GM nightmare becoming reality

A recent TV interview on Seoige and O'Shea featured Michael, a private person, who was given equal airtime to Patrick, who seemed to be representing Monsanto, a major producer of GM seeds. This particular balanced approach by RTE was roughly the equivalent of giving equal airtime to the head of the Mafia and a small shopkeeper protesting at having to pay protection money. May I please state the following.
1. Many pieces of research –  on the dangers of smoking and the dangers of pharmaceutical drugs like Vioxx, Thalidomide and Zyprexa, for instance – have been played down or simply suppressed by large corporations until too many people started dying for them to cover it up any longer. All of these have been or are now the subject of serious litigation. A Russian study (reported in the Independent 17 Feb) has just confirmed what Michael said abut GM foods causing organ damage in lab experiments. Will it be too late for thousands more innocent people before the chemical corporation megalomaniacs are forced to admit that they were, as I and many thousands of concerned people believe, totally wrong?

2. The major point of Michael's argument should have stopped the debate. That was that GM foods cross-contaminate over many miles and that can never be reversed. Until we have more time to validate the research that Michael referred to, we should not allow GM foods into Ireland. Why so much haste, Patrick?

3. Patrick eventually admitted that Monsanto's patents will ensure that they would own a major portion of our food supply for 20 years. A terrifying, Orwellian nightmare is now a real possibility. "Buy our food at any price we want to charge and however harmful it is or starve."

4. It is true that a Canadian farmer was sued because his crops had become contaminated by GM foods against his wishes. Quite what twist of logic Patrick was using to deny this is not clear to me but, naturally, I am sure he wasn't actually lying. Even more appalling is that the farmer lost the case. Even though he protested vigorously and absolutely did not want his crops contaminated, he lost the case. Patent is patent.

Kafka? Orwell? They used to be unimaginable horror stories but now we just shrug and keep our heads down. What happened in the last 20 years to make us so docile?

Dick Barton, Tinahely