Monsanto Conspiracy Theory

Back in the day, I was a genetic scientist.

And now I'm not.

Why?

Because the reality of genetic engineering is this:  We have no idea what this genetic modifications will mean to the world's ecosystem in the long run.  The whole butterfly-flapping-causes-a-hurricane thing.  And these are serious changes that are being introduced.  Here are the most common purposes:

1. Placing genes for immunity to pesticides in foods...and then dumping large amounts of pesticides on the foods. (uhm, yum?  What are all the pesticides going to do to us?  And with such a detrimental action as obliteration, how long do you think it will take weeds and whatnot to gain immunity to the pesticides?  After all, bacteria and fungi have made our antibiotics nearly useless now...and that's less than 50 years before they became worthless)
2. Placing homemade genes to overcome human diseases into viruses and then pumping those into humans.  (seems that it would give the viruses a distinct advantage in some human hosts- possibly even cause the viruses to learn how to disable the genes just so that a mutualism relationship forms and protects the viruses...that's how mitochondria got trapped, after all).

So, you can see I was super popular among my peers, but biology is going to reach a state of equilibrium or homeostasis (or strive to) no matter what type of change you introduce- that's the law of life.  It makes sense, right?  If you're cold, your body will shiver until you warm up.  If you're hot, you sweat to cool off.  If you're sick, your body ramps up the immune system to deal with the infection.

Well, large companies, like Monsanto, have been making BILLIONS of dollars developing the pesticide-resistance crops.  In the late 1990s, they were summarily banned by Europe and the US because the side effects of the genetic engineering seemed rather risky.  

That, along with the stupid mistakes from the medical community, killed the field of genetic engineering at that point.

And I joined the IT world, which pays better, anyway.

After almost 15 years of lobbying, Monsanto is poised to actually win the EU over to its product line.  And, if I didn't know any better, scientists like this, are really working for Monsanto to develop really shitty experiments and thereby make any opposition to Monsanto seem poorly thought out....and then Monsanto wins without any real fight.