Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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Potential Health Hazards of Genetically Engineered Foods
By Stephen Lendman

Global Research, February 22, 2008

This article discusses the potential health risks of genetically engineered
foods (GMOs). It draws on some previously used material because its
importance bears repeating. It also cites three notable books and
highlights one in particular - Jeffrey Smith's "Genetic Roulette: The
Documented Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Foods." Detailed
information from the book is featured below.

Genetically engineered foods saturate our diet today. In the US alone, over
80% of all processed foods contain them. Others include grains like rice,
corn and wheat; legumes like soybeans and soy products; vegetable oils,
soft drinks; salad dressings; vegetables and fruits; dairy products
including eggs; meat, chicken, pork and other animal products; and even
infant formula plus a vast array of hidden additives and ingredients in
processed foods (like in tomato sauce, ice cream, margarine and peanut
butter). Consumers don't know what they're eating because labeling is
prohibited, yet the danger is clear. Independently conducted studies show
the more of these foods we eat, the greater the potential harm to our
health.

Today, consumers are kept in the dark and are part of an uncontrolled,
unregulated mass human experiment the results of which are unknown. Yet,
the risks are enormous, it will take years to learn them, and when we
finally know it'll be too late to reverse the damage if it's proved
conclusively that genetically engineered foods harm human health as growing
numbers of independent experts believe. Once GM seeds are introduced to an
area, the genie is out of the bottle for keeps. There is nothing known to
science today to reverse the contamination already spread over two-thirds
of arable US farmland and heading everywhere unless checked.

This is happening in spite of the risk because of what F. William Engdahl
revealed in his powerfully important, well documented book titled "Seeds of
Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation." It's the
diabolical story of how Washington and four Anglo-American agribusiness
giants plan world domination by patenting animal and vegetable life forms
to gain worldwide control of our food supply, make it all genetically
engineered, and use it as a weapon to reward friends and punish enemies.

Today, consumers eat these foods daily without knowing the potential health
risks. In 2003, Jeffrey Smith explained them in his book titled "Seeds of
Deception." He revealed that efforts to inform the public have been
quashed, reliable science has been buried, and consider what happened to
two distinguished scientists - UC Berkeley's Ignacio Chapela and former
Scotland Rowett Research Institute researcher and world's leading lectins
and plant genetic modification expert, Arpad Pusztai. They were vilified,
hounded, and threatened for their research, and in the case of Pusztai,
fired from his job for doing it.

He believed in the promise of GM foods, was commissioned to study them, and
conducted the first ever independent one on them anywhere. Like other
researchers since, he was shocked by his findings. Rats fed GM potatoes had
smaller livers, hearts, testicles and brains, damaged immune systems, and
showed structural changes in their white blood cells making them more
vulnerable to infection and disease compared to other rats fed non-GMO
potatoes. It got worse. Thymus and spleen damage showed up; enlarged
tissues, including the pancreas and intestines; and there were cases of
liver atrophy as well as significant proliferation of stomach and
intestines cells that could be a sign of greater future risk of cancer.
Equally alarming, results showed up after 10 days of testing, and they
persisted after 110 days that's the human equivalent of 10 years.

Later independent studies confirmed what Pusztai learned, and Smith
published information on them in his 2007 book called "Genetic Roulette:
The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Foods." The book is
encyclopedic in depth, an invaluable comprehensive source, and this article
reviews some of the shocking data in it.

Compelling Evidence of Potential GMO Harm

In his introduction, Smith cites the US Food and Drug Administration's
(FDA) policy statement on GM food safety without a shred of evidence to
back it. It supported GHW Bush's Executive Order that GMOs are
"substantially equivalent" to ordinary seeds and crops and need no
government regulation. The agency said it was "not aware of any information
showing that foods derived by these new methods differ from other foods in
any meaningful or uniform way." That single statement meant no safety
studies are needed and "Ultimately, it is the food producer" that bears
responsibility "for assuring safety." As a consequence, foxes now guard our
henhouse in a brave new dangerous world.

FDA policy opened the floodgates, and Smith put it this way: It "set the
stage for the rapid deployment of the new technology," allowed the seed
industry to become "consolidated, millions of acres (to be) planted,
hundreds of millions to be fed (these foods in spite of nations and
consumers objecting, and) laws to be passed (to assure it)." The toll today
is contaminated crops, billions of dollars lost, human health harmed, and
it turns out the FDA lied.

The agency knew GM crops are "meaningfully different" because their
technical experts told them so. As a result, they recommended long-term
studies, including on humans, to test for possible allergies, toxins, new
diseases and nutritional problems. Instead, politics trumped science, the
White House ordered the FDA to promote GM crops, and a former Monsanto
vice-president went to FDA to assure it.

Today, the industry is unregulated, and when companies say their foods are
safe, their views are unquestioned. Further, Smith noted that policy makers
in other countries trust FDA and wrongly assume their assessments are
valid. They're disproved when independent studies are matched against
industry-run ones. The differences are startling. The former report adverse
affects while the latter claim the opposite. It's no secret why.
Agribusiness giants allow nothing to interfere with profits, safety is off
the table, and all negative information is quashed.

As a result, their studies are substandard, adverse findings are hidden,
and they typically "fail to investigate the impacts of GM food on gut
function, liver function, kidney function, the immune system, endocrine
system, blood composition, allergic response, effects on the unborn, the
potential to cause cancer, or impacts on gut bacteria." In addition,
industry-funded studies creatively avoid finding problems or conceal any
uncovered. They cook the books by using older instead of younger more
sensitive animals, keep sample sizes too low for statistical significance,
dilute the GM component of feeds used, limit the duration of feeding
trials, ignore animal deaths and sickness, and engage in other unscientific
practices. It's to assure people never learn of the potential harm from
these foods, and Smith says they can do it because "They've got 'bad
science' down to a science."

The real kinds show GMOs produce "massive changes in the natural
functioning of (a) plant's DNA. Native genes can be mutated, deleted,
permanently turned off or on....the inserted gene can become truncated,
fragmented, mixed with other genes, inverted or multiplied, and the GM
protein it produces may have unintended characteristics" that may be
harmful.

GMOs also pose other health risks. When a transgene functions in a new
cell, it may produce different proteins than the ones intended. They may be
harmful, but there's no way to know without scientific testing. Even if the
protein is exactly the same, there are still problems. Consider corn
varieties engineered to produce a pesticidal protein called Bt-toxin.
Farmers use it in spray form, and companies falsely claim it's harmless to
humans. In fact, people exposed to the spray develop allergic-type
symptoms, mice ingesting Bt had powerful immune responses and abnormal and
excessive cell growth, and a growing number of human and livestock
illnesses are linked to Bt crops.

Smith notes still another problem relating to inserted genes. Assuming
they're destroyed by our digestive system, as industry claims, is false. In
fact, they may move from food into gut bacteria or internal organs, and
consider the potential harm. If corn genes with Bt-toxin get into gut
bacteria, our intestinal flora may become pesticide factories. There's been
no research done to prove if it's true or false. Agribusiness giants aren't
looking, neither is FDA, consumers are left to play "Genetic Roulette," and
the few animal feeding studies done show the odds are against them.

Arpad Pusztai and other scientists were shocked at their results of animals
fed GM foods. His results were cited above. Other independent studies
showed stunted growth, impaired immune systems, bleeding stomachs, abnormal
and potentially precancerous cell growth in the intestines, impaired blood
cell development, misshaped cell structures in the liver, pancreas and
testicles, altered gene expression and cell metabolism, liver and kidney
lesions, partially atrophied livers, inflamed kidneys, less developed
organs, reduced digestive enzymes, higher blood sugar, inflamed lung
tissue, increased death rates and higher offspring mortality as well.

There's more. Two dozen farmers reported their pigs and cows fed GM corn
became sterile, 71 shepherds said 25% of their sheep fed Bt cotton plants
died, and other reports showed the same effects on cows, chickens, water
buffaloes and horses. After GM soy was introduced in the UK, allergies from
the product skyrocketed by 50%, and in the US in the 1980s, a GM food
supplement killed dozens and left five to ten thousand others sick or
disabled.

Today, Monsanto is the world's largest seed producer, and Smith notes how
the company deals with reports like these. In response to the US Public
Health Service concerning adverse reactions from its toxic PCBs, the
company claims its experience "has been singularly free of difficulties."
That's in spite of lawsuit-obtained records showing "this was part of a
cover-up and denial that lasted decades" by a company with a long history
of irresponsible behavior that includes "extensive bribery, highjacking of
regulatory agencies, suppressing negative information about its products"
and threatening journalists and scientists who dare report them. The
company long ago proved it can't be trusted with protecting human health.

In his book, "Seeds of Destruction," Engdahl names four dominant
agribusiness giants - Monsanto, DuPont, Dow Agrisciences and Syngenta in
Switzerland from the merger of the agriculture divisions of Novartis and
AstraZeneca. Smith calls these companies Ag biotech and names a fifth -
Germany-based Bayer CropScience AG (division of Bayer AG) with its
Environmental Science and BioScience headquarters in France.

Their business is to do the impossible and practically overnight - change
the laws of nature and do them one better for profit. So far they haven't
independent because genetic engineering doesn't work like natural breeding.
It may or may not be a lot of things, but it isn't sex, says Smith. Michael
Antoniou, a molecular geneticist involved in human gene therapy, explains
that genetic modification "technically and conceptually bears no
resemblance to natural breeding." The reproduction process works by both
parents contributing thousands of genes to the offspring. They, in turn,
get sorted naturally, and plant breeders have successfully worked this way
for thousands of years.

Genetic manipulation is different and so far fraught with danger. It works
by forcibly inserting a single gene from a species' DNA into another
unnaturally. Smith puts it this way: "A pig can mate with a pig and a
tomato can mate with a tomato. But this is no way that a pig can mate with
a tomato and vice versa." The process transfers genes across natural
barriers that "separated species over millions of years of evolution" and
managed to work. The biotech industry now wants us to believe it can do
nature one better, and that genetic engineering is just an extension or
superior alternative to natural breeding. It's unproved, indefensible
pseudoscience mumbo jumbo, and that's the problem.

Biologist David Schubert explains that industry claims are "not only
scientifically incorrect but exceptionally deceptive....to make the GE
process sound similar to conventional plant breeding." It a smoke screen to
hide the fact that what happens in laboratories can't duplicate nature, at
least not up to now. Genetic engineering involves combining genes that
never before existed together, the process defies natural breeding proved
safe over thousands of years, and there's no way to assure the result won't
be a deadly unrecallable Andromeda Strain, no longer the world of science
fiction.

The industry pooh-pooh's the suggestion of potential harm, and
unscientifically claims millions of people in the US and worldwide have
eaten GM food for a decade, and no one got sick. Smith's reply: How can we
know as "GM foods might already be contributing to serious health problems,
but since no one is monitoring for this, it could take decades" to find
out. By then, it will be too late and some industry critics argue it
already may be or dangerously close.

Today, most existing diseases have no effective surveillance systems in
place. If GM foods create new ones, that potentially compounds the problem
manyfold. Consider HIV/AIDS. It went unnoticed for decades and when
identified, many thousands worldwide were infected or had died.

Then there's the problem of linkage. In the US and many countries, GM foods
are unlabeled so it's impossible tracing illness and diseases to specific
substances ingested even if thousands of people are affected. It can
plausibly be blamed on anything, especially when governments and regulatory
agencies support industry claims of reliability and safety.

It's rare that problems like the L-Tryptophan epidemic of the late 1980s
are identified, but when it was thousands were already harmed. L-Tryptophan
is a natural amino acid constituent of most proteins and for years was
produced by many companies including Showa Denko in Japan. The company then
got greedy, saw a way to increase profits from a product designed to induce
sleep naturally, and gene-spliced a bacterium into the natural product to
do it. The result was many dozens dead, over 1500 crippled, and up to
10,000 afflicted with a blood disorder from a new incurable disease called
Eosinophilia Myalgia Syndrome or EMS.

It's a painful, multi-system disease that causes permanent scarring and
fibrosis to nerve and muscle tissues, continuing inflammation, and a
permanent change in a person's immune system. It cost the company two
billion dollars to settle claims. Hundreds have since died, in all
likelihood from contracting EMS.

This is the known toll from a single product. Consider the potential harm
with Ag biotech wanting all foods to be unlabeled GMOs worldwide and
governments unable to balk because WTO Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) and
Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) rules deny them. They're
also prevented under WTO's Sanitary and Phytosanitary Agreement (SPS). It
states that national laws banning GMO products are "unfair trade practices"
even when they endanger human health. Other WTO rules also apply - called
"Technical Barriers to Trade." They prohibit GMO labeling so consumers
don't know what they're eating and can't avoid these potentially hazardous
foods.

The 1996 Biosafety Protocol was drafted to prevent this problem, and it
should be in place to do it. Public safety, however, was ambushed by
Washington, the FDA and the agribusiness lobby. It sabotaged talks and
insisted biosafety measures be subordinate to WTO trade rules that apply
regardless of other considerations, including public health and safety. The
path is thus cleared for the unrestricted spread of GMO seeds and foods
worldwide unless a way is found to stop it.

Independent Animal Studies Showing GMO Harm

Rats fed genetically engineered Calgene Flavr-Savr tomatoes (developed to
look fresh for weeks) for 28 days got bleeding stomachs (stomach lesions)
and seven died and were replaced in the study.

Rats fed Monsanto 863 Bt corn for 90 days developed multiple reactions
typically found in response to allergies, infections, toxins, diseases like
cancer, anemia and blood pressure problems. Their blood cells, livers and
kidneys showed significant changes indicative of disease.

Mice fed either GM potatoes engineered to produce Bt- toxin or natural
potatoes containing the toxin had intestinal damage. Both varieties created
abnormal and excessive cell growth in the lower intestine. The equivalent
human damage might cause incontinence or flu-like symptoms and could be
pre-cancerous. The study disproved the contention that digestion destroys
Bt-toxin and is not biologically active in mammals.

Workers in India handling Bt cotton while picking, loading, weighing and
separating the fiber from seeds developed allergies. They began with "mild
to severe itching," then redness and swelling, followed by skin eruptions.
These symptoms affected their skin, eyes (got red and swollen with
excessive tearing) and upper respiratory tract causing nasal discharge and
sneezing. In some cases, hospitalization was required. At one cotton gin
factory, workers take antihistamines daily.

Sheep grazing on Bt cotton developed "unusual systems" before dying
"mysteriously." Reports from four Indian villages revealed 25% of them died
within a week. Post mortems indicated a toxic reaction. The study raises
questions about cottonseed oil safety and human health for people who eat
meat from animals fed GM cotton. It's crucial to understand that what
animals eat, so do people.

Nearly all 100 Filipinos living adjacent to a Bt corn field became ill.
Their symptoms appeared when the crop was producing airborne pollen and was
apparently inhaled. Doing it produced headaches, dizziness, extreme stomach
pain, vomiting, chest pains, fever, and allergies plus respiratory,
intestinal and skin reactions. Blood tests conducted on 39 victims showed
an antibody response to Bt-toxin suggesting it was the cause. Four other
villages experienced the same problems that also resulted in several animal
deaths.

Iowa farmers reported a conception rate drop of from 80% to 20% among sows
(female pigs) fed GM corn. Most animals also had false pregnancies, some
delivered bags of water and others stopped menstruating. Male pigs were
also affected as well as cows and bulls. They became sterile and all were
fed GM corn.

German farmer Gottfried Glockner grew GM corn and fed it to his cows.
Twelve subsequently died from the Bt 176 variety, and other cows had to be
destroyed due to a "mysterious" illness. The corn plots were field trials
for Ag biotech giant Syngenta that later took the product off the market
with no admission of fault.

Mice fed Monsanto Roundup Ready soybeans developed significant liver cell
changes indicating a dramatic general metabolism increase. Symptoms
included irregularly shaped nuclei and nucleoli, and an increased number of
nuclear pores and other changes. It's thought this resulted from exposure
to a toxin, and most symptoms disappeared when Roundup Ready was removed
from the diet.

Mice fed Roundup Ready had pancreas problems, heavier livers and
unexplained testicular cell changes. The Monsanto product also produced
cell metabolism changes in rabbit organs, and most offspring of rats on
this diet died within three weeks.

The death rate for chickens fed GM Liberty Link corn for 42 days doubled.
They also experienced less weight gain, and their food intake was erratic.

In the mid-1990s, Australian scientists discovered that GM peas generated
an allergic-type inflammatory response in mice in contrast to the natural
protein that had no adverse effect. Commercialization of the product was
cancelled because of fear humans might have the same reaction.

When given a choice, animals avoid GM foods. This was learned by observing
a flock of geese that annually visit an Illinois pond and feed on soybeans
from an adjacent farm. After half the acreage had GM crops, the geese ate
only from the non-GMO side. Another observation showed 40 deer ate organic
soybeans from one field but shunned the GMO kind across the road. The same
thing happened with GM corn.

Inserting foreign or transgenes is called insertional mutagenesis or
insertion mutation. When done, it usually disrupts DNA at the insertion
site and affects gene functioning overall by scrambling, deleting or
relocating the genetic code near the insertion site.

The process of creating a GM plant requires scientists first to isolate and
grow plant cells in the laboratory using a tissue culture process. The
problem is when it's done it can create hundreds or thousands of DNA
mutations throughout the genome. Changing a single base pair may be
harmful. However, widespread genome changes compound the potential problem
manyfold.

Promoters are used in GM crops as switches to turn on the foreign gene.
When done, the process may accidently switch on other natural plant genes
permanently. The result may be to overproduce an allergen, toxin,
carcinogen, antinutrient, enzymes that stimulate or inhibit hormone
production, RNA that silences genes, or changes that affect fetal
development. They may also produce regulators that block other genes and/or
switch on a dormant virus that may cause great harm. In addition, evidence
suggests the promoter may create genetic instability and mutations that can
result in the breakup and recombination of the gene sequence.

Plants naturally produce thousands of chemicals to enhance health and
protect against disease. However, changing plant protein may alter these
chemicals, increase plant toxins and/or reduce its phytonutrients. For
example, GM soybeans produce less cancer-fighting isoflavones. Overall,
studies show genetic modification produces unintended changes in nutrients,
toxins, allergens and small molecule metabolism products.

To create a GM soybean with a more complete protein balance, Pioneer
Hi-Bred inserted a Brazil nut gene. By doing it, an allergenic protein was
introduced affecting people allergic to Brazil nuts. When tests confirmed
this, the project was cancelled. GM proteins in other crops like corn and
papaya may also be allergenic. The same problem exists for other crops like
Bt corn, and evidence shows allergies skyrocketed after GM crops were
introduced.

Another study of Monsanto's high-lysine corn showed it contained toxins and
other potentially harmful substances that may retard growth. If consumed in
large amounts, it may also adversely affect human health. In addition, when
this product is cooked, it may produce toxins associated with Alzheimer's,
diabetes, allergies, kidney disease, cancer and aging symptoms.

Disease-resistant crops like zucchini, squash and Hawaiian papaya may
promote human viruses and other diseases, and eating these products may
suppress the body's natural defense against viral infections.

Protein structural aspects in GM crops may be altered in unforeseen ways.
They may be misfolded or have added molecules. During insertion, transgenes
may become truncated, rearranged or interspersed with other DNA pieces with
unknown harmful effects. Transgenes may also be unstable and spontaneously
rearrange over time, again with unpredictable consequences. In addition,
they may create more than one protein from a process called alternative
splicing. Environmental factors, weather, natural and man-made substances
and genetic disposition of a plant further complicate things and pose
risks. They're introduced as well because genetic engineering disrupts
complex DNA relationships.

Contrary to industry claims, studies show transgenes aren't destroyed
digestively in humans or animals. Foreign DNA can wander, survive in the
gastro-intestinal tract, and be transported by blood to internal organs.
This raises the risk that transgenes may transfer to gut bacteria,
proliferate over time, and get into cells DNA, possibly causing chronic
diseases. A single human feeding study confirmed that genes, in fact,
transferred from GM soy into the DNA gut bacteria of three of seven test
subjects.

Antibiotic Resister Marker (ARM) genes are attached to transgenes prior to
insertion and allow cells to survive antibiotic applications. If ARM genes
transfer to pathogenic gut or mouth bacteria, they potentially can cause
antibiotic-resistant super-diseases. The proliferation of GM crops
increases the possibility. The CaMV promoter in nearly all GMOs can also
transfer and may switch on random genes or viruses that produce toxins,
allergens or carcinogens as well as create genetic instability.

GM crops interact with their environment and are part of a complex
ecosystem that includes our food. These crops may increase environmental
and other toxins that may accumulate throughout the food chain. Crops
genetically engineered to be glufosinate (herbicide)resistant may produce
intestinal herbicide with known toxic effects. If transference to gut
bacteria occurs, greater problems may result.

Repeated use of seeds like Monsanto's Roundup Ready soybeans results in
vicious new super-weeds that need far greater amounts of stronger
herbicides to combat. Their toxic residues remain in crops that humans and
animals then eat. Even small amounts of these toxins may be endocrine
disruptors that can affect human reproduction adversely. Evidence exists
that GM crops accumulate toxins or concentrate them in milk or animals fed
GM feed. Disease-resistant crops may also produce new plant viruses that
affect humans.

All type GM foods, not just crops, carry these risks. Milk, for example,
from cows injected with Monsanto's bovine growth hormone (rbGH), has much
higher levels of the hormone IGF-1 that risks breast, prostate, colon, lung
and other cancers. The milk also has lower nutritional value. GM food
additives also pose health risks, and their use has proliferated in
processed foods.

Potential harm to adults is magnified for children. Another concern is that
pregnant mothers eating GM foods may endanger their offspring by harming
normal fetal development and altering gene expression that's then passed to
future generations. Children are also more endangered than adults,
especially those drinking substantial amounts of rbGH-treated milk.

Conclusion

The above information is largely drawn from Smith's "Genetic Roulette." The
data is startling and confirms a clear conclusion. The proliferation of
untested, unregulated GM foods in the span of a decade is more a leap of
faith than reliable science. Microbiologist Richard Lacey captures the risk
stating: "it is virtually impossible to even conceive of a testing
procedure to assess the health effects of (GM) foods when introduced into
the food chain, nor is there any valid nutritional or public interest
reason for their introduction." Other scientists worldwide agree that GM
foods entered the market long before science could evaluate their safety
and benefits. They want a halt to this dangerous experiment that needs
decades of rigorous research and testing before we can know.

Unchecked and unregulated, human health and safety are at risk because once
GMOs enter the food chain, the genie is out of the bottle for keeps.
Thankfully, resistance is growing worldwide, many millions are opposed, but
reversing the tide won't be easy. Washington and Ag biotech are on a roll
with big unstated aims - total control of our food, making it all
genetically engineered, and scheming to use it as a weapon to reward
friends and punish enemies.

Smith is hopeful that people will prevail over profits. Hopefully he's
right because human health and safety must never be compromised. Resistance
already halted the introduction of new crop varieties, and Smith believes
that with enough momentum existing ones may end up withdrawn. He cites an
example he calls a "Shift away from GM foods in the United States" in 2007.
Leading it is an initiative launched last spring to remove GM ingredients
from the entire natural food sector. It's led by a coalition of natural
food products producers, distributors and retailers along with the
Institute for Responsible Technology (IRT). It's called the Campaign for
Healthier Eating in America, and its aims are big - to educate consumers
about GM food risks and promote healthy alternatives through shopping
guides.

A Pew survey reported that 29% of Americans, representing 87 million
people, strongly oppose these foods and believe they're unsafe. That's a
respectable start if backed up with efforts to avoid them, and more
information how is at ResponsibleTechnology.org. Jeffrey Smith founded IRT
in 2003 "to promote the responsible use of technology and stop GM foods and
crops through both grassroots and national strategies." It seeks safe
alternatives and aims to "ban the genetic engineering of our food supply
and all outdoor releases of (GM) organisms, at least until (or unless
scientific opinion) believes such products are safe and appropriate based
on independent and reliable data."

IRT urges consumers to become educated about the risks, mobilize to combat
them and act in our mutual self-interest. It's beginning to happen, and
Smith believes "there is an excellent chance that food manufacturers will
abandon GM foods in the near future" if a public groundswell demands it. He
ends his book saying: "Although GMOs present one of the greatest dangers,
with informed, motivated people, it is one of the easiest global issues to
solve." Hopefully he's right.

Global Research Associate Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be
reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Global
Research News Hours on RBN Mondays from 11AM to 1PM US Central time for
cutting-edge discussions of world and national topics with distinguished
guests.