Letter to the Editor CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS PAGE
CORNELIA HESSE-HONEGGER				In 1988 I started my research in areas near nuclear power plants in Switzerland. My findings consternated me such, that I had to publish my results again documented with painted pictures. The reproaches of the scientific world became even louder and more aggressive. I thought that by showing the malformations on insects, I could convince not only the public but also scientists, to at least reconsider their own research or to study these facts themselves. In the meantime I have continued with my work in the environs of the reprocessing plant Sellafield UK, the Chernobyl plant, as well as areas affected by the Three Mile Island accident plant in the USA and Krummel nuclear power plant in Germany. Although it seems that while some people are becoming more aware of the dangers of nuclear power like the recent atomic bomb tests in the South Pacific as well as Nevada, USA there are other new dangers like the HAARP Project in Alaska, USA which is equally frightening. Albeit we believe to have everything under control, we don't take enough consideration that with our way of polluting we are not only causing daily the extinction of plants and animals, but are also changing the genetic structures with artificial radiation created by nuclear testing and power plants and also with mutagenic chemical substances.     We have the habit of only looking at what we perceive to be progress in our society, and refuse to investigate the shadow-side of this same progress. In my work, I took on the task of showing what we do not want to see. What is not studied is considered not to be. I deliberately banned my own fantasy from my paintings. What I find in mutated flies, created in research laboratories - or in fallout areas of Chernobyl or on leaf bugs near nuclear power plants outstrips anything that might come from our imagination. In our laboratories we are producing the raw models of what we are doing on a vast scale in vivo. But what we do to animals and plants, we finally do to ourselves and the human beings who will follow us for generations.     It is utterly urgent that we stop giving all the power to the experts. Everyone must start again to become knowing ones, and to make decisions for a wholesome life. We cannot leave it to others to decide our future. I hope that my paintings can help to look at and perceive what is going on before our very eyes.     To give an example on how the raw model in the laboratory look like, I painted heads in the profile, of fruit flies, drosophila melanogaster which were mutated by x-rays in the University of Zurich, like in many other laboratories in the world to study the hereditary system of the flies in order to understand more about genetics in general. These studies though are not used to enlighten the public of the threats which technology is causing today or tomorrow. The first two rows show deformed heads and eyes. This mutation is called eye-II D. The other two rows show also deformed heads in the profile of the Drosophila melanogaster. The mutation is called ey. opt. The eye is split or not there at all and out of some of the eyes, part of a wing is growing out since the cells cannot decide whether to become an eye or a wing. Both Aquarells are 24.2 x 74 cm, painted in an aquarell miniature technique on Millimeterpaper in Zurich, 1986. Submit a letter to the Editors concerning this article.