We stumbled across quite a questionable article from Grassroot Institute of Hawaii‘s John Engle, one of Grassroot‘s in-house “Policy Analysts” (The most we could find on John & his business was here, and it’s not much). We found it to be disturbingly misinformative and utterly lacking in any factual support, whatsoever. Its repeated use of proof surrogates leads us to believe the author has failed to conduct any research to support his strong claim that the SHAKA Movement is somehow “dishonest” in its efforts to protect the Hawai’ian island of Maui from GMO crop contamination. Additionally, the article’s brash claims form a political attack which does not uphold, but rather counters, the Grassroot site’s goals outlined in the description of its “About” section, wherein Grassroots states that it aims to seeks to educate and inform Hawaii’s policy-makers, news media and the public at large on key public policy issues, “Through the publication of accurate and timely research and commentaries.” Furthermore, the article’s message clashes hard against another of their non-profit status-earning goals,
“To maintain its role as an independent voice and watchdog, the Grassroot Institute refuses to accept funding from the local, state or federal governments. As an I.R.S. 501 (c) 3 non-profit organization, the Grassroot Institute is non-partisan and does not endorse political candidates or parties.”
Having reviewed the article extensively, we conclude that it is not, in fact, an independent voice at all. We venture to call into question the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii‘s nonprofit status based on this article. We feel strongly that the organization, or at least author John Engle, has set out to attack environmentally conscious groups such as the SHAKA Movement without providing any factual evidence to support their claims, and with ulterior motives behind them.The author has no scientific authority to scrutinize SHAKA, and uses fallacious rhetoric to insult the group in lieu of such evidence.
Engle brazenly states,
“Douglas (Rep. of SHAKA Movement) parrots the same tired lies about the health problems allegedly caused by GMO, claiming that it ‘creates foreign proteins that cause autoimmune and many dysfunctions in people’s bodies. They like to cite scientific studies that have been funded by the industry.’ Of course, these harms are undocumented in the scientific literature. Indeed, the broad scientific consensus continues to support the fact that GMO is not harmful to its consumers. As for the accusation of industry funding, it is patently ridiculous. Not only is the scientific community constantly looking to uncover fraudulent data, but there also is a wealth of independent studies that validate the same consensus opinion.”
Engle’s poor grammar is irksome, but it is necessary to address this matter directly by quoting his misinformed rant. Engle failed to produce a developed counterargument against SHAKA Movement‘s health concerns, failed to produce a single example of the claim he is making, and was unable to provide any evidence to support his own greater claim that the scientific community has deemed GMOs safe (mainly because none exists). This article was posted in October of 2014, and to date, there is no scientific consensus about the safety of GMOs – that is, living organisms which have been synthetically modified forcibly by injection, along with the offspring of the resulting organisms (this process does not occur by traditional agricultural practices such as grafting or crop breeding through cross-pollination). Long term effects of the consumption of GMO produce is unknown because testing on humans has not been conducted (for obvious reasons) and animal-testing is limited to the life span of the animals (often mice or rats) the produce is tested on. Therefore, only acute effects can be measured, which doesn’t help us project what will happen to our bodies in the long run if we all start consuming GMO produce (which most of us already have, although many of us are unaware of it). A lack of thorough scientific understanding of the potential dangers of consuming GMO produce long-term due to a lack of data does not equal a scientific consensus that GMO consumption is safe. Far from it. It simply means that GMOs have been released on the open market without being thoroughly tested first – in other words, all GMOs are still in the “experimental” stage, yet are readily being consumed by the unknowing masses, who have not been informed about any potential dangers and are therefore happy to assume that all is well, the food is safe, and that they are not to worry. These are regular folks who depend on government entities such as the FDA and the EPA to protect and safeguard their food supply.
Engle digs himself in deeper as the article trudges on,
“Anti-GMO advocates try to claim that Monsanto and its ilk use ever-larger amounts of these pesticides, resulting in pollution of water, soil, and food supplies. Yet the actual scientific data shows a very different result. According to Academics Review, a non-partisan organization dedicated to reviewing scientific research and criticism thereof, use of glyphosate is actually “a chemical with a lower environmental impact quotient and lower toxicity.” In other words, it does the exact opposite of what the anti-GMO activists claim.”
Again, Engle fails to produce an example of supposed “dishonesty” on the part of SHAKA. His source may be “non-partisan” in terms of the Democratic, Green, and and Republican parties, but certainly pushes a straightforwardly biased political agenda. He fails to supply us with a counterargument for the statement he has cited. He also doesn’t address the alleged issue of an increase in the quantity of glyphosate that is being used.
Oh, yeah – we checked out that Academics Review site. Apparently, there are no members or contacts listed in the Members section, as of July 2, 2015. In the Founders section, we found only two contacts: a “Dr. Chassy” and a “Dr. Tribe.” Apparently, they can only be reached by e-mail, have no introductions or descriptions. They do, however, seem to enjoy criticizing a few well-known GMO whistle-blowers and popular Dr. Oz (no surprise, there), as well as misconstruing some outdated scientific articles as “proof” that GMO’s are safe. Engle quotes Academics Review,
“…use of glyphosate is actually ‘a chemical with a lower environmental impact quotient and lower toxicity.’ In other words, it does the exact opposite of what the anti-GMO activists claim,”
This does not make sense, does not tell us what glyphosate is being compared to or how, nor does it explain the context of the study or its methodology – the very trump card Engle is relying on to make his point for him.
Glyphosate is now banned in the Netherlands, Russia, Mexico, & Sri Lanka, & Brazil is soon to follow.
On a more important note, comparing glyphosate alone to GMO produce, in general, is like comparing apples & oranges. Though the same company developed them all (as well as the Vietnam War’s infamous Agent Orange herbicide,& Atrazine by the company Monsanto is trying to merge with, Syngenta – creating one larger company which will bear a new, as yet unknown name), the implications of GMOs on the whole is much greater than one chemical that certain crops were made to be resistant to (and are therefore more heavily doused with).
Besides it all being beyond fishy, we really wonder who is paying these seemingly objective, suspiciously small organizations to create pro-GMO websites, which certainly aren’t contributing to public knowledge by any means, but are rather serving to confuse more people about an already complicated scientific issue. We also noticed a lot of grammatical errors in Academics Review that strangely resembled the ones we discovered in Engle’s article bashing SHAKA, causing us to further question the credibility of that source. Decidedly, that Academics Review website serves only as another of Engle’s proof surrogates, the best he seems to be able to manage. Why not post a scientific article that supports his claim?
Engle contradicts himself by then going on to smear a scientific report by Moms Across America, claiming that it was unreliable because it was produced by an anti-GMO organization. Of course, it is more than fair to question any scientific claim that seems biased, but why should Engle then rely on an unabashedly pro-GMO website created by two mystery-men, instead of simply supplying us with all of the scientific support he claims to have?
Ultimately, the self-regulating Biotech industry is getting nowhere paying people off to sweep its past mistakes and future plans under the rug and out of the public eye, thanks to health- and environmentally-conscious groups such as Non-GMO Project, GMO Free USA, The Organic & Non-GMO Report, Food & Water Watch, Organic Consumers Union, and No GMOs – as well as the SHAKA Movement, itself -who we have found to be reliable and, contrary to this extremely biased article, honest and without anything to hide. That is more than can be said for Engle, given this brazen and bizarrely cranked-out article or, more approprately, “ramble”.
Sadly, Engle didn’t stop there.
“The Shaka Movement’s tactics show the dishonest lengths anti-GMO activists are willing to go to in order to accomplish their goal. They do not care about science. They do not care about reality. They do not care about people. All they care about is the propagation of an ideology that has no place but on the scrapheap of history. Hopefully Maui’s voters will not be fooled by these snake-oil salesmen into throwing away one of their community’s most valuable industries.”
Herein, Engle states that the reason that so many non-profit groups of citizenry have spent their own time and money, taken off from work, petitioned, and rallied – was all just an elaborate attempt simply to scare everyone? That, if they supported the “valuable” GMO industry, it would show that they, “care about people,” “about science”? About “reality”? And just who is the industry so valuable to? We haven’t seen any drop in grocery prices, if that’s what he means. We haven’t seen any positive changes in our health as a result of wide-scale consumption of GMO produce; in fact, quite the opposite (see linked articles and scientific reports provided below). We don’t find it particularly delicious, so just who is benefiting from all of this manipulated produce? Well, all we can say is, it certainly isn’t us. And we’re just guessing on this one, but it’s probably not you, either.
Engle claims that about 700 jobs will be lost across Maui without GMOs because about that many locals depend on the Monsanto corporation for a living. What we wonder is, why can’t Monsanto grow ordinary, non-GMO crops, since the locals demanded it? And why, if our health and environment are at stake, should we really choose to continue supporting a huge corporation that has effectively monopolized the island? They have agricultural land and equipment capable of growing and harvesting regular old non-GMO crops. Is it possible that the soil has been contaminated with GMO seeds or pollen, making it impossible to revert to traditional, non-GMO crops? Or does Monsanto simply so wealthy, so politically powerful that it has and exercise the right to refuse the demands of people living near its factories and farms? It is possible that, once GMO pollen and seeds are moved around by wind and animals that, there will be no more possibilities for non-GMO crops? We know that pollen and seeds can move as far as across oceans when carried by birds. The world has seen several instances of GMO contamination of once-organic farmland, never to be non-GMO again. It has seen instances of such thorough chemical saturation of soils that they can no longer yield crops. Is it really moral to be defending GMO crops when we honestly have no idea what they pack for our future, or for the future of all life on earth? Should our food, and therefore our health, be completely placed in the hands of a few huge corporations on a silver platter, without any say by the people or intervention from the government? In any case, it sure seems like we should have more options when we bargain with our health and our quickly disappearing natural world. We are currently offered only one option: GMOs, untested, unregulated, unstoppable.
It is pathetic for pro-GMO blurbs, like this one by Mr. Engle, to attack real activist groups, who are not benefiting financially or by any other means from their struggle against this “massive experiment”, as Canadian Geneticist David Suzuki calls it. Still, our largest beef is with the government entities who have sworn to protect the people’s health and environment. Why are they letting this happen, and where is the money going? We have a feeling that only real grass-roots activist groups (not like these posers under the pseudonym of Grassroot Institute Hawaii) can bring about the truth, and the yes-men, like their own John Engle, will only serve to further conceal the truth, given the chance. When we are told not to worry, not to ask questions, we must ask them. When we are told, “Don’t pay attention to the man behind the curtain!” we must reveal him, without fail – for the sake of our survival and our shared world.
Interestingly enough, it seems many countries have jumped on the band-wagon of banning, or at least strictly regulating, GMOs:
“A few years ago, there were sixteen countries that had total or partial bans on GMOs. Now there are at least twenty-six, including Switzerland, Australia, Austria, China, India, France, Germany, Hungary, Luxembourg, Greece, Bulgaria, Poland, Italy, Mexico and Russia. Significant restrictions on GMOs exist in about sixty other countries.
Restraints on trade in GMOs based on phyto-sanitary grounds, which are allowed under the World Trade Organization, have increased. Already, American rice farmers face strict limitations on their exports to the European Union, Japan, South Korea and the Philippines, and are banned altogether from Russia and Bulgaria because unapproved genetically engineered rice “escaped” during open-field trials on GMO rice. Certain Thai exports—particularly canned fruit salads containing papaya to Germany, and sardines in soy oil to Greece and the Netherlands—were recently banned due to threat of contamination by GMOs.”
Source: http://www.thenation.com/blog/176863/twenty-six-countries-ban-gmos-why-wont-us
If GMOs are considered safe by scientific consensus, (and they’re not, by any stretch), why would so many governments be banning various GMO crops from entering their country? Why, then, are such strict regulations being implemented regarding GMOs in places where their import is actually legal?
We have attached some (11) interesting articles from various credible sources such as Geneticist David Suzuki and Biologist Jane Goodall, as well as scientific literature from lesser known but equally authoritative researchers, about GMOs and their potential health and environmental risks via the following link: GMO Articles
Please look them over. We encourage the public not to take our word for it, but rather to conduct their own independent research investigations, carefully scrutinizing the sources for their information as well as scientific methodology and potential biases (Who was paid to conduct study X, and who paid them?). Look our for rhetorical devices such as proof surrogates, straw-men, red herrings, and other fallacious reasoning tactics used to substitute or thwart the pursuit of factual evidence. Do not be discouraged by misinformation; there’s a lot of it out there, but the truth will prevail. We hope this will happen sooner, rather than later.
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