Author: Kent

[Ms. Pamela Bailey, President and CEO of the Grocery Manufacturers Association had an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal in support of genetically engineered foods (GMOs) on May 7th, 2015. Below is a copy of an email response sent to her.]
Ms Bailey….. I happened to purchase a copy of the Wall Street Journal for reading while eating lunch. I ran across your opinion piece about GMOs. It is clear where your pay check originates, but I am wondering about what background you have in biological science.
I, for one, applaud Chipotle’s decision to remove genetically engineered ingredients from the food they offer. I applaud Vermont, and for that matter Connecticut and Maine, for passing legislation that would require labeling of foods containing GE components. I applaud all efforts, and there have been many, to pass GE labeling legislation in the many states where legislation has been introduced. I just hope Rep. Mike Pompeo’s bill will go down in defeat.
I noted that your piece could have been written right out of the Monsanto public relations department. What you failed to mention is that 64 countries world wide require labeling or ban GE foods all together. What you failed to mention is that food companies have been able just fine to serve markets in those countries. What you failed to mention is that GE crops were brought to the market and declared to be safe simply by government decree during the Bush/Quayle administration with Michael Taylor at the FDA. What you failed to mention were Taylor’s close ties to Monsanto and even being a VP there for a time. What you failed to mention is that there have now been several animal studies, mostly in other countries, where test animals fed genetically modified feed developed a whole range of health issues. What you failed to mention is that the primary reason for GE crops to date has been to enable them to withstand massive doses of the herbicide, glyphosate, and live. What you failed to mention is that pesticide residue follows the crop to the dinner plate and that glyphosate has now been designated as a “probable human carcinogen” by the WHO. And, I might add, the use of pesticide has gone up, not down.
And why do I care. My background includes over 20 years in the newspaper industry with several as publisher of an Indiana daily. At middle age, I returned to Purdue where I garnered a MS in aquatic toxicology and a PhD in genetics. I was with a research group that did some of the early genetic modification in fish. I know the inside story.
You have partaken of the Kool-Aid served by big chemical/seed corporations. Last year, the AARP reported that the expected life span for men in the USA is last among 17 industrialized countries and that of women is 16th of 17. Further they reported the span has grown wider over the past 30 years. Something is seriously wrong and I happen to believe it is our food supply when compared to the other 16 countries.
You claim “GMOs have been in the food supply for decades without a single documented illness”. I would appreciate knowing of long term safety studies, human or animal, carried out by independent researchers in the United States without ties to big chemical/seed or big food.
Finally, I am about as staunch an advocate as one might find for the public right to know. There is a long list of information on food labels. Whether a product contains genetically engineered ingredients needs to be in that list. Secrecy is not the answer. I am taken by the parallels I see with the history of the tobacco industry. Secrecy and lies were the order of the day.
Regards, Kent Blacklidge

That is the last number I read of the dead that had been trying to get from Libya to Italy. The boats they were on sunk. The people drowned. This is a catastrophe without end.
Europe does not want to be the destination of choice for the thousands who want to flee the conflicts, lack of food, and lack of jobs of the Middle East and of Northern Africa. But, it is. Australia ultimately adopted a no immigrant policy for those trying to enter from South East Asia. Europe is already faced with thousands of immigrants who came from very different cultures and faiths than what had been traditional in Europe for centuries. Assimilation has been very difficult at best. All sorts of civil unrest has resulted.
Now there is a proposal being considered to use military power to destroy the boats that are being used by human traffickers. The idea is to make people stay where they are; to make it much more difficult to travel from one continent to another. This is a good idea. The flow of people from over populated, resource poor and war areas needs to be stopped or it will ultimately destroy the receiving countries.
The one issue no one will talk about is population. Virtually all of the pressure for immigration comes from already over populated countries. The long term solution is for populations to shrink, not continue to grow. It is only then that there can be economic progress made that will provide people with opportunities to take care of themselves. Do I think this is going to happen. NO.
The pressure for immigration will continue to grow as human population on the planet heads toward 12 billion. The numbers are not growing in already developed countries. They are where population is already a major problem. Take a look at Niger, Mali, Somalia, Chad, Burundi and Nigeria. The average number of births per woman in those countries still exceeds 6 and in Niger it is 7.6. Or how about Yemen and Iraq at over 4. They have no chance. By contrast, the birth rate in the United States and in other developed countries is less than 2, where it needs to be to stabilize population. The USA would have a stable population if immigration was not a factor.
The pot boils.
 

Little things do mean a lot. Kokomo had a bus line decades ago that had routes all over town with the main hub being on the north side of the downtown square in front of the then Turner Department Store building. There was a drugstore, dime store and a couple of others along the block between Buckeye and Main on Walnut Street. That was the transfer point for people coming off one route and proceeding on another.
What I remember as a pre-teen was that if could you could put your money in the coin box as you entered the bus, you could ride anywhere in town. That was the way all the kids in town went to the Saturday afternoon movies, all of which were within a couple of blocks of the center of town. None remain. All of the cities’ kids were watched over by all the adults in town. Safety was not an issue.
Times changed. The bus line disappeared. Shopping centers sprung up east, west, and south. People had to get themselves there and back. This was tough on those who did not have a car or physically had difficulty getting around. That was the case for decades. The downtown deteriorated. Some public transportation existed but only on a limited basis.
Times have changed again. The downtown of Kokomo is alive with activity. Kokomo added the Kokomo Trolley system with a hub about a block south of city hall. It is a real joy to see people who now depend upon the trolley to get all over our city from the far reaches in every direction. It has been a blessing for a whole collection of people. My hat goes off to a city administration that had the guts to give this a try. There were voices that said the system would not work and that people would not use it. They were wrong. The trolley is part now of the character of Kokomo. Good.

The Kokomo (IN) Tribune published an article from the Associated Press on April 7th about genetically modified (engineered) foods. The headline in the KT was “Food of the future?”; New wave of GMOs: pink pineapples, purple tomatoes.
In my opinion, the article was very biased toward genetic engineering in food. It was completely inadequate in coverage of the risks and concerns about this technology as it applies to crops, feed, and foods. This includes risks for human and animal health and for the environment. The article did not mention there had been no long term testing of the safety of GE foods and that they had simply been declared safe by government decree beginning in the early 1900s. This was over the objections of the scientists within the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). It did not mention the several lab studies, mostly from outside the United States, that resulted in adverse health conditions in lab animals. It did not mention that 64 nations require labeling of GE foods and several ban them altogether.
Further, there was no mention of the pesticides typically used on GE crops including glyphosate (Roundup) and soon to be dicamba and 2,4,D (a component of Agent Orange). Glyphosate has just recently been designated a “probably human carcinogen” by the WHO: International Agency for Research on Cancer. Glyphosate has been detected everywhere.
In short, you did not do your homework. As the past publisher of the Kokomo Tribune (20 years there) and a holder of a MS Aquatic Toxicology and a PhD in genetics from Purdue, I can tell you the party line from big seed/chemical and food industry is not the whole story by far.
So, please do not drink the Kool-aid from big seed/chemical and food corporations. Do your homework and present a complete picture from both sides. As both one who spent his primary career in newspapers and as a scientist, I conclude this technology, the way it was introduced and the way it is used in agriculture, is both risky and reckless. I strongly believe the public has a right to know what is in food and how it is produced. The industry wants to keep secrets and will spend millions to keep it so.
I go back a long way with the Associated Press and with its once competitor, United Press International (UPI). We depended upon accurate, unbiased, and complete stories.
Regards, Kent Blacklidge Ph.D.