Foreword by former UK Environ. Minister

This is the authentic book on genetic modification that the world has been waiting for. So much has been written about GM—some of it thoughtful and interesting, much of it mischievous or downright deceitful—but none of it systematic, authoritative, and comprehensive. What has long been needed is not more polemic, but the facts, the unvarnished detail that provides the evidence on which people can make up their own minds. This book is it.

For far too long this war between the pro- and anti-GM factions has been fought in a fog. The anti-group (independent scientists, environmentalists, and millions of small farmers) insisted there has been no systematic testing of GM crops or food, so we cannot be sure whether GM products are safe to eat or not. The pro-group (Monsanto, Bayer, Syngenta, and the other agribusiness majors, plus the US and UK governments) claimed that GM food was safe because there was no evidence to suggest otherwise, and there was no need to look for it because GM and non-GM crops were “substantially equivalent.’’ This impasse, this non-dialogue between opposing camps, has now been broken by this book.

For the first time not only are the facts of adverse health problems associated with genetic engineering methodically set out, but the theory, which might account these episodes of mortality and morbidity, is also carefully presented. It has been too little realized that blasting genetically engineered DNA into a plant arbitrarily—like throwing darts into a haystack—disrupts a sequence of genes that has evolved over hundreds of millions of years so as to optimize the functioning of the organism and is bound to destabilize the biochemistry of the plant. We are still learning about the myriad of ways by which this crude insertion process can mutate or permanently turn genes on or off, alter RNA or proteins in plants, produce allergies or toxicities, or even trigger wider unpredictable impacts elsewhere in the genome.

So why isn’t all this better known, or at least exhaustively investigated whenever damaging toxic consequences are discovered? This is where the dry revelation of unexpected biochemical reactions turns into an extraordinary exposition of the use of manipulation, concealment, and corruption for the preservation and enhancement of corporate power. Adverse GM reactions are almost never rigorously followed up, abnormal proliferation of cells—which might be a precursor of cancer—is ignored, evidence of horizontal gene transfer into gut bacteria or human DNA—which could cause long-term damage—is studiously ignored, and mortality data on animals fed GM crops is swept aside or suppressed.

How this can still happen, when the potential risks for human health are so great, lies at the heart of this book. It opens up the secret links between, on the one hand, the hugely powerful GM seed companies seeking to grasp the greatest cash bonanza of all time by cornering the world’s food supply and, on the other, the governments led by the United States of many of the world’s biggest countries and an international network of ministers, key officials and responsive scientists. It is this power nexus, unseen but ubiquitous, that overshadows the entire debate on GM, using every trick in the book, in the teeth of all the evidence, to protect the GM project from collapse. This book is the best exposure yet of these machinations.

The book brings together, for the first time, data culled from hitherto inaccessible sources. Evidence extracted via Freedom of Information Act requests and from a trawl through of previously unexplored industry submissions and government documents throws a new light on the symbiosis between the GM industry and the regulators who are supposed to represent the public interest. The case presented is absolutely a smoking shotgun that should stop in its tracks any dabbling with GM foods, whether by individual families, food companies, or indeed nations.

Genetic Roulette is a fitting sequel to Jeffrey Smith’s earlier best seller Seeds of Deception, which has become the bible of the GM campaigner. Bibles make a great read, but are sometimes difficult to use as a reference to obtain needed information in a hurry. This book is now designed to fill that gap, and is clearly going to provide a new, powerful, easy-to-handle tool for policy-makers. I believe it will inspire leaders in many different arenas to take action based on the content—indeed it might even jerk the UK government out of their disregard for science, alerting us to the risks of GM.

Jeffrey Smith is one of the great campaigners of our age, a relentless pursuer of the truth, a fearless advocate in the corporate world of secret influence, and a ceaseless promoter of the public interest across the world. He is the modern David against the GM Goliath. This book may well provide the slingshot to change the global course of events this century.