The Written Word
for August 1, 2001

Genetically Modified foods and caged fish farms have something in common – the onus of proof is on the wrong party. Instead of the companies, and science, having to prove beyond a reasonable doubt – in the case of GM I would argue beyond a shadow of a doubt – that what they propose will do no harm, the onus is on the public to prove they are harmful. To make matters worse, the judge is on the take.

I cut my environmental teeth on Rachel Carson’s classic, Silent Spring which has recently be reprinted in hard cover. She exposed, to the surprise of the public and the horror of the scientific world that, amongst other things, DDT was running amok in the environment. DDT was, you see, one of the wonder drugs of World War II along with sulfa drugs and Penicillin. These latter discoveries had so advanced the ability to cure infection that there was the feeling that medical science could do no wrong. I well remember the early days of TV with documentaries on DDT showing scientists in white lab coats telling us that soon the world would be pest free thanks to this wonder compound. It didn’t seem to occur to these same scientists to ask whether or not these pests had a role to play in nature’s scheme of things or to concern themselves with any problems DDT might incidentally cause. As we know now, one of those problems was to so weaken egg shells that we damn near lost the bald eagle population of the west coast.

Men in white lab coats also told us that thalidomide was a dandy birth control drug … that IUD devices were great contraceptive devices … that tobacco was, if not good for you, at least harmless and that asparatame is the perfect substitute for sugar.

The money to be made if the truth of these and other scientific assertions are accepted is mind-boggling. Tobacco, for God’s sake, now condemned by all science is making more sales world wide than ever before. Where there’s money, there’s political influence. The Canadian Pharmaceutical Association, headed by a former Liberal cabinet minister, Judy Erola, is probably the most effective lobby group in the country. They are joined by Cargill, Westons and other agricultural mega-corporations in promoting the hell out of things like asparatame, GM, and caged fish farms so that governments, who receive political donations from them, are like judges on the take. The consumer hasn’t got a chance unless he stands his ground and fights like hell.

When that does happen, he faces contempt and ridicule and he finds that he must somehow, virtually without funds, prove that these scientific miscreants in the white lab coats are wrong.

That’s wrong – the onus is ass backwards. And if we the public don’t just start practicing not only a lot of skepticism but applying a lot of political pressure as well we may be facing a world wide crisis that will make global warming pale into insignificance. For if science is wrong about genetically modified foods, and GM grain is planted all over the world, the resulting catastrophe will be irreversible.