GMWatch published a story today about a $500,000 U.S. National Science Foundation grant to the University of California, Riverside to figure out how to get covid vaccines into lettuce and spinach as a new mechanism for inoculating humans.

             When I read this, my first reaction was "are you serious?"  Well, it is serious.  Truth is, indeed, stranger than fiction.  When folks push back against my libertarian tendencies, I wish they'd read and contemplate this kind of taxpayer expenditure.

             You do realize, don't you, that your taxes and mine went to pay for this nonsense.  This isn't some venture capital fund.  It's not private equity.  It's not even Bill Gates.  It's government tax money to genetically engineer common garden plants to carry the mRNA covid vaccine in its tissue.

             The article pointed out three real problems with this:  dosage, contamination, and delivery.  I'll drill down on them a bit in case you missed the fine print.

             1.  Dosage--what if I eat too much lettuce?  Most of us thought dosage was kind of important when administering vaccines.  How in the world do you monitor and regulate the amount you're ingesting?  So we're all sitting around the table and little Junior suddenly finds Mom grabbing leaves off his plate:  "no, sonny boy, you've had one too many lettuce leaves for your vaccine dosage."  Talk about a crazy way to create menus.

             How about you take your beloved out to dinner?  The server puts a menu in your lap.  Instead of naming the farm sources, it names the various levels of vaccines per gram of leaf in the Ceasar's salad. 

             2.  Contamination--what about pollen drift?  We've seen this routinely in GMO corn and soybeans.  What if I don't want these vaccine varieties in my garden, but the neighbor does?  Who's going to make sure that nothing from her garden gets over in mine?

             Who's to stop the spread of this?  Right now in America, people who monitor GMO grains say we actually don't have any pure inventories now.  Everything allows some contamination.  Certified organic allows pesticides and herbicides at certain levels because this stuff is ubiquitous in the landscape.

             3.  Delivery integrity--what does my digestive system do to the vaccine?  Most vaccines are administered in some sort of sterile package, but after riding a few days bouncing around in the back of a truck and then mixing with my saliva and intestinal micro-flora, do you reckon the vaccine will stay prim and proper?  Not a chance. 

             Who can possibly guarantee that the multi-quadrillion microbial exchanges going on inside my cells will escort this lettuce covid vaccine first class to my bloodstream.  This is the stuff of comedies, not science.  And yet serious grant writers, serious tax collectors, serious PhDs are going to play around with half a million dollars researching a diabolical option.  Nothing about this is sensible or ethical, but that's government spending for you.  Thank goodness for the IRS.

             If somebody gave you half a million dollars, what would you spend it on?