Corn pollen (GM) contamination
Edna M Weigel (eweigel@juno.com)
Fri, 14 May 1999 05:07:32 -0700
Beth von Gunten wrote:
<I have never been asked, nor have I ever agreed to grow or consume this
<stuff. For (many, varied, serious, well informed, carefully considered)
<reasons of my own, I choose not to, and as a sovereign citizen that is
my
<prerogative.
Right on! For me, the key issue is my right to know what is in
the food I consume. I have severe multiple food sensitivities (in
addition to chemical sensitivies). I survive by avoiding some foods
entirely and rotating the rest. I avoid most highly processed foods
because each contains too many ingredients for my rotation diet (and many
contain foods that would make me deathly ill). I avoid restaurants like
the plague because of inadequate labeling. I used to be fairly confident
about fresh foods (like in a salad bar) because I could tell by looking
that this is "radish" and that is "spinach", etc. I still worried about
invisible pesticides, but at least I used to know the "radish" didn't
contain proteins produced by potato genes, or something else. Now, I
can't even be sure about that.
I wouldn't mind others eating cheap GM food (when we consider all
the costs, is it REALLY cheaper to produce?) if they didn't threaten my
ability to obtain GM-free food. But with pollen contamination, even
growing my own food is risky. Our society finally recognizes that
companies must not be allowed to indiscriminately pollute water and air
just because it is cheaper to do so. But our air and water are already
polluted and clean-up is expensive. Will we eventually try to control
genetic contamination and find the "clean-up" impossible?
I hope not, but I find it hard to be optimistic.
Edna Weigel
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