Tufts University’s Fraudulent China Golden Rice “Experiment”
By LARRY ROMANOFF – September 17, 2020
The US Department of
Agriculture and the US military used Tufts University as a tool under the guise
of conducting innocent food health research, to carry out an illegal,
deplorable and fraudulent biological weapons experiment on unwitting Chinese
children. This is part of that story.
Many groups have
experimented with gene-splicing technology, inserting unrelated DNA into
various seeds. In one case in Canada, a government department discovered an
"anti-freeze" gene contained in the blood of fish living in Arctic
waters, permitting them to survive in waters of sub-zero temperature. The
scientists spliced this gene into Canadian wheat crops, permitting the wheat to
withstand freezing temperatures without damage. An American research lab
spliced the genes from fireflies into tobacco plants, producing a tobacco field
that glowed in the dark. These examples may be harmless, but others are much
less so.
The
US Defense Department has invested huge sums in research directed to splicing
lethal genes into these GM crop seeds, including smallpox, bird and swine flu
viruses, the plague, AIDS, and more. As
a military weapon, such science is priceless. Why bother with a shooting war
when Monsanto can sell them rice, corn and soybeans that contain smallpox and
the H5N1 virus? When the seed is harvested and passes into the nation's food
supply it could, within weeks, exterminate 50% or more of the population
without firing a single shot and with no risk to the aggressor. I have seen US
military documents that even included a handy "cost per death" chart,
demonstrating that seeds are far cheaper and more effective than bombs in the
search for military domination. The report also noted that
"As well, genetic
weapons can be dispersed in a multitude of ways, using virus-infected insects
or bacteria, or spliced into GM seeds. These weapons are difficult to detect
and identify, and often a treatment or vaccine could be years in the
making." (1)
There is no shortage of
direct evidence that GM seed was conceived, financed and developed by the US
military in conjunction with the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) for its
potential use as a biological weapon or, more precisely, a weapons delivery
system. The ability to splice pathogens
into GM seed is now beyond dispute, and has formed a major part of the US
military's bio-chemical warfare development programs. (2) A question no one
seems to have asked is why, for more than 50 years, the United States Army
Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (AMRIID) has been part of the
US military's notorious bio-weapons labs at Fort Detrick, Md., under the
pretense of researching "infectious" diseases. This was the source of
the US military's weaponised anthrax, among many other pathogens.
The
entire American Golden Rice program was funded by the US military through the
USDA, a Department known to frequently cooperate
with the US military especially in the production and development of
bioweapons. The USDA was not only
heavily involved in financing Golden Rice research but was clandestinely
growing its own undocumented strains of this GM rice in its own private
hydroponic systems, strains which were subsequently tested on unknowing
populations. The dangers of GM seed for military use were recognised
decades ago. In 1998, Time Magazine published an article which detailed the
worldwide search for genetic material that might offer remarkable military
applications. (3) (4)
•Vitamin
A
Vitamin A is not one thing,
but rather a large group of related nutritional elements that include retinoids
and carotenoids, retinol, retinoic acid and things like β-Carotene
(beta-carotene). Foods that are high in Vitamin A include sweet potatoes,
carrots, dark leafy greens, peppers, fish, liver, and tropical fruits. Most of
these are part of the daily diet in China, requiring no artificial supplements,
most Chinese obtaining all they need simply by eating a normal diet.
Like most vitamins, Vitamin A is essential for body health, but
this one is unique in many respects in that its presence affects the body's immune
system and genetic functioning. It regulates gene transcription, which
involves breaking the bonds and separating the two strands of a body's DNA and
re-combining and splicing the nuclei of cells, and thus plays a critical role
in cell functioning. Portions of Vitamin A and its related compounds are used
as medicines to modulate a body's gene functions. This is not trivial, and is
the subject of much very high-tech biological research today. It is also true
that while even massive doses of other vitamins may not be harmful, excessive
Vitamin A is toxic to the human body, especially to pregnant women and, given
its extraordinarily complex genetic DNA functions and its effects on the body's
immune system, is not a chemical to be either under- or over-dosed.
•Golden
Rice
This GM
(genetically-modified) food has been controversial for more than a decade, from
concerns that, like many other GM foods, it may be unsafe. GM food is
especially controversial in China, with no consensus as to its safety, is under
strict regulation and, given the substantial trust issues involved, is even
more so when foreign entities or researchers are involved. So-called
"Golden Rice" (for its yellow color) was developed to be rich in
Vitamin A and therefore ostensibly of benefit especially to children. The rice
does not actually contain any Vitamin A, but rather β-Carotene (sometimes
called pro-vitamin A) which the human body synthesises into the vitamin. Golden
Rice was developed jointly in the early 1990s by a Swiss professor of plant
science named Ingo Potrykus, and a German professor of cell biology named Peter
Beyer, with grants from the Rockefeller Foundation. This latter information is
both discouraging and moderately frightening. Here is an explanation by one
internet commenter:
"These are the same
people that let millions die in the US over a period of 30 years from a simple
lack of Niacin. Where were they then, if the Rockefellers want to save the
lives of the poor? Why wouldn't they begin in their own country, especially
when it was widely known the disease [Pellagra] was easily curable? From all
the available evidence, and in spite of all the propaganda and hype, I have
seen nothing that tells me the Rockefeller Institute has ever been interested
in anything but schemes for population reduction. And that means if they are
financing projects to insert beta
carotene into rice, it will be as an adjuvant for yet another GM sterilisation
technique."
I am compelled to agree with
the above assessment, since it is indisputably true that the Rockefeller
Foundation has been for most of a century at the forefront of concocting
schemes of worldwide birth control, fertility reduction and sterilisation in
all non-Western countries, all for the stated purpose of severely reducing the
undeveloped world's population. It is also true that for many decades the
Rockefeller Foundation (and the US government) did indeed observe millions
dying in the US from a simple lack of Niacin (Vitamin B3, or nicotinic acid),
and could easily have devoted resources to eliminating this scourge since the
cause was well-known. They chose to ignore it because the deaths were almost
entirely in the poor and black populations.
•The Golden Rice Propaganda Train
The promotion of this Golden
Rice and the active public support of its field trials and human experiments
arise not only from the Rockefeller Foundation, Syngenta and its so-called
Golden Rice Humanitarian Board, but by the usual list of suspects that include
Monsanto and Bayer, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Several authors
have noted that Golden Rice has been heavily promoted by these major players in
both the GM and population-reduction industries, but the rice achieved its
primary fame for exhibiting what scientists refer to as "wildly erratic
results".
Even though Syngenta and
other supporters sometimes viciously attack detractors, most aid agencies and a
great many reputable scientists have consistently claimed that "Golden Rice is a technical and dangerous
fix for a non-existent problem" since necessary vitamins can be easily
provided by common vegetables. As Dr. Brian John wrote,
"Although the GM
industry trumpets Golden Rice as the savior of humanity and the potential
preventer of millions of cases of blindness or death, even the World Bank has
stated that consumption of local green leafy vegetables and fruits have for
more than 20 years dramatically reduced any deficiency of Vitamin A "in
very cheap and efficient ways"." (5)
The
US FDA, perhaps surprisingly, stated clearly that GM Golden Rice has no
nutritional value, that the beta-carotene in carrots and spinach is 40 to 50
times greater and more easily and safely absorbed. It
further noted that the beta-carotene in Golden Rice is very short-lived, being
exceptionally unstable in the presence of Oxygen and degrades by 90% within
about two months. (6)
According to David Schubert
at the Salk Institute for Biological Sciences La Jolla, California, Golden Rice
can be particularly dangerous because of unpredictable enzyme mutations and
that many clinically toxic effects cannot even be identified or measured by
today's technology. It was stated further that excessive retinoic acid is
"exceedingly dangerous,
particularly to infants and during pregnancy", that it can accumulate
in the body and cause various birth defects. Results from these and many other
longer-term studies indicate that "genetic modification is inherently
dangerous". It seems that only the biotech industry has consistently found
genetically-modified seed and food as safe, perhaps in large part due to their
very short-term studies, whereas a great many other industry researchers have
found in their animal tests an almost consistent pathology related to
consumption of these foods.
This transgenic Golden Rice
has been heavily promoted worldwide by a strategy of guilt-inducing
fear-mongering. We're told that millions of children suffer blindness each year
and millions more die, from a simple deficiency of Vitamin A. GM Golden Rice, the
savior of the world's children, can prevent this. It is a matter of life and
death. If you refuse GM rice in your country or frustrate the attempts of Bill
Gates and the Rockefellers to consume it freely in every (poor) country, you
are personally responsible for those millions of little tragedies. The fact that those children could have
been saved by spinach or carrots is irrelevant; neither spinach nor carrots
have been appointed by god or Bill Gates to save the world; only Golden Rice
has this imprimatur. Even if you don't want GM soybeans or maize to feed
your pigs and depopulate your country, how can you be so heartless as to refuse
GM Golden Rice that will prevent millions of deaths and injuries? In this
context, Golden Rice has substantial propaganda value because it can function
as the poster child for GM food, curing disease while feeding the world, a
claim that cannot easily be made by other GM foods.
But Golden Rice has a second
and more important purpose, which is to function as a kind of Trojan horse. If
you don't know, this metaphor emerged from a story about the Trojan War between
ancient Greece and Troy. The Greeks had besieged the city for a decade but were
unable to subdue it, so they constructed a huge wooden horse which they filled
with soldiers, left the horse at the city gate ostensibly as a farewell gift,
and appeared to sail away. The Trojans naïvely pulled the horse into their city
and, during the night, the Greek soldiers emerged, overcame resistance and
opened the city gates to the Greek army who had quietly sailed back to Troy.
The Greeks destroyed Troy (from the inside, rather than by external attack) and
won the war. And this is the true function of Golden Rice - to force nations by
fear and guilt to open their Gates (sorry, gates) to all GM food, removing
import restrictions under the guise of humanitarian aid, overcoming internally
that which cannot be overcome by direct external attack.
The Journal Science
published an opinion paper authored by a group of respected international
scientists, which stated the US needs to provide better justification for
military involvement in GM seed creation, instead of the US State Department
merely claiming "the project is for peaceful purposes and does not violate
the Biological Weapons Convention." Guy Reeves, a biologist at the Max
Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology in Germany, and one of the authors,
said this technology "is more
feasible as a weapon - to kill ... than as an agricultural tool. Another
co-author, Todd Kuiken, a senior research scholar at North Carolina State
University, said, "The pure fact
that this is a military program would naturally raise ... questions".
(7)
•The Tufts University Experiment
The official narrative of
Golden Rice is that it can provide citizens of poorer nations with their daily
requirement of Vitamin A. In 2012, Tufts University in Massachusetts conspired
with the US Department of Agriculture, the US State Department and unknown
other agencies, to conduct a Golden Rice experiment on Chinese children in
China, ostensibly as a field trial to prove these claims. But this was done in a secretly-arranged and
conducted experiment that had already previously been prohibited by China's
health authorities, and which was riddled with deplorable ethics and
illegalities. It is of more than usual concern that the US government and
an American university would presume to surreptitiously
conduct a clearly unethical and illegal test of a GM food on Chinese children.
(8)
For this study, the Tufts
researchers followed the standard American template for their "China"
tests, which is to enlist a native-born Chinese researcher on staff to contact
low-level officials in a poor Chinese province to obtain their cooperation in
an American research project for which the real purpose is seldom if ever
disclosed. I know from experience that these local officials are often badly
misled as to the real intent of these studies, are without exception wined and
dined, and are probably often paid as well. And, in virtually every case I've
examined, the Chinese participants in these studies (I usually refer to them as
"victims") were never informed of the fact of the trial being an
experiment, sometimes not informed of the trial at all, simply being unwitting
participants, and not once therefore being in a position to provide consent -
informed or otherwise. This case was not different. In fact, Chinese journalists found an email to the
research team urging the organisers "to not speak openly" of the fact
the children were being fed GM-modified food because the topic was deemed to be
"too sensitive" to reveal to the childrens' parents. (9)
To conduct the tests, Tufts
University sent unidentified personnel to China who may or may not have been
Tufts University staff but may have been employed by the USDA, a US Pharma
company, or another branch of the US government that could include the
military. They arranged with local officials in a poor school district to feed
their Golden Rice to a group of about 100 small children daily for several
weeks, during and after which they conducted unidentified and undetermined
blood and other tests on the children, then packed their data and returned to
the US.
Tufts and the USDA might
have escaped with their duplicity and deceit, but for Greenpeace who noticed an
article published in August of 2012 in The American Journal of Clinical
Nutrition, which claimed that GM Golden Rice had been used in an experimental
test on Chinese children in Hengyang City in China's Hunan Province. Greenpeace
informed China's CDC of the tests, claiming "the parents likely were
completely unaware or misinformed" of the fact and/or purpose of the
study, an accusation that proved to be true. Questioning the trial’s
legitimacy, and condemning the research as exposing the children to health
risks, Greenpeace said the trial contravened a Chinese Ministry of Agriculture
decision in 2008 to abort plans for the project, was a breach of scientific and
medical ethics, and asked the government to launch an investigation. Fang Lifeng
at Greenpeace said it was "incredibly disturbing" to think that an
American institution had used Chinese children as the subjects of its
experiment. "Chinese agriculture authorities stopped the same trial four
years ago. How did the research come to be revived after that emphatic
ban?"
Local officials initially
denied the claims, stating there had instead been a study on the transformation
of vegetable carotene into Vitamin A in children, and that the study had been
conducted by the Chinese CDC in its Hunan branch. According to Xinhua News, the
officials further stated that the study had not involved any American
institution, that all parents had been notified and approved of the
"experiment", that the study "did not involve GM rice or other
GM food", that all food used in the experiment had been purchased locally
and, finally, that all results from the study had been immediately submitted to
the China CDC upon completion. According to them, the study was approved by the
ethics review committee of the Zhejiang Academy of Medical Sciences, with both
parents and pupils consenting to take part in the study.
The Chinese government did
indeed look into the matter immediately, and the China CDC conducted a
three-month investigation that included sending representatives to the US to
interview researchers at Tufts University and to obtain copies of the blood
samples and other data that were removed from China without authorisation. Upon
discovery of the facts, the government applied severe sanctions against the individuals
involved and provided substantial compensation to the enraged parents and
children who were victims of this clandestine experiment. Several Chinese scientists who participated in the scam were dismissed
from their posts, including two members of the CDC staff itself and the head of
science and technology at the Zhejiang Academy of Medical Sciences.
The
apparent leader of this experiment, a native Chinese named Tang, was the
director of the (USDA-financed) Carotenoid and Health Laboratory at Tufts
University. When the China CDC began its
investigation, Tang insisted that the study had been conducted with all
required regulatory approval, whereupon Tang was asked to provide a detailed
report of her research and supporting materials to document her authorisation. The CDC discovered that Tang did not make
the necessary application to the government to conduct her experiment,
neglected to apply for ethical evaluation of the study, but instead fabricated
(i.e., forged) all the government approval documents.
Another serious ethical
violation was that the consent forms did not mention GM rice and parents they
were shown only the signature page of the consent form. Moreover, it appears
that at least some consent forms from a local nutritional study had been
dishonestly used to support this illegal Tufts study, and further that many
other consent forms and supporting
documentation had been either back-dated or forged in total. The CDC also
discovered that Tang and Tufts
University brought their Golden Rice from the US into China illegally,
without declaration to Chinese Customs or other relevant authorities. The CDC
stated that the American collaborators in their little conspiracy
"meticulously concealed the reality" that the experiment involved
golden rice. In summary, the CDC accused
all participants at Tufts of concealing the main facts, shading the truth, repeatedly
creating interference to discovery of the facts, and illegally obstructing the
investigation.
The
entire American Golden Rice program at Tufts was funded by the US military,
through the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), from which originated these
illegal experiments in China. Even more, the USDA was clandestinely growing
undocumented strains of this GM rice in its own private hydroponic systems. It
was in cooperation with, and perhaps at the specific directive of, the USDA,
that Tufts researchers initiated the study on Chinese children, presented as an independent Tufts academic
research project to disguise its true origin and purpose.
Further, and more seriously,
the USDA wasn't the only government body involved in this experiment with Chinese
children. Another US government health group called the NIDDK was heavily
involved in financing and publicly defending this experiment, and therefore as
well in the strategy and planning. The same NIDDK revealed that the US State
Department had given approval and clearance for this China experiment after
reviewing it for "any potentially negative foreign policy
implications." This latter quote is
of enormous significance since the State Department is never involved in such
matters except in conditions involving international illegalities or the
contravention of national sovereignty, or perhaps the prospect of a public
revelation of military subterfuge as for example a clandestine test of a
biological pathogen on the citizens of a foreign nation.
For this medical trial
which, on the surface, was apparently innocuous and almost trivial, to have
required and obtained White House and State Department approval is virtually
irrefutable proof that something much more important was occurring than the
absorption of Vitamin A.
I should note here that the
above State Department quotation is not unique. It has been used in situations
where the US military has planned bio-weapons experiments and field tests on an
unwitting public, sometimes in foreign countries and often against American
citizens. When US Defense Secretary Robert McNamara planned and executed his
150 simultaneous and different top-secret bio-weapons programs in the late
1960s and early 1970s, the wording then was the same. As I noted elsewhere, McNamara
ordered the military Joint Chiefs of Staff "to consider all possible
applications" of these agents against enemy nations in a coherent plan for
a total "biological and chemical deterrent capability", the plan to include cost estimates and an
"appraisal of international political consequences". I have
little doubt the above review by the US State Department for "potentially
negative foreign policy implications" has a similar origin.
It is not a secret that
Tufts' Golden Rice efforts in the past have been covered with scandals, both in
the US and China, with their US trials attracting condemnation. In an article
in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Tom Bartlett noted that "This isn't the first time research on
Golden Rice at Tufts has been criticized." Tufts University had already
done the same in New Zealand and other countries, and had attempted to
conduct precisely such studies in China in prior years but were refused
permission. A similar study that had
begun in China in 2008 was discovered and ordered aborted, these particular
trials and experiments then being specifically banned by China's national
government.
The Americans, whether Tufts
researchers or USDA/Military officials, did not bring their GM Golden Rice into
China through normal channels. Instead, they
smuggled it into the country without declaring it to Chinese Customs officials.
You don't need to be a lawyer to recognise this as an illegal act of some
magnitude, since the import of seeds and most foodstuffs is heavily regulated
by all countries and, if caught, these people would almost certainly have been
imprisoned. This is not normal conduct one would expect from a highly-regarded
American university and a Department of the US government conducting a
legitimate vitamin field trial.
The
Americans cooked the rice before smuggling it into China, an action bereft of
rational explanation, and to my best knowledge
Tufts has refused to provide one. Since the rice was to be mixed with normal
rice and eaten by the children during school lunches, both varieties should
have been cooked at the time, immediately prior to eating. Given the
clandestine nature of the entire affair, I see only a few possibilities for
this, one of which may have been a questionable attempt to evade China's
prohibition on the import of GM products by claiming that cooked rice does not
fall under this definition. A more serious - and more likely - possibility is
that the rice was cooked to disguise
viral or other biological material which may have been spliced into the rice
DNA, and which would have been easily detectable in uncooked rice but perhaps
detected only with difficulty in the cooked version. A third is that for
this experiment a chemical or biological additive was necessary in the cooking
process, which would have been problematic if done in China in the school
kitchen, under the observation of Chinese staff.
Contrary
to the claims of Tufts University that no harm had been done, there were
repeated reports of children suffering reactions to the rice, such as nausea,
upset stomach, vomiting and similar, with many children developing dizziness
and fever during the trial. One mother reported that
her daughter aged 11 was a participant in the program, receiving this GM rice
for 15 days, but withdrew her from the tests after the girl developed a severe
fever on at least three occasions. None
of these are normal reactions to uncontaminated rice, and strongly suggest the
possibility of an undisclosed biological pathogen. She also noted that the
children received frequent blood tests without explanation, being informed the
blood would be sent to the US for testing. As more than one set of parents
asked, "If it’s safe, why did they need to deceive us into this?"
Moreover, why would the childrens’ blood samples need to be spirited out of
China (illegally) and sent to the US for testing?
It is not the result of
excessive suspicion that these physical reactions, combined with the inordinate
secrecy and overall illegality, have all the hallmarks of the delivery to the children
of some kind of substitute vaccine or similar. Given the serious genetic role
played by Vitamin A in the human body, and its role in the human immune system
- or immune-suppression system - I find all of this worrying. I do not know
what tests China's CDC performed on these children during their investigation,
but I would be surprised if further testing failed to reveal the existence of
antibodies that should not be present. It would also be mandatory to examine
whether the future fertility of these little victims had been compromised in
any way by the USDA's version of Golden Rice. It is possible these children may have been rendered sterile.
•The
Pathogenic Nature of the Tufts Experiment
There is one additional
matter relating to the perpetration of this GM rice on Chinese children, that
of the inherent pathogenic nature of all genetically-modified food. The fact that the USDA was so determined as
to make repeated attempts over many years to secretly conduct this Golden Rice
experiment on Chinese children in China, raises many warnings. If this were
a simple matter of testing a spinach substitute for its Vitamin A content,
there would be no need for secrecy or smuggling. The simple fact that these
experiments were not conducted openly is sufficient proof in itself that the
USDA was hiding something, perhaps even from the researchers themselves. And
that 'something' will almost certainly be pathogenic. It is of even more
concern when we consider the USDA's determination to conduct these trials specifically
in China and not in any other nation, leading immediately to a suspicion the
pathogens were race-specific.
Given all the secrecy, the
denials and cover-ups, and the documented fact that many of the Chinese
children suffered physical reactions, in some cases rather serious, leads one
to question the actual content and intent of Tufts' experiment in China. This
concern is exacerbated by the fact that the USDA created and produced this
particular undocumented strain of Golden Rice in its own labs, and grew the
rice itself in its own hydroponic stations. There is therefore no documentation or proof of precisely what
was fed to the children, beyond only a vague claim by Tufts researchers
that this strain contained large amounts of pro-Vitamin A, a claim that tells
us precisely nothing about the genetic manipulation performed on the plants.
Again, given the negative physical reactions by the children to this rice,
reactions that would be impossible with normal rice, it is reasonable to theorise that the children were actually fed not a
pro-Vitamin but a pro-pathogen. And, given the USDA's suspicious repeated
determination to conduct this experiment specifically in China on Chinese
children (rather than in India on Indian children, or in Japan on Japanese
children), it is also reasonable to
theorise that the pathogen was race-specific.
One of the dangers voiced by
many scientists is that the various strains of this Golden Rice were apparently
made with 'genetic modification techniques' "that cause uncontrollable
mutations and other collateral damage to the host plant genome, with many
unintended, uncharacterized effects". More frighteningly, ISIS wrote that
the viral sequences "created for enhanced horizontal gene transfer and
recombination, the main route to creating new pathogens." Another ISIS
article titled, The 'Golden Rice', An Exercise in How Not to Do Science, stated
that the science involved was being promoted not for human health but "to
salvage a morally as well as financially bankrupt agricultural biotech
industry", concluding that these clinical
trials of "uncharacterized, unapproved, experimental (Golden Rice) on
children ... is morally inexcusable."
A group of acclaimed
international biologists and other scientists wrote a strongly-worded letter of
protest to Professor Robert Russell at Tufts University, stating in part,
"We are writing to express our shock and unequivocal denunciation of the
experiments conducted by your colleagues which involve the feeding of
genetically modified Golden Rice to (Chinese children) . . . These unethical
and potentially dangerous trials MUST be stopped." (10)
A news release by Dr Brian
John at GM Free Cymru stated that these trials ... "are shrouded in
mystery, and may even have been illegal since Golden Rice has no regulatory
approvals either in the USA or elsewhere for cultivation or use as a food.
There are not even any published animal feeding trials. Other research results
are shrouded in mystery and secrecy. It is almost unbelievable that any human feeding
trials of Golden Rice should be contemplated by Tufts University and the
American authorities, since this is a GM
variety which is acknowledged to be very unstable and unpredictable in its
behavior, and which has no authorizations for cultivation or food use anywhere
in the world. The use of children in these experiments is profoundly disturbing,
since they are in no position to understand the implications or the risks to
their long- term health that might arise from eating an untested GM variety.
The ethical issues are even more disturbing ... the feeding of an untested GM
rice to vulnerable and sick children is absolutely unforgivable."
In an ISIS report, the
agency wrote that "One major hazard inherent to GM organisms is enhanced
horizontal gene transfer and recombination (which) is considerably worse with
transgenic plants like Golden Rice because ... (it provides) a ready vehicle
for ... horizontal gene transfer to all species ... including human cells. In
general, horizontal transfer of
transgenic DNA facilitates the creation of new pathogens. The identification of
(these) sequences ... raises questions as to whether the widespread use ... in
genetic modification has indeed resulted in creating a new pathogen for
humans." One of India's most respected biotechnologists, Dr. Vandana
Shiva, was a speaker at an international biotechnology conference where she
said a Syngenta representative told her
Syngenta's goal was to "control food" by the end of the century. (11)
•Denial,
Lies and Cover-Up
Following the public
disclosure of their illegal experiment and prior to China's CDC investigation, Tufts University followed the standard
American pattern (as exemplified by Harvard University in Anhui, China, for
example) of denial, then repeated lying about the facts, followed by the
typical obfuscation and mis-statements to cover up their ethical failures and
illegalities. Then, as is also so typical, when finally forced to face the
indisputable truths, Tufts exonerated themselves then blamed the Chinese for
their lack of ethics. (12)
Tufts did finally
effectively admit it had used small Chinese children as guinea pigs in a GM
food experiment without disclosing either the fact or the nature of their
project, and admitted their researchers "were out of compliance" with
multiple regulations and requirements. That's a rather mild statement,
considering that many of their actions were not only unethical but clearly
criminal, but Tufts "firmly
defended their experiment" even while confessing they "violated ethics
rules", though their definition of this violation was that "one
researcher in China broke the rules" - by failing to inform parents of the
fact of an illegal GM food experiment on their children, and by failing to
obtain consent. Tufts' statement clearly
- and falsely - implies without stating that it was a Chinese researcher who
committed these violations.
It was especially troubling
that Tufts and various US government agencies tasked with the investigation,
and the entire US media, neglected to address the obvious illegalities like the
smuggling into China of prohibited genetically-modified food, all the forged
documents and the false statements, and glossed over with a mere mention the
fact that the consent forms, to the extent they existed at all, had been forged
and/or back-dated, and were clearly fraudulent. Their so-called investigation
ignored the fact that Tufts researchers lied about obtaining approval from the
necessary Chinese authorities, and neglected in total to address at all the huge
carpet of lies issued in what was indisputably a shameful cover-up. They also
totally ignored the fact that their duplicity and outrageous illegal conduct
left China's national government with the responsibility of providing
substantial compensation to all the enraged families involved in this affair.
I would end by stating that,
given the repeated reprehensible ethical violations by American universities in
China, no American university should ever be permitted entry to China for any
research of any kind. All US
universities and research institutions should be permanently banned from the
country.
*
Larry
Romanoff is a retired management consultant and
businessman. He has held senior executive positions in international consulting
firms, and owned an international import-export business. He has been a
visiting professor at Shanghai's Fudan University, presenting case studies in
international affairs to senior EMBA classes. Mr. Romanoff lives in Shanghai
and is currently writing a series of ten books generally related to China and
the West. He can be contacted at: 2186604556@qq.com
Notes:
(2) The Guardian, June 19,
1999, published an article titled "The seeds of wrath", in which was
stated that GM seed was "Developed with the US government and
military" participation and support. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/1999/jun/19/food.food
(3) Tim McGirk; "Gene
Piracy"; Time Magazine; November 9, 1998
(4) In February of 2016,
Director of US National Intelligence James R. Clapper, in presenting a
"Worldwide Threat Assessment" testimony to the Senate Armed Services
Committee, asserted that gene editing had become a global danger to humanity
and included it in the section of his report dealing with weapons of mass
destruction.
(5) THE "GOLDEN
RICE" HOAX -When Public Relations replaces Science; http://online.sfsu.edu/~rone/GEessays/goldenricehoax.html
(6) GMO Golden Rice Offers
No Nutritional Benefits Says FDA; Allison Wilson, PhD and Jonathan Latham, PhD
https://www.independentsciencenews.org/news/gmo-golden-rice-offers-no-nutritional-benefits-says-fda/
(7) Science, October 4,
2018; www.dailymail.co.uk
(8) Golden Rice Study
Violated Ethical Rules, Tufts Says; September 17, 2013; http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2013/09/17/223382375/golden-rice-study-violated-ethical-rules-tufts-says
(9) According to China's
Health Ministry, Tufts cooked the "golden rice" in the United States
and brought the cooked rice to China on May 29, 2008, without due declaration
to relevant Chinese authorities. Four days later, Tang and other research
participants recooked the GM rice and mixed it with ordinary rice and served it
for the children's lunch. The research team did not tell the children's parents
or guardians that the test would be using GM food. http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2012-12/07/c_132025944.htm
(10) Scientists Condemn
Human Experiment with GE Food; Thursday, 19 February 2009; http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0902/S00328.htm
; http://www.i-sis.org.uk/SPUCTGM.php
(11) GM Seeds and the
Militarization of Food
https://fpif.org/gm_seeds_and_the_militarization_of_food_-_and_everything_else/
(12) This has been common
practice by Americans in China. A few years earlier, Harvard University
conducted an even more fraudulent study in China, this one ostensibly
conducting asthma research. However, according to police officials, Harvard
researchers forged all the relevant approval documents, claimed approval of
their study from a non-existent medical authority, exposed countless thousands
of Chinese to various potentially lethal pathogens, then illegally collected
and shipped back to the US hundreds of thousands of vials of Chinese DNA. And,
in a truly despicable libel, the US government then claimed the DNA was sent to
the US because of "the risks of the Chinese government misusing sensitive
genetic information".
Larry Romanoff is one of the
contributing authors to Cynthia McKinney's new COVID-19 anthology 'When
China Sneezes'.
Copyright © Larry Romanoff, Moon
of Shanghai, 2020
