Chapter 14

Genetically Modified Organisms

Greenpeace activists quarantining genetically engineered maize (corn) in Italy, July 2010. Test results showed that this maize is actually a patented Monsanto GE maize type, MON810, which has been linked to the tragic bee colony collapse syndrome. The activists are severing and securing the tops of the plants, where the pollen is contained. The safety gear protects them from contamination. (CREDIT: © MATTEO NOBILI / GREENPEACE)

The most recent monstrous crime against plants—at least in my view—is the tinkering with their DNA. One example is the insertion of bacterial genes into the DNA of plants so that they produce proteins toxic to insect pests. The era of biotechnology has begun. For me, born in 1934—before TV, before computers, before the landing on the Moon—the creation of genetically modified (GM) crops is another example of science fiction become reality.

Of course, when this new technology was introduced to the agricultural world, the gradual erosion of traditional farming methods—which began with the introduction of monoculture crops and chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and fungicides—speeded up. When I was gathering facts for my book Harvest for Hope, I talked to many people about genetically modified organisms (GMOs), people on both sides of what has become a hugely contentious issue. Proponents spoke of the benefits in glowing terms. Now there will be no need for spraying our fields with noxious chemical pesticides—the plants themselves will kill any pest that dares sample a forbidden leaf. Designer-crop plants are tolerant of chemical herbicides, so we can spray the fields and kill the weeds with those chemicals without harming our harvest. And as the globe heats up, GM drought-resistant plants will continue to thrive. Yields will increase. The farmers will benefit. The environment will benefit. Hooray! Science can solve the problem of providing enough food for the ever-expanding human population.

Alas! Such hopes have proved as insubstantial as the pipe dreams of the opium smokers—although the GMO giants such as Monsanto, DuPont, Syngenta, Dow Chemical, BASF, and Bayer would have us believe otherwise. They clearly think that if we are told often enough that GM crops are the solution to the world’s agricultural problems, we will believe it. However, since 1996, when Monsanto first commercialized Bt corn, a growing chorus of voices has been pointing out the downside of this technology.

This chapter is perhaps the most controversial of this book and one I feel the most passionate about. The information here is based on as much published material and as many studies as I have managed to read. This chapter is also based on personal conversations with the many scientists, farmers, and concerned citizens I have met during my travels around the globe. One of those people is public-interest attorney Steven Druker, who obtained files on genetically engineered foods only by winning a lawsuit he filed against the FDA. He has spent the past eight years working on his upcoming book, Altered Genes, Twisted Truth: How the Venture to Genetically Engineer Our Food Has Subverted Science, Corrupted Government, and Systematically Deceived the Public. Steve and I have talked extensively and he shared some of his findings with me. Some of this information was shocking.

A Recipe for “Superbugs”

The more I learn about the GMO industry, the more concerned I become. First there is the scourge of “superbugs”—it sounds like science fiction, but is horribly real.

Through complex genetic engineering, scientists have created crop plants that have specific pesticides inserted into their genes. Monsanto has created insect-resistant crop plants (corn, cotton, potato, and rice, with others in the pipeline) by inserting a gene from Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) into the DNA of the seed—the pest should then die when it eats the genetically modified plant.

One example of how the industry advertises its products is Monsanto marketing its “Nature Mark” Bt potato in Canada as using “sunshine, air and soil nutrients to make a biodegradable protein that affects just one specific insect pest, and only those individual insects that actually take a bite of the plants.” In fact, this potato plant, like other genetically engineered crop plants, has been violated. The “biodegradable protein” is a toxin that is continuously formed during the entire growing season of the plant. And the natural “soil nutrients” on fields of GM monocultures have usually been depleted and must be boosted by increasing amounts of chemical fertilizers—as in all monoculture-intensive farming.

And, like other Bt crops, this Monsanto potato affects many insects other than pests, including beneficial ones, such as bees and ladybugs.

Cornell University researchers found that the caterpillars of monarch butterflies had slower growth patterns and experienced higher death rates than controls when fed on milkweed leaves sprinkled with pollen from Bt corn. While the study was criticized for exposing the caterpillars to unnaturally high levels of Bt corn pollen, a subsequent field study confirmed the finding of higher mortality in caterpillars exposed to natural levels of Bt corn pollen.

Meanwhile the insect pests themselves are, as was predicted, becoming increasingly resistant to the GM plants. As I write, in 2013, it seems that at least five species of “superbugs” have now become resistant to Bt toxins, in the field or laboratory. A recent article in Nature Biotechnology noted that the number was possibly higher, as reports of resistance from the field are typically published at least two years after they have first been detected. The most recent of these insects that have adapted to a diet of toxins is the tiny Western corn rootworm, which, like the other super pests, is outsmarting the genetic engineering technology that was supposed to kill it.

Of course, the emergence of superbugs has forced farmers to resort to increased use of pesticides, since the plants designed to repel insects have, to a significant extent, failed. In India, for example, the use of chemical pesticides has increased thirteenfold since Bt cotton was introduced. Bill Freese, a policy analyst with the Center for Food Safety, was quoted as saying, “The biotech industry is taking us into a more pesticide-dependent agriculture, and we need to be going in the opposite direction.”

And Now “Superweeds”

Monsanto has also created GE crops (soy, corn, canola, alfalfa, and sugar beet) that are tolerant of its own brand of herbicide, Roundup, now the most widely used herbicide around the globe. The first of these crops was sold as Roundup Ready soybean. It now seems that this may have been one of Monsanto’s most ill-advised products to date, because, like the insects that have adapted to a diet of Bt plant material, a variety of agricultural weed species have also built up resistance as a result of frequent sprayings of Roundup.

The “superweeds” are now emerging at an alarming rate. Worldwide, twenty-four species of agricultural weeds, some of which grow two to three inches a day, are now resistant to glyphosate, the key ingredient in Roundup herbicide. Fourteen of these superweeds have been reported in at least twenty-two US states, infesting over ten million acres of mostly soybeans, cotton, and corn.

Farmer Mark Nelson in Kansas had terrible problems when his soybean fields were invaded by one of these new superweeds, waterhemp (Amaranthus tuberculatus [syn. rudis]). I read about him in a 2011 Reuters news story that described the superweeds towering “above his beans, sucking up the soil moisture and nutrients” that are needed by his crop.

“When we harvest this field, these waterhemp seeds will spread all over kingdom come,” he told the reporter. And one waterhemp plant can produce a million seeds. So that even if only a few plants survive spraying, this could lead to a major infestation in a couple of years. I read about another farmer, Justin Cariker, in Dundee, Mississippi, who has an infestation of glyphosate-resistant Palmer pigweed (Amaranthus palmeri) on his farm. Looming above his cotton plants, it reaches heights of seven feet or more and develops a stem as thick as a man’s wrist. An infestation of this Monsanto-created monster can even damage harvesting equipment.

The former president of the Arkansas Association of Conservation Districts, Andrew Wargo III, described superweeds as “the single largest threat to production agriculture that we have ever seen.”

Since Monsanto’s patent expired in 2000, many other companies began marketing glyphosate, and agricultural weeds resistant to the herbicide are appearing in other parts of the world, particularly Argentina, one of the first countries outside North America to introduce GM crops.

The response of Monsanto to superweeds? It now instructs farmers to use a cocktail of other herbicides to deal with them. Dow, DuPont, Syngenta, and Bayer are all reviving sales of older herbicides, probably hoping to challenge Monsanto’s dominance in the business. And work is in progress to develop crops genetically modified to withstand the new massive spraying of the superweeds. Dow AgroSciences is, in fact, seeking the USDA’s permission to sell farmers corn, soybean, and cotton seeds that are genetically altered to tolerate heavy spraying of glyphosate as well as Dow’s 2,4-D based herbicide “Enlist.”

Monsanto has genetically engineered agricultural plants to withstand its own Roundup herbicide, used to control agricultural weeds. But this meddling with nature has created an alarming infestation of more than twenty species of “superweeds” that can survive Roundup spraying. Jason Norsworthy, a weed scientist at the Arkansas Agricultural Research and Extension Center, has been studying the fast rate at which herbicide-resistant pigweed plants are growing and multiplying in this field of cotton. This Palmer pigweed can grow two to three inches a day and damage harvesting equipment. (CREDIT: UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS SYSTEM DIVISION OF AGRICULTURE/FRED MILLER)

When I read that, I felt a cold chill—2,4-D was a key ingredient in Agent Orange, the herbicide created by Monsanto and Dow, among other companies, that was used to defoliate the forests during the Vietnam War. There is concern that the chemical may be linked to higher rates of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma among farmers, agriculture workers, and pesticide appliers. Because of this, it has been tested on many animals in the laboratory. The tests could not prove that 2,4-D is linked to the onset of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and other diseases. Nor could they prove conclusively that it is not.

In another bizarre twist in the Roundup saga, I learned that glyphosate might actually encourage the growth of certain kinds of soil fungus, including Fusarium, which clusters on the roots of plants and has been linked to “sudden death syndrome” in soy plants. This disease stunts and weakens plants, and enables various diseases to attack them. It also destroys beneficial soil organisms, interferes with the plant’s photosynthesis, reduces water-use efficiency, and shortens root systems.

Risks to Animals and Humans

My concerns about GMOs aren’t just related to superbugs and superweeds. I have read about numerous studies that measure how GMOs affect the health of animals—and it all leaves me disturbed and uneasy.

In one comprehensive review of food safety tests carried out on animals fed GM diets, the authors found that some tests reported no adverse effects while others indicated there was some risk for the consumer. The authors pointed out problems in methodology on both sides (safe versus unsafe) but dismissed—even debunked—those that expressed some concern, and they concluded there was no evidence that GM foods were more risky than non-GM foods. It is interesting to note that those studies maintaining GM crops were safe had typically been conducted by scientists who were in some way connected to the GMO industry.

Personally, I find it difficult to accept that GM foods pose no health risks to humans—at least, not if we base our conclusion on the results of animal experimentation. One of the reports I read summarized the adverse effects suffered by laboratory animals (mostly that unfortunate victim of scientific research, the poor old rat) fed diets of different GM crops (corn, rice, potatoes, tomatoes, peas). In each of the thirty experiments, one group of animals was fed GM food and the other, the control group, received non-GM foods.

Let me list some of the adverse conditions that were noted in the GM-fed group, but not in the controls: In many of the animals there were signs of changes in liver and kidneys. In some there were changes in blood chemistry and higher levels of certain fats. One experiment found changes in composition of bacteria in the gut. Another noted changes in the weights of uteruses, testicles, and adrenals. And in one study there were lesions in the lining of the stomach that were similar to a precancerous condition.

I wonder if the scientists who examined those animals, who were apparently suffering from eating GM food, felt happy about offering the same food to their children? Even after reading about it I know I wouldn’t. And those experiments were terminated after just ninety days—no regulator anywhere in the world requires the GMO industry to test its products for long-term effects. In one recent experiment, a scientist asked what would happen if animals were fed the diet over a longer time period. I shall return to the results of his experiment.

One recent study, published in 2013, is especially worrying, since it was conducted in real farm conditions and the subjects were pigs, whose digestive system (unlike that of rats) is similar to ours—and they are (as rats are not) eaten by us.

The two groups of pigs, those with the GM diet and the controls, were fed a diet typical for US industrial piggeries. When they were twenty-three weeks old (the average length of the life of a commercially raised pig), both groups were slaughtered in an abattoir, and their organs were removed and examined. Results showed that the pigs fed a GM-food diet had heavier uteruses and a significantly higher rate of severe stomach inflammation than pigs fed a similar diet that did not contain GM food. The results of this study were statistically significant.

The above study provides scientific evidence to support something that veterinarians and farmers have been reporting for some time: that pigs fed on diets containing GM soy and corn are frequently afflicted by reproductive and digestive problems. And it serves to give some credibility to the assertions of a Danish pig farmer, Ib Borup Pedersen, that were published by the Danish farming magazine Effektivt Landbrug, as well as in the online publication GMWatch.

For years his pigs suffered from bloating, stomach ulcers, chronic diarrhea, and many reproductive disorders. In desperation, he decided to remove GM soy meal from their diet. Once the pigs switched to a GMO-free diet, he said, the diarrhea more or less vanished within two days, and gradually more and more of their health problems disappeared.

Backlash for Speaking Out against GMOs

What I find deeply disturbing is what can happen when scientists publicize their concerns regarding the safety of GM foods.

In 1998 I happened to be in the United Kingdom when a Hungarian scientist with the Rowett Institute of Nutrition and Health in Scotland, Dr. Arpad Pusztai, gave a TV interview about the results of a comparative study on the effects on rats eating unaltered potatoes versus rats eating potatoes that were genetically modified with a lectin from snowdrops. Pusztai and his colleague, Dr. Stanley Ewen, had found that the rats that ate the genetically modified potatoes were less healthy and seemed to have compromised immune systems.

The interview attracted a great deal of media attention and brought the issue of the safety of GM foods for the consumer into the open. Previously, most of the concerns I’d heard about had centered on environmental contamination. A few days after the interview, the Institute suspended Pusztai and seized his results, disbanded his research team, and revoked his phone and e-mail access. The Royal Society dismissed his findings as irrelevant and inconclusive. And a panel of unnamed specialists said the experiment was flawed in design, execution, and analysis.

Some of my friends, who were vehemently opposed to GM technology, were convinced that the attacks against Pusztai were unjustified. Pusztai himself offered to engage his critics in a scientific discussion, but this offer was ignored. After a while public interest in the subject waned, and Pusztai seemed to vanish below the radar.

In fact, he was soliciting support from other scientists and trying to get his results published. A year later, and quite by chance (I was in the Republic of the Congo at the time), I heard a BBC radio interview with Pusztai in which at least ten other scientists supported his findings. I was delighted that he had not given up and that he was finding others to vindicate his findings. This was about the same time that the editor of The Lancet, a prestigious medical journal, decided, despite opposition, to go ahead and publish the study, which had been stringently peer-reviewed.

Ten years after being fired by the Rowett Institute, Pusztai was interviewed, in 2008, by The Guardian. He told the reporter that he’d believed he had a responsibility to speak out and doesn’t regret doing so. “Make no mistake,” he was quoted as saying, “this is an irreversible technology. It is no good fifty years later to say: ‘We should have known.’ ”

When the reporter asked Pusztai why he had remained so vocal about the need for a higher level of testing for GM foods, he replied that he disliked the obvious political agenda. “Ninety-five per cent of GM is coming from America,” he said, “so naturally it is in their interests to push it.” And he added, “They [Monsanto] have not done a proper job [of testing], and they are just using their political and economic muscle to foist it on us.”

Pusztai has made it a personal campaign. He has become a popular lecturer worldwide, and in 2005 the Federation of German Scientists honored him with a whistle-blower award. But he has paid dearly for his courage—his whistle-blowing ended his research career and took a serious toll on his health. Many believe that the stress of the smear campaign contributed to Pusztai having at least two heart attacks.

Other scientists have experienced similar attacks after releasing unfavorable test results of GM foods. One of these is French molecular biologist Professor Gilles-Eric Seralini. In 2003 I heard that the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) had approved Monsanto’s application to introduce NK603 maize into Europe and I remember that this upset many people—including myself. One year later Greenpeace successfully sued for the release of data obtained from the original ninety-day Monsanto tests. (The industry seldom releases its test results.) Those test results were analyzed by Seralini and his team. They found that rats fed on the NK603 maize had suffered more adverse health effects (such as liver and kidney toxicity and significant differences in weight) than did the controls. When reporting these findings to the European Food Safety Authority, Monsanto dismissed them all as not “biologically meaningful.”

Seralini and his team concluded that longer studies would be necessary to give reliable data. And so they embarked on a two-year study, using the same strain of rats and feeding them the same GM food as in the original Monsanto research. The results were published in 2012.

The paper reported that the experimental rats, subjected to various feeding regimes, developed a variety of health problems, including fatal cancers, to a greater extent than controls, and that these developed exponentially after the standard ninety-day studies.

No sooner was the paper published and the press reports circulated than Seralini was subjected to a hostile campaign similar to the one Pusztai had endured. It was argued that his experiment was poorly designed; he had a history of methodologically flawed experiments; he was fudging the results, attempting fraud, using the wrong strain of rats, analyzing the data in an unscientific way, and so on. Seralini made a meticulous response to every criticism that had been leveled against him. The Guardian’s environmental editor John Vidal said this should not be pushed under the carpet and that it was clearly necessary to carry out further long-term studies.

Then, just as were in the final stage of proofing this book in December 2013, we learned that editor in chief A. Wallace Hayes of Food and Chemical Toxicology notified Seralini that the paper would be retracted, while giving Seralini an option to withdraw it voluntarily. The only grounds for removal of a journal article, according to the Committee on Publication Ethics, are unethical research, plagiarism, or that the findings were published elsewhere or deemed unreliable because of author error or misconduct. Hayes admitted the paper wasn’t retracted for any of these reasons. Rather, he wrote, “the results presented (while not incorrect) are inconclusive, and therefore do not reach the threshold of publication for Food and Chemical Toxicology.”

Many anti-GMO activists and scientists were immediately concerned and suspicious about the delayed retraction. Several hundred scientists signed an open letter to the publisher urging the journal to reverse the decision. “This arbitrary, groundless retraction of a published, thoroughly peer-reviewed paper is without precedent in the history of scientific publishing,” the letter stated, “and raises grave concerns over the integrity and impartiality of science.” A Forbes magazine editorial indicated that Seralini is considering suing the journal over the imminent retraction. Time will tell how all this plays out.

I am not in a position to debate the methodology or analysis of animal tests, as I do not have the scientific or medical knowledge. But from all that I have read, it seems fairly obvious that GM foods have posed at least some element of risk for animals so far tested. Thus, would it be naïve to think that human beings would be immune?

Numerous studies performed on rats and mice (animals routinely used as a biomedical research model for humans) have suggested that GM food is linked to serious health problems, including organ toxicity and issues related to the immune system, the gastrointestinal tract, reproduction, aging, and insulin production. The American Academy of Environmental Medicine, which is an accredited provider of medical education for health care professionals, has even asked physicians to advise patients to avoid GM foods because of the risks seen in animal studies. Even the Office of Science, Biological and Environmental Research of the US Department of Energy’s Genome Programs has warned against the unknown health effects of GM foods, and the US Department of Health and Human Services and National Institutes of Health lament that “no adequate testing” has been performed to confirm that GM foods are completely safe! The World Health Organization has also suggested other potential adverse events, warning of possible allergic reactions and gene transfer.

Contamination Threat to Organic Farmers

A growing number of people, concerned about health risks that could be incurred from industrial farming and GMO crops, are buying organic food. But even this rapidly growing sector is threatened by the growing of GM crops, since their pollen can be blown by the wind, carried by water or by bees—or even on shoes and clothing. And it can thus contaminate organic crops. Birds can drop GM seeds that can germinate in organic fields. More and more organic grains and other foods, when tested, are found to be contaminated. This can lead to significant loss of revenue for organic farmers. Moreover, if GM crops are found growing in their fields, organic farmers may be sued by Monsanto for growing their patented plants without paying for them.

Since 1997 Monsanto has filed 145 “patent infringement” lawsuits in the United States against farmers. More than seven hundred additional farmers have settled out of court, according to the Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association. I can only assume many of these farmers settled just to avoid Monsanto’s well-financed litigious actions.

A report in the Agronomy Journal of September 2003 points to the magnitude of Monsanto’s grip on agriculture today, suggesting that organic canola in Canada is severely contaminated with the GM variety. The researchers studied seventy samples of canola seedlots certified as being non-GM. Of those samples, 90 percent had the Roundup Ready and/or LibertyLink gene. Arnold Taylor, chair of the Organic Agriculture Protection Fund, said, “There is no organic canola in Canada any more, virtually none, because the seed stock is basically contaminated… We’ve lost that crop.” This, of course, is a huge blow, not only for organic farmers but for consumers who wish to avoid GM foods.

A consortium of more than eighty non-GMO organizations, seed companies, and farmers was formed to seek legal protection from Monsanto’s patent-infringement lawsuits. But in June 2013 the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled against them.

Nature: The True Maker of “Climate Resilient” Crops

Most recently, with concerns of climate change widely accepted, the biotech giants are working on designing GM crops that will be drought-resistant for planting in harsh climates. For example, in 2011 the USDA granted Monsanto approval of its new corn that’s genetically engineered to be drought-resistant. But is this really necessary? Hundreds of farmers and scientists around the world are insisting that it is not. They claim that peasant farmers have already helped these traits evolve in their seed supply through traditional methods—for when seeds are planted and saved annually, cross-pollination occurs, and plants continually adapt to changing environments. For instance, in the southwestern United States, this natural form of adaptation has resulted in native drought-tolerant corn. Indeed, even Monsanto reported to USDA scientists that the new GM plant does not always perform better than non-GM varieties.

Renowned environmentalist and anti-GMO activist Vandana Shiva summed up the situation regarding these climate-resilient traits nicely: “They are pirated from nature and farmers.”

Scientist, lawyer, and environmental leader Vandana Shiva has vehemently fought the proliferation of genetically modified seeds and plants in India. Because of her efforts and those of other activists, awareness is growing, and more and more people are working to ban Monsanto’s products. (CREDIT: KARTIKEY SHIVA)

Deceit, Greed, and Arrogance

One of the most disturbing aspects of the whole GMO situation is that the concerns of scientists and others are ignored, trivialized, or ridiculed. Misinformation is put out by companies with multimillion-dollar budgets for PR, and governments of developing countries are pressured to introduce GM crops into their agriculture. From 1999 to 2009, biotech firms spent over $547 million on lobbying Congress, and from 1999 to 2010, $22 million was spent for political campaigns.

Wendell Berry, a well-known writer and environmental activist whom I admire greatly, wrote that GMO biotech science is “involved directly with product-development, marketing, and political lobbying on behalf of their products.” It is, therefore, subject to corruption as a result of “personal self-interest and greed. For such a science to present itself in the guise of objectivity or philanthropy is, at best, hypocritical.” And, in my opinion, at worst deceitful.

Particularly shocking, to me, is the concept of substantial equivalence, the core element of GM crop regulation worldwide. In an effort to avoid issues of liability and risk assessment, the industry will argue that the genetically modified plant is “substantially equal” to its non-GMO parent. Yet when the company wants to patent a product, the same genetically modified plant is described as novel, or “substantially different” from the parent plant.

I’ve heard it said that substantial equivalence is a “pseudoscientific” concept. Some years ago I read an article in the Journal of Medicinal Food by the esteemed toxicologist and medical ethicist Dr. Marc Lappé in which he wrote about Monsanto’s Roundup Ready soybeans having phytoestrogen levels that were 12 to 14 percent lower than non-GM beans. “To treat these differences as insignificant when it is a question of safety, and as significant when it is a question of patentability, is totally unscientific,” he wrote.

An article in Nature, in 1999, concurred, saying “substantial equivalence is a pseudoscientific concept,” and concluding that it is “a commercial and political judgment masquerading as if it were scientific.” The article goes on to suggest that substantial equivalence “was created primarily to provide an excuse for not requiring biochemical or toxicological tests.” I also heard someone describe it as “ontological schizophrenia,” commenting that it would be laughable if it was not so terrifying. And also, I would add, so totally unethical.

How Can We Avoid Them If They Aren’t Labeled?

One powerful way to stop the spread of GMOs is for all of us to refuse to buy them. But unless governments force Monsanto and other biotech companies to attach a GM label to their products, it is not possible for people to choose not to buy them. In the United States the majority of corn, soybeans, cotton, sugar beets, and canola crops are genetically modified. And this means that many of the ingredients you find in packaged foods—such as corn syrup, soy lecithin, sugar, vegetable oil, and cottonseed oil—are made from these crops. But you don’t know because it’s not indicated on the packaging.

In Europe, where labeling is required, consumers make it clear they prefer not to buy food that comes from GM crops. But in the United States, where labeling is still not required, you are likely to find GM ingredients in as much as 70 percent of the processed foods in a supermarket, according to a study conducted by the California Department of Food and Agriculture. Fortunately, the push for GM labeling is gaining traction. Many citizen groups have introduced state and regional legislation to force labeling of consumer goods that contain GMOs. Some US states, counties, and cities are even considering legally banning GMOs altogether.

We Must Not Give Up the Battle

I know only too well that this situation with GM foods can seem overwhelming. Multinational corporations such as Monsanto, with so much government support and financial power, can seem daunting and unstoppable. And the destructive industrial model of growing crops sometimes seems permanently embedded in our global infrastructure. But as I always emphasize, each one of us has the power to make a difference. We can add our voices to the chorus of those who are staunchly standing up to the commercial giants.

The resistance to GM plants and seeds is strong. Citizens are taking action all over the world. Some—in the United Kingdom, France, and Hungary—have even invaded the fields and torn GM plants out of the ground. Many were arrested, but the protests continued. In Hungary the people actually destroyed one thousand acres of GM corn. I know one of the protesters who took part in several such raids in the United Kingdom—he said he would go on with his acts of civil disobedience until Monsanto is driven out.

There are an increasing number of instances where Monsanto is being prevented from moving into a country, or actually being forced to quit. In 2012 more than one hundred beekeepers and anti-GM corn protesters managed to storm Monsanto’s administrative offices in Monbéqui, France, and occupy the building for several hours. It must have been spectacular: a couple of them drove a fake delivery van (their Trojan horse), and the moment the gates opened, the delegation, in full beekeeper suits, swarmed in behind them. That same year, France reinstated a ban on Monsanto’s MON810 corn—one of two GM crops that are still allowed to be grown in parts of the European Union. The French government justified the ban after recent study results suggested “significant risks for the environment.”

What Does the Future Hold?

As I contemplate the terrifying economic power of some of the big multinational companies, the hold that they exert over governments and institutions, the way that they have forced their products into the market, it is easy to be depressed. But we must not forget that David defeated Goliath.

When Rachel Carson began her lone campaign to wake people to the horrific effects of the use of DDT on the environment, she was up against the same daunting foe—the might of industry and the government. There was far less understanding of the problems in those days. Carson, like Pusztai and Seralini, was reviled and threatened. But she never gave up, even when she was battling the last stages of cancer. Gradually public opinion as well as scientific truth lined up behind her. And she won. DDT was banned. She won because she produced so much evidence to support her claims that the establishment could no longer ignore her. She won because she was right.

The evidence against genetically modified food is accumulating fast, and that, coupled with growing understanding of the unsustainable nature of intensive farming, is what will enable us to move away from such an environmentally destructive world. Instead we can turn to a future where sustainable, ethical, and organic farming will gradually heal the scars we have inflicted and will benefit the natural world—and our health and that of our children and our grandchildren and theirs.