Like most people, I'm concerned about the quality of the food that my family consumes. I'm well educated about the nutritional value of one food over another, but I was astonishingly ignorant of the fact that my family has been consuming foods that are genetically modified on a daily basis. As I began to research this subject recently I discovered what seems to be a fast dance of political and corporate collusion that has manipulated the world's food supply for the profit of the few, at the peril of the many. Am I being over reactive? Read on and consider these facts, or do further research of your own. This is an important issue.
Genetically Modified foods have not been tested for safety.
Genetically Modified food has been in development for over 20 years and has been in widespread commercial use for about 15 years. Most Americans mistakenly believe that GM foods have gone through rigorous, in-depth, long-term, independent studies. In reality, the FDA has required absolutely no safety testing but instead relied upon research from companies like Monsanto, which produces the products. This is like Phillip Morris doing the research to decide if cigarette smoking is safe for your children!
The FDA's extremely lax policy on regulation of GM foods only makes sense when you notice the revolving door between agency regulators and the companies they regulate. The first George Bush mandated that GM food be actively promoted and put Michael Taylor, a former Monsanto attorney, in charge of developing the agency's policy. Taylor later returned to Monsanto as their vice president.
While the FDA has claimed it was unaware of any information showing that GM crops were different from non-GMO crops and therefore didn't require testing; 44,000 internal FDA documents made public by a lawsuit prove this to be a complete lie. The overwhelming consensus among the FDA's own scientists was that GM foods could lead to dangerous and hard-to-detect allergens, toxins, new diseases and nutritional problems. Unfortunately, the FDA scientists who urged their superiors to require long-term studies had their work discredited and the results suppressed.
GM foods are not needed to solve the food crisis
Since GM crops have been in wide spread use, there has been no evidence that they significantly increase crop yields. According to former US EPA and US FDA biotech specialist Dr Gurian-Sherman - when it comes to yield, "Traditional breeding outperforms genetic engineering hands down." Similarly, the claims that GM crops will produce plants with greater drought resistance, will reduce fertilizer use and pollution or save soil have also been proven utterly false. In fact, many studies have shown that GM yields are less than traditional and in drought or stressed growing conditions, organic farming methods had the highest production rates. If these companies were truly interested in providing
GM crops increase the use of toxic pesticides
It was widely publicized that GM crops would require fewer pesticides and herbicides because these ingredients were already being genetically added to the plant. But in fact, reducing pesticide and herbicide use when that is what your company makes is not good business. So, what they do provide is 'Round-up Ready' crops. High herbicide tolerance is found in over 80% of all GM crops planted worldwide. These crops are genetically designed to survive normally lethal doses of pesticides.
The increased use of pesticides is part of the package that farmers buy when they opt to cultivate GM seeds. In fact, GM crops have caused an epidemic of herbicide-resistant weeds and boosted sales of even more toxic pesticides - including ones banned in some European countries. GM plants therefore have extremely high pesticide residue which when ingested by humans can cause serious health problems.
Genetic Modification is not a well controlled science
There are eight GM food crops. The five major ones are: soy, corn, canola, cotton, and sugar beets. Bacterial genes are forcibly transferred across natural species barriers using imprecise laboratory techniques that bear no resemblance to natural breeding to allow the plants to survive an otherwise lethal dose of weed killer. The process creates massive collateral damage:
o Mutations are produced in hundreds or thousands of locations throughout the plant's DNA.
o Natural genes can be deleted or permanently turned on or off.
o Hundreds of genes may change their behavior.
o Even the inserted gene can be damaged or rearranged, and may create proteins that can trigger allergies or promote disease.
A second GM trait is a built-in pesticide, primarily used in GM corn and cotton. A gene from the soil bacterium called Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) is inserted into the plant's DNA, where it secretes the insect-killing Bt-toxin in every cell. There is evidence that these genes continue to be active in the human gut, reproducing and mutating the normal bacteria found there into a virtual pesticide factory. These altered genes have a tendency to migrate and have been found in virtually every organ system in lab animals who were fed the altered food with devastating and deadly effect. No human testing has been done but the evidence is that genetic migration is extensive and poses serious risks to our biosphere and human life.
GM foods are not safe
Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) have been linked to toxic and allergic reactions, thousands of sick, sterile, and dead livestock, and damage to virtually every organ and system studied in lab animals. GM soy drastically reduces digestive enzymes in mice and people who are not allergic to regular soy are commonly allergic to GM soy and it's derivatives. GM products also seems to cause people to become allergic to a variety of non-GM foods. Animal tests have shown damage to the reproductive system causing infertility, mutations, damaged liver, decreased immunity, and toxic responses that resulted in the animals death.
The only published human feeding experiment revealed that the genetic material inserted into GM soy transfers into bacteria living inside our intestines and continues to function there. This means that long after we stop eating GM foods, we may still have their GM proteins reproducing inside us. If the antibiotic gene inserted into most GM crops were to transfer, it could create super diseases, resistant to antibiotics. If the gene that creates Bt-toxin in GM corn were to transfer, it could turn our intestinal bacteria into living pesticide factories. Animal studies show that DNA in food can travel into organs throughout the body, even into a fetus. Further research into these risks has been suppressed but anecdotal evidence is growing that consuming GM foods or animal products from animals fed GM foods may well be hazardous not only to your health, but the health of your entire genetic line. Even if there were no risks involved in the forced genetic mutation of cells, the heavy pesticide residue is an established health risk, especially to children. As a parent, I don't want to give my children anything that is even remotely suspect, much less a food that has only been tested by the companies that profit from it's proliferation. It's time we all learned more about this and I encourage you to stay tuned as I explore this issue further.
Anna Lonsdale author of Living Well Blog, co-owner of Fresh Organics Inc. - http://www.freshorganicliving.com.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Anna_Lonsdale
http://EzineArticles.com/?Genetically-Modified-Food---A-Growing-Concern&id=3787453
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