Eat Me

The following are excerpts from the keynote speech of the Honorable James C. Greenwood, president of the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), which he gave to open the BIO Conference recently held in Philadelphia on Monday, June 20th.

“Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for attending this year’s biotechnology conference held in my hometown. For those of you who don’t know this, Philadelphia has been ranked third in a national study measuring the strength and impact of the life sciences industries, behind Boston and the San Francisco Bay area, according to a published report in the Inquirer.

That study originated from the Milken Institute, a non-profit organization headed by a former financier who improperly induced insurance companies to purchase his junk bonds in vast quantities. For those of you who don’t know, junk bonds are speculative finacial instruments that yield a higher rate of return because of a higher default rate. Anyway, when the artificially-inflated junk bond market collapsed in the 1980s, this left policyholders (including employees of many companies who had replaced their pension systems with annuities purchased from the corrupted insurance companies) holding worthless paper.

I realize that what I just said has nothing whatsoever to do with life sciences, but I firmly believe that you can never have too much information.

I think it is commendable that you were able to negotiate your way into this building past the reckless, hedonistic horde of skateboarding, color-coded protestors who blocked your entry. Suffice it to say that we are blazing new trails of entrepreneurial riches while they wish to continue latching onto the government teat and sucking away like your Mom’s broken-down Hoover that’s missing half of its hand-held attachments while it’s trying to ingest the shedded coat of her Springer Spaniel. Un-freaking-believable!

Speaking of animals, I think that ties in nicely to the primary subject I wish to address, and that is the development and maintenance of healthy food sources. We here face, what is in part, a public relations battle to sell the benefits of genetically modified foods. All over the US, UK, and many parts of Europe, people are choosing to avoid the products we are developing for the new century. Boy, talk about head-in-the-sand time!

One of the leading companies developing new food products is Monsanto, which has produced genetically modified potatoes for Russia. However, the yields produced by Russian farmers with these new potatoes have only reached about a third of what the yield would be if the farmers had used real potatoes instead. Hey, go cry in your vodka, comrade! We’re talking a new age of science here!

Oh, and please don’t remind me that Monsanto was also the company that produced the chemical defoliant Agent Orange used in the Vietnam War, which has been linked to chronic lymphocytic leukemia, a disease marked by fatigue, shortness of breath, weight loss, or frequent infections. None of us are virgins here. You read me?

In this country, the McDonald’s Corporation has continued their experiments with synthetic chemicals to produce a chicken that has three breasts instead of two. As a result of this, we can all ingest more genetically modified poultry that contains chicken bums, pee pees and possible excrement and take our chances. And don’t you talk to me about carcinogens. Try proving it, bucko! Hey, we’re talking about birds with boobs big enough to fit into a C cup. Ol’ Mc Donald never had it so good!

In closing, let me say this. I am not a scientist. I am not an investor. I am not a businessman. What I am is a politician who played the game for as many years as I could and put up with all manner of petty day-in-day-out niggling, all in the name of providing constituent service to the eighth congressional district, including all of the whining babies complaining about funding shortfalls for their favorite entitlements, road construction on their streets when it was time to run little Johnny or Jill to soccer practice, or my inability to grant any favor they wanted at a moment’s notice.

However, rest assured that I will use my hard-earned clout in a way that is beneficial to ourselves and our industry. Namely, I will spare no effort on behalf of tort reform that absolves us of any and all liability for our actions.

I now and always pledge my undying gratitude to and toil on behalf of the Biotechnology Industry Organization for their forward-thinking vision, boundless promises of a better tomorrow for one and all, and my $650,000-a-year salary.

Thank you, and I hope you have a great conference.”

(smile)