What’s so bad about Frankenfood? Can you say Son of Mad Cow?

Can the nation that gave the rest of us fear of Mad Cow Disease be on the cutting edge of saving us from genetically modified (GM) crops? Is there any such thing as Crazy Corn Disease? Not that humans know of. But for certain, according to a recent British study, GM crops kill off (or at least scare off) bees. After half of 65 fields were planted with a GM crop and the other with its conventional counterpart, only half as many bees were found in the GM field, and butterflies had fallen by a third. Nor were the GM fields kind to birds; those sections contained only one-third the skylark- and sparrow-friendly seeds the birds rely upon for food. Another study, this time of spring-sown oilseed rape, demonstrated that the GM plants suffered an astonishing 80 percent reduction in seeds. After this 2003 study, scientists concluded that planting this seed could cause the skylark to become extinct in two decades.

Before you dismiss this birds and bees stuff as meaningless, think about this; bees pollinate flowers and grains and also provide a natural sweetener. In the United States, there has been a lot of press about the diminishing population of honeybees…and yet, as far as I know, no one has connected it to the enormous numbers of GM crops planted in the U.S.

Think about this, as well; birds feed on annoying insects, like mosquitoes. Mosquitoes are more bothersome than dangerous to man in most developed nations. But that need not always be the case, and, in fact, mosquitoes are a vector for serious diseases in horses.

Tempted by saying “so what” again? Aside from their obvious use for human enjoyment as pleasure mounts, horses also make up a large part of the economy of many places, both as “recreational vehicles” that further support farmers growing grains and hay, and as part of the multi-billion dollar racing and gaming industry.

Which brings us to the GM maize experiment, maize being the British term for corn. (Birds eat corn, and, in Britain more than in the U.S., horses eat corn.) GM maize did not get a bad rap from the experiments—but only because an incredibly harmful pesticide was used on the conventional fields, invalidating results. That pesticide has since been banned in Britain.

The GM section also contained a third as many broadleaved weeds, such as chickweed, on which birds such as skylarks and tree sparrows rely for food. Studies also showed that the frankengenes from the GM crops were spreading and contaminating nearby conventional and organic produce, as well as creating MegaWeeds.

Monsanto and, arguably, the U.S. government and its shill, Tony Blair, were behind this avowed attempt by Blair to make Britain an EU “technology hub.”

Sounds good. Maybe their technology can come up with a cure for Mad Cow disease, and any deadly anomalies in humans the Killer Tomatoes might bestow.

To be fair – and to point out again why England is better than the U.S. – Conservatives in government banned use of GM crops until their safety had been proven (as opposed to, after the fact, ginning out studies saying the garbage is safe), and the Daily Mail has stayed firmly on the case of big Parma agriculture. But credit goes to the British people as well; only 8 percent of them, in supermarket surveys, said they would buy foods they knew were GM. The supermarkets took such few GM foods as they stocked off the shelves.