As if they couldn’t get enough birth defects and ecocide from this war criminal..
Just Don’t Do It
By An Dien
Thanh Nien News
Investing in GMOs is the worst decision Vietnam could make at this time, putting its food sovereignty at risk, independent scientists say
A Thai organic farmer pretends to be dead after eating GM corn during a protest against the introduction of genetically modified organisms(GMOs) to Thailand outside the Government House in Bangkok in 2004. Opponents say that investing in GMOs is the worst decision Vietnam can take at this juncture when the market for GM crops is shrinking and more evidence emerges about its long term implications.
The jury is not really out on genetically modified organisms (GMOs).
Activists are unequivocal that they are very harmful to human and environmental health. They point to the many lies and discredited information its proponents keep pushing as evidence. The proponents, meanwhile, hail it as a scientific advance that has the potential to solve the world’s hunger problems.
To promote GMOs at this point is probably the worst decision that Vietnam can make, activists, many of them independent scientists, say. They reiterate that the information widely circulated about genetically-modified (GM) crops is conspicuously biased and incomplete.
Many of the so-called facts produced by Monsanto, the world’s largest seed company, have been proven wrong long ago, they assert.
As this technology can impact everyone who eats, persist in the environment, negatively impact farmers, and destroy export markets, it makes sense to find every excuse to cancel or at least delay its deployment,” said Jeffrey Smith, founder and executive director of the Institute for Responsible Technology (IRT), a California-based NGO that seeks to educate policymakers and the public about the risks and impacts of GMOs on health, environment, agriculture, and the global economy.
The Vietnamese government approved in 2006 a blueprint to develop GM crops through a “major program for the development and application of biotechnology in agriculture and rural development through 2020.”
The plan envisaged the completion of lab research and field trials of some GM crops by 2010, cultivation by 2015 and planting of between 30 and 50 percent of the country’s farmland by 2020.
The Agricultural Genetics Institute said it believed that GM corn, which is more resistant to insect pests and grass pesticides, could ensure crop yields 30-40 percent higher than normal.
A pilot cultivation of the GM corn in the northern province of Vinh Phuc has shown no negative impact on the environment and biological diversity, the institute said early this month.
The Vietnamese government has given the go-ahead to field trials of GM maize, cotton and soybean plants before planting them on a large scale, which is slated to begin in 2012.
GM crops have performed far better than their non-GM counterparts,” Le Huy Ham, director of the Agricultural Genetics Institute, was quoted by local media as saying.
Ham went on to say that the public could rest assured that no study in the world has been able to conclude that the GM crops would be harmful to people’s health.
Known liar
International experts reject these claims emphatically.
Monsanto lies. That’s what they do – they’ve lied in nearly every country, for decades,” said Smith, who authored the book “Seeds of Deception: Exposing Industry and Government Lies about the Safety of the Genetically Engineered Foods You’re Eating.”
They’ve been caught, convicted, fined, and publicly humiliated, and yet they continue to lie.”
The increase in yields claimed “would have been known and will show in data. It’s only spin doctors’ claims,” said Hervé Le Crosnier, a researcher at the France’s University of Caen.
In fact we have two different kinds of way to measure yield. First is the intrinsic (or potential) one, which considers only the best conditions, and then the operational yield, which considers the real production in the farm, including pest resistance, drought, or climate⦔
Such claims are typical advertisement practice. They don’t rely on data in real use, in the fields, in diverse situations, but are extrapolation of experiments that are done in the best possible conditions,” Le Crosnier said.
Read more at Thanh Nien News
What Vietnam Needs to Know:
Roundup and birth defects: Is the public being kept in the dark? Earth Open Source, June 2011
Herbicide-tolerance and GM crops Greenpeace, June 2011
Per USDA, Herbicide Use Increases with GE Crops, Beyond Pesticides, June 2011
More problems with glyphosate: Rice growers sound alarm, Food Freedom, May 2011
Scientists warn of link between dangerous new pathogen and Monsanto’s Roundup, Food Freedom, Feb 2011
Monsanto’s superweeds come home to roost: 11 million US acres infested, Generation Green, Oct. 2010
GM Soy: Sustainable? Responsible? Superweeds and birth defects: A review of scientific evidence on genetically modified soy and the herbicide glyphosate, Sept. 2010
Three Approved GMOs Linked to Organ Damage, Food Freedom, Jan. 2010
Food Freedom 
They are masters of the “not technically a lie”. When they state that GMOs have the “potential” to solve world hunger they mean… when the population they intend to “help” are dead, they no longer hunger… problem solved. Very scientifical.
lol
I couldn’t believe it when I came across this article. But I am so glad there is a strong civil movement against it.
jeez, are the leaders of EVERY nation corrupt? How could sign these agreements after what Agent Orange did their nation.
Great article, hard to believe that Viet Nam would allow this after the years they have suffered with the after effects of Agent Orange and over 50,000 birth defects and on and on. But Monsanto knows how to bypass all that by cutting right to the source of corruption with plenty of cash to pave their way into the peoples fields. It does not matter to the official and businessmen who receive the cash if the stuff works or destroys the country, they got their money everything is just great. Thailand had plans to bring in GMO’s but their European buyers told them “you will lose us if you do” and that shut it down hopefully for good.
Doc Blake
As a veteran who was exposed to Agent Orange, as one who has lost many fellow veterans to the illnesses linked to Agent Orange, and as one who has seen the devastation to many of the approximately 5 million victims in Vietnam, I am appalled. Monsanto as well as the US Government told us Agent Orange was safe – the same Monsanto is telling the people and government of Vietnam that GMO’s are safe. How can Monsanto and the other manufacturers possibly be believed? It will be too late if Vietnam moves forward with GMO’s – once it is introduced, there is no turning back. The devastation will continue for untold generations – just like the devastation caused by Agent Orange.
The intention of Monsanto is simply to introduce GMO’s. They know precisely what they are doing here. As you say once introduced there is no turning back. According to Don Westfall, biotech industry consultant and vice-president of Promar International, in the Toronto Star, January 9 2001: “The hope of the industry is that over time the market is so flooded [with GMOs] that there’s nothing you can do about it. You just sort of surrender”.
Quote taken from the section titled ‘Is it intentional?’ on the page: ‘Monsanto, Genetic Pollution.’ SourceWatch website address:
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Monsanto,_Genetic_Pollution_and_Monopolism
A lot of interesting news items on this page.
We can’t stop progress by past mistakes. Rather, lessons from the past is progress of the present.
Hmmm, not sure if I understand you Hailu. But this company Monsanto and other companies plus the USA together have committed some major crimes against humanity and just one of them is against the people of Viet Nam. When people are maimed and die and it goes on for years after the fact that case is never closed until the guilty are punished. You cannot build progress over the bodies of your victims no matter whom or what you are.
Our government… teaches the whole people by its example. If the government becomes the lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. ~Louis Dembitz Brandeis
“Go at once, this very minute, stand at the cross-roads, bow down, first kiss the earth which you have defiled, and then bow down to all the world and say to all men aloud, ‘I am a murderer!’ Then God will send you life again. Will you go, will you go?”
– Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment, Ch. 30
Doc Blake
Recently returned from Vietnam (17 August) from a series of meetings and discussions on the 50th anniversary of the use of Agent Orange on Vietnam. One of the companies that made Agent Orange was Monsanto who still today 50 years on still refuses to accept responsibility or to make any compensation.
In my speech to the conference in Hanoi on the anniversary I called for all concerned with GMO not to buy it, not to plant it and not to eat it. I sincenerly hope that the authorities get the message. As one of te above comments states, once it is planted into the soil, that’s it. Just as the dioxin within Agent Orange got into the bodies of the Vietnamese, it resulted in many thousands of abnormal births, deaths and massive numbers of deformaties. Today Vietnam has four million victims affected by Agent Orange.
By the use of Agent Orange, Monsanto, Dow and the other companies poisoned the earth and bodies of the people of Vietnam, with GMO they will destroy the country. This must not be allowed. I urge all who read this and other such comments to write to the Vietnamese embassy in their country calling on the authorities, Do Not Plant GMO.
Hi, Len ~ Welcome back. We’d love to post a piece by you that expands on your comment making the connection between GMOs and herbicide poisoning with the status of dioxin issues in Vietnam.
2,4-D (half of Agent Orange) is used in several herbicides applied on GM crops.
Or, if you have a video of your speech in Vietnam, we’d post that.
thanks for checking in and updating us.
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Irony at its Peak!–With The Right HAND of Monsanto he Offers Seeds and with his LEFT Hand….He leaves Vietnam Barren!–so that he can play “SEED-DOCTOR”….And He Has Gotten What He Wanted–First He Destroys A Great Land and Her People in order to TAKE IT OVER and Own Vietnam!–one Death Row of “seeds” at a Time….Robbing Vietnam of her BEAUTY and NATURE and ORGANIC FRUIT TREES in Order to “replace” Life-Source with DISEASED CROPS and even MORE Agent-Orange….for every time he “PLANTS” so he SPRAYS….like a Dog he PISSES on Land to Land to Land….until we are all HIS “VIETNAM”….He has just Finished turning My “WEST-VIRGINIA” USA Into Little Vietnam….And State to State to STATE….In Order To Make A Land “DEPENDENT” On His Illness….he FIRST Must DESTROY All Natural Independent RESOURCES….so that there is NO other Option….but to EAT his seed of Death….As For ME I Would Choose DEATH Before I Bowed To His Seed….For To Live UNDER Monsanto is an Agony WORSE Than Death….As Every Vietnamese Madonna and Child KNOW….
ShAnNaH
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