New Biotech Propaganda Targets Children 

Susan Whitehead / Peace & Freedom v.61, n.4, Fall01

Biotechnology is a growing industry that can often seem quite mysterious to many of us. We hear it mentioned in the news with headlines that usually read something like "Miracle Crop Will Feed and Nourish the World." Sounds great! But how are they going to do that? How much do we truly know about biotechnology - its hazards, uses and potentials? Most of us only know a few biotech basics that we have heard in passing.

Biotechnology companies want to make sure that the next generation is more informed, however, so they've funded several new publications aimed at children. The most prominent of these industry-created materials is a children's magazine called Your World: Biotechnology and You (www.biotechinstitute.org). It is distributed free of charge to over 5,000 schools in the United States and Europe. Your World is sponsored and funded by the likes of Monsanto, Pfizer and Novartis- all big biotech firms.

Produced by the biotechnology and genetically modified (GM) food industries, such publications are touted as "educational materials" perfect for elementary through high school students.

Your World is published by The Biotechnology Institute, whose mission is to "engage, excite and educate as many people as possible, particularly young people, about biotechnology and its immense potential for solving human health and environmental problems."

These colorful magazines give a one-sided, biased look at the industry. They attempt to make biotech look fun and exciting; something children would want to get in on. The magazines don't mention any dangers or risks to our environment, or our health. Generally speaking, these "educational materials"- which are sadly one of the few resources for teachers regarding biotechnology education - give false and misleading information about biotech and GM foods.

Many activists are trying to keep these publications out of schools. Joanna Clark of the GM Free Network in Scotland www.gmfreescotland.net  (where 600 schools were sent 84,000 copies of Your World) said in an email interview that Your World is "pure biotechnology propaganda."

"It will mislead young minds by using emotive references to starving people in the Third World and by confusing technology with science. This magazine is designed to make sure that the next generation is not going to ask the same awkward questions about the safety of GM foods that their parents are asking," she said. "PTA members are not happy with industry-created materials in their schools."

Though Your World gives children information about biotechnology and GM foods, most of it is misleading and one-sided. In an article entitled "The Gene Revolution: an answer to poverty and starvation," Your World makes the claim that "GM crops can potentially produce more food with fewer chemicals and higher nutritional value, than traditional crops."

The use of the term potentially (which is frequently used throughout Your World) is a red flag, warning that what they are discussing does not yet exist. If GM crops can grow with fewer chemicals, it is because they would already be genetically equipped with them. Many crops are currently being genetically modified to release pesticides. Farmers don't have to spray on chemicals, because the crops are already releasing them as part of their genetically modified nature. This causes a few problems. For one thing, the pesticides are always "on" explained Paul Goettlich, founder of Mindfully.org, (www.mindfully.org) a Web-based organization that provides resources on genetic engineering and biotechnology.

Having the pesticides always "on" will cause pests to build up a tolerance to the chemicals being used. Such pesticides would be constantly released into the atmosphere, uncontrollably going everywhere and contaminating other crops.

Ultimately, Goettlich said stronger pesticides and more frequent use of them will be needed to control pests. This can lead to the creation of super weeds and insects immune to pesticides. Of course, none of this information was presented in Your World.

In another article, "Weed Warriors: Herbicide Tolerant Crops," Your World promotes the "less toxic" Roundup, created by none other than major magazine sponsor Monsanto. Roundup is the world's best selling weed killer. Monsanto says that it is not harmful to animals and a safer, "less toxic" alternative to other herbicides. However, Roundup contains glyphosphate, which, according to Carolyn Cox, editor of the Journal for Pesticide Reform, is acutely toxic to animals and humans.

In her "Glyphosphate Fact Sheet," Cox states that "Given the marketing of glyphosphate herbicides as benign, it is striking that herbicide studies have adverse effects in all standard toxicology testing. These include medium toxicity (salivary gland lesions), long-term toxicity (inflamed stomach linings), genetic damage (in human blood cells), effects on reproduction (reduced sperm counts in rats; increases frequency of abnormal sperm in rabbits) and carcinogenicity (increased frequency of liver tumors in male rats and thyroid cancer in female rats). In studies of people (mostly farmers) exposed to glyphosphate herbicides, exposure is associated with an increased risk of miscarriages, premature birth and the cancer non-Hodgkins Lymphoma."

Another Your World article discusses the creation of "Golden Rice," to help fight vitamin A deficiency. Your World states that 250 million people suffer from this deficiency. A half million children become blind each year from the deficiency, and half of them die within months. The magazine states that "A bowl of this `golden rice' provides enough vitamin A to keep a person healthy." For starters, "golden rice" is hypothetical. It has not yet been created and if it is one day created, there is no telling how much nutritional value one bowl will hold. Most importantly, do people in developing nations even want such rice or other genetically modified foods? According to Vandana Shiva (in her article "World in a Grain of Rice," written for The Ecologist) people in India do not want any part of golden rice or other GM foods.

Shiva feels that the biodiversity in India was ruined with the Green Revolution when "Chemicals and machines ruined over 200,000 rice varieties. They built India new rice, also creating 40 new insect pests and 12 new diseases." The answer to vitamin A deficiency does not lie with golden rice, according to Shiva. She argues that "through rejuvenating biodiversity, we can solve problems of vitamin deficiency and malnutrition."

Your World's attempt at a "Food Safety Section" starts with the question: Is eating genetically modified foods safe? The writers answer by outlining how dangerous organically grown foods are. Organic foods "are not protected from the fungus and molds that cause health risks," the article says. "A mold that grows on corn and peanuts produces a cancer-causing agent and can cause a whole crop to be rejected:"

What doesn't get mentioned is anything having to do with GM foods or the fact that the Environmental Protection Agency has only recently begun testing the effects eating GM food will have on us.

Another industry publication written with children in mind is Look Closer At Biotechnology, a workbook with everything from coloring to word scrambles. It is published by the Council of Biotechnology Information, which was founded in April 2000 by leading biotech companies such as Monsanto, DuPont and Syngenter.

The council members say they are "committed to providing objective, balanced information to help you better understand and appreciate the benefits biotechnology offers, as well as encourage informed debate about the issues it raises:"

After taking a close look at the workbook, one might wonder what happened to their commitment. On the first page, biotechnology is introduced as "a really neat topic ... helping to improve the health of the earth and the people who call it home:" Throughout the workbook, biotechnology is made to seem like fun. One activity is a matching game, where kids match the food with a potential benefit. For example, bananas go to edible medicines, "in the future bananas could be grown with medicine inside them:"

Another is a "Biotech Whiz Kidz Quiz," which asks questions such as, "Does biotechnology help the earth produce more nutritious food?" The correct answer in the workbook would be "true."

In addition to the workbook, The Council for Biotechnology is sponsoring a "Food of the Future Contest," with a $10,000 scholarship as its winning prize. The contest is for children from 8 to 12 years old, and is also available online at www.biotechandyou.com. Children are asked to create a "food of the future." In 50 to 100 words, they are to describe the name of the food, how it would help people, how it looks, tastes and how it is better than what we have now. These types of activities lead children blindly into the world of biotech and GM foods. It misleads them into thinking from an early age that there is nothing wrong with biotech, and that it is one of the best things to happen.

The only readily available, non-biased biotech information for kids is through a Web site run by the One World Organization which can be reached at www.oneworld.org/penguin/genetics/home.html 

• Other Examples of Industry Financed Propaganda for Young Minds