permaculture

["Laura Frazier" <farmgirlarts@gmail.com>]

Drawn from the new book 'Genetic Roulette' and Jeffrey Smith's "Seeds
of Deception."

If you go to
http://www.responsibletechnology.org/GMFree/AboutGMFoods/DangersofGMFoods/index.cfm
the bullet items expand to references for the research they were
derived from.

Dangers of Genetically Engineered Foods
(Footnotes refer to pages in the book Seeds of Deception by Jeffrey M.
Smith.)
The following presents some of the dangers of genetically engineered
foods and reasons why avoiding them is an important step to safeguard
our health. The footnotes refer to page references in the book Seeds
of Deception; there you can find meticulously documented evidence
that leaves no doubt that GM food should never have been approved.
For a more in-depth look at 65 health risks of GM foods, excerpted
from Jeffrey Smith's comprehensive new book Genetic Roulette: The
Documented Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Foods, click here.
For more information, see also these articles:
       *       Jeffrey Smith's Testimony to the EPA - June 2007
       *       Genetically Modified Foods Are Inherently Unsafe
       *       Genetically Engineered Foods Pose Higher Risk for Children
       *       Case Study on Industry Research: Soy Study by Monsanto
       *       Inhaled GM Maize Pollen May Cause Disease
       *       GM Food Promoter Transfers to Rat Cells
       *       GM Vaccines Recombine into Unpredictable Hybrid
Viruses in Human and Animal Cells
       *       A Deadly Epidemic and the Attempt to Hide its Link to
Genetic Engineering
       *       55.6% Mortality in Rats Whose Mothers Were Fed GM Soy
       *       Terje Traavik, PhD, responds to criticism about his studies
       *       Article update linking health problems in the
Philippines with Bt corn
The biotech industry claims that the FDA has thoroughly evaluated GM
foods and found them safe. This is untrue. Internal FDA documents
made public from a lawsuit, reveal that agency scientists warned that
GM foods might create toxins, allergies, nutritional problems, and
new diseases that might be difficult to identify.131-140 Although
they urged their superiors to require long-term tests on each GM
variety prior to approval, the political appointees at the agency,
including a former attorney for Monsanto, ignored the scientists.
Official policy claims that the foods are no different130 and do NOT
require safety testing. A manufacturer can introduce a GM food
without even informing the government or consumers.146 A January 2001
report from an expert panel of the Royal Society of Canada said it
was "scientifically unjustifiable"136 to presume that GM foods are
safe. Likewise, a 2002 report by the UK's Royal Society said that
genetic modification "could lead to unpredicted harmful changes in
the nutritional state of foods," and recommended that potential
health effects of GM foods be rigorously researched before being fed
to pregnant or breast-feeding women, elderly people, those suffering
from chronic disease, and babies.263
How could the government approve dangerous foods? A close examination
reveals that industry manipulation and political collusion-not sound
science-was the driving force.
       *       Government employees who complained were harassed,
stripped of responsibilities, or fired.77-83
       *       Scientists were threatened. Evidence was stolen. Data
was omitted or distorted. Some regulators even claimed they were
offered bribes to approve a GM product.
There are only about two dozen published, peer-reviewed animal
feeding studies on the health effects of GM foods.
       *       One study showed evidence of damage to the immune
system and vital organs, and a potentially pre-cancerous
condition.12-13 When the scientist tried to alert the public about
these alarming discoveries, he lost his job and was silenced with
threats of a lawsuit.18-20
       *       Two other studies also showed evidence of a
potentially pre-cancerous condition. The other seven studies, which
were superficial in their design, were not designed to identify these
details.37
       *       In an unpublished study, laboratory rats fed a GM
crop developed stomach lesions and seven of the forty died within two
weeks. The crop was approved without further tests.37, 137-140
Many industry studies appear to be rigged to find no problems. In the
case of a genetically engineered bovine growth hormone (rbGH), for
example, researchers injected cows with only one forty-seventh the
normal dosage before reporting hormone residues in milk.91-92 They
heated the milk 120 times longer than standard, to report that
pasteurization destroys the hormone.93-94 They added cows to their
study that were pregnant before treatment, to claim that rbGH didn't
impede fertility.89 Cows that fell sick were dropped from studies
altogether.80-81
With soybeans, serious nutritional differences between GM and natural
soy were omitted from a published paper.35-36 Feeding studies masked
any problems by using mature animals instead of developing ones and
by diluting their GM soy 10 to 1 with non-GM protein.34
There are no adequate tests to verify that GM food will not create
dangerous allergic reactions. While an international organization
developed testing standards to minimize the possibility of allowing
allergenic GM varieties on the market, GM corn currently sold in the
U.S. has not been subjected to those tests and would most certainly
fail them. One of these tests, for example, uses a test tube
simulation to evaluate how long a potential GM allergen can last
inside the digestive system before being broken down. Compared to the
recommended international standards, however, one biotech company
used a far stronger acid concentration and more than 1,250 times the
recommended amount of a digestive enzyme to make the claim that their
protein degrades too quickly to cause a reaction.179
The only human feeding trial ever conducted confirmed that
genetically engineered genes from soy transferred to the bacteria
inside the digestive tract. (The biotech industry had previously said
that such a transfer was impossible.) The World Health Organization,
the British and American Medical Associations, and several other
groups have expressed concern that if the "antibiotic resistant
marker genes" used in GM foods got transferred to bacteria, it could
create super-diseases that are immune to antibiotics.59-60 More
worrisome is that the "promoter" used inside GM foods could get
transferred to bacteria or internal organs. Promoters act like a
light switches, permanently turning on genes that might otherwise be
switched off. Scientists believe that this might create unpredictable
health effects, including the potentially pre-cancerous cell growth
found in the animal feeding studies mentioned above.37
The biotech industry says that millions have been eating GM foods
without ill effect.This is misleading.
       *       About 100 people died and 5-10,000 to fell seriously
ill when they consumed the food supplement L-tryptophan. Only those
who consumed the variety that was genetically modified became ill.
That brand had minute, but deadly contaminants that would easily pass
through current regulations today. If the disease it created had not
been rare and acute, with crippling and deadly symptoms, the GM
supplement might never have been traced as the cause. Once
discovered, however, industry and government covered up facts and
diverted the blame. Even the FDA testimony before Congress withheld
vital information.107-125
For a summary of the L-tryptophan issue, click here. For an in-depth
presentation of the issue, see Toxic L-tryptophan: Shedding Light on
a Mysterious Epidemic, by William E. Crist.
       *       Milk from rbGH-treated cows contains an increased
amount of the hormone IGF-1, which is one of the highest risk factors
associated with breast and prostate cancer, among others.94-97
       *       Soy allergies skyrocketed by 50% in the UK,
coinciding with the introduction of GM soy imports from the
U.S.160-161
According to a March 2001 report, the Center for Disease Control says
that food is responsible for twice the number of illnesses in the
U.S. compared to estimates just seven years earlier. This increase
roughly corresponds to the period when Americans have been eating GM
food. Could that be contributing to the 5,000 deaths, 325,000
hospitalizations, and 76 million illnesses related to food each year?
Might it play in role in our national epidemic of obesity or the rise
in diabetes or lymphatic cancers? We have no way of knowing if there
is a connection because no one has looked for one.
One of the most dangerous aspects of genetic engineering is the
closed thinking and consistent effort to silence those with contrary
evidence or concerns. Just before stepping down from office, former
Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman admitted the following:
"What I saw generically on the pro-biotech side was the attitude that
the technology was good, and that it was almost immoral to say that
it wasn't good, because it was going to solve the problems of the
human race and feed the hungry and clothe the naked... And there was
a lot of money that had been invested in this, and if you're against
it, you're Luddites, you're stupid. That, frankly, was the side our
government was on... You felt like you were almost an alien,
disloyal, by trying to present an open-minded view"152-153
Contrast this with the warning by the editors of Nature
Biotechnology: "The risks in biotechnology are undeniable, and they
stem from the unknowable in science and commerce. It is prudent to
recognize and address those risks, not compound them by overly
optimistic or foolhardy behavior." 137
The biotech industry and the government have been foolhardy indeed.
Blinded, perhaps by the baseless myth that GM foods are needed to
feed the world,250-251  they gamble with our health and support their
safety claims on obsolete or unproven assumptions. Accepting their
vacuous assurances by eating these dangerous foods or serving them to
your customers may likewise be overly optimistic or foolhardy.
Please read the evidence amassed in the book Seeds of Deception by
Jeffrey M. Smith. The meticulously documented facts leave no doubt
about a massive injustice. The topic is too important to put this off
until tomorrow.