Hillary Clinton backs GMOs to the hilt

The Times of San Diego reports on Hillary Clinton’s keynote speech to biotech heavy hitters, at the recent BIO International Convention.

The headline is: “Hillary Clinton Cheers Biotechers, Backing GMOs and Federal Help.”

Hillary professes worry that biotech companies are moving their operations out of the US. The answer? Federal subsidies, of course:

“’Maybe there’s a way of getting a representative group of actors at the table’ to discuss how the federal government could help biotechs with ‘insurance against risk,’ she said.”

In other words, stay in the US, carry out as much research as you want to, and we’ll knock down lawsuits, pay you for your failures, and support you when you lie and claim your results are positive and pose no risk to human health.

Perfect.

The Times of San Diego continued:

“She [Hillary] said the debate about GMOs might be turned toward the biotech side if the benefits were better explained, noting that the ‘Frankensteinish’ depictions could be fought with more positive spin.”

Yes, we need more spin. And with Hillary, we can count on it. Here’s the quote from her speech:

“I stand in favor of using [GMO] seeds and products that have a proven track record…There’s a big gap between the facts and what the perceptions are.”

So true. The media/government fostered perception is that GMO crops are wonderful, whereas the fact is they’re a dangerous failure. (If you need a starter course, refer to gmwatch.org and read the whole site from end to end, including archives.)

In her speech, Hillary cited drought-resistant GMO crops as an example of a breakthrough she championed as secretary of state.

However, in the Union of Concerned Scientists report, “High and Dry,” we have this:

“Biotechnology companies such as Monsanto have held out the promise that genetic engineering can…[create] new crop varieties that can thrive under drought conditions and reduce water demand even under normal conditions….

“Though the mid-2000′s saw a surge in field trials for crop varieties with engineered drought tolerance traits, as of 2012 only one such variety—Monsanto’s DroughtGard [corn], containing the engineered gene cspB—had been approved by the USDA.

“The results so far paint a less than spectacular picture of DroughtGard’s effectiveness: USDA analysis of data supplied by Monsanto show that DroughtGard produces only modest results, and only under moderate drought conditions at that. The report estimates that cspB corn would increase the overall productivity of the U.S. corn crop by only about one percent. And DroughtGard does not improve water use efficiency.”

In other words, the whole drought-resistant GMO crop promise is proving to be a dud.

Of course it is, because the strategy of injecting a genetic element that will make crops continue to live in a waterless environment is like pretending plant photosynthesis can thrive in a perpetually dark cellar. It’s a straight-out con, a billion-dollar hustle.

But Hillary happens to be a willing partner in the hustle.

And her speech in San Diego sent that clear signal to the biotech community: Elect me and we’ll work it out. I’ll control the cash. You’ll issue the fake results. We’ll hit new highs.

She would uphold the tradition of Presidency as the seat of unconscionable deception.

Equally important, she’d be the first woman President whose family was teetering on the edge of applying for food stamps. Had to throw that one in there.

Are the Republicans any better on the GMO issue? Of course not. Bipartisan support for GMOs is as firm as a rock, from which both blood (decimation of human health) and money can be squeezed.