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GENETIC ENGINEERING: A VIOLATION OF NATURAL LAW
Hi all -
Thought you might be interested in this little goodie that came my way.
Not saying I necessarily agree with the specific remedy the author suggests
at the end, but I do think it has some accurate, important, and powerful
perspective to add to this Genetic Engineering conversation.
Best regards -
P. Dines
-- FORWARD ---
info at http://www.lisco.com/mothersfornaturallaw
GENETIC ENGINEERING: A VIOLATION OF NATURAL LAW
Byron P. Rigby MBBS MRCPsych
President, Australian Association of Ayur Vedic Medicine
To people of scientific and medical training who are unfamiliar with the
biotechnology industry, it seems completely incredible that governments,
government departments, food scientists, biologists and corporations could
knowingly flood the whole world's food chain with genetic mutants. How
could it happen?
It could only happen in a world society in which collective consciousness
itself has become clouded and incapable of being awake to its own interest
and survival. It is a symptoms of a serious, urgent and desperate need to
create a world awakening to the future safety of all human beings.
Never before in history has such a dramatic, dangerous, new and untested
technology been implemented so instantaneously throughout the whole world.
By comparison with this biological assault, the introduction of cane toads
into the Australian ecology, the spread of feral animals and exotic weeds,
the choking of the world's tropical waterways with water hyacinth, the
wholesale destruction of the world's forests, and even mass
desertification, are minuscule disturbances.
These are strong statements. To understand their essential truth, it is
necessary to know something about genetics.
The Genetic Code: The Blueprint of Life
Life is found in layers. The Earth has an overall geosphere, hydrosphere
and atmosphere in which life forms and evolves. Within this, there exists
an ecosphere--the world of evolving life itself. Inside this in turn are
established specific ecologies, within which there are families, classes
and species of living organisms. One can regard each of these layers as
itself alive, and, in a sense, conscious.
The layers don't stop there, however. Within each organism are organs,
tissues, cells, intracellular structures, and finally DNA, the genetic code
of all life. Deeper than that lies only atoms and elementary particles.
Up to now, we have manipulated and interfered mainly with the individual
organisms of our world. We have bred some, extinguished others and
transported yet others to new and unfamiliar environments, where they have
become sometimes useful and sometimes pests.
In all of this manipulation and interference, we have not penetrated far
into the structure of life. Occasionally, with the introduction of viruses
or other living species, we have eliminated whole varieties of plant or
animal. Sometimes, for example by the introduction of goats, we have
created deserts. Sometimes we have spread plagues of disease in plants or
animals, or among ourselves. These alterations may have seemed
catastrophic, but except for extinctions they are in few cases truly
irreversible. Human beings, and other species, remain essentially what
they are, and have not interfered with, or polluted, the source of their
own consciousness and intelligence.
Invasion of the Source of Life: Breaking and Entering
Now, for the first time in history, a new form of irreversible,
self-spreading change is being launched, far more powerful and virulent
than any that has ever before been attempted. This change is genetic
engineering--penetration into, and irreversible alteration of, the very
code of life itself.
In genetic engineering, new information and instructions, never before
seen, are being spliced into the DNA of bacteria, plants and animals in
ways that could never, under any circumstances whatsoever, occur in nature.
Genes that synthesize scorpion toxin are being used to coat fruit with
insect-killing venom; anti-freeze genes are being spliced from fish to
fruit; herbicide resistance genes are being incorporated into tomatoes and
other foods, allowing use of far higher concentrations of herbicides than
would otherwise be possible; genetically engineered bacteria are being
cultivated that synthesize hormones and other substances, some of which are
fed to cows to force unnatural quantities of milk secretion that eventually
destroy the cow; while other bacteria are being altered beyond anything
that would normally occur to secrete substances used in medicine and food
manufacture.
All this could seem dangerous but wonderful--just as other scientific
advances have been, such as electricity and nuclear power.
But in the case of genetic engineering, there is a completely new element
that makes the hazards inconceivably greater than those posed by any other
technology--the fact that once released, genetically altered organisms are
unrecallable, irretrievable, and above all self-replicating.
Irreversible Damage to Life: Pandora's Box
Once released, genetically altered bacteria and other organisms can never
be recalled. Further, and most chilling of all, there exist processes
whereby the genes that have been put into the altered organisms can
actually be transferred to other species. As a result, new and virulent
toxins can be spread to wild plants; herbicide resistance can be spread to
weeds; rapid-growth capability can be spread to pests; and
antibiotic-resistance can be spread to the world's most feared
disease-producing organisms--staphylococcus, diphtheria, salmonella,
plague, cholera, typhoid and the whole range of diseases that have with
such slow and painstaking care been reduced from their former epidemic
proportions in the world.
Biotechnology companies would have us believe that normal plant-breeding is
the same as genetic engineering. We select the genes of a plant, and
combine them with others in cross-breeds. We even find mutants, and then
cultivate these.
To anyone with the slightest biological knowledge, this type of statement
is completely fraudulent. The very fact that it is made rings the
strongest possible alarm bells warning that if such crass misconceptions
are being deliberately spread, the perpetrators must have something very
substantial and profoundly negative to hide. It is an obvious symptom of a
profound and radical disconnection from the truth by a whole generation of
scientists, technologists and commercial interests. It is a disorder of
consciousness.
A Hit-and-Miss Technology: Catastrophes Have Already Happened
The simple fact is that to create a genetic alteration by gene splicing, it
is necessary to directly disrupt and reconstruct the genetic code by
procedures that could simply never arise in nature. Far from being
accurate, these alterations are highly hit-and-miss. In most cases, the
total function of the gene being altered is not fully known, its
interactions with other biochemical processes in the organism are obscure,
and the long-term effects of the changes cannot be predicted.
As in the case of food irradiation, genetic manipulation can potentially
produce a large number of unknown and exotic chemical substances that can
have completely imponderable effects. These effects include direct
poisoning through ingestion by other organisms (including ourselves);
serious and even fatal illness through production of new and unknown
allergens; spread by replication of the existing organism; and transfer of
genetic information to other species, including to pests closely related to
the altered organism.
Some genetic scientists warmly reassure that these things will not happen.
But how can any scientist worthy of the name possibly declare that
"something won't happen?" Have we not been sufficiently warned by DDT?
Thalidomide? Dioxin? Plutonium? Chernobyl? Mad cow disease? Cane toads?
Killer bees? Chlorofluorocarbons? Asbestos? Every single one of these has
been a subject of warm and avuncular reassurance by scientists who were
wedded to their pet idea, and by technologists and corporations that saw
profit in them.
Again, the disorder here is not specific to genetic engineering. It is a
blindness at the level of consciousness to the safety of human beings and
to the serious consequences of playing the sorcerer's apprentice in a field
that is totally imponderable from our current level of understanding.
We do not have to wait and see whether genetic engineering will kill or
injure people, or damage our world. It has already happened.
37 Killed and 1500 Permanently Injured
Some years ago a Japanese firm manufactured tryptophan by genetically
engineered bacteria for use in the treatment of depression. This substance
occurs normally in dietary protein, and is the metabolic precursor for
serotonin, the neurotransmitter whose depletion results in depression. By
ingesting extra quantities of tryptophan, depression can be reversed.
What was not known, however, was that the organism that synthesized the
tryptophan was also synthesizing another substance that stimulated the
body's immune system, resulting in a disease known as eosinophilia. As a
result 37 people were killed and 1500 permanently injured.
It couldn't happen again?
Genes from Brazil nuts were incorporated into transgenic soybeans. The
combination proved to be highly allergenic to some people. They had no way
of knowing that they would get an allergic reaction from the soybeans, even
if they had known they were allergic to Brazil nuts--because the
genetically altered soybeans were by law exempted from labelling.
In another sphere, klebsiella bacteria were genetically altered to secrete
alcohol from the digestion of wood pulp and other organic material. This
organism escaped, infected soil in wheat farmland in the United States, and
destroyed the nutritive bacteria that are responsible for the fertility of
the fields. Whole fields were rendered sterile, capable of growing wheat
only a few inches high.
In all these examples, the problem is not only the danger of the
technology. It is the consciousness that allows such a mass form of human
experimentation to be perpetrated without any consent and warning for the
public, not even the labelling of genetically manipulated foods.
In some states of the USA it has even been declared illegal to label food
as NOT genetically engineered, lest it threaten the profitability of the
genetic technology companies. This reversal of normal ethics is not a
technical problem, it is a consciousness problem--a problem of collective,
governmental and individual attitude and mindset.
Labelling and A Moratorium
The potential damage that could be caused by unforeseen effects of genetic
engineering are vast, formidable and impossible to predict.
The absence of knowledge of danger must not be mistaken for the absence of
danger! Scientists only know what they know. They certainly don't know
what they don't know. For this reason, simple common sense and
responsibility dictate that before any genetically altered organisms are
produced, a total halt on any releases must be called, so that sufficient
knowledge can be accumulated.
Scientists around the world have proposed a 50 year moratorium on all
genetic experimentation and technology sales. The Natural Law Party has
proposed this in 40 countries, and in Western Australia in the recent
election campaign was joined by all major parties in a multilateral
televised statement urging extreme caution in authorizing any genetically
engineered products in Australia.
Governments simply have to realize that they are legislating for other
people's children--not just their own. "Probably safe" is just not safe
enough--not for an intervention that cannot be reversed, and not for
matters relating to food and children's development. "Proven to be safe"
is the bare minimum. And true proof in science is very, very difficult.
"Possibly safe" is an outrage.
Yet at this time, we are faced with the strongest possible lobbying by
biotech companies to waive the requirement that genetically altered
products even be labelled!
What an extraordinary suggestion! To remove all possibility that damage
caused to human beings could even be traced to the offending source. To
contrive that if illness or death should occur, whether by unforeseen
toxicity or by the development of new allergens, offending corporations can
never be identified or prosecuted, and further injury can never be
prevented.
Responsibility of Scientists
In the past, scientists were motivated by the inspiration of scientific
discovery. Even then, their enthusiasm led them at times to grotesque
interference with human life--the high-voltage X-raying of children's' feet
for fitting shoes; the overuse of DDT and its accumulation in mothers'
milk; the persuasion of whole populations of mothers that commercial
formulas were better than breast milk; even in ancient times, the use of
lead pipes for plumbing, resulting in the poisoning of whole populations.
Now, however, the pressure on scientists is economic, and is of such a
magnitude that geneticists with almost one voice have abandoned their
primary concern for human life.
The patenting of new technologies is immensely profitable. The
identification of human genetic traits, and their patenting and
preservation in secret, has now reached such a level that whole populations
of indigenous people on the verge of extinction are being raided for their
unique genetic information, without the slightest assistance being offered
to ensure their future survival.
A Crisis of Consciousness
The crisis of genetic engineering is not a crisis of biological science, it
is a crisis of consciousness. What kind of consciousness can knowingly
perpetrate the dangerous interventions in life that we have detailed in
this article and in this edition? On can't talk to such people. Closed
off, hermetically sealed from the world of other people's lives, concerns,
rights and safety, their response is unreachably self-interested and
overconfident. The mind is blinkered, the imagination extinguished. Only
by a transformation of consciousness can such a mind be awakened to the
reality of what it is doing.
And it is not a matter of individual consciousness. It is a matter of
collective consciousness. Genetic raiding is proceeding rapidly. The
realization of the truth is proceeding at a snail's pace. Enlightened
warnings are unheeded. At the present rate, by the time the true
seriousness of the situation has been realized, it will be too late. The
world will have been infected with genetic alteration, irreversibly. Even
the consciousness of people themselves will be altered by what they ingest.
In this situation, and many like it, there is only one solution: to create
a mass awakening of the collective consciousness of the world.
This is possible. It has been shown in over 47 studies that group practice
of the TM-Sidhi program, in particular Yogic Flying, transforms the
collective consciousness of whole populations within a matter of days. In
Washington DC, in a formal experiment carried out in July-August 1993, this
procedure reduced crime rate by 20%. In Mozambique its introduction
resulted in the resolution of a bloody 20-year civil war. In cities
throughout the world, including crisis areas, it has proven time and again
that it is both possible and easy to transform the collective consciousness
of a nation from violence, disorder, and insensitivity to survival, to
harmony, order and farsighted consensus.
To this author, at least, it is obvious that the solution to the dangers of
genetic engineering will come not through scientific and technical
discovery, but through the transformation of our consciousness to a calm,
life-loving, mature and wise awakening to the great potential and delicate
responsibility for all future generations involved in all handling of
scientific knowledge.
(Copyright: Dr Byron Rigby)
(Reference: the Australian newspaper "Living Now "
Jan-Feb 1997)
info at http://www.lisco.com/mothersfornaturallaw