How biotech infiltrates schools

biotech, bioweapons and pharmaceutical corporations are all in favor of less restriction on animal testing to experiment with their genetically engineered products. These same corporations will be in SF 4 the BIOtech 2004 conference June 3-9th, no doubt attempting to force their chemically altered products on animals and people..

Why are these corporations becoming so powerful, besides US gov subsidies?

Biotech scientific establishment has a hold on the youth from an early age, some of the intro biology textbooks published by Peter Raven may hold clues why biotech is accepted by so many people. The Raven biology textbook contains info on how to genetically engineer life forms by inserting a viral/bacterial plasmid into the DNA of another living organism. This presents the genetic engineering method as acceptable and students are encouraged to pursue research in that field. ("Biotech's where the money is" said my biology teacher at community college) Raven is also head of the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis, heavily subsidized by Monsanto. Raven called out to the scientific community to document all the living plant species on the plant and record their taxonomy info. This is a form of biopatenting, claiming intellectual property rights of the genetic sequence of plant DNA/RNA. Medicinal plants are sought after the most, pharmaceutical products come from derived plant chemical compounds. By claiming ownership of the plant's DNA, it becomes easier for the corporations to manipulate the molecular biochemistry of the plant itself..

The pharmaceutical corporations step in next, finding various chemical compounds in the medicinal plant that they attempt to isolate and duplicate in the form of a pill. Not only medicinal plants are used, others are used because they have strong chemicals used as cleaning and/or solvents. These are also tested on animals to determine their safety to humans..

Genetically engineered products will be tested on animals also, and there's nothing the animal rights activists can do about it. Security fences shield the biotech corporation from any outside influence, private security patrols the electric fence perimeter. Society believes the animals suffer for the benefit of humans, so most people are not outspoken against the cruelty of these institutions..

The problem is greater than animal testing, it comes from the pharmacuetical/bioweapons/biotech corporations itself. This is the root cause of the problem, animal testing is one of the side effects, along with Prozac molecular compounds in the sewer water that is taken up and later discovered in the tissue of ocean fish..

To stop animal testing corps like HLS and Chiron, we must stop the pharma/GE/biotech corporations that make the products they test on animals in the first place..

Medicine is a healthy lifestyle and natural herbal remedies (no animal testing needed), avoiding petrochemical pollution that makes people sick with cancer in the first place..

On a personal note, i am a former biology student at Humboldt State University. The material forced upon us by the state institution is all about continuing this disgusting molecular manipulation of life. My reasons for withdrawing from class for moral reasons were deemed unacceptable by the chemistry teacher Joshua Smith and the head of the Chemistry department. Assume the same for biology chair Milton Boyd, a man more concerned with securing grants from biotech corporations than the well being of students and the ecosystem. The interaction made me feel worthless and irrelevent, like my life had lost meaning since i was no longer interested in performing research for the scientific establishment..

So i fail their pro GE science classes, how does that compare to farmer's lives being stolen by GE corps or primates chewing off their thumbs while being experimented on in cages?

The cold hearted attitude of HSU establishment science saddens me but am also glad to be free from this oppressive institution that is anything but a free education. This gives me more time to study permaculture and holistic understanding of nature like deep ecology. Unfortunately these fields are not as well funded because corporations cannot become wealthy if people plant corn, beans and squash (3 sisters) on their own instead of depending on expensive equipment to genetically engineer plant seeds..

We will reclaim the commons and free animals from their cages when we shut down the biotech corporations in SF..