We're the government, trust us!

"This could be something quite big. We might be setting up a huge problem."

~Robert Kremer, USDA Soil Scientist, on the damage caused by Monsanto's genetically engineered RoundUp Ready technology

We hear frequently about the "revolving door" of professionals who go from FDA -> Monsanto -> Dept. of Agriculture -> CropLife -> the EPA and so on. It's gone on for years and years in both Republican and Democratic administrations.

President Obama promised during his campaign to “...tell ConAgra that it’s not the Department of Agribusiness. It’s the Department of Agriculture. We’re going to put the people’s interests ahead of the special interests.” Yet he's already appointed two members of the revolving door club to key posts. (And you know it pains me to point that out because I love me some Obama.)

1. Islam Siddiqui -- current VP of science and regulatory affairs at CropLife, and a former lobbyist -- has been nominated to the critical post of U.S. Chief Agricultural Negotiator. This position will enable him to keep pushing chemical pesticides, inappropriate biotechnologies, and unfair trade arrangements on nations that do not want and can least afford them.

I wonder if Michelle kicked her husbands butt over that? After all, it was CropLife who wrote to her when she planted the White House victory garden, nicely explaining why she should use pesticides, why promoting local foods isn't a good idea, and how she's taking business away from farmers. What a hussy.

#2 Roger Beachy -- long-time head of Monsanto’s defacto nonprofit research arm -- has been installed as director of the USDA’s newly created National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA). This office comes with a $500 million budget, and therein control over the U.S. ag research agenda for years to come.

Beachy, as I've recently learned from the book I'm reading: Lords of the Harvest: Biotech, Big Money, and the Future of Food, is basically one of the fathers of genetic engineering. His work was what led to virus-resistant crops, so I'm kind of thinking he's all for GMOs.


Although our government seems to lean to the side of biotech companies like Monsanto and DuPont because of their loose purse strings, there are some government scientists and organizations out there who are speaking out about the issues with genetically engineered crops.

Doug Gurian-Sherman, a scientist who served on an FDA biotech advisory subcommittee from 2002 - 2005, argues that we just can't be sure of the long-term safety of these crops based on current testing. Gurian-Sherman is now a senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit environmental group who says "The U.S. response (to questions about biotech crop safety) has been an extremely patronizing one. They say 'We know best, trust us.'"

The Government Accountability Office has also looked at some sketchy happenings at the USDA, EPA and FDA and made suggestions regarding the safety of genetically engineered crops  Said suggestions were, naturally, never adopted, however the EPA did try to make us feel better by saying that they review products every 15 years or so, so they should get to everything eventually.

You can read more in this Special Report: Are regulators dropping the ball on biocrops? (I think we already know the answer to that.)