Pentagon to Use Genetic Code to Identify Perfect Soldier?

July 29, 2011

by Joe Wolverton, II
The New American
January 24, 2011

Old soldiers never die, they just pass on their genetic code?

A report issued by a defense science advisory panel suggests that the Pentagon may begin collecting DNA from military personnel to identify the genome sequence that defines a good soldier. Findings reported by JASON, an independent group of scientists which advises the U.S. government on matters of science and technology, recommends that the Pentagon take advantage of “the rapidly falling cost of gene sequencing by preparing to engage in the mass sequencing of the genomes” of the men and women of the armed forces.

From the movie Captain America

The physicists, biologists, chemists, oceanographers, mathematicians, and computer scientists that comprise the JASON project, point out that the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) have access to an untapped source of valuable genetic information and are “uniquely positioned to make great advances” in the science of genetic research in this crucial field. Specifically mentioned are the decades of archived medical records and DNA samples already on file at the VA.

A commentary on the report published by the ACLU claims:

Specifically, the report recommends that the Pentagon begin collecting [and] sequencing soldiers’ DNA for “diagnostic and predictive applications.” It recommends that the military begin seeking correlations between soldiers’ genotypes and phenotypes (outward characteristics) “of relevance to the military” in order to correlate the two. And the report says — without offering details — that both “offensive and defensive military operations” could be affected.

The privacy concerns of such a program are obvious. The threshold question that the Pentagon would have to answer would be whether the collection of such samples (whether archival, contemporary, or future) presents a thorny legal problem in that the blood or other substances derived from the body of subjects is the property of that subject and therefore protected by the Constitution’s prohibition on the deprivation of life, liberty, or property without the due process of law.

Congress has legislated in this general area. In 2008, Congress passed the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA), which prohibits group health plans and health insurers from denying coverage to a healthy individual or charging that person higher premiums based solely on a person’s genetic predisposition to the possible of development of disease. The law also bars employers from using individuals’ genetic information when making personnel decisions.

While GINA does not apply to the military, it is certainly an indication of the opposition any similar use of genome sequences would face in Congress were the Defense Department to attempt such a project.

Regardless of whether the DoD makes such use of the DNA of soldiers, airmen, and marines, there is no doubt as to the surprising amount of such data already under the control of the Pentagon.

As reported in an article published in the American Journal of Human Genetics:

Currently, DoD collects and uses the genetic information of service members in several ways. All U.S. service members, including active duty and reserve military personnel, must provide a DNA sample that may be used to identify their remains should they die in battle (see Armed Forces Institute of Pathology database online). These samples are housed in the Armed Forces Repository of Specimen Samples for the Identification of Remains. As of 2002, the United States military’s DNA repository contained 3.2 million samples.

Inarguably, the accurate identification of battlefield casualties is an appropriate use of DNA material; however, the use of that very personal data as a sample for compiling the specific genetic code of the perfect soldier is much more controversial for a few reasons.

First, there is the question of how the Pentagon would use the identification of the sequence. Would this or that recruit be placed in the infantry rather than in a support billet based solely on his genetic code?

Second, there is the irrefutable scientific fact that a person’s genetic code is only one factor is his behavior. Apart from DNA, there are cultural, education, and other influences that also affect the way a person reacts to his surroundings and to the challenges he faces.

The ACLU article makes a good point regarding the potential abuses latent in such a controversial project:

If the Pentagon has strong, nonspeculative reasons to believe that genetic research could help military effectiveness, or if it wants to make use of genetics to help with medical care just like the rest of the medical world, then let it operate in exactly the same way that civilian scientists would, under accepted scientific protocols, including meaningful informed consent, Institutional Review Boards, and other accepted standards of human-subject research.

Soldiers, having signed away many of their rights upon enlistment, should not be used for research that would not otherwise comport with our values, just because they are conveniently available.

Perhaps the most alarming aspect of this report and the suggestions made therein is the uses to which this data could be put by a government intent on singling out a particular group from among its citizens. As has been chronicled many times by The New American, the government of the United Kingdom has amassed a database that is the most extensive in any developed nation. The database was established in 1995 and is the world’s largest. It contains the DNA material of over five million Britons, a figure that represents 8 percent of the population of England and Wales. The recording system was initially developed ostensibly to aid the police in the investigation of crime scenes and function as a “vital crime-fighting tool” in tracking down elusive offenders.

Should the government of the United States or any agency thereof begin cataloging the DNA of military servicemen, the balkanization of Americans may be accomplished not just by ethnicity, but also by one’s genetic predisposition to accept the tyrannical abolition of freedom.

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Genetically Engineered Salmon Will Hit Food Chain Unlabeled

September 28, 2010

This new species of Salmon, literally grown in a lab, will end the natural population in just a few generations. Eel, insect and other genes are contained in the new franken-fish

Natural News

As the FDA stands poised to approve genetically modified (GM) salmon safe for public consumption, the next logical question concerns how GM salmon would be labeled. Would the fish come with a large red warning that says, “Genetically modified salmon”?

As it turns out, no. In fact, the FDA has already gone on the record stating it will not require any special labeling of genetically modified salmon. You, the consumer, just have to take a wild guess because you’re not allowed to know what you’re really eating.

Does this look like something you want to eat?

The biotech industry takes this absurdity one step further by claiming that labeling GM foods would just “confuse” consumers. David Edwards, the director of animal biotechnology at the Biotechnology Industry Organization, explained it in this way: “Extra labeling only confuses the consumer,” he says. “It differentiates products that are not different.”

Except that they are different. If they were really no different, then AquAdvantage company wouldn’t be growing them. The whole point of genetically modified salmon is that they are modified with extra growth hormone genes to make them grow more quickly. I don’t know where David Edwards is getting his information, but in the rest of the world, when something is different, that means it’s different.

If it’s no different, then why are so many GM salmon processes patented? If it’s no different, there would be nothing to patent. The entire purpose of a patent is to make a legal claim that “we invented something different” and we own the monopoly rights to it.

The GM salmon industry can’t have it both ways, you see. They can’t claim it’s so unique that their technologies and animals should be proprietary or patented, yet when it comes to food labeling, they claim there are no differences. It’s either different or it isn’t, and in the case of GM salmon, only an outright liar would look you in the eye and claim GM salmon is identical to regular farmed salmon or wild-caught salmon.

FDA insists on keeping people in the dark

The FDA, for its sad part in this saga, claims that it would be against the law to require the honest labeling of GM foods. This agency claims that since GM salmon is identical to regular salmon (it’s “no different” once again, they say), they can’t require it to be labeled any differently.

Except, of course, it is different. The genetic code of GM salmon is provably different, and since that genetic code is imprinted in every cell of the fish flesh, consumers are buying genetically modified fish with a different genetic code whose sole purpose was to alter the biochemistry of that fish so that it would grow larger more quickly. Thus, the physical expression of GM salmon is, by definition, different from the physical expression of regular salmon.

When you eat genetically modified salmon, you are eating something that’s different from regular (natural) salmon.

Word game trickery

What the FDA and biotech industries are doing with the GM salmon issue is playing word games, trying to confuse consumers with sleight-of-mouth language intentionally designed to mislead and misinform. They’ve already decided they want to approve GM salmon and they don’t want it to be accurately labeled. In essence, they want to trick consumers into buying GM salmon by making them think it’s natural salmon.

The trouble with this FDA hucksterism is that the people aren’t as stupid as the FDA thinks, and they aren’t going to be fooled by this genetically engineered salmon. That’s because the minute the FDA approves this Frankenfish, NaturalNews.com and a long list of other websites are going to alert the whole world to the simple truths of the matter:

Truth #1) Genetically engineered salmon is different from regular salmon.

Truth #2) The FDA is going out of its way to make sure GM salmon isn’t accurately labeled.

This is a Frankenfood cover-up, pure and simple, and the public is going to be outraged that the FDA would introduce a genetically engineered fish into the food supply without even requiring it to be accurately labeled!We’ll be watching this issue very closely, waiting for the FDA’s final decision. If the FDA decides to yet again betray the American public over this issue, we won’t be at all surprised. But we will be vigilant, and we will ask for your help to spread the word and take action to demand that genetically modified salmon be accurately labeled so that consumers know what they’re actually buying.

Gee, you would think the FDA might be interested in food labeling honesty. But of course, the more you learn about the FDA, the more you realize every decision the agency makes is a political decision that betrays the rights and safety of the American people.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to eat genetically modified salmon. And I don’t want the FDA shoving this down my throat by making me try to guess which salmon is real versus artificially engineered. This Frankenfood shell game must end!

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