So, I want to tell you how I got started in this, a little about the history and then I want to delve into what is, what are GMO's, what is this technology, what it's all about.  You should realize right from the very start that there is not a single example, not one, of a problem with GMOs.  Not a single one ...  You listen to the opposition and they tell you about Seralini, they tell you about cancer, they tell you about all sorts of things.  There is just no truth in any of this and so what I want to do is to make sure that by the end of my presentation you too will discover what the real story is and what the science tells us as opposed to what the anti-GMO activists tell us. 

So, I'm not a plant biologist, but when I did my graduate work, I actually worked on a bit of wood that came from Brazil to find out what chemicals were in it.  That's the closest I've ever come to being a plant biologist of any sort.  I was invited to go and celebrate the 80th birthday of this gentleman, Marc van Montagu and he was the person, together with Jeff Schell, and at the same time and independently Mary Del Chilton, who discovered how nature moved DNA from bacteria into plants.  They had this big celebration for his birthday and he had been an old friend of mine for many, many years and he invited me to go and give a talk and listen.  After what I discovered after listening for one day of a symposium all about plants and people trying to do good recombinant DNA work in Europe, that they were just being harassed right left and center.  Everything was being put in their way to make it difficult for them to do their work; difficult for them to do the experiments.  In fact, at this symposium there was a big demonstration by Greenpeace outside of it and this was common.  This was what happened in Europe. Every single speaker mentioned this difficulty working in this area because of the untruths that had been spread by the anti-GMO activists. 

Now, the following day I had been invited to go and talk to the European Commission about the future of health care (not that I claim to know very much about that, but you know, I could think of a few things and talk some good words about vaccines and so on).  But I decided after listening to this day that I would change my talk altogether and that I would use a different theme.