Re: “Everything you need to know about GMOs in one easy place” (May 24):

Thank you for the article on the important, but often misunderstood, topic of foods containing genetically modified organisms.

Absent from the article is that GMOs were designed, not for the claimed “increased yields,” but so that a corporation can own a plant, preventing us from saving seeds for a future crop and controlling what we are allowed to eat.

This has destroyed sustainability and independence, wreaking poverty upon indigenous cultures and making harder for all of us to grow healthy food. The GMO pollen drift contaminates organic crops, yet farmers are considered thieves when their crops are contaminated!

The claim of higher yields is not supported by evidence. GMO plants have genes inserted not to increase nutrition, but to withstand a barrage of toxic herbicide. And the “weeds” are quickly adapting to be resistant. Also inserted is a pesticide-producing gene. No wonder they tout that less pesticide is needed. You just ingest it directly!

Other bizarre GMO efforts to increase corporate profits are various animal genes inserted into plants. We have no idea what we may be ingesting or what effect it has on our health.

Better yields and stronger, more nutritious plants can be bred naturally, but you will never get a chicken to copulate with corn, rats to breed with soybeans or a carp to mate with safflower. Maybe Monsanto knows more than God?

Carole Drinan Whelan

Hope