,’ the BBC article went on.
‘People in the developed usually world get enough vitamin A from their diet by eating foods like cheese, yoghurts and eggs, but deficiency is a common problem in developing countries, and is estimated to affect between 140 million and 250 million children under the age of five.’
The rice would be made available only in the developing world. The European Union has put such a break on the development of GM crops in member states that Monsanto has retreated into conventional plant breeding in Europe and has said it will no longer seek approval of its products across the Union.
There are no commercial GM crops in Britain, and there is only one active field trial, currently being grown under tight security at Rothamsted Research in Hertfordshire. Across the EU, only two GM crops have been sanctioned for commercial planting.
That is in contrast to the United States, where GM corn (maize), soybeans, cotton, oil-seed rape and squash are commercially grown with around 85% of cotton and 50% of maize being GM. Opposition has had only limited success. Resistance is said to be growing in the developing world, despite heavy promotion by the Gates Foundation and United States Embassies world wide of GM crops manufactured by US giants Monsanto and Dupont. With Swiss firm Syngenta, they together account for 47% of the global proprietary seed market.
Owen Paterson became well-known for his opposition to gay marriage, and has also voted against civil partnerships, homosexuals adopting children, giant casinos, identity cards, hate-speech laws, the production of ‘saviour siblings’, and animal-human hybrids. He voted in 2008 to limit abortion to 12 weeks, the most ‘pro-life’ option on offer at the time.
So how come Mr Paterson finds himself so emotionally attached to the bad guys in the GM debate?
The Register of Parliamentary Interests merely records him accepting small-scale hospitality from Betfair, New Century Media and Co-operation Ireland to go to Ascot and other posh parties. He has not declared being on the pay-roll of any bio-tech company.
But Christian Voice has discovered that Owen Paterson is the brother-in-law, through his wife Rose, of Matthew, Viscount Ridley. Matthew Ridley is visiting professor at Cold Spring Habor Laboratory. And what do they do? The answer is: genetic modification of plants.
The Cold Harbor website proudly proclaims: ‘CSHL has taken part in numerous plant genome sequencing projects including Arabidopsis, rice, sorghum and maize, as well as epigenomic sequencing and profiling. We are part of the iPlant Cyberinfrastructure consortium and the Long Island Biofuels Alliance. The Laboratory owns 12 acres of farmland nearby called Uplands Farm. Here, an expert staff raises maize, tomato and Arabidopsis plants for study.’
Quite simply, it appears Owen Paterson has had his ear bent by his fellow land-owning aristocratic brother-in-law. As my dear late mother used to say, ‘It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.’ Quite. Or perhaps as the Bible says:
Ephesians 6:12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
God’s created order was given us for a purpose:
Psalm 104:14 He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man: that he may bring forth food out of the earth;
Woe betide us if we interfere with it. We shall do so at our peril.
Gen 1:11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. 12 And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
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Fearless NWO exposer and author F. William Engdahl has written a powerful exposure of the GMO movement in his book ‘The Seeds of Destruction.’
It is not clear to me why GM is morally different from plant breeding.
A pertinent question is why unelected NGOs seem to have so much influence on government policy.
I have no pecuniary interest in GM crops.
Whatver Mr Paterson’s connections I have a certain sympathy with his outburst. Greenpeace, FoE and the like do a valuable service in checking the excesses of industrial conglomerates and governments, but an equal disservice in opposing just about any new technology that comes along with unproven and wildly alarmist statements; the furore over fracking is a good case in point. If something can be done to alleviate suffering then it should be considered favourably, tested and risk assessed rather than banning it for fear of unproven detrimental side effects.
In similar vein the rush for so called green energy is costing us all a small fortune and it is the poor who suffer; if climate change is occuring that will irreversibly alter the weather patterns we experience then it would be far cheaper to adapt to that change rather than to try and prevent yet another unproven doomsday scenario. As a human race we manage to survive in both the Sahara and the Arctic, part of our God given mandate to ‘subdue the earth’. Surely we could learn to cope with a degree or two change in local ambient temperature?
Christopher
may i urge you to watch the documentary ” seeds of death ” to learn the truth about GMO’s
you will also find a brief ” news flash ” from RUSSIA TODAY about some pigs who were fed GM soy beans
not only is genetic modification of our food supply ungodly considering HE made everything perfect [ including us ] but there are serious health consequences from eating such fare
” Subdueing the earth ” does NOT mean exploiting or polluting it
The word wicked is used a lot nowadays, often to say how nice something is. But its use by Owen Paterson on this occasion is unwarranted. People who have a different opinion to you are not automatically wicked people. But aside from that, looking further into the subject of GM foods, when one considers the tremendous advances in the production of food, the use of fertilizers and pest control, all of which have enabled more people to be fed with quality food from the same size crop, perhaps we should see the advances in assisting the growing of quality food by changing the seed construction as another way the Lord has enabled man to better serve his fellow man instead of seeing it as an unwarranted interference with something God created. Those of us who have seen our 4score years and ten have seen the evolution of the human race by an incredible amount in our life-times. God didn’t give us wings but we fly in aeroplanes without seeing it as a godless act, for example. We live tens of years longer than our predecessors as a result of better hygiene, better living conditions etcetera, all brought about by man using the talents that the Lord gave us. So what is so wrong about using modified seeds to grow food that will improve the health of millions of people who are currently deficient in certain vitamans? Like Owen Parkenson, I also abhor abortion. I also feel unhappy about the normalisation of sexual activities that the bible tells us are wrong. I feel pain for the children who are brought up by single sex or indeed single parents and who lack the input others receive from the influence of their male and female parents acting in concert. But I can’t say I feel badly about GM crops. The only caviet to that statement is that I understand it is not possible to grow new crops from the seeds harvested from GM crops but I might be wrong about that. Obviously, if that is the case, then the crop is unsuitable for long term farming in areas where the farmer relies on this year’s crop to privide the seed for next. Perhaps someone could enlighten us on this as it is a very important factor. Thank you for bringing the article to our attention.
Hi Tony,if you don’t feel badly about GM crops might i suggest you dig a little deeper on the subject, i’ve just read an article on one of the latest great crops that Owen Paterson is championing, it’s cabbage that has been spliced together with scorpion poison to make it more resistant to pesticide spraying, i ask you would you sit down and knowingly consume a vial of scorpion poison?, if not why not?, would it be because it would do your body irreversible damage?, and with that in mind why then would you sit down and eat cabbage that would have scorpion poison in its genetic make up?, also interesting to note that MP’s have put a ban on all GM foods from entering the canteens of Parliament, why do you suppose that is Tony?
Even so, it does seem quite a good thing to stop children going blind and dying.
That is indeed the hook on which Mr Paterson hangs his ‘wicked’ jibe. But we see there are other ways of achieving the same goal.
According to a recent article on the BBC website a child dies of hunger every 15 seconds. if GM crops really do have the potential to help reduce this terrible statistic then we should put emotion to one side and do a proper investigation.
The use of the term “bad guys” above is completely subjective and meaningless. Arguably the bad guys are those who are saying no point blank, probably because they don’t understand the science.
The key is that crops should be properly verified as safe by government authorities before commercialisation is permitted. If this can be guaranteed then I see no reason not to use GM crops, and lots of reasons to use them.
Like must always mate/cross with like after its kind. I have no problem with the same Genus and species being spliced together as they are like kind, however anything ‘other’ such as scorpion poison is a no-no if we’re measuring against Torah.
But is it actually realistic to expect the Torah to deal with blood transfusions or genetically modified food ?
sadly i see that both Tony and Christopher have not had the good grace to respond to our urges to learn the truth about GMO’s
the lie that they solve the ” so called ” hunger crisis is not investigated
the TRUTH is GMO’s need MORE persticides to grow and they yield LESS than crop’s grown the way GOD ordained
The hunger crisis in this world is caused by the greed policies of corporations and the TONNES of food thrown away
there is enough food produced to feed the WHOLE WORLD …… FACT !!!!
GMO’s are the product of man’s greed to contol even the food we eat
as i say to people ” never underestimate the wickedness of mankind ”
Are Tony and Christopher aware that GMO seeds are PATENTED [ own by the bio – tech companies ]
conflict of interests much ?