A federal judge has ruled – for the first time in US history – that a genetically modified (GM) crop be destroyed.
In doing so, US District Judge Jeffrey White of California delivered a serious blow to the Monsanto Company’s GM sugar beet empire for reasons of environmental harm.
Judge White ruled back August that all future plantings of GM beets stop until the US Department of Agriculture could conduct an environmental impact statement (EIS) that proves the crop’s safety.
The USDA however, in typical corporate lapdog fashion, violated the ruling and allowed Monsanto to plant the GM crops anyway.
This led an angry Judge White to order the controversial beets destroyed.
Monsanto had a fit over the legal ban last month.
And when the usually privileged Monsanto couldn’t manipulate the situation they made sure the unleash propaganda about how if they weren’t allowed to get their way that the whole sugar beet industry would crash if their GM sugar beets were not allowed to be grown.
The harmful chemical and biotechnology behemoth even petitioned the court to permit the plants so that the company could protect their interests and avoid losing the money it spent on researching and developing the eerie technology.
Still, Judge White stuck to his guns and a lot of people feel that he did the right thing.
He cited the large amount of evidence about the dangers of unknown contamination and the other dangers posed by the freaky crop, he mainly referencing the “irreparable” damage that cross-contamination would cause.
He also challenged the USDA’s choice to blatantly violate his ruling, and the law, by giving Monsanto the permission to plant GM sugar beet seedlings, hence his order that they all be uprooted and disposed of.
George Kimbrell, an attorney for the Center for Food Safety, is quoted in an Associated Press (AP) article saying that Judge White’s ballsy anti-Monsanto move is a “groundbreaking victory for farmers and the environment,” and that “this is the first time ever a federal court ordered an illegal biotech crop destroyed.”
Another good quote in the AP article regarding the nonsense of black-hearted world conqueror Monsanto comes from Paul Atchitoff, of Earthjustice, a nonprofit environmental law firm that served as lead counsel in the lawsuit against the sugar beets.
“The government’s conduct is really outrageous,” he said. “The court had just said in August the beets could not be grown and the government turned around and gave the industry the opportunity to grow them.”
People are becoming wise to the immoral misdeeds of Monsanto. Every once and a while someone is able to wake up one of our usually clueless public servants to one the many troubling issues in technology.
So, in the future, let’s hope that Monsanto’s influence will be rendered less powerful because of this one Judge. Maybe then they will finally be forced to act responsibly with their powerful agro-technology.
Because really, if you know anything about Monsanto’s history – then you know Monsanto hasn’t been responsible with their technology in the past.
