Why You Should Say No to GMOs

By Hesh Goldstein
NaturalNews, October 15, 2009
Straight to the Source

(NaturalNews) Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are the latest travesty thrust upon an unsuspecting public by the greedy, control minded corporations that see the Almighty Sign ($$) as the ultimate in achieving the highest "bottom line" possible. If you control the food supply you control the people. If you control the people, then ultimately they will work for you and their money is yours.

Did you know...if seeds from a GMO field blow over to a non-GMO field the non-GMO farmer can be sued for theft?

Did you know...normally, a farmer holds seeds to be used for the next season? But Monsanto, who must be hurting for money, makes GMO farmers buy new seeds every year?

Did you know... if you ever wondered why GMO foods are not labeled as such it is because Monsanto paid off whoever to make sure that GMO foods do NOT get labeled as such? Do you think they did that because they knew that no one would buy them if they were labeled?

Did you know... research was done that showed when GMO and non-GMO foods are put in the wild the animals will not eat the GMO food? One would think we would learn from that.

Did you know...one would ask why GMO foods are so readily accepted by the Fraud and Drug Administration? Wonder if Monsanto`s former top executives having key positions in the FDA have anything to do with that?

Did you know... since 1996 Americans have been eating genetically modified ingredients in most processed foods?

Did you know... GM plants, such as soybean, corn, cottonseed, canola (what`s a canola?) and now sugar beets have had foreign genes forced into their DNA and the inserted genes come from bacteria and viruses that have never been in the human food supply?

Did you know... GMOs have been linked to thousands of toxic and allergic reactions, thousands of sick, sterile and dead livestock, and damage to virtually every organ and system studied in lab animals?

In 1992, the Fraud and Drug Administration claimed that they had no information showing that GM foods were substantially different from conventionally grown foods and therefore were safe to eat. But, internal memos made public by a lawsuit reveal that their position was staged by political appointees under orders from the White House to promote GMOs.

FDA scientists, on the other hand, warned that GMOs can create unpredictable, hard-to-detect side effects, including allergies, toxins, new diseases, and nutritional problems. They urged long-term safety studies, but were ignored. Why? Because the Fraud and Drug Administration does not require any safety evaluations for GMOs.

Instead, biotech companies, who have been found guilty of hiding the toxic effects of their chemical products, are now in charge of determining whether their GM foods are safe. The FDA official in charge of creating this policy was Michael Taylor, Monsanto`s former attorney and later vice-president.

Although these biotech companies participate in a voluntary consultation process with the FDA, it is a meaningless exercise. The summaries of the superficial research they submit cannot identify most of the health risks of GMOs. In contrast to the statements of biotech advocates, FDA scientists and others affirm that genetic modification is not just an extension of the conventional breeding techniques that have been used by farmers for lifetimes. Genetic engineering transfers genes across natural species barriers, using imprecise laboratory techniques that bear no resemblance to natural breeding. Furthermore, the technology is based on outdated concepts of how genes and cells work.

Gene insertion is done either by shooting genes from a gene gun into a plate of cells or by using bacteria to invade the cell with foreign DNA. The altered cell is then cloned into a plant. These processes create massive collateral damage, causing mutations in hundreds or thousands of locations throughout the plant`s DNA.

Natural genes can be deleted or permanently turned on or off, and hundreds may change their levels of expression. In addition, the inserted gene is often rearranged, may transfer from the food into our body`s cells or into the DNA of bacteria inside us, and the GM protein produced by the gene may have unintended properties or effects.

The primary reason companies genetically engineer plants is to make them tolerant to their brand of herbicide and pesticide. The four major GM plants, soy, corn, canola, and cotton and now, sugar beets, are designed to survive an otherwise deadly dose of weed killer. These crops have much higher residues of toxic herbicides.

Basically, Monsanto created GMOs to withstand enormous amounts of their cash crop, Roundup *(see end of article for some interesting bits about Roundup). The second GM trait is a built-in pesticide. A gene from the soil bacterium called Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) is inserted into cotton and corn DNA, where it secretes the insect-killing Bt-toxin in every cell. About 19% of GM crops produce their own pesticide. Another 13% produce a pesticide and are herbicide, pesticide tolerant.

Also, small amounts of zucchini, and yellow crookneck squash as well as Hawaiian papaya are engineered to resist plant viruses. In fact, virtually all Hawaiian papaya is genetically modified.

Now, let`s take a look at some of the evidence of harm from GMOs: Soy allergies skyrocketed by 50% in the UK, soon after GM soy was introduced. A human subject showed a skin prick allergic-type reaction to GM soy, but not to natural soy. The level of one known soy allergen is as much as 7-times higher in cooked GM soy compared to non-GM soy. GM soy also contains an unexpected allergen-type protein not found in natural soy.

The biotech industry claims that the Bt-toxin found in corn and cotton is harmless to humans and mammals because the natural bacteria version has been used as a spray by farmers for years. In reality, hundreds of people exposed to Bt spray had allergic-type symptoms and mice fed Bt had powerful immune responses and damaged intestines. Bt in GM crops is designed to be more toxic than the natural spray and is thousands of times more concentrated. Hundreds of laborers in India report allergic reactions just from handling Bt cotton and their symptoms are identical to those exposed to Bt spray.

No tests can guarantee that a GMO will not cause allergies. Although the World Health Organization recommends a protein screening protocol, the GM soy, corn, and papaya in our food supply fail these tests because they have properties of known allergens. If proteins digest slowly, there is more time for allergic reactions. Because GM soy reduces digestive enzymes in mice, it may slow protein digestion and promote allergies to many foods.

Mice not only reacted to Bt-toxin, they had immune responses to formerly harmless compounds. Similarly, a mouse test indicated that people eating GM peas could develop allergies to the peas and to a range of other foods. The peas had already passed all the allergy tests normally used to get GMOs on the market. It took this advanced mouse test, which was never used on the GMOs we eat, to discover that the peas could be deadly.

Rats fed GM potatoes had smaller, partially atrophied livers. The livers of rats fed GM canola were 12-16% heavier. GM soy altered mouse liver cells in ways that suggest a toxic insult. The changes reversed after their diet switched to non-GM soy. More than half the offspring of mother rats fed GM soy died within three weeks and male rats and mice fed GM soy showed changes in their testicles; the mice had altered young sperm cells. The DNA of mouse embryos whose parents ate GM soy functioned differently than those whose parents ate non-GM soy and the stomach lining of rats fed GM potatoes showed excessive cell growth, a condition that may be a precursor to cancer. Rats also had damaged organs and immune systems.

When sheep grazed on Bt cotton plants after harvest, within a week 1 in 4 died. Farmers in Europe and Asia say that cows, water buffaloes, chickens and horses died from eating Bt corn varieties. About two dozen US farmers report that Bt corn varieties caused widespread sterility in pigs and cows. On the human side, Filipinos in at least five villages fell sick when a nearby Bt corn variety was pollinating.

Unlike safety evaluations for drugs, there are no human clinical trials of GM foods. The only published human feeding experiment verified that genetic material inserted into GM soy transfers into the DNA of intestinal bacteria and continues to function. This means that long after we stop eating GM foods, we may still have their GM proteins continuously inside us. This means that if the antibiotic gene inserted into most GM crops were to transfer, it could create super diseases resistant to antibiotics and if the gene that creates Bt-toxin in GM corn were to transfer, it might turn our intestinal flora into living pesticide factories - especially since animal studies have shown that DNA in food can travel into organs throughout the body, even into fetuses.

In the 1980`s, a contaminated brand of a food supplement called L-tryptophan killed 100 Americans and caused sickness and disability in another 5,000 to 10,000 people. The source of the contaminants was almost certainly the genetic engineering process used in its production. The disease took years to find and was almost overlooked. It was only because the symptoms were unique, acute, and fast-acting. If all three characteristics were not in place, the deadly GM supplement might never have been identified or removed.

If GM foods on the market are causing common diseases or if their effects appear only after long-term exposure, we may not be able to identify the source of the problem for decades, if at all. There is no monitoring of GMO-related problems and no long-term animal studies. The bottom line is that these heavily invested biotech corporations are gambling away the health of our world for profit.

One last note:
Scientists generally believe that they can do things better than God can and that God is limited in what he can do for mankind, especially since our population is growing in leaps and bounds and our resources are dwindling just as fast. Maybe if we all lived simply and we all saw ourselves as caretakers, we would be more respectful of the world and its inhabitants and could put into a much clearer perspective whose property we were taking care of. After all, it was here before we got here and it will be here after we are gone. If we could all see this, there would certainly be no more wars because we would all be sharing and trading with each other the resources abundant in our part of the world. It is only due to envy that we wage war. When someone else has what we want and we have the bigger and better weapons or the greater force, we go and try to take it. If God is the Owner and we are the caretakers and if we, His children, are all brothers and sisters, what would be the need for force?

*
Used in yards, farms and parks throughout thee world, Roundup has long been a top-selling weed killer. But now, according to an article in Environmental Health News, written by Crystal Gammon, researchers have found that one of Roundup`s inert ingredients can kill human cells, particularly embryonic, placental and umbilical cord cells. Pesticide researchers and activists from the U.S. to Argentina, Japan and Croatia have been calling for public access to, and warnings about inerts (almost 4,000 solvents, surfactants and other chemicals included in pesticides, approved by the U.S. EPA, yet not specified on warning labels because they are not the active ingredient aimed at pest control).

Glyphosate, Roundup`s active ingredient, is the most widely used herbicide in the U.S. About 100 million pounds are applied to U.S. Farms and lawns every year. Until now, most health studies have focused on the safety of glyphosate alone, rather than the mixture of ingredients found in Roundup. In a study from Caen University, in France, first published earlier this year, scientists found that Roundup`s inert ingredients amplified the toxic effect on human cells, even at concentrations much more diluted than those used on farms and lawns. Their focus was on POEA, a detergent in Roundup that they were astonished to discover was far more dangerous than the herbicide itself. The proprietary mixtures available on the market could cause cell damage and even death at the residual levels found on Roundup-treated crops, such as soybeans, alfalfa and corn, or lawns and gardens.

Despite Monsanto`s claims that the study is flawed, Giles-Eric Seralini, the molecular biologist that headed the French study, says that standard toxicological methods were used and that competitors can discover what is in formulations like Roundup with routine lab analysis. The purpose of the proprietary protection laws for inerts is solely for the purpose of keeping information from the public. And what`s worse is that when mixed together at concentrations officially considered "safe", ten of the world`s most widely used pesticides can combine to produce a chemical cocktail that is deadlier than any of the chemicals acting alone.

This is why you MUST say no to GMOs!

Aloha!