Europeans More Resistant to Genetically Modified Foods
Posted by Dr. Mercola | May 17 2003 | 2,256 views
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While many in America believe that genetically modified (GM) foods will reduce the need for pesticides and chemical fertilizers, helps solve the world hunger problems and help with medical issues, Europeans are much more resistant such biotechnology.
In fact, in 1998 in response to consumer demands the European Union (EU) restricted new GM products and required that all foods containing more than one percent of GM ingredients be labeled.
However, worldwide, land devoted to GM crops has increased 30-fold from 1996 to 2001, and in the United States GM crops have spread and contaminated traditional crops so severely that the U.S. seed industry can’t guarantee that soybean, corn or canola seeds are GM-free.
While the U.S. government maintains that genetic engineering is safe, the EU has been somewhat more resistant and 70 percent of European consumers say they don't want to eat any GMO at all.
Controversy is brewing over whether Europeans are being overly cautious or prudent. According to some experts, it is too soon to know for sure how GM products will affect humans.
Alternet April 29, 2003
Dr. Mercola's Comments:
Consuming genetically modified foods is like participating in a giant experiment. There is no telling what the consequences of using these genetically modified foods will be because these products have never existed before now.
It seems clear that these altered foods are capable of producing chages in humans. Already, investigators have found that rats fed genetically modified potatoes had an increased thickening in the lining of their stomach and intestine and a weakening of their immune system.
Further, some scientists want to put vaccines into plants without any real knowledge of what effects this unnatural addition will have on human health, or the health of our planet.
This is SHEER LUNACY.
What these scientists have failed to fully appreciate is that once these genetically modified plants are growing it is physically impossible to prevent them from pollinating other plants, thereby contaminating them with these new proteins, of which we do not know the long-term consequences.
The absurdity of the entire process is mind-boggling. These scientists are willing to sacrifice the country’s food supply by adding vaccines, which do not even work in the first place, to plants.
If this continues, our grandchildren may not have access to any non-genetically modified food, and the health of our society may continue to rapidly decline.
One of the keys to health is good food. Although most of us don't choose to do so, we can still purchase real, unaltered food in this country. Sadly, the future does not appear to provide this option.
Genetically modified foods did not exist prior to 1995. Ninety percent of the money Americans spend on food is spent on processed foods, and seventy percent of processed foods have genetically modified foods in them.
There have been NO STUDIES done with humans to show what happens when genetically modified foods are consumed. The FDA has ASSUMED that these modified foods are equivalent to the original foods and does not require any studies to have them approved, despite the fact that this technology has never before existed in the history of the world.
This is especially troubling in light of the United State’s federal track record on genetically engineered safety, which is terrible.
For example, last year genetically modified Starlink corn was approved for animal consumption, but NOT human consumption because of a concern that it could cause allergies in humans. However, Starlink corn would up directly in the human food supply, despite FDA precautions.
There are EIGHT different agencies in the United States regulating biotechnology under 12 different sets of laws. NONE of the laws had biotechnology in mind when they were passed, as they are 40 to 50 years old.
This lack of regulation and total irresponsibility in using genetically modified foods is a disaster waiting to happen.
Related Articles:
GMO Crops Are an Accident Waiting to Happen
Drug Company Owns Monsanto and Their Weed Killer Is What Funds GMO Crops
GMO Crops Are An Accident Waiting to Happen
Genetically Modified Foods, Inc.
Source: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2003/05/17/gm-foods-part-six.aspx
Saturday, April 3, 2010
All Organic Seeds Now Appear to Be Contaminated With Genetically Modified Crops
All Organic Seeds Now Appear to Be Contaminated With Genetically Modified Crops
Posted by Dr. Mercola | May 23 2001 | 2,801 views
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May 1, 2001 -- Cropchoice News
That was the gist of declarations by two organic agriculture organizations to describe the effect of transgenic crop production on organic farming. As is the case with conventional soy, corn, and canola, organic crops have tested positive for the presence of foreign genetic material because of cross-pollination, seed stock contamination. The inability to segregate transgenic crops from their organic and conventional counterparts during harvest, handling, transport and milling is also responsible for contamination.
The Organic Federation of Australia declared that contamination from transgenic crops in the United States has spread to such a degree that it cannot verify the purity of imported organic ingredients.
Farm Verified Organic seconded that assertion. A press release from the North Dakota certification agency stated: "the GM pollution of American commodities is now so pervasive, we believe it is not possible for farmers in North America to source seed free from it."
"The widespread adoption of GM crops in the U.S. makes it difficult to ensure that grain is not being contaminated with genetically modified organisms (GMOs) as it is handled and transported from the field to the end customer. Industry insiders even question whether the foundation (parent) seed for non-GM varieties can meet a 1% purity level," according to the November 2000 edition of Farmindustrynews.com.
David Gould, a member of the certification committee of Farm Verified Organic, discussed the contamination situation with Cropchoice in February.
"Our investigations thus far from the 2000 harvest lead us to believe that virtually all of the seed corn in the United states is contaminated with at least a trace of genetically engineered material, and often more," Gould said. "Even the organic lots are showing traces of biotech varieties."
He pointed out the now familiar StarLink corn fiasco. Iowa farmers planted 1 percent of their crop with StarLink. By harvest time, 50 percent registered positive for the genetically engineered variety.
Since his preferred option of a ban on transgenic crops probably won't happen soon, Gould favors establishment of a maximum tolerance level for genetically modified organisms in organic crops. Currently, there is no universal standard. In the case of corn, he said that if organic certifiers insisted on 0 percent contamination, "we shouldn't certify any corn."
At the same time, he worries that propagating transgenic crops year after year will lead to the presence of more and more foreign genes in organic and conventional varieties. This in turn, would mean raising the tolerance levels. Whether the organic stamp of approval would then become something of a joke is open to debate.
But one should remember that organic standards have to do with production, not purity, said Annie Kirschenmann, of Farm Verified Organic. This means that testing for any kind of residue, be it from pesticide or genetic drift, is not part of determining whether to certify a farm as organic.
Cropchoice.com May 1, 2001
Dr. Mercola's Comments:
Well here we have it, the first suggestion that this is the beginning of the end for pure food crops. It appears that nearly all the organic seeds have some level of contamination with genetically modified crops.
Let me repeat one of the above statements:
Farm Verified Organic seconded that assertion. A press release from the North Dakota certification agency stated: "the GM pollution of American commodities is now so pervasive, we believe it is not possible for farmers in North America to source seed free from it."
This is incredible.
We will need to maximize our efforts to stay healthy to resist the nearly inevitable deterioration on our health that these crops will have.
If you don't believe that there is a problem with genetically modified crops, please review the links below.
Related Articles:
Hazards of Genetically Engineered Food
Oppose FDA's New Regulations on Genetically Engineered Food
Source: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2001/05/23/gm-crops-part-one.aspx
Posted by Dr. Mercola | May 23 2001 | 2,801 views
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May 1, 2001 -- Cropchoice News
That was the gist of declarations by two organic agriculture organizations to describe the effect of transgenic crop production on organic farming. As is the case with conventional soy, corn, and canola, organic crops have tested positive for the presence of foreign genetic material because of cross-pollination, seed stock contamination. The inability to segregate transgenic crops from their organic and conventional counterparts during harvest, handling, transport and milling is also responsible for contamination.
The Organic Federation of Australia declared that contamination from transgenic crops in the United States has spread to such a degree that it cannot verify the purity of imported organic ingredients.
Farm Verified Organic seconded that assertion. A press release from the North Dakota certification agency stated: "the GM pollution of American commodities is now so pervasive, we believe it is not possible for farmers in North America to source seed free from it."
"The widespread adoption of GM crops in the U.S. makes it difficult to ensure that grain is not being contaminated with genetically modified organisms (GMOs) as it is handled and transported from the field to the end customer. Industry insiders even question whether the foundation (parent) seed for non-GM varieties can meet a 1% purity level," according to the November 2000 edition of Farmindustrynews.com.
David Gould, a member of the certification committee of Farm Verified Organic, discussed the contamination situation with Cropchoice in February.
"Our investigations thus far from the 2000 harvest lead us to believe that virtually all of the seed corn in the United states is contaminated with at least a trace of genetically engineered material, and often more," Gould said. "Even the organic lots are showing traces of biotech varieties."
He pointed out the now familiar StarLink corn fiasco. Iowa farmers planted 1 percent of their crop with StarLink. By harvest time, 50 percent registered positive for the genetically engineered variety.
Since his preferred option of a ban on transgenic crops probably won't happen soon, Gould favors establishment of a maximum tolerance level for genetically modified organisms in organic crops. Currently, there is no universal standard. In the case of corn, he said that if organic certifiers insisted on 0 percent contamination, "we shouldn't certify any corn."
At the same time, he worries that propagating transgenic crops year after year will lead to the presence of more and more foreign genes in organic and conventional varieties. This in turn, would mean raising the tolerance levels. Whether the organic stamp of approval would then become something of a joke is open to debate.
But one should remember that organic standards have to do with production, not purity, said Annie Kirschenmann, of Farm Verified Organic. This means that testing for any kind of residue, be it from pesticide or genetic drift, is not part of determining whether to certify a farm as organic.
Cropchoice.com May 1, 2001
Dr. Mercola's Comments:
Well here we have it, the first suggestion that this is the beginning of the end for pure food crops. It appears that nearly all the organic seeds have some level of contamination with genetically modified crops.
Let me repeat one of the above statements:
Farm Verified Organic seconded that assertion. A press release from the North Dakota certification agency stated: "the GM pollution of American commodities is now so pervasive, we believe it is not possible for farmers in North America to source seed free from it."
This is incredible.
We will need to maximize our efforts to stay healthy to resist the nearly inevitable deterioration on our health that these crops will have.
If you don't believe that there is a problem with genetically modified crops, please review the links below.
Related Articles:
Hazards of Genetically Engineered Food
Oppose FDA's New Regulations on Genetically Engineered Food
Source: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2001/05/23/gm-crops-part-one.aspx
Genetically Altered Plants Might Alter You
Genetically Altered Plants Might Alter You
Posted by Dr. Mercola | January 02 2008 | 4,346 views
Fears that genes for antibiotic resistance could jump from genetically modified foods to bacteria in the gut may be fueled by new research from the Netherlands.
The results show that DNA lingers in the intestine, and confirm that genetically modified bacteria can transfer their antibiotic-resistance genes to bacteria in the gut. Using an "artificial gut", researchers showed that DNA remains intact for several minutes in the large intestine.
One concern about some genetically modified (GM) crops, such as maize used as animal fodder, is that they include a gene for antibiotic resistance. The resistance genes are used to track the uptake of modified genes, and are not expressed in the crops.
While some scientists fear that these genes could jump into bacteria in the guts of livestock and create antibiotic-resistant pathogens, others have said there is no such risk because the modified DNA breaks down quickly. The Dutch results cast doubt on these assurances.
If the modified bacteria were a type normally found in the gut, such as Enterococcus, the experiment showed each had a 1 in 10 million chance of passing DNA containing antibiotic-resistance genes to an indigenous gut bacterium when they came in contact.
There are normally around a thousand billion gut bacteria, suggesting many would be transformed. If some normal gut inhabitants were killed off -- as in the guts of people or animals on antibiotics -- the transfer rate from gut-type bacteria increased tenfold.
New Scientist, 30 January 1999
________________________________________
Dr. Mercola's Comment:
This type of research is important in light of the new seeds that are being developed by Monsanto that are called Terminator genes. The seed companies produce hybrid seeds with highly sought after characteristics. They sell the seeds to the farmers who promise not to grow plants with the seeds produced with their harvest and to repurchase them from the seed company.
We all know that would not be a wise commercial decision for the farmer, so the seed company decided to sterilize all future seeds that the crops would produce by adding new genes to the seeds that would make the subsequent crops infertile.
This way, the farmer would be forced to repurchase their seeds from the seed company. Unfortunately, it appears that there is a small risk: these "terminator" genes can now be partially transferred during the digestive process.
Source: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/01/02/genetically-altered-plants.aspx
Posted by Dr. Mercola | January 02 2008 | 4,346 views
Fears that genes for antibiotic resistance could jump from genetically modified foods to bacteria in the gut may be fueled by new research from the Netherlands.
The results show that DNA lingers in the intestine, and confirm that genetically modified bacteria can transfer their antibiotic-resistance genes to bacteria in the gut. Using an "artificial gut", researchers showed that DNA remains intact for several minutes in the large intestine.
One concern about some genetically modified (GM) crops, such as maize used as animal fodder, is that they include a gene for antibiotic resistance. The resistance genes are used to track the uptake of modified genes, and are not expressed in the crops.
While some scientists fear that these genes could jump into bacteria in the guts of livestock and create antibiotic-resistant pathogens, others have said there is no such risk because the modified DNA breaks down quickly. The Dutch results cast doubt on these assurances.
If the modified bacteria were a type normally found in the gut, such as Enterococcus, the experiment showed each had a 1 in 10 million chance of passing DNA containing antibiotic-resistance genes to an indigenous gut bacterium when they came in contact.
There are normally around a thousand billion gut bacteria, suggesting many would be transformed. If some normal gut inhabitants were killed off -- as in the guts of people or animals on antibiotics -- the transfer rate from gut-type bacteria increased tenfold.
New Scientist, 30 January 1999
________________________________________
Dr. Mercola's Comment:
This type of research is important in light of the new seeds that are being developed by Monsanto that are called Terminator genes. The seed companies produce hybrid seeds with highly sought after characteristics. They sell the seeds to the farmers who promise not to grow plants with the seeds produced with their harvest and to repurchase them from the seed company.
We all know that would not be a wise commercial decision for the farmer, so the seed company decided to sterilize all future seeds that the crops would produce by adding new genes to the seeds that would make the subsequent crops infertile.
This way, the farmer would be forced to repurchase their seeds from the seed company. Unfortunately, it appears that there is a small risk: these "terminator" genes can now be partially transferred during the digestive process.
Source: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/01/02/genetically-altered-plants.aspx
Hazards of Genetically Engineered Food
Hazards of Genetically Engineered Food
Posted by Dr. Mercola | December 03 2000 | 8,843 views
The patenting of genetically engineered foods and widespread biotech food production threatens to eliminate farming as it has been practiced for 12,000 years.
Ronnie Cummins
Little Marais, Minnesota
Introductory Overview
The technology of genetic engineering (GE), wielded by transnational "life science" corporations such as Monsanto and Novartis, is the practice of altering or disrupting the genetic blueprints of living organisms -- plants, animals, humans, microorganisms -- patenting them, and then selling the resulting gene-foods, seeds, or other products for profit.
Life science corporations proclaim, with great fanfare, that their new products will make agriculture sustainable, eliminate world hunger, cure disease, and vastly improve public health. In reality, through their business practices and political lobbying, the gene engineers have made it clear that they intend to use GE to dominate and monopolize the global market for seeds, foods, fiber, and medical products.
GE is a revolutionary new technology still in its early experimental stages of development. This technology has the power to break down fundamental genetic barriers -- not only between species -- but between humans, animals, and plants. By randomly inserting together the genes of non-related species -- utilizing viruses, antibiotic-resistant genes, and bacteria as vectors, markers, and promoters -- and permanently altering their genetic codes, gene-altered organisms are created that pass these genetic changes onto their offspring through heredity.
Gene engineers all over the world are now snipping, inserting, recombining, rearranging, editing, and programming genetic material. Animal genes and even human genes are randomly inserted into the chromosomes of plants, fish, and animals, creating heretofore unimaginable transgenic life forms. For the first time in history, transnational biotechnology corporations are becoming the architects and "owners" of life.
With little or no regulatory restraints, labeling requirements, or scientific protocol, bio-engineers have begun creating hundreds of new GE "Frankenfoods" and crops, oblivious to human and environmental hazards, or negative socioeconomic impacts on the world's several billion farmers and rural villagers.
Despite an increasing number of scientists warning that current gene-splicing techniques are crude, inexact, and unpredictable -- and therefore inherently dangerous -- pro-biotech governments and regulatory agencies, led by the US, maintain that GE foods and crops are "substantially equivalent" to conventional foods, and therefore require neither mandatory labeling nor pre-market safety-testing. This Brave New World of Frankenfoods is frightening.
There are currently more than four dozen genetically engineered foods and crops being grown or sold in the US. These foods and crops are widely dispersed into the food chain and the environment. Over 70 million acres of GE crops are presently under cultivation in the US, while up to 500,000 dairy cows are being injected regularly with Monsanto's recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH).
Most supermarket processed food items now "test positive" for the presence of GE ingredients. In addition several dozen more GE crops are in the final stages of development and will soon be released into the environment and sold in the marketplace. According to the biotechnology industry almost 100% of US food and fiber will be genetically engineered within 5-10 years. The "hidden menu" of these unlabeled genetically engineered foods and food ingredients in the US now includes soybeans, soy oil, corn, potatoes, squash, canola oil, cotton seed oil, papaya, tomatoes, and dairy products.
Genetic engineering of food and fiber products is inherently unpredictable and dangerous -- for humans, for animals, the environment, and for the future of sustainable and organic agriculture. As Dr. Michael Antoniou, a British molecular scientist points out, gene-splicing has already resulted in the "unexpected production of toxic substances... in genetically engineered bacteria, yeast, plants, and animals with the problem remaining undetected until a major health hazard has arisen."
The hazards of GE foods and crops fall basically into three categories: human health hazards, environmental hazards, and socioeconomic hazards. A brief look at the already-proven and likely hazards of GE products provides a convincing argument for why we need a global moratorium on all GE foods and crops.
Toxins & Poisons
Genetically engineered products clearly have the potential to be toxic and a threat to human health. In 1989 a genetically engineered brand of L-tryptophan, a common dietary supplement, killed 37 Americans and permanently disabled or afflicted more than 5,000 others with a potentially fatal and painful blood disorder, eosinophilia myalgia syndrome (EMS), before it was recalled by the Food and Drug Administration.
The manufacturer, Showa Denko, Japan's third largest chemical company, had for the first time in 1988-89 used GE bacteria to produce the over-the-counter supplement. It is believed that the bacteria somehow became contaminated during the recombinant DNA process. Showa Denko has already paid out over $2 billion in damages to EMS victims.
In 1999, front-page headline stories in the British press revealed Rowett Institute scientist Dr. Arpad Pusztai's explosive research findings that GE potatoes, spliced with DNA from the snowdrop plant and a commonly used viral promoter, the Cauliflower Mosaic Virus (CaMv), are poisonous to mammals. GE-snowdrop potatoes, found to be significantly different in chemical composition from regular potatoes, damaged the vital organs and immune systems of lab rats fed the GE potatoes.
Most alarming of all, damage to the rats' stomach linings -- apparently a severe viral infection -- most likely was caused by the CaMv viral promoter, a promoter spliced into nearly all GE foods and crops.
Dr. Pusztai's pathbreaking research work unfortunately remains incomplete (government funding was cut off and he was fired after he spoke to the media). But more and more scientists around the world are warning that genetic manipulation can increase the levels of natural plant toxins in foods (or create entirely new toxins) in unexpected ways by switching on genes that produce poisons.
And since regulatory agencies do not currently require the kind of thorough chemical and feeding tests that Dr. Pusztai was conducting, consumers have now become involuntary guinea pigs in a vast genetic experiment. As Dr. Pusztai warns, "Think of William Tell shooting an arrow at a target. Now put a blindfold on the man doing the shooting and that's the reality of the genetic engineer doing a gene insertion."
Increased Cancer Risks
In 1994, the FDA approved the sale of Monsanto's controversial GE recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH) -- injected into dairy cows to force them to produce more milk -- even though scientists warned that significantly higher levels (400-500% or more) of a potent chemical hormone, Insulin-Like Growth Factor (IGF-1), in the milk and dairy products of injected cows, could pose serious hazards for human breast, prostate, and colon cancer.
A number of studies have shown that humans with elevated levels of IGF-1 in their bodies are much more likely to get cancer. In addition the US Congressional watchdog agency, the GAO, told the FDA not to approve rBGH, arguing that increased antibiotic residues in the milk of rBGH-injected cows (resulting from higher rates of udder infections requiring antibiotic treatment) posed an unacceptable risk for public health.
In 1998, heretofore undisclosed Monsanto/FDA documents were released by government scientists in Canada, showing damage to laboratory rats fed dosages of rBGH. Significant infiltration of rBGH into the prostate of the rats as well as thyroid cysts indicated potential cancer hazards from the drug. Subsequently the government of Canada banned rBGH in early 1999. The European Union has had a ban in place since 1994.
Although rBGH continues to be injected into 4-5% of all US dairy cows, no other industrialized country has legalized its use. Even the GATT Codex Alimentarius, a United Nations food standards body, has refused to certify that rBGH is safe. (Also see: Monsanto and Fox TV Unite to Suppress Journalists'Free Speech on Hazards of Genetically Engineered Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH or rBST)
Food Allergies
In 1996 a major GE food disaster was narrowly averted when Nebraska researchers learned that a Brazil nut gene spliced into soybeans could induce potentially fatal allergies in people sensitive to Brazil nuts. Animal tests of these Brazil nut-spliced soybeans had turned up negative.
People with food allergies (which currently afflicts 8% of all American children), whose symptoms can range from mild unpleasantness to sudden death, may likely be harmed by exposure to foreign proteins spliced into common food products. Since humans have never before eaten most of the foreign proteins now being gene-spliced into foods, stringent pre-market safety-testing (including long-term animal feeding and volunteer human feeding studies) is necessary in order to prevent a future public health disaster.
Mandatory labeling is also necessary so that those suffering from food allergies can avoid hazardous GE foods and so that public health officials can trace allergens back to their source when GE-induced food allergies break out.
Unfortunately the FDA and other global regulatory agencies do not routinely require pre-market animal and human studies to ascertain whether new allergens or toxins, or increased levels of human allergens or toxins we already know about, are present in genetically engineered foods. As British scientist Dr. Mae-Wan Ho points out "There is no known way to predict the allergenic potential of GE foods. Allergic reactions typically occur only some time after the subject is sensitized by initial exposure to the allergen."
Damage to Food Quality & Nutrition
A 1999 study by Dr. Marc Lappe published in the Journal of Medicinal Food found that concentrations of beneficial phytoestrogen compounds thought to protect against heart disease and cancer were lower in genetically modified soybeans than in traditional strains. These and other studies, including Dr. Pusztai's, indicate that genetically engineering food will likely result in foods lower in quality and nutrition. For example the milk from cows injected with rBGH contains higher levels of pus, bacteria, and fat.
Antibiotic Resistance
When gene engineers splice a foreign gene into a plant or microbe, they often link it to another gene, called an antibiotic resistance marker gene (ARM), that helps determine if the first gene was successfully spliced into the host organism.
Some researchers warn that these ARM genes might unexpectedly recombine with disease-causing bacteria or microbes in the environment or in the guts of animals or people who eat GE food, contributing to the growing public health danger of antibiotic resistance -- of infections that cannot be cured with traditional antibiotics, for example new strains of salmonella, e-coli, campylobacter, and enterococci. EU (European Union) authorities are currently considering a ban on all GE foods containing antibiotic resistant marker genes.
Increased Pesticide Residues in the Soil and on Crops
Contrary to biotech industry propaganda, recent studies have found that US farmers growing GE crops are using just as many toxic pesticides and herbicides as conventional farmers, and in some cases are using more. Crops genetically engineered to be herbicide-resistant account for 70% of all GE crops planted in 1998.
The so-called "benefits" of these herbicide-resistant crops are that farmers can spray as much of a particular herbicide on their crops as they want -- killing the weeds without damaging their crop. Scientists estimate that herbicide-resistant crops planted around the globe will triple the amount of toxic broad-spectrum herbicides used in agriculture. These broad-spectrum herbicides are designed to literally kill everything green.
The leaders in biotechnology are the same giant chemical companies -- Monsanto, DuPont, AgrEvo, Novartis, and Rhone-Poulenc -- that sell toxic pesticides. These companies are genetically engineering plants to be resistant to herbicides that they manufacture so they can sell more herbicides to farmers who, in turn, can apply more poisonous herbicides to crops to kill weeds.
Genetic Pollution
"Genetic pollution" and collateral damage from GE field crops already have begun to wreak environmental havoc. Wind, rain, birds, bees, and insect pollinators have begun carrying genetically-altered pollen into adjoining fields, polluting the DNA of crops of organic and non-GE farmers.
An organic farm in Texas has been contaminated with genetic drift from GE crops on a nearby farm and EU regulators are considering setting an "allowable limit" for genetic contamination of non-GE foods, because they don't believe genetic pollution can be controlled. Because they are alive, gene-altered crops are inherently more unpredictable than chemical pollutants -- they can reproduce, migrate, and mutate. Once released, it is virtually impossible to recall genetically engineered organisms back to the laboratory or the field.
Damage to Beneficial Insects and Soil Fertility
Earlier this year, Cornell University researchers made a startling discovery. They found that pollen from genetically engineered Bt corn was poisonous to Monarch butterflies. The study adds to a growing body of evidence that GE crops are adversely affecting a number of beneficial insects, including ladybugs and lacewings, as well as beneficial soil microorganisms, bees, and possibly birds.
Creation of GE "Superweeds" and "Superpests"
Genetically engineering crops to be herbicide-resistant or to produce their own pesticide presents dangerous problems. Pests and weeds will inevitably emerge that are pesticide or herbicide-resistant, which means that stronger, more toxic chemicals will be needed to get rid of the pests.
We are already seeing the emergence of the first "superweeds" as GE herbicide-resistant crops such as rapeseed (canola) spread their herbicide-resistance traits to related weeds such as wild mustard plants. Lab and field tests also indicate that common plant pests such as cotton boll worms, living under constant pressure from GE crops, will soon evolve into "superpests" completely immune to Bt sprays and other environmentally sustainable biopesticides. This will present a serious danger for organic and sustainable farmers whose biological pest management practices will be unable to cope with increasing numbers of superpests and superweeds.
Creation of New Viruses and Bacteria
Gene-splicing will inevitably result in unanticipated outcomes and dangerous surprises that damage plants and the environment. Researchers conducting experiments at Michigan State University several years ago found that genetically-altering plants to resist viruses can cause the viruses to mutate into new, more virulent forms. Scientists in Oregon found that a genetically engineered soil microorganism, Klebsiella planticola, completely killed essential soil nutrients. Environmental Protection Agency whistle blowers issued similar warnings in 1997 protesting government approval of a GE soil bacteria called Rhizobium melitoli.
Genetic "Bio-Invasion"
By virtue of their "superior" genes, some genetically engineered plants and animals will inevitably run amok, overpowering wild species in the same way that introduced exotic species, such as kudzu vine and Dutch elm disease, which have created problems in North America. What will happen to wild fish and marine species, for example, when scientists release into the environment carp, salmon, and trout that are twice as large, and eat twice as much food, as their wild counterparts?
Socioeconomic Hazards
The patenting of genetically engineered foods and widespread biotech food production threatens to eliminate farming as it has been practiced for 12,000 years. GE patents such as the Terminator Technology will render seeds infertile and force hundreds of millions of farmers who now save and share their seeds to purchase evermore expensive GE seeds and chemical inputs from a handful of global biotech/seed monopolies.
If the trend is not stopped, the patenting of transgenic plants and food-producing animals will soon lead to universal "bioserfdom" in which farmers will lease their plants and animals from biotech conglomerates such as Monsanto and pay royalties on seeds and offspring. Family and indigenous farmers will be driven off the land and consumers' food choices will be dictated by a cartel of transnational corporations. Rural communities will be devastated. Hundreds of millions of farmers and agricultural workers worldwide will lose their livelihoods.
Ethical Hazards
The genetic engineering and patenting of animals reduces living beings to the status of manufactured products and will result in much suffering. In January 1994, the USDA announced that scientists had completed genetic "road maps" for cattle and pigs, a precursor to evermore experimentation on live animals. In addition to the cruelty inherent in such experimentation (the "mistakes" are born with painful deformities, crippled, blind, and so on), these "manufactured" creatures have no greater value to their "creators" than mechanical inventions.
Animals genetically engineered for use in laboratories, such as the infamous "Harvard mouse" which contains a human cancer-causing gene that will be passed down to all succeeding generations, were created to suffer. A purely reductionist science, biotechnology reduces all life to bits of information (genetic code) that can be arranged and rearranged at whim.
Stripped of their integrity and sacred qualities, animals who are merely objects to their "inventors" will be treated as such. Currently, hundreds of genetically engineered "freak" animals are awaiting patent approval from the federal government. One can only wonder, after the wholesale gene-altering and patenting of animals, will GE "designer babies" be next?
Also see:
• Interview with Dr. Vandana Shiva -
"The deeper you can manipulate living structures the more you can control food and medicine."
St. Louis, Missouri
• More articles on Genetic Engineering
Published in Motion Magazine August 29, 1999. Originally published by Ronnie Cummins in the August 24, 1999 issue of the Internet publication Campaign for Food Safety News. Republished with permission.
Ronnie Cummins works at the Campaign for Food Safety
The Campaign for Food Safety is a public interest organization dedicated to building a healthy, safe, and sustainable system of food production and consumption. We are a global clearinghouse for information and grassroots technical assistance.To subscribe to the monthly electronic newsletter, Campaign for Food Safety News, send an email message to: < majordomo@mr.net > with the simple message: subscribe pure-food-action.
Affiliated with the Organic Consumers Association
Dr. Mercola's Comments:
Although this is an older article not much has changed in food that is genetically engineered, except that there is more of it. This is an excellent review of the topic and one that we ALL need to familiarize ourselves with as we will be increasingly exposed to GM foods.
I did not realize that the contaminated tryptophan issue was related to genetically modified bacteria. Folks, this is a big issue and my feeling is that this is the tip of the iceberg. If you want to keep you and your family healthy I advise avoiding these foods.
If you follow the diet guidelines you will be doing it, since soy and corn are two of the most widely GM foods. You also might want to consider subscribing to the Organic Consumers Association.
Related Articles:
New Concerns Rise on Keeping Track of Modified Corn
Banned Biotech Corn Found in Taco Bell Shells
Americans Don't Know They are Eating Genetically Modified Food
Health Risks of Genetically Modified Foods
Genetically Modified Crops Worry Some Scientists
GENETICALLY ALTERED PLANTS MIGHT ALTER YOU
Source: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2000/12/03/ge-food-part-one.aspx
Posted by Dr. Mercola | December 03 2000 | 8,843 views
The patenting of genetically engineered foods and widespread biotech food production threatens to eliminate farming as it has been practiced for 12,000 years.
Ronnie Cummins
Little Marais, Minnesota
Introductory Overview
The technology of genetic engineering (GE), wielded by transnational "life science" corporations such as Monsanto and Novartis, is the practice of altering or disrupting the genetic blueprints of living organisms -- plants, animals, humans, microorganisms -- patenting them, and then selling the resulting gene-foods, seeds, or other products for profit.
Life science corporations proclaim, with great fanfare, that their new products will make agriculture sustainable, eliminate world hunger, cure disease, and vastly improve public health. In reality, through their business practices and political lobbying, the gene engineers have made it clear that they intend to use GE to dominate and monopolize the global market for seeds, foods, fiber, and medical products.
GE is a revolutionary new technology still in its early experimental stages of development. This technology has the power to break down fundamental genetic barriers -- not only between species -- but between humans, animals, and plants. By randomly inserting together the genes of non-related species -- utilizing viruses, antibiotic-resistant genes, and bacteria as vectors, markers, and promoters -- and permanently altering their genetic codes, gene-altered organisms are created that pass these genetic changes onto their offspring through heredity.
Gene engineers all over the world are now snipping, inserting, recombining, rearranging, editing, and programming genetic material. Animal genes and even human genes are randomly inserted into the chromosomes of plants, fish, and animals, creating heretofore unimaginable transgenic life forms. For the first time in history, transnational biotechnology corporations are becoming the architects and "owners" of life.
With little or no regulatory restraints, labeling requirements, or scientific protocol, bio-engineers have begun creating hundreds of new GE "Frankenfoods" and crops, oblivious to human and environmental hazards, or negative socioeconomic impacts on the world's several billion farmers and rural villagers.
Despite an increasing number of scientists warning that current gene-splicing techniques are crude, inexact, and unpredictable -- and therefore inherently dangerous -- pro-biotech governments and regulatory agencies, led by the US, maintain that GE foods and crops are "substantially equivalent" to conventional foods, and therefore require neither mandatory labeling nor pre-market safety-testing. This Brave New World of Frankenfoods is frightening.
There are currently more than four dozen genetically engineered foods and crops being grown or sold in the US. These foods and crops are widely dispersed into the food chain and the environment. Over 70 million acres of GE crops are presently under cultivation in the US, while up to 500,000 dairy cows are being injected regularly with Monsanto's recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH).
Most supermarket processed food items now "test positive" for the presence of GE ingredients. In addition several dozen more GE crops are in the final stages of development and will soon be released into the environment and sold in the marketplace. According to the biotechnology industry almost 100% of US food and fiber will be genetically engineered within 5-10 years. The "hidden menu" of these unlabeled genetically engineered foods and food ingredients in the US now includes soybeans, soy oil, corn, potatoes, squash, canola oil, cotton seed oil, papaya, tomatoes, and dairy products.
Genetic engineering of food and fiber products is inherently unpredictable and dangerous -- for humans, for animals, the environment, and for the future of sustainable and organic agriculture. As Dr. Michael Antoniou, a British molecular scientist points out, gene-splicing has already resulted in the "unexpected production of toxic substances... in genetically engineered bacteria, yeast, plants, and animals with the problem remaining undetected until a major health hazard has arisen."
The hazards of GE foods and crops fall basically into three categories: human health hazards, environmental hazards, and socioeconomic hazards. A brief look at the already-proven and likely hazards of GE products provides a convincing argument for why we need a global moratorium on all GE foods and crops.
Toxins & Poisons
Genetically engineered products clearly have the potential to be toxic and a threat to human health. In 1989 a genetically engineered brand of L-tryptophan, a common dietary supplement, killed 37 Americans and permanently disabled or afflicted more than 5,000 others with a potentially fatal and painful blood disorder, eosinophilia myalgia syndrome (EMS), before it was recalled by the Food and Drug Administration.
The manufacturer, Showa Denko, Japan's third largest chemical company, had for the first time in 1988-89 used GE bacteria to produce the over-the-counter supplement. It is believed that the bacteria somehow became contaminated during the recombinant DNA process. Showa Denko has already paid out over $2 billion in damages to EMS victims.
In 1999, front-page headline stories in the British press revealed Rowett Institute scientist Dr. Arpad Pusztai's explosive research findings that GE potatoes, spliced with DNA from the snowdrop plant and a commonly used viral promoter, the Cauliflower Mosaic Virus (CaMv), are poisonous to mammals. GE-snowdrop potatoes, found to be significantly different in chemical composition from regular potatoes, damaged the vital organs and immune systems of lab rats fed the GE potatoes.
Most alarming of all, damage to the rats' stomach linings -- apparently a severe viral infection -- most likely was caused by the CaMv viral promoter, a promoter spliced into nearly all GE foods and crops.
Dr. Pusztai's pathbreaking research work unfortunately remains incomplete (government funding was cut off and he was fired after he spoke to the media). But more and more scientists around the world are warning that genetic manipulation can increase the levels of natural plant toxins in foods (or create entirely new toxins) in unexpected ways by switching on genes that produce poisons.
And since regulatory agencies do not currently require the kind of thorough chemical and feeding tests that Dr. Pusztai was conducting, consumers have now become involuntary guinea pigs in a vast genetic experiment. As Dr. Pusztai warns, "Think of William Tell shooting an arrow at a target. Now put a blindfold on the man doing the shooting and that's the reality of the genetic engineer doing a gene insertion."
Increased Cancer Risks
In 1994, the FDA approved the sale of Monsanto's controversial GE recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH) -- injected into dairy cows to force them to produce more milk -- even though scientists warned that significantly higher levels (400-500% or more) of a potent chemical hormone, Insulin-Like Growth Factor (IGF-1), in the milk and dairy products of injected cows, could pose serious hazards for human breast, prostate, and colon cancer.
A number of studies have shown that humans with elevated levels of IGF-1 in their bodies are much more likely to get cancer. In addition the US Congressional watchdog agency, the GAO, told the FDA not to approve rBGH, arguing that increased antibiotic residues in the milk of rBGH-injected cows (resulting from higher rates of udder infections requiring antibiotic treatment) posed an unacceptable risk for public health.
In 1998, heretofore undisclosed Monsanto/FDA documents were released by government scientists in Canada, showing damage to laboratory rats fed dosages of rBGH. Significant infiltration of rBGH into the prostate of the rats as well as thyroid cysts indicated potential cancer hazards from the drug. Subsequently the government of Canada banned rBGH in early 1999. The European Union has had a ban in place since 1994.
Although rBGH continues to be injected into 4-5% of all US dairy cows, no other industrialized country has legalized its use. Even the GATT Codex Alimentarius, a United Nations food standards body, has refused to certify that rBGH is safe. (Also see: Monsanto and Fox TV Unite to Suppress Journalists'Free Speech on Hazards of Genetically Engineered Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH or rBST)
Food Allergies
In 1996 a major GE food disaster was narrowly averted when Nebraska researchers learned that a Brazil nut gene spliced into soybeans could induce potentially fatal allergies in people sensitive to Brazil nuts. Animal tests of these Brazil nut-spliced soybeans had turned up negative.
People with food allergies (which currently afflicts 8% of all American children), whose symptoms can range from mild unpleasantness to sudden death, may likely be harmed by exposure to foreign proteins spliced into common food products. Since humans have never before eaten most of the foreign proteins now being gene-spliced into foods, stringent pre-market safety-testing (including long-term animal feeding and volunteer human feeding studies) is necessary in order to prevent a future public health disaster.
Mandatory labeling is also necessary so that those suffering from food allergies can avoid hazardous GE foods and so that public health officials can trace allergens back to their source when GE-induced food allergies break out.
Unfortunately the FDA and other global regulatory agencies do not routinely require pre-market animal and human studies to ascertain whether new allergens or toxins, or increased levels of human allergens or toxins we already know about, are present in genetically engineered foods. As British scientist Dr. Mae-Wan Ho points out "There is no known way to predict the allergenic potential of GE foods. Allergic reactions typically occur only some time after the subject is sensitized by initial exposure to the allergen."
Damage to Food Quality & Nutrition
A 1999 study by Dr. Marc Lappe published in the Journal of Medicinal Food found that concentrations of beneficial phytoestrogen compounds thought to protect against heart disease and cancer were lower in genetically modified soybeans than in traditional strains. These and other studies, including Dr. Pusztai's, indicate that genetically engineering food will likely result in foods lower in quality and nutrition. For example the milk from cows injected with rBGH contains higher levels of pus, bacteria, and fat.
Antibiotic Resistance
When gene engineers splice a foreign gene into a plant or microbe, they often link it to another gene, called an antibiotic resistance marker gene (ARM), that helps determine if the first gene was successfully spliced into the host organism.
Some researchers warn that these ARM genes might unexpectedly recombine with disease-causing bacteria or microbes in the environment or in the guts of animals or people who eat GE food, contributing to the growing public health danger of antibiotic resistance -- of infections that cannot be cured with traditional antibiotics, for example new strains of salmonella, e-coli, campylobacter, and enterococci. EU (European Union) authorities are currently considering a ban on all GE foods containing antibiotic resistant marker genes.
Increased Pesticide Residues in the Soil and on Crops
Contrary to biotech industry propaganda, recent studies have found that US farmers growing GE crops are using just as many toxic pesticides and herbicides as conventional farmers, and in some cases are using more. Crops genetically engineered to be herbicide-resistant account for 70% of all GE crops planted in 1998.
The so-called "benefits" of these herbicide-resistant crops are that farmers can spray as much of a particular herbicide on their crops as they want -- killing the weeds without damaging their crop. Scientists estimate that herbicide-resistant crops planted around the globe will triple the amount of toxic broad-spectrum herbicides used in agriculture. These broad-spectrum herbicides are designed to literally kill everything green.
The leaders in biotechnology are the same giant chemical companies -- Monsanto, DuPont, AgrEvo, Novartis, and Rhone-Poulenc -- that sell toxic pesticides. These companies are genetically engineering plants to be resistant to herbicides that they manufacture so they can sell more herbicides to farmers who, in turn, can apply more poisonous herbicides to crops to kill weeds.
Genetic Pollution
"Genetic pollution" and collateral damage from GE field crops already have begun to wreak environmental havoc. Wind, rain, birds, bees, and insect pollinators have begun carrying genetically-altered pollen into adjoining fields, polluting the DNA of crops of organic and non-GE farmers.
An organic farm in Texas has been contaminated with genetic drift from GE crops on a nearby farm and EU regulators are considering setting an "allowable limit" for genetic contamination of non-GE foods, because they don't believe genetic pollution can be controlled. Because they are alive, gene-altered crops are inherently more unpredictable than chemical pollutants -- they can reproduce, migrate, and mutate. Once released, it is virtually impossible to recall genetically engineered organisms back to the laboratory or the field.
Damage to Beneficial Insects and Soil Fertility
Earlier this year, Cornell University researchers made a startling discovery. They found that pollen from genetically engineered Bt corn was poisonous to Monarch butterflies. The study adds to a growing body of evidence that GE crops are adversely affecting a number of beneficial insects, including ladybugs and lacewings, as well as beneficial soil microorganisms, bees, and possibly birds.
Creation of GE "Superweeds" and "Superpests"
Genetically engineering crops to be herbicide-resistant or to produce their own pesticide presents dangerous problems. Pests and weeds will inevitably emerge that are pesticide or herbicide-resistant, which means that stronger, more toxic chemicals will be needed to get rid of the pests.
We are already seeing the emergence of the first "superweeds" as GE herbicide-resistant crops such as rapeseed (canola) spread their herbicide-resistance traits to related weeds such as wild mustard plants. Lab and field tests also indicate that common plant pests such as cotton boll worms, living under constant pressure from GE crops, will soon evolve into "superpests" completely immune to Bt sprays and other environmentally sustainable biopesticides. This will present a serious danger for organic and sustainable farmers whose biological pest management practices will be unable to cope with increasing numbers of superpests and superweeds.
Creation of New Viruses and Bacteria
Gene-splicing will inevitably result in unanticipated outcomes and dangerous surprises that damage plants and the environment. Researchers conducting experiments at Michigan State University several years ago found that genetically-altering plants to resist viruses can cause the viruses to mutate into new, more virulent forms. Scientists in Oregon found that a genetically engineered soil microorganism, Klebsiella planticola, completely killed essential soil nutrients. Environmental Protection Agency whistle blowers issued similar warnings in 1997 protesting government approval of a GE soil bacteria called Rhizobium melitoli.
Genetic "Bio-Invasion"
By virtue of their "superior" genes, some genetically engineered plants and animals will inevitably run amok, overpowering wild species in the same way that introduced exotic species, such as kudzu vine and Dutch elm disease, which have created problems in North America. What will happen to wild fish and marine species, for example, when scientists release into the environment carp, salmon, and trout that are twice as large, and eat twice as much food, as their wild counterparts?
Socioeconomic Hazards
The patenting of genetically engineered foods and widespread biotech food production threatens to eliminate farming as it has been practiced for 12,000 years. GE patents such as the Terminator Technology will render seeds infertile and force hundreds of millions of farmers who now save and share their seeds to purchase evermore expensive GE seeds and chemical inputs from a handful of global biotech/seed monopolies.
If the trend is not stopped, the patenting of transgenic plants and food-producing animals will soon lead to universal "bioserfdom" in which farmers will lease their plants and animals from biotech conglomerates such as Monsanto and pay royalties on seeds and offspring. Family and indigenous farmers will be driven off the land and consumers' food choices will be dictated by a cartel of transnational corporations. Rural communities will be devastated. Hundreds of millions of farmers and agricultural workers worldwide will lose their livelihoods.
Ethical Hazards
The genetic engineering and patenting of animals reduces living beings to the status of manufactured products and will result in much suffering. In January 1994, the USDA announced that scientists had completed genetic "road maps" for cattle and pigs, a precursor to evermore experimentation on live animals. In addition to the cruelty inherent in such experimentation (the "mistakes" are born with painful deformities, crippled, blind, and so on), these "manufactured" creatures have no greater value to their "creators" than mechanical inventions.
Animals genetically engineered for use in laboratories, such as the infamous "Harvard mouse" which contains a human cancer-causing gene that will be passed down to all succeeding generations, were created to suffer. A purely reductionist science, biotechnology reduces all life to bits of information (genetic code) that can be arranged and rearranged at whim.
Stripped of their integrity and sacred qualities, animals who are merely objects to their "inventors" will be treated as such. Currently, hundreds of genetically engineered "freak" animals are awaiting patent approval from the federal government. One can only wonder, after the wholesale gene-altering and patenting of animals, will GE "designer babies" be next?
Also see:
• Interview with Dr. Vandana Shiva -
"The deeper you can manipulate living structures the more you can control food and medicine."
St. Louis, Missouri
• More articles on Genetic Engineering
Published in Motion Magazine August 29, 1999. Originally published by Ronnie Cummins in the August 24, 1999 issue of the Internet publication Campaign for Food Safety News. Republished with permission.
Ronnie Cummins works at the Campaign for Food Safety
The Campaign for Food Safety is a public interest organization dedicated to building a healthy, safe, and sustainable system of food production and consumption. We are a global clearinghouse for information and grassroots technical assistance.To subscribe to the monthly electronic newsletter, Campaign for Food Safety News, send an email message to: < majordomo@mr.net > with the simple message: subscribe pure-food-action.
Affiliated with the Organic Consumers Association
Dr. Mercola's Comments:
Although this is an older article not much has changed in food that is genetically engineered, except that there is more of it. This is an excellent review of the topic and one that we ALL need to familiarize ourselves with as we will be increasingly exposed to GM foods.
I did not realize that the contaminated tryptophan issue was related to genetically modified bacteria. Folks, this is a big issue and my feeling is that this is the tip of the iceberg. If you want to keep you and your family healthy I advise avoiding these foods.
If you follow the diet guidelines you will be doing it, since soy and corn are two of the most widely GM foods. You also might want to consider subscribing to the Organic Consumers Association.
Related Articles:
New Concerns Rise on Keeping Track of Modified Corn
Banned Biotech Corn Found in Taco Bell Shells
Americans Don't Know They are Eating Genetically Modified Food
Health Risks of Genetically Modified Foods
Genetically Modified Crops Worry Some Scientists
GENETICALLY ALTERED PLANTS MIGHT ALTER YOU
Source: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2000/12/03/ge-food-part-one.aspx
The Dangers of Genetic Engineering
The Dangers of Genetic Engineering
Posted by Dr. Mercola | August 25 2001 | 4,949 views
by Dr. Mae-Wan Ho
As one of the many scientists presenting evidence to the Royal Commission on Genetic Engineering, I had high hopes that New Zealand would assume moral and intellectual leadership in rejecting this dangerous technology bolstered by degenerate science, so obviously serving the corporate agenda instead of the public good.
It has become increasingly evident that GM technology is inherently hazardous and unreliable both in agriculture and in medicine. The list of failures is growing apace. Let me mention a few recent examples that came to light since I presented evidence to the Commission.
GM crops are inherently unstable, and this is fully borne out by numerous new scientific publications. Even the top 'success', Roundup Ready soy, is showing every sign of breakdown: reduced yield, non-germination, diseases and infestation by new pests.
Molecular genetic characterization, the first ever done on any commercially grown GM crop so far, has confirmed that both the GM construct of Roundup Ready soy and the host genome have been scrambled (rearranged), and hundreds of basepairs of unknown DNA has got in as well.
The 'next generation' crops are even worse. I draw your attention especially to those developed with terminator technologies aimed at protecting corporate patents and preventing farmers from saving and replanting seeds. Many are currently field tested and commercially grown as 'male sterile' crops.
Not only are the constructs more complicated and hence more unstable and prone to horizontal gene transfer, the gene products used are cell poisons or recombinases, ie, genome scramblers. Female-sterile and even male-sterile genes (yes!) are being spread via pollen. These dangerous genes will spread and wipe out other crops as well as wild plant species.
It has become all too clear that GM agriculture cannot co-exist with other forms of agriculture. Bees are known to travel up to10km or more in foraging for pollen.
There is no way to prevent the horizontal spread of GM constructs to unrelated species, which can occur in all environments, including the digestive and respiratory tracts of animals.
There are both sound a priori reasons as well as empirical evidence to support my contention, shared by other scientists that GM constructs may more likely spread horizontally than non-manipulated DNA. Let me reiterate them here.
GM constructs are designed to cross species barriers and invade genomes. They possess homologies to a wide combination of viral and bacterial DNA and are hence much more likely to recombine with, and transfer genes to all those agents.
GM constructs are well known to be structurally unstable and hence prone to fragment and recombine. Some constructs such as those with the CaMV 35S promoter are extra unstable on account of the presence of recombination hotspots.
I have mentioned the now abundant empirical evidence of structural instability of transgenic DNA and trangenic plants above. The CaMV 35S promoter has been shown to be extra unstable in GM crops. And horizontal transfer of transgenic DNA has been demonstrated both in the laboratory and in the field.
I note from your report that Dr Daniel Cohen, a plant scientist in the Plant Health and Development group of HortResearch, had attempted to refute my warnings about the CaMV 35S promoter.
But he, like other GM proponents, had failed to counter my point that the isolated, recombined CaMV 35S promoter cannot be equated with the promoter in the intact viral genome or the intact virus.
The intact viral genome had evolved over millions of years. The host range of the virus itself is restricted to the cabbage family, and it has a well-tried and tested life cycle in the host cell that does not require integration into the host genome. The fact that no transfer from the virus into the plant genome has taken place in the course of evolution attests to the effective biological barriers that keep species distinct.
The same promoter, removed from the viral genome and put next to strange genes in the GM construct, is entirely different. It now functions promiscuously across the living world, including animal and human cells.
Its destabilizing effect on GM crops is such that many scientists, including those who pioneered its use, are now phasing it out. There is no justification for releasing any GM crop containing the CaMV35S promoter into the environment.
I note that you have approved the field release of GM tamarillo (Cyphomandra betacea) for resistance to tamarillo mosaic virus at Kerikeri Research Station. This crop not only contains CaMV 35S promoter, but also has a kanamycin resistance marker gene.
The approval of this marker gene was a regulatory blunder committed in the United States and elsewhere, as it is clear that kanamycin is still widely in clinical use, and the marker gene confers resistance to new generation aminoglycosides as well. There is also plenty of evidence that GM crops with viral genes are prone to give rise to recombinant viruses, some of which more virulent than the 'wild type'.
When I first drew attention to horizontal gene transfer in 1995, proponents of GM technology reacted by denying it exists. Now they, like Dr. Daniel Cohen, are saying it does not matter because it is a natural process.
Horizontal gene transfer may have occurred in our evolutionary past, but GM constructs are anything but natural. They are synthetic genes and new combinations of genes that have never existed in billions of years of evolution, and cannot in any sense be regarded as natural.
And, I am afraid, the GM proponents will have to change their tune again; for a rigorous reanalysis of the human genome and other data has failed to substantiate the claim that the human genome has 113 to 226 bacterial genes transferred into it.
The actual number could well be no more than a few, or none at all. What is the lesson? Precisely as I have always said, horizontal gene transfer does not readily happen without genetic engineering.
Genetic engineering enhances it, with dangerous consequences.
In biomedical applications, the gene-centered approach is equally misplaced and pernicious. So-called 'health genomics' is a drain on our intellectual and financial resources. It is preventing us from addressing the real, overwhelming causes of ill health: poverty, malnutrition, social injustice and environmental pollution.
It is stigmatizing and victimizing those most in need of care and treatment, and making even the most unethical applications, such as human cloning and 'therapeutic human cloning', seem compelling.
Furthermore, the 'cures' on offer are literally deadly. The toll from 'gene therapy' trials so far is at least 6 deaths and more than 650 adverse events.
It is now admitted that gene therapy has been oversold by the scientists themselves. Presumed stem cells from human fetuses transplanted into the brain of 5 Parkinson's patients turned into an irredeemable nightmare because the cells grew uncontrollably.
The latest verdict from an international team of cloners is that mice embryonic stem cells are uncontrollably variable in culture, the clones themselves are also subject to uncontrollable and unpredictable variations and defects.
And xenotransplantation is widely condemned because there is clear evidence that endogenous viruses from animal organs can cross into humans.
New lethal viruses continue to be created in genetic engineering labs, some of the latest being SHIVs, hybrids of human and monkey AIDS viruses that can infect both.
Finally, AIDS virologists have issued serious warning against AIDS vaccines that undermine the immune system, making it more susceptible to viral infections, and have the potential to generate lethal viruses and bacteria in the vaccinated populations.
A sweeping paradigm change is long overdue if we are to survive the destruction that reductionist science and technology have wrought on us and on our planet.
We have all the means to deliver genuine health and food security to the world without using GM technology and going against the wishes of the vast majority of people.
Only the political will is missing.
Dr. Mae-Wan Ho, Director; Institute of Science in Society; PO Box 32097 London; NW1 0XR UK
Email: m.w.ho@i-sis.org
Related Articles:
Suppressing Dissent in Science With GM Foods
Hazards of Genetically Engineered Food
GMO Crops Are An Accident Waiting to Happen
Source: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2001/08/25/gm-foods-part-four.aspx
Posted by Dr. Mercola | August 25 2001 | 4,949 views
by Dr. Mae-Wan Ho
As one of the many scientists presenting evidence to the Royal Commission on Genetic Engineering, I had high hopes that New Zealand would assume moral and intellectual leadership in rejecting this dangerous technology bolstered by degenerate science, so obviously serving the corporate agenda instead of the public good.
It has become increasingly evident that GM technology is inherently hazardous and unreliable both in agriculture and in medicine. The list of failures is growing apace. Let me mention a few recent examples that came to light since I presented evidence to the Commission.
GM crops are inherently unstable, and this is fully borne out by numerous new scientific publications. Even the top 'success', Roundup Ready soy, is showing every sign of breakdown: reduced yield, non-germination, diseases and infestation by new pests.
Molecular genetic characterization, the first ever done on any commercially grown GM crop so far, has confirmed that both the GM construct of Roundup Ready soy and the host genome have been scrambled (rearranged), and hundreds of basepairs of unknown DNA has got in as well.
The 'next generation' crops are even worse. I draw your attention especially to those developed with terminator technologies aimed at protecting corporate patents and preventing farmers from saving and replanting seeds. Many are currently field tested and commercially grown as 'male sterile' crops.
Not only are the constructs more complicated and hence more unstable and prone to horizontal gene transfer, the gene products used are cell poisons or recombinases, ie, genome scramblers. Female-sterile and even male-sterile genes (yes!) are being spread via pollen. These dangerous genes will spread and wipe out other crops as well as wild plant species.
It has become all too clear that GM agriculture cannot co-exist with other forms of agriculture. Bees are known to travel up to10km or more in foraging for pollen.
There is no way to prevent the horizontal spread of GM constructs to unrelated species, which can occur in all environments, including the digestive and respiratory tracts of animals.
There are both sound a priori reasons as well as empirical evidence to support my contention, shared by other scientists that GM constructs may more likely spread horizontally than non-manipulated DNA. Let me reiterate them here.
GM constructs are designed to cross species barriers and invade genomes. They possess homologies to a wide combination of viral and bacterial DNA and are hence much more likely to recombine with, and transfer genes to all those agents.
GM constructs are well known to be structurally unstable and hence prone to fragment and recombine. Some constructs such as those with the CaMV 35S promoter are extra unstable on account of the presence of recombination hotspots.
I have mentioned the now abundant empirical evidence of structural instability of transgenic DNA and trangenic plants above. The CaMV 35S promoter has been shown to be extra unstable in GM crops. And horizontal transfer of transgenic DNA has been demonstrated both in the laboratory and in the field.
I note from your report that Dr Daniel Cohen, a plant scientist in the Plant Health and Development group of HortResearch, had attempted to refute my warnings about the CaMV 35S promoter.
But he, like other GM proponents, had failed to counter my point that the isolated, recombined CaMV 35S promoter cannot be equated with the promoter in the intact viral genome or the intact virus.
The intact viral genome had evolved over millions of years. The host range of the virus itself is restricted to the cabbage family, and it has a well-tried and tested life cycle in the host cell that does not require integration into the host genome. The fact that no transfer from the virus into the plant genome has taken place in the course of evolution attests to the effective biological barriers that keep species distinct.
The same promoter, removed from the viral genome and put next to strange genes in the GM construct, is entirely different. It now functions promiscuously across the living world, including animal and human cells.
Its destabilizing effect on GM crops is such that many scientists, including those who pioneered its use, are now phasing it out. There is no justification for releasing any GM crop containing the CaMV35S promoter into the environment.
I note that you have approved the field release of GM tamarillo (Cyphomandra betacea) for resistance to tamarillo mosaic virus at Kerikeri Research Station. This crop not only contains CaMV 35S promoter, but also has a kanamycin resistance marker gene.
The approval of this marker gene was a regulatory blunder committed in the United States and elsewhere, as it is clear that kanamycin is still widely in clinical use, and the marker gene confers resistance to new generation aminoglycosides as well. There is also plenty of evidence that GM crops with viral genes are prone to give rise to recombinant viruses, some of which more virulent than the 'wild type'.
When I first drew attention to horizontal gene transfer in 1995, proponents of GM technology reacted by denying it exists. Now they, like Dr. Daniel Cohen, are saying it does not matter because it is a natural process.
Horizontal gene transfer may have occurred in our evolutionary past, but GM constructs are anything but natural. They are synthetic genes and new combinations of genes that have never existed in billions of years of evolution, and cannot in any sense be regarded as natural.
And, I am afraid, the GM proponents will have to change their tune again; for a rigorous reanalysis of the human genome and other data has failed to substantiate the claim that the human genome has 113 to 226 bacterial genes transferred into it.
The actual number could well be no more than a few, or none at all. What is the lesson? Precisely as I have always said, horizontal gene transfer does not readily happen without genetic engineering.
Genetic engineering enhances it, with dangerous consequences.
In biomedical applications, the gene-centered approach is equally misplaced and pernicious. So-called 'health genomics' is a drain on our intellectual and financial resources. It is preventing us from addressing the real, overwhelming causes of ill health: poverty, malnutrition, social injustice and environmental pollution.
It is stigmatizing and victimizing those most in need of care and treatment, and making even the most unethical applications, such as human cloning and 'therapeutic human cloning', seem compelling.
Furthermore, the 'cures' on offer are literally deadly. The toll from 'gene therapy' trials so far is at least 6 deaths and more than 650 adverse events.
It is now admitted that gene therapy has been oversold by the scientists themselves. Presumed stem cells from human fetuses transplanted into the brain of 5 Parkinson's patients turned into an irredeemable nightmare because the cells grew uncontrollably.
The latest verdict from an international team of cloners is that mice embryonic stem cells are uncontrollably variable in culture, the clones themselves are also subject to uncontrollable and unpredictable variations and defects.
And xenotransplantation is widely condemned because there is clear evidence that endogenous viruses from animal organs can cross into humans.
New lethal viruses continue to be created in genetic engineering labs, some of the latest being SHIVs, hybrids of human and monkey AIDS viruses that can infect both.
Finally, AIDS virologists have issued serious warning against AIDS vaccines that undermine the immune system, making it more susceptible to viral infections, and have the potential to generate lethal viruses and bacteria in the vaccinated populations.
A sweeping paradigm change is long overdue if we are to survive the destruction that reductionist science and technology have wrought on us and on our planet.
We have all the means to deliver genuine health and food security to the world without using GM technology and going against the wishes of the vast majority of people.
Only the political will is missing.
Dr. Mae-Wan Ho, Director; Institute of Science in Society; PO Box 32097 London; NW1 0XR UK
Email: m.w.ho@i-sis.org
Related Articles:
Suppressing Dissent in Science With GM Foods
Hazards of Genetically Engineered Food
GMO Crops Are An Accident Waiting to Happen
Source: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2001/08/25/gm-foods-part-four.aspx
United States Grows More GM Crops Than Any Other Country
United States Grows More GM Crops Than Any Other Country
Posted by Dr. Mercola | September 10 2003 | 2,392 views
The United States has planted more GM crops than any other country each year since 1996, when GM crops were first made available commercially. The United States grows two-thirds of all biotechnology crops on over 96 million acres.
From 1996 to 2002 there was a 20-fold increase in the area allotted to GM foods in the United States, which is the fastest growth rate of any country.
GM foods grown in the United States include corn, cotton, soybeans, canola, squash and papaya.
Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology
August, 2003
Dr. Mercola's Comments:
It’s bad enough that the United States allows GM crops to be grown at all, and it is even worse that we grow two-thirds of GM crops worldwide.
Many respectable scientists are concerned about, and nearly all of Europe has strong opposition to, this technology.
Consuming genetically modified foods is like participating in a giant experiment. There is no telling what the consequences of using these genetically modified foods will be because these products have never existed before now.
It seems clear that these altered foods are capable of producing changes in humans. Already, investigators have found that rats fed genetically modified potatoes had an increased thickening in the lining of their stomach and intestine and a weakening of their immune system.
Further, some scientists want to put vaccines into plants without any real knowledge of what effects this unnatural addition will have on human health, or the health of our planet.
What these scientists have failed to fully appreciate is that once these genetically modified plants are growing it is physically impossible to prevent them from pollinating other plants, thereby contaminating them with these new proteins, of which we do not know the long-term consequences.
The absurdity of the entire process is mind-boggling. These scientists are willing to sacrifice the country’s food supply by adding vaccines, which do not even work in the first place, to plants.
If this continues, our grandchildren may not have access to any non-genetically modified food, and the health of our society may continue to rapidly decline.
One of the keys to health is good food. Although most of us don't choose to do so, we can still purchase real, unaltered food in this country. Sadly, the future does not appear to provide this option.
For now, your best bet is to try to purchase organic foods that do not contain GM ingredients. However, this will likely become increasingly difficult as the amount of GM crops in the United States increases and cross-pollination of GM crops with organic crops becomes inevitable.
Related Articles:
GM Crops Raise Price of Organic Food
Why Genetically Modified Crops Can Devastate Health
Prominent Scientists Form Group to Counter GM Food
The Dangers of Genetic Engineering
Europeans More Resistant to Genetically Modified Foods
All Organic Seeds Now Appear to Be Contaminated With Genetically Modified Crops
Source: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2003/09/10/gm-crops-part-eight.aspx
Posted by Dr. Mercola | September 10 2003 | 2,392 views
The United States has planted more GM crops than any other country each year since 1996, when GM crops were first made available commercially. The United States grows two-thirds of all biotechnology crops on over 96 million acres.
From 1996 to 2002 there was a 20-fold increase in the area allotted to GM foods in the United States, which is the fastest growth rate of any country.
GM foods grown in the United States include corn, cotton, soybeans, canola, squash and papaya.
Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology
August, 2003
Dr. Mercola's Comments:
It’s bad enough that the United States allows GM crops to be grown at all, and it is even worse that we grow two-thirds of GM crops worldwide.
Many respectable scientists are concerned about, and nearly all of Europe has strong opposition to, this technology.
Consuming genetically modified foods is like participating in a giant experiment. There is no telling what the consequences of using these genetically modified foods will be because these products have never existed before now.
It seems clear that these altered foods are capable of producing changes in humans. Already, investigators have found that rats fed genetically modified potatoes had an increased thickening in the lining of their stomach and intestine and a weakening of their immune system.
Further, some scientists want to put vaccines into plants without any real knowledge of what effects this unnatural addition will have on human health, or the health of our planet.
What these scientists have failed to fully appreciate is that once these genetically modified plants are growing it is physically impossible to prevent them from pollinating other plants, thereby contaminating them with these new proteins, of which we do not know the long-term consequences.
The absurdity of the entire process is mind-boggling. These scientists are willing to sacrifice the country’s food supply by adding vaccines, which do not even work in the first place, to plants.
If this continues, our grandchildren may not have access to any non-genetically modified food, and the health of our society may continue to rapidly decline.
One of the keys to health is good food. Although most of us don't choose to do so, we can still purchase real, unaltered food in this country. Sadly, the future does not appear to provide this option.
For now, your best bet is to try to purchase organic foods that do not contain GM ingredients. However, this will likely become increasingly difficult as the amount of GM crops in the United States increases and cross-pollination of GM crops with organic crops becomes inevitable.
Related Articles:
GM Crops Raise Price of Organic Food
Why Genetically Modified Crops Can Devastate Health
Prominent Scientists Form Group to Counter GM Food
The Dangers of Genetic Engineering
Europeans More Resistant to Genetically Modified Foods
All Organic Seeds Now Appear to Be Contaminated With Genetically Modified Crops
Source: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2003/09/10/gm-crops-part-eight.aspx
Why Genetically Modified Crops Can Devastate Health
Why Genetically Modified Crops Can Devastate Health
Posted by Dr. Mercola | July 02 2003 | 8,910 views
1. GM crops failed to deliver promised benefits
The consistent finding from independent research and on-farm surveys since 1999 is that GM crops have failed to deliver the promised benefits of significantly increasing yields or reducing herbicide and pesticide use. GM crops have cost the United States an estimated $12 billion in farm subsidies, lost sales and product recalls due to transgenic contamination. Massive failures in Bt cotton of up to 100 percent were reported in India.
Biotech corporations have suffered rapid decline since 2000, and investment advisors forecast no future for the agricultural sector. Meanwhile worldwide resistance to GM has reached a climax in 2002 when Zambia refused GM maize in food aid despite the threat of famine.
2. GM crops posing escalating problems on the farm
The instability of transgenic lines has plagued the industry from the beginning, and this may be responsible for a string of major crop failures. A review in 1994 stated, "While there are some examples of plants which show stable expression of a transgene these may prove to be the exceptions to the rule. In an informal survey of over 30 companies involved in the commercialization of transgenic crop plants ... almost all of the respondents indicated that they had observed some level of transgene inaction. Many respondents indicated that most cases of transgene inactivation never reach the literature."
Triple herbicide-tolerant oilseed rape volunteers that have combined transgenic and non-transgenic traits are now widespread in Canada. Similar multiple herbicide-tolerant volunteers and weeds have emerged in the United States. In the United States, glyphosate-tolerant weeds are plaguing GM cotton and soya fields, and atrazine, one of the most toxic herbicides, has had to be used with glufosinate-tolerant GM maize.
Bt biopesticide traits are simultaneously threatening to create superweeds and Bt- resistant pests.
3. Extensive transgenic contamination unavoidable
Extensive transgenic contamination has occurred in maize landraces growing in remote regions in Mexico despite an official moratorium that has been in place since 1998. High levels of contamination have since been found in Canada. In a test of 33 certified seed stocks, 32 were found contaminated.
New research shows that transgenic pollen, wind-blown and deposited elsewhere, or fallen directly to the ground, is a major source of transgenic contamination. Contamination is generally acknowledged to be unavoidable, hence there can be no co-existence of transgenic and non-transgenic crops.
4. GM crops not safe
Contrary to the claims of proponents, GM crops have not been proven safe. The regulatory framework was fatally flawed from the start. It was based on an anti-precautionary approach designed to expedite product approval at the expense of safety considerations. The principle of 'substantial equivalence', on which risk assessment is based, is intended to be vague and ill-defined, thereby giving companies complete license in claiming transgenic products 'substantially equivalent' to non-transgenic products, and hence 'safe.'
5. GM food raises serious safety concerns
There have been very few credible studies on GM food safety. Nevertheless, the available findings already give cause for concern. In the still only systematic investigation on GM food ever carried out in the world, 'growth factor-like' effects were found in the stomach and small intestine of young rats that were not fully accounted for by the transgene product, and were hence attributable to the transgenic process or the transgenic construct, and may hence be general to all GM food. There have been at least two other, more limited, studies that also raised serious safety concerns.
6. Dangerous gene products are incorporated into crops
Bt proteins, incorporated into 25 percent of all transgenic crops worldwide, have been found harmful to a range of non-target insects. Some of them are also potent immunogens and allergens. A team of scientists have cautioned against releasing Bt crops for human use.
Food crops are increasingly used to produce pharmaceuticals and drugs, including cytokines known to suppress the immune system, induce sickness and central nervous system toxicity; interferon alpha, reported to cause dementia, neurotoxicity and mood and cognitive side effects; vaccines; and viral sequences such as the 'spike' protein gene of the pig coronavirus, in the same family as the SARS virus linked to the current epidemic. The glycoprotein gene gp120 of the AIDS virus HIV-1, incorporated into GM maize as a 'cheap, edible oral vaccine', serves as yet another biological time-bomb, as it can interfere with the immune system and recombine with viruses and bacteria to generate new and unpredictable pathogens.
7. Terminator crops spread male sterility
Crops engineered with 'suicide' genes for male sterility have been promoted as a means of 'containing', i.e. preventing, the spread of transgenes. In reality, the hybrid crops sold to farmers spread both male sterile suicide genes as well herbicide tolerance genes via pollen.
8. Broad-spectrum herbicides highly toxic to humans and other species
Glufosinate ammonium and glyphosate are used with the herbicide-tolerant transgenic crops that currently account for 75 percent of all transgenic crops worldwide. Both are systemic metabolic poisons expected to have a wide range of harmful effects, and these have been confirmed.
Glufosinate ammonium is linked to neurological, respiratory, gastrointestinal and hematological toxicities, and birth defects in humans and mammals. It is toxic to butterflies and a number of beneficial insects, also to the larvae of clams and oysters, Daphnia and some freshwater fish, especially the rainbow trout. It inhibits beneficial soil bacteria and fungi, especially those that fix nitrogen.
Glyphosate is the most frequent cause of complaints and poisoning in the UK. Disturbances of many body functions have been reported after exposures at normal use levels.
Glyphosate exposure nearly doubled the risk of late spontaneous abortion, and children born to users of glyphosate had elevated neurobehavioral defects. Glyphosate caused retarded development of the foetal skeleton in laboratory rats. Glyphosate inhibits the synthesis of steroids, and is genotoxic in mammals, fish and frogs. Field dose exposure of earthworms caused at least 50 percent mortality and significant intestinal damage among surviving worms. Roundup caused cell division dysfunction that may be linked to human cancers.
The known effects of both glufosinate and glyphosate are sufficiently serious for all further uses of the herbicides to be halted.
9. Genetic engineering creates super-viruses
By far the most insidious dangers of genetic engineering are inherent to the process itself, which greatly enhances the scope and probability of horizontal gene transfer and recombination, the main route to creating viruses and bacteria that cause disease epidemics. This was highlighted in 2001 by the 'accidental' creation of a killer mouse virus in the course of an apparently innocent genetic engineering experiment.
Newer techniques, such as DNA shuffling are allowing geneticists to create in a matter of minutes in the laboratory millions of recombinant viruses that have never existed in billions of years of evolution. Disease-causing viruses and bacteria and their genetic material are the predominant materials and tools for genetic engineering, as much as for the intentional creation of bio-weapons.
10. Transgenic DNA in food taken up by bacteria in human gut
There is already experimental evidence that transgenic DNA from plants has been taken up by bacteria in the soil and in the gut of human volunteers. Antibiotic resistance marker genes can spread from transgenic food to pathogenic bacteria, making infections very difficult to treat.
11. Transgenic DNA and cancer
Transgenic DNA is known to survive digestion in the gut and to jump into the genome of mammalian cells, raising the possibility for triggering cancer.
The possibility cannot be excluded that feeding GM products such as maize to animals also carries risks, not just for the animals but also for human beings consuming the animal products.
12. CaMV 35S promoter increases horizontal gene transfer
Evidence suggests that transgenic constructs with the CaMV 35S promoter might be especially unstable and prone to horizontal gene transfer and recombination, with all the attendant hazards: gene mutations due to random insertion, cancer, reactivation of dormant viruses and generation of new viruses. This promoter is present in most GM crops being grown commercially today.
13. A history of misrepresentation and suppression of scientific evidence
There has been a history of misrepresentation and suppression of scientific evidence, especially on horizontal gene transfer. Key experiments failed to be performed, or were performed badly and then misrepresented. Many experiments were not followed up, including investigations on whether the CaMV 35S promoter is responsible for the 'growth-factor-like' effects observed in young rats fed GM potatoes.
In conclusion, GM crops have failed to deliver the promised benefits and are posing escalating problems on the farm. Transgenic contamination is now widely acknowledged to be unavoidable, and hence there can be no co-existence of GM and non-GM agriculture. Most important of all, GM crops have not been proven safe. On the contrary, sufficient evidence has emerged to raise serious safety concerns, that if ignored could result in irreversible damage to health and the environment. GM crops should be firmly rejected now.
Why Sustainable Agriculture?
1. Higher productivity and yields, especially in the Third World
Some 8.98 million farmers have adopted sustainable agriculture practices on 28.92 million hectares in Asia, Latin America and Africa. Reliable data from 89 projects show higher productivity and yields: 50 percent to 100 percent increase in yield for rain-fed crops, and five percent to 10 percent for irrigated crops. Top successes include Burkina Faso, which turned a cereal deficit of 644 kg per year to an annual surplus of 153 kg; Ethiopia, where 12,500 households enjoyed a 60 percent increase in crop yields; and Honduras and Guatemala, where 45,000 families increased yields from 400 to 600 kg/ha to 2,000 to 2,500 kg/ha.
Long-term studies in industrialized countries show yields for organic comparable to conventional agriculture, and sometimes higher.
2. Better soils
Sustainable agricultural practices tend to reduce soil erosion, as well as improve soil physical structure and water-holding capacity, which are crucial in averting crop failures during periods of drought.
Soil fertility is maintained or increased by various sustainable agriculture practices. Studies show that soil organic matter and nitrogen levels are higher in organic than in conventional fields.
Biological activity has also been found to be higher in organic soils. There are more earthworms, arthropods, mycorrhizal and other fungi, and microorganisms, all of which are beneficial for nutrient recycling and suppression of disease.
3. Cleaner environment
There is little or no polluting chemical-input with sustainable agriculture. Moreover, research suggests that less nitrate and phosphorus are leached to groundwater from organic soils.
Better water infiltration rates are found in organic systems. Therefore, they are less prone to erosion and less likely to contribute to water pollution from surface runoff.
4. Reduced pesticides and no increase in pests
Organic farming prohibits routine pesticide application. Integrated pest management has cut the number of pesticide sprays in Vietnam from 3.4 to one per season, in Sri Lanka from 2.9 to 0.5 per season, and in Indonesia from 2.9 to 1.1 per season.
Research showed no increase in crop losses due to pest damage, despite the withdrawal of synthetic insecticides in Californian tomato production.
Pest control is achievable without pesticides, reversing crop losses, as for example, by using 'trap crops' to attract stem borer, a major pest in East Africa. Other benefits of avoiding pesticides arise from utilizing the complex inter-relationships between species in an ecosystem.
5. Supporting biodiversity and using diversity
Sustainable agriculture promotes agricultural biodiversity, which is crucial for food security and rural livelihoods. Organic farming can also support much greater biodiversity, benefiting species that have significantly declined.
Biodiverse systems are more productive than monocultures. Integrated farming systems in Cuba are 1.45 to 2.82 times more productive than monocultures. Thousands of Chinese rice farmers have doubled yields and nearly eliminated the most devastating disease simply by mixed planting of two varieties.
Soil biodiversity is enhanced by organic practices, bringing beneficial effects such as recovery and rehabilitation of degraded soils, improved soil structure and water infiltration.
6. Environmentally and economically sustainable
Research on apple production systems ranked the organic system first in environmental and economic sustainability, the integrated system second and the conventional system last. Organic apples were most profitable due to price premiums, quicker investment return and fast recovery of costs.
A Europe-wide study showed that organic farming performs better than conventional farming in the majority of environmental indicators. A review by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) concluded that well-managed organic agriculture leads to more favorable conditions at all environmental levels.
7. Ameliorating climate change by reducing direct & indirect energy use
Organic agriculture uses energy much more efficiently and greatly reduces CO2 emissions compared with conventional agriculture, both with respect to direct energy consumption in fuel and oil and indirect consumption in synthetic fertilizers and pesticides.
Sustainable agriculture restores soil organic matter content, increasing carbon sequestration below ground, thereby recovering an important carbon sink. Organic systems have shown significant ability to absorb and retain carbon, raising the possibility that sustainable agriculture practices can help reduce the impact of global warming.
Organic agriculture is likely to emit less nitrous dioxide (N2O), another important greenhouse gas and also a cause of stratospheric ozone depletion.
8. Efficient, profitable production
Any yield reduction in organic agriculture is more than offset by ecological and efficiency gains. Research has shown that the organic approach can be commercially viable in the long-term, producing more food per unit of energy or resources.
Data show that smaller farms produce far more per unit area than the larger farms characteristic of conventional farming. Though the yield per unit area of one crop may be lower on a small farm than on a large monoculture, the total output per unit area, often composed of more than a dozen crops and various animal products, can be far higher.
Production costs for organic farming are often lower than for conventional farming, bringing equivalent or higher net returns even without organic price premiums. When price premiums are factored in, organic systems are almost always more profitable.
9. Improved food security and benefits to local communities
A review of sustainable agriculture projects in developing countries showed that average food production per household increased by 1.71 tons per year (up 73 percent) for 4.42 million farmers on 3.58 million hectares, bringing food security and health benefits to local communities.
Increasing agricultural productivity has been shown to also increase food supplies and raise incomes, thereby reducing poverty, increasing access to food, reducing malnutrition and improving health and livelihoods.
Sustainable agricultural approaches draw extensively on traditional and indigenous knowledge, and place emphasis on the farmers' experience and innovation. This thereby utilizes appropriate, low-cost and readily available local resources as well as improves farmers' status and autonomy, enhancing social and cultural relations within local communities.
10. Better food quality for health
Organic food is safer as organic farming prohibits routine pesticide and herbicide use so harmful chemical residues are rarely found.
Organic production also bans the use of artificial food additives such as hydrogenated fats, phosphoric acid, aspartame and monosodium glutamate, which have been linked to health problems as diverse as heart disease, osteoporosis, migraines and hyperactivity.
Studies have shown that, on average, organic food has higher vitamin C, higher mineral levels and higher plant phenolics--plant compounds that can fight cancer and heart disease, and combat age-related neurological dysfunctions--and significantly less nitrates, a toxic compound.
Sustainable agricultural practices have proven beneficial in all aspects relevant to health and the environment. In addition, they bring food security and social and cultural well-being to local communities everywhere. There is an urgent need for a comprehensive global shift to all forms of sustainable agriculture.
Independent Science Panel Report June 15, 2003
Dr. Mercola's Comments:
Many respectable scientists are concerned about, and nearly all of Europe has strong opposition to, genetically modified foods.
This is a wise choice as consuming genetically modified foods is like participating in a giant experiment. There is no telling what the consequences of using these genetically modified foods will be because these products have never existed before now.
It seems clear that these altered foods are capable of producing changes in humans. Already, investigators have found that rats fed genetically modified potatoes had an increased thickening in the lining of their stomach and intestine and a weakening of their immune system.
Further, some scientists want to put vaccines into plants without any real knowledge of what effects this unnatural addition will have on human health, or the health of our planet.
This is SHEER LUNACY.
What these scientists have failed to fully appreciate is that once these genetically modified plants are growing it is physically impossible to prevent them from pollinating other plants, thereby contaminating them with these new proteins, of which we do not know the long-term consequences.
The absurdity of the entire process is mind-boggling. These scientists are willing to sacrifice the country’s food supply by adding vaccines, which do not even work in the first place, to plants.
If this continues, our grandchildren may not have access to any non-genetically modified food, and the health of our society may continue to rapidly decline.
One of the keys to health is good food. Although most of us don't choose to do so, we can still purchase real, unaltered food in this country. Sadly, the future does not appear to provide this option.
Genetically modified foods did not exist prior to 1995. Ninety percent of the money Americans spend on food is spent on processed foods, and seventy percent of processed foods have genetically modified foods in them.
There have been NO STUDIES done with humans to show what happens when genetically modified foods are consumed. The FDA has ASSUMED that these modified foods are equivalent to the original foods and does not require any studies to have them approved, despite the fact that this technology has never before existed in the history of the world.
On the other hand, sustainable agriculture provides a method to produce healthier food that is also better for the environment. It’s time to start looking at long-term consequences--switching to sustainable farming methods will preserve our health and planet, rather than destroy them.
Related Articles:
Prominent Scientists Form Group to Counter GM Food
GM Crops Raise Price of Organic Food
Pig Vaccine Contaminates U.S. Crops
Genetically Modified Foods, Inc.
Genetically Modified Food Genes Contaminate Humans
All Organic Seeds Now Appear to Be Contaminated With Genetically Modified Crops
Source: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2003/07/02/gm-crops-part-six.aspx
Posted by Dr. Mercola | July 02 2003 | 8,910 views
1. GM crops failed to deliver promised benefits
The consistent finding from independent research and on-farm surveys since 1999 is that GM crops have failed to deliver the promised benefits of significantly increasing yields or reducing herbicide and pesticide use. GM crops have cost the United States an estimated $12 billion in farm subsidies, lost sales and product recalls due to transgenic contamination. Massive failures in Bt cotton of up to 100 percent were reported in India.
Biotech corporations have suffered rapid decline since 2000, and investment advisors forecast no future for the agricultural sector. Meanwhile worldwide resistance to GM has reached a climax in 2002 when Zambia refused GM maize in food aid despite the threat of famine.
2. GM crops posing escalating problems on the farm
The instability of transgenic lines has plagued the industry from the beginning, and this may be responsible for a string of major crop failures. A review in 1994 stated, "While there are some examples of plants which show stable expression of a transgene these may prove to be the exceptions to the rule. In an informal survey of over 30 companies involved in the commercialization of transgenic crop plants ... almost all of the respondents indicated that they had observed some level of transgene inaction. Many respondents indicated that most cases of transgene inactivation never reach the literature."
Triple herbicide-tolerant oilseed rape volunteers that have combined transgenic and non-transgenic traits are now widespread in Canada. Similar multiple herbicide-tolerant volunteers and weeds have emerged in the United States. In the United States, glyphosate-tolerant weeds are plaguing GM cotton and soya fields, and atrazine, one of the most toxic herbicides, has had to be used with glufosinate-tolerant GM maize.
Bt biopesticide traits are simultaneously threatening to create superweeds and Bt- resistant pests.
3. Extensive transgenic contamination unavoidable
Extensive transgenic contamination has occurred in maize landraces growing in remote regions in Mexico despite an official moratorium that has been in place since 1998. High levels of contamination have since been found in Canada. In a test of 33 certified seed stocks, 32 were found contaminated.
New research shows that transgenic pollen, wind-blown and deposited elsewhere, or fallen directly to the ground, is a major source of transgenic contamination. Contamination is generally acknowledged to be unavoidable, hence there can be no co-existence of transgenic and non-transgenic crops.
4. GM crops not safe
Contrary to the claims of proponents, GM crops have not been proven safe. The regulatory framework was fatally flawed from the start. It was based on an anti-precautionary approach designed to expedite product approval at the expense of safety considerations. The principle of 'substantial equivalence', on which risk assessment is based, is intended to be vague and ill-defined, thereby giving companies complete license in claiming transgenic products 'substantially equivalent' to non-transgenic products, and hence 'safe.'
5. GM food raises serious safety concerns
There have been very few credible studies on GM food safety. Nevertheless, the available findings already give cause for concern. In the still only systematic investigation on GM food ever carried out in the world, 'growth factor-like' effects were found in the stomach and small intestine of young rats that were not fully accounted for by the transgene product, and were hence attributable to the transgenic process or the transgenic construct, and may hence be general to all GM food. There have been at least two other, more limited, studies that also raised serious safety concerns.
6. Dangerous gene products are incorporated into crops
Bt proteins, incorporated into 25 percent of all transgenic crops worldwide, have been found harmful to a range of non-target insects. Some of them are also potent immunogens and allergens. A team of scientists have cautioned against releasing Bt crops for human use.
Food crops are increasingly used to produce pharmaceuticals and drugs, including cytokines known to suppress the immune system, induce sickness and central nervous system toxicity; interferon alpha, reported to cause dementia, neurotoxicity and mood and cognitive side effects; vaccines; and viral sequences such as the 'spike' protein gene of the pig coronavirus, in the same family as the SARS virus linked to the current epidemic. The glycoprotein gene gp120 of the AIDS virus HIV-1, incorporated into GM maize as a 'cheap, edible oral vaccine', serves as yet another biological time-bomb, as it can interfere with the immune system and recombine with viruses and bacteria to generate new and unpredictable pathogens.
7. Terminator crops spread male sterility
Crops engineered with 'suicide' genes for male sterility have been promoted as a means of 'containing', i.e. preventing, the spread of transgenes. In reality, the hybrid crops sold to farmers spread both male sterile suicide genes as well herbicide tolerance genes via pollen.
8. Broad-spectrum herbicides highly toxic to humans and other species
Glufosinate ammonium and glyphosate are used with the herbicide-tolerant transgenic crops that currently account for 75 percent of all transgenic crops worldwide. Both are systemic metabolic poisons expected to have a wide range of harmful effects, and these have been confirmed.
Glufosinate ammonium is linked to neurological, respiratory, gastrointestinal and hematological toxicities, and birth defects in humans and mammals. It is toxic to butterflies and a number of beneficial insects, also to the larvae of clams and oysters, Daphnia and some freshwater fish, especially the rainbow trout. It inhibits beneficial soil bacteria and fungi, especially those that fix nitrogen.
Glyphosate is the most frequent cause of complaints and poisoning in the UK. Disturbances of many body functions have been reported after exposures at normal use levels.
Glyphosate exposure nearly doubled the risk of late spontaneous abortion, and children born to users of glyphosate had elevated neurobehavioral defects. Glyphosate caused retarded development of the foetal skeleton in laboratory rats. Glyphosate inhibits the synthesis of steroids, and is genotoxic in mammals, fish and frogs. Field dose exposure of earthworms caused at least 50 percent mortality and significant intestinal damage among surviving worms. Roundup caused cell division dysfunction that may be linked to human cancers.
The known effects of both glufosinate and glyphosate are sufficiently serious for all further uses of the herbicides to be halted.
9. Genetic engineering creates super-viruses
By far the most insidious dangers of genetic engineering are inherent to the process itself, which greatly enhances the scope and probability of horizontal gene transfer and recombination, the main route to creating viruses and bacteria that cause disease epidemics. This was highlighted in 2001 by the 'accidental' creation of a killer mouse virus in the course of an apparently innocent genetic engineering experiment.
Newer techniques, such as DNA shuffling are allowing geneticists to create in a matter of minutes in the laboratory millions of recombinant viruses that have never existed in billions of years of evolution. Disease-causing viruses and bacteria and their genetic material are the predominant materials and tools for genetic engineering, as much as for the intentional creation of bio-weapons.
10. Transgenic DNA in food taken up by bacteria in human gut
There is already experimental evidence that transgenic DNA from plants has been taken up by bacteria in the soil and in the gut of human volunteers. Antibiotic resistance marker genes can spread from transgenic food to pathogenic bacteria, making infections very difficult to treat.
11. Transgenic DNA and cancer
Transgenic DNA is known to survive digestion in the gut and to jump into the genome of mammalian cells, raising the possibility for triggering cancer.
The possibility cannot be excluded that feeding GM products such as maize to animals also carries risks, not just for the animals but also for human beings consuming the animal products.
12. CaMV 35S promoter increases horizontal gene transfer
Evidence suggests that transgenic constructs with the CaMV 35S promoter might be especially unstable and prone to horizontal gene transfer and recombination, with all the attendant hazards: gene mutations due to random insertion, cancer, reactivation of dormant viruses and generation of new viruses. This promoter is present in most GM crops being grown commercially today.
13. A history of misrepresentation and suppression of scientific evidence
There has been a history of misrepresentation and suppression of scientific evidence, especially on horizontal gene transfer. Key experiments failed to be performed, or were performed badly and then misrepresented. Many experiments were not followed up, including investigations on whether the CaMV 35S promoter is responsible for the 'growth-factor-like' effects observed in young rats fed GM potatoes.
In conclusion, GM crops have failed to deliver the promised benefits and are posing escalating problems on the farm. Transgenic contamination is now widely acknowledged to be unavoidable, and hence there can be no co-existence of GM and non-GM agriculture. Most important of all, GM crops have not been proven safe. On the contrary, sufficient evidence has emerged to raise serious safety concerns, that if ignored could result in irreversible damage to health and the environment. GM crops should be firmly rejected now.
Why Sustainable Agriculture?
1. Higher productivity and yields, especially in the Third World
Some 8.98 million farmers have adopted sustainable agriculture practices on 28.92 million hectares in Asia, Latin America and Africa. Reliable data from 89 projects show higher productivity and yields: 50 percent to 100 percent increase in yield for rain-fed crops, and five percent to 10 percent for irrigated crops. Top successes include Burkina Faso, which turned a cereal deficit of 644 kg per year to an annual surplus of 153 kg; Ethiopia, where 12,500 households enjoyed a 60 percent increase in crop yields; and Honduras and Guatemala, where 45,000 families increased yields from 400 to 600 kg/ha to 2,000 to 2,500 kg/ha.
Long-term studies in industrialized countries show yields for organic comparable to conventional agriculture, and sometimes higher.
2. Better soils
Sustainable agricultural practices tend to reduce soil erosion, as well as improve soil physical structure and water-holding capacity, which are crucial in averting crop failures during periods of drought.
Soil fertility is maintained or increased by various sustainable agriculture practices. Studies show that soil organic matter and nitrogen levels are higher in organic than in conventional fields.
Biological activity has also been found to be higher in organic soils. There are more earthworms, arthropods, mycorrhizal and other fungi, and microorganisms, all of which are beneficial for nutrient recycling and suppression of disease.
3. Cleaner environment
There is little or no polluting chemical-input with sustainable agriculture. Moreover, research suggests that less nitrate and phosphorus are leached to groundwater from organic soils.
Better water infiltration rates are found in organic systems. Therefore, they are less prone to erosion and less likely to contribute to water pollution from surface runoff.
4. Reduced pesticides and no increase in pests
Organic farming prohibits routine pesticide application. Integrated pest management has cut the number of pesticide sprays in Vietnam from 3.4 to one per season, in Sri Lanka from 2.9 to 0.5 per season, and in Indonesia from 2.9 to 1.1 per season.
Research showed no increase in crop losses due to pest damage, despite the withdrawal of synthetic insecticides in Californian tomato production.
Pest control is achievable without pesticides, reversing crop losses, as for example, by using 'trap crops' to attract stem borer, a major pest in East Africa. Other benefits of avoiding pesticides arise from utilizing the complex inter-relationships between species in an ecosystem.
5. Supporting biodiversity and using diversity
Sustainable agriculture promotes agricultural biodiversity, which is crucial for food security and rural livelihoods. Organic farming can also support much greater biodiversity, benefiting species that have significantly declined.
Biodiverse systems are more productive than monocultures. Integrated farming systems in Cuba are 1.45 to 2.82 times more productive than monocultures. Thousands of Chinese rice farmers have doubled yields and nearly eliminated the most devastating disease simply by mixed planting of two varieties.
Soil biodiversity is enhanced by organic practices, bringing beneficial effects such as recovery and rehabilitation of degraded soils, improved soil structure and water infiltration.
6. Environmentally and economically sustainable
Research on apple production systems ranked the organic system first in environmental and economic sustainability, the integrated system second and the conventional system last. Organic apples were most profitable due to price premiums, quicker investment return and fast recovery of costs.
A Europe-wide study showed that organic farming performs better than conventional farming in the majority of environmental indicators. A review by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) concluded that well-managed organic agriculture leads to more favorable conditions at all environmental levels.
7. Ameliorating climate change by reducing direct & indirect energy use
Organic agriculture uses energy much more efficiently and greatly reduces CO2 emissions compared with conventional agriculture, both with respect to direct energy consumption in fuel and oil and indirect consumption in synthetic fertilizers and pesticides.
Sustainable agriculture restores soil organic matter content, increasing carbon sequestration below ground, thereby recovering an important carbon sink. Organic systems have shown significant ability to absorb and retain carbon, raising the possibility that sustainable agriculture practices can help reduce the impact of global warming.
Organic agriculture is likely to emit less nitrous dioxide (N2O), another important greenhouse gas and also a cause of stratospheric ozone depletion.
8. Efficient, profitable production
Any yield reduction in organic agriculture is more than offset by ecological and efficiency gains. Research has shown that the organic approach can be commercially viable in the long-term, producing more food per unit of energy or resources.
Data show that smaller farms produce far more per unit area than the larger farms characteristic of conventional farming. Though the yield per unit area of one crop may be lower on a small farm than on a large monoculture, the total output per unit area, often composed of more than a dozen crops and various animal products, can be far higher.
Production costs for organic farming are often lower than for conventional farming, bringing equivalent or higher net returns even without organic price premiums. When price premiums are factored in, organic systems are almost always more profitable.
9. Improved food security and benefits to local communities
A review of sustainable agriculture projects in developing countries showed that average food production per household increased by 1.71 tons per year (up 73 percent) for 4.42 million farmers on 3.58 million hectares, bringing food security and health benefits to local communities.
Increasing agricultural productivity has been shown to also increase food supplies and raise incomes, thereby reducing poverty, increasing access to food, reducing malnutrition and improving health and livelihoods.
Sustainable agricultural approaches draw extensively on traditional and indigenous knowledge, and place emphasis on the farmers' experience and innovation. This thereby utilizes appropriate, low-cost and readily available local resources as well as improves farmers' status and autonomy, enhancing social and cultural relations within local communities.
10. Better food quality for health
Organic food is safer as organic farming prohibits routine pesticide and herbicide use so harmful chemical residues are rarely found.
Organic production also bans the use of artificial food additives such as hydrogenated fats, phosphoric acid, aspartame and monosodium glutamate, which have been linked to health problems as diverse as heart disease, osteoporosis, migraines and hyperactivity.
Studies have shown that, on average, organic food has higher vitamin C, higher mineral levels and higher plant phenolics--plant compounds that can fight cancer and heart disease, and combat age-related neurological dysfunctions--and significantly less nitrates, a toxic compound.
Sustainable agricultural practices have proven beneficial in all aspects relevant to health and the environment. In addition, they bring food security and social and cultural well-being to local communities everywhere. There is an urgent need for a comprehensive global shift to all forms of sustainable agriculture.
Independent Science Panel Report June 15, 2003
Dr. Mercola's Comments:
Many respectable scientists are concerned about, and nearly all of Europe has strong opposition to, genetically modified foods.
This is a wise choice as consuming genetically modified foods is like participating in a giant experiment. There is no telling what the consequences of using these genetically modified foods will be because these products have never existed before now.
It seems clear that these altered foods are capable of producing changes in humans. Already, investigators have found that rats fed genetically modified potatoes had an increased thickening in the lining of their stomach and intestine and a weakening of their immune system.
Further, some scientists want to put vaccines into plants without any real knowledge of what effects this unnatural addition will have on human health, or the health of our planet.
This is SHEER LUNACY.
What these scientists have failed to fully appreciate is that once these genetically modified plants are growing it is physically impossible to prevent them from pollinating other plants, thereby contaminating them with these new proteins, of which we do not know the long-term consequences.
The absurdity of the entire process is mind-boggling. These scientists are willing to sacrifice the country’s food supply by adding vaccines, which do not even work in the first place, to plants.
If this continues, our grandchildren may not have access to any non-genetically modified food, and the health of our society may continue to rapidly decline.
One of the keys to health is good food. Although most of us don't choose to do so, we can still purchase real, unaltered food in this country. Sadly, the future does not appear to provide this option.
Genetically modified foods did not exist prior to 1995. Ninety percent of the money Americans spend on food is spent on processed foods, and seventy percent of processed foods have genetically modified foods in them.
There have been NO STUDIES done with humans to show what happens when genetically modified foods are consumed. The FDA has ASSUMED that these modified foods are equivalent to the original foods and does not require any studies to have them approved, despite the fact that this technology has never before existed in the history of the world.
On the other hand, sustainable agriculture provides a method to produce healthier food that is also better for the environment. It’s time to start looking at long-term consequences--switching to sustainable farming methods will preserve our health and planet, rather than destroy them.
Related Articles:
Prominent Scientists Form Group to Counter GM Food
GM Crops Raise Price of Organic Food
Pig Vaccine Contaminates U.S. Crops
Genetically Modified Foods, Inc.
Genetically Modified Food Genes Contaminate Humans
All Organic Seeds Now Appear to Be Contaminated With Genetically Modified Crops
Source: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2003/07/02/gm-crops-part-six.aspx
The Damaging Effects of GMOs Revealed
The Damaging Effects of GMOs Revealed
Posted by Dr. Mercola | June 11 2005 | 6,358 views
The plague of genetically modified (GM) foods infecting the country’s food supply continues to run rampant. In fact, an alarming 75 percent of all processed products in the United States contain some GM ingredients; but the infestation doesn’t stop there.
A report by the British-based news source The Independent revealed secret research done by GM food giant Monsanto that compared the biological effects of eating GM corn versus naturally grown corn on rats. According to the 1,139-page report:
• Rats fed GM corn had smaller kidneys and variations in the composition of their blood -- raising concerns that human health could also be adversely affected by eating such foods.
• Health problems were unseen in the rodents fed non-GM food.
Based on the findings, doctors speculate that the changes in the blood of the rodents could imply that the rats’ immune systems had been damaged, or that a disorder such as a tumor had grown and their systems were trying to fight it.
Previous Rodent Research
The results of the above study appear to support British research done seven years ago by scientist Dr. Arpad Pusztai. His controversial study suggested rats that ate GM potatoes damaged their health. However, the research was denounced by ministers and the British scientific establishment and Dr. Pusztai was forced into retirement.
Additionally, Dr. Pusztai noted a long list of significant differences between conventional corn and MON 863 -- the kind of corn modified by Monsanto to ward off corn rootworm.
The Independent May 22, 2005
Dr. Mercola's Comments:
Many natural health experts have been concerned for some time about the plague of genetically modified (GM) foods infiltrating your food supply, and for good reason: Roughly 75 percent of all processed foods in this country contain some GM ingredients.
It is now clearer than ever that these altered foods are capable of producing negative changes in humans.
Further, some scientists even want to put vaccines into plants without any real knowledge of what effects this unnatural addition will have on human health, or the health of our planet.
This is SHEER LUNACY.
Americans are largely kept in the dark regarding the truth about GM products. And, because there are no labeling requirements, most people are not even aware they are putting potentially harmful ingredients into their bodies.
Move Toward Better Health -- Avoid GM Foods
Therefore, since it’s obvious there's no telling what effects GM foods will have on your body, I believe it would be wise to try and avoid them whenever possible.
To guide you in understanding the problems associated with GM foods, I strongly recommend reading the incredible series Seeds of Doubt, written by staffers at the Sacramento Bee. Additionally, the steps below will help you steer clear of GM products for good:
• Reduce or Eliminate Processed Foods. As you learned, 75 percent of processed foods contain GM ingredients. There are many reasons why processed foods are not optimal for your health -- for instance they often contain trans fat, acrylamide and little nutritional value -- so avoiding them will not only help you to cut back on the amount of GM foods you are consuming, but will also boost your health.
• Read produce and food labels. GM soybeans and corn make up the largest portion of genetically modified crops. When looking at a product label, if any ingredients such as corn flour and meal, dextrin, starch, soy sauce, margarine, and tofu (to name a few) are listed, there's a good chance it has come from GM corn or soy, unless it's listed as organic.
• Buy organic produce. Buying organic is currently the best way to ensure that your food has not been genetically modified. By definition, food that is certified organic must be free from all GM organisms, produced without artificial pesticides and fertilizers and from an animal reared without the routine use of antibiotics, growth promoters or other drugs.
• Look at Produce Stickers. Those little stickers on fruit and vegetables contain different PLU codes depending on whether the fruit was conventionally grown, organically grown or genetically modified. The PLU code for conventionally grown fruit consists of four numbers, organically grown fruit has five numbers prefaced by the number nine, and GM fruit has five numbers prefaced by the number eight.
Finally, if you feel you can’t afford to buy organic foods, please read Colleen Huber’s excellent piece on how you can do so on your current budget.
Related Articles:
How do You Know if Your Food is Genetically Modified?
Genetically Modified Crops Are Contaminating Your Food
Why Genetically Modified Crops Can Devastate Health
Source: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2005/06/11/gmo-effects.aspx
Posted by Dr. Mercola | June 11 2005 | 6,358 views
The plague of genetically modified (GM) foods infecting the country’s food supply continues to run rampant. In fact, an alarming 75 percent of all processed products in the United States contain some GM ingredients; but the infestation doesn’t stop there.
A report by the British-based news source The Independent revealed secret research done by GM food giant Monsanto that compared the biological effects of eating GM corn versus naturally grown corn on rats. According to the 1,139-page report:
• Rats fed GM corn had smaller kidneys and variations in the composition of their blood -- raising concerns that human health could also be adversely affected by eating such foods.
• Health problems were unseen in the rodents fed non-GM food.
Based on the findings, doctors speculate that the changes in the blood of the rodents could imply that the rats’ immune systems had been damaged, or that a disorder such as a tumor had grown and their systems were trying to fight it.
Previous Rodent Research
The results of the above study appear to support British research done seven years ago by scientist Dr. Arpad Pusztai. His controversial study suggested rats that ate GM potatoes damaged their health. However, the research was denounced by ministers and the British scientific establishment and Dr. Pusztai was forced into retirement.
Additionally, Dr. Pusztai noted a long list of significant differences between conventional corn and MON 863 -- the kind of corn modified by Monsanto to ward off corn rootworm.
The Independent May 22, 2005
Dr. Mercola's Comments:
Many natural health experts have been concerned for some time about the plague of genetically modified (GM) foods infiltrating your food supply, and for good reason: Roughly 75 percent of all processed foods in this country contain some GM ingredients.
It is now clearer than ever that these altered foods are capable of producing negative changes in humans.
Further, some scientists even want to put vaccines into plants without any real knowledge of what effects this unnatural addition will have on human health, or the health of our planet.
This is SHEER LUNACY.
Americans are largely kept in the dark regarding the truth about GM products. And, because there are no labeling requirements, most people are not even aware they are putting potentially harmful ingredients into their bodies.
Move Toward Better Health -- Avoid GM Foods
Therefore, since it’s obvious there's no telling what effects GM foods will have on your body, I believe it would be wise to try and avoid them whenever possible.
To guide you in understanding the problems associated with GM foods, I strongly recommend reading the incredible series Seeds of Doubt, written by staffers at the Sacramento Bee. Additionally, the steps below will help you steer clear of GM products for good:
• Reduce or Eliminate Processed Foods. As you learned, 75 percent of processed foods contain GM ingredients. There are many reasons why processed foods are not optimal for your health -- for instance they often contain trans fat, acrylamide and little nutritional value -- so avoiding them will not only help you to cut back on the amount of GM foods you are consuming, but will also boost your health.
• Read produce and food labels. GM soybeans and corn make up the largest portion of genetically modified crops. When looking at a product label, if any ingredients such as corn flour and meal, dextrin, starch, soy sauce, margarine, and tofu (to name a few) are listed, there's a good chance it has come from GM corn or soy, unless it's listed as organic.
• Buy organic produce. Buying organic is currently the best way to ensure that your food has not been genetically modified. By definition, food that is certified organic must be free from all GM organisms, produced without artificial pesticides and fertilizers and from an animal reared without the routine use of antibiotics, growth promoters or other drugs.
• Look at Produce Stickers. Those little stickers on fruit and vegetables contain different PLU codes depending on whether the fruit was conventionally grown, organically grown or genetically modified. The PLU code for conventionally grown fruit consists of four numbers, organically grown fruit has five numbers prefaced by the number nine, and GM fruit has five numbers prefaced by the number eight.
Finally, if you feel you can’t afford to buy organic foods, please read Colleen Huber’s excellent piece on how you can do so on your current budget.
Related Articles:
How do You Know if Your Food is Genetically Modified?
Genetically Modified Crops Are Contaminating Your Food
Why Genetically Modified Crops Can Devastate Health
Source: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2005/06/11/gmo-effects.aspx
Organic Cattle Industry versus Inorganic Beef Industry
The Ominous Beef Cover Up: The Hidden Truth Behind the Meat on Your Plate
Posted by Dr. Mercola | March 23 2010 | 148,283 views
Of all the animals that humans eat, none are held more responsible for climate change than cows. Cows not only consume more energy-intensive feed than other livestock, they also produce more methane, a powerful greenhouse gas.
But grass-fed cows may have the opposite effect.
Grass is a perennial. If cattle and other ruminants are rotated across pastures full of it, the animals' grazing will cut the blades, spurring new growth, while their trampling helps work manure and other decaying organic matter into the soil, turning it into rich humus. And healthy soil keeps carbon dioxide underground and out of the atmosphere.
Currently, 99 percent of U.S. beef cattle live out their last months on feedlots, where they are stuffed with corn and soybeans. Much of the carbon footprint of beef comes from growing grain to feed the animals, which requires fossil-fuel-based fertilizers, pesticides, and transportation.
Even though grass-fed cattle produce more methane than conventional ones (high-fiber plants are harder to digest than cereals), their net emissions are lower because they help the soil sequester carbon.
Sources:
Time Magazine January 25, 2010
Dr. Mercola's Comments:
Although this Time magazine article goes into some of the details about how cows may be partly responsible for global warming, I think the MAIN point here is the very real difference between conventionally-raised, grain-fed livestock, and organically-raised, grass-fed cows as it pertains to both your health, and the health of the planet as a whole.
The differences between the two are so vast; you’re really talking about two different animals, and two separate industries with entirely different farming practices and environmental impact.
As reported in Time magazine above, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization released a report in 2006 entitled Livestock’s Role in Climate Change and Air Pollution. In it, they estimate that 18 percent of the world’s man-made greenhouse-gas emissions are produced by livestock. This information was heralded by vegetarians and environmentalists alike as proof that eating meat was bad not only for you, but for the entire planet.
But, it’s important to realize that this detrimental effect comes from modern farming practices, not from cows being raised naturally as they were designed to be.
The carbon footprint of conventional farming is mainly due to the unnatural feed that these animals are given, which requires lots of fossil fuels. Many don’t think about this, but fossil fuels are used in everything from the fertilizers and pesticides that are sprayed onto the crop to the transportation of the feed.
Grass does not require fossil fuels to grow (rotating pastures does the job instead), and other health harming practices, such as injecting the livestock with hormones and antibiotics, are also not allowed in organic farming.
This equates to healthier meat, a healthier you, and benefits to the planet.
Open Your Eyes With this Movie
If you prefer to be passively educated and enjoy watching videos, then I would highly recommend you view Food, Inc
I personally had not had a chance to view this movie until it was released on Netflix. You can actually stream it for free if you have a Netflix account and you don’t even have to order the DVD.
The full 90-minute movie highlights two of the most prominent investigative journalists in the industry, Michal Pollan (Omnivore’s Dilemma) and Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation), providing a very graphic and powerful reinforcement of the material presented in this article.
I highly encourage you to view this film as it will empower you and your family to make changes. Collectively we can have a very profound impact.
Why Grass-Fed Only Beef?
If you’re not already convinced that grass-fed beef is healthier for you, I highly recommend you take a look at the evidence. There’s quite a bit of support in the scientific literature, a few of which can be found at this reference link.
Some people are still confused on the issue of grass-fed as all cattle are initially raised on grass. Conventionally-raised cattle, however, are then shipped off to feed lots where they gain their last several hundred pounds of weight. They’re also typically treated with growth hormones to pack on the pounds faster, which cuts down on the cost of production.
It is this feeding phase that causes most of the problems and increases the risk of disease and contamination, both in the cattle, and in you.
The feedlot is a completely unnatural environment for the cattle, and this is also one of the reasons they’re put on so many antibiotics.
You know, the rationale behind my nutritional guidelines really boils down to one thing: Common sense. My recommendations stem largely from what scientific research has determined are the types of foods that humans are naturally designed to eat.
Health problems invariably surface the further you stray from eating such foods. Another way to say this would be that your body's biochemical make-up is adversely affected if you eat things that aren't right for it. One result of this is that your body's composition will inevitably change.
And why would things be any different for a cow?
When you think of a cow in its natural environment, doing what it naturally does, you likely will picture it grazing. Is it grazing on stalks of corn? Never! It's grazing on GRASS.
Grass is a cow's natural food. Corn and other grains are not.
When cows eat grains their body composition changes. Most importantly for you, these changes include an alteration in the balance of essential fats.
Grass-Fed Cows have Radically Different Nutritional Benefits
Previous studies have found that grass-fed beef not only has less fat, but also higher conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) than grain-fed beef, indicating grass-fed may be an all-around healthier choice.
In addition, a previous study by North Dakota State University on the nutritional differences between grass-fed and grain-fed bison found that grass-fed bison had omega-6 to omega-3 ratios of 4 to 1, whereas the grain-fed bison had ratios of 21 to 1. Additional studies by others clearly show that the longer cattle are fed grain, the greater the fatty acid imbalance.
As you may remember, the ideal ratio between these two fats is 1 to 1, so clearly, the grass-fed variety is far closer to the ideal.
Additionally, since grass-fed beef has been raised sans unnecessary antibiotics and growth hormones, they also have other added health benefits.
Grass-Fed Animal Products are a Natural, Healthy Source of CLA
Aside from having a far superior balance of omega fats, both the beef and milk from grass-fed cattle also contain far higher levels of another fatty acid, known as conjugated linoleic acid (CLA).
For example, meat from grass-fed animals contains three to five times more CLA than meat from grain-fed animals.
CLA has previously been deemed a potential weapon against cancer, which spurred its popularity as a dietary supplement. In fact, CLA is so potent a cancer fighter that animal studies show as little as 0.5 percent CLA in the diet could reduce tumors by over 50 percent.
It’s worth noting here, however, that I do not recommend that you take CLA supplements in any form.
As with all nutrients, you’re better off getting them from food than from synthetic supplements. Natural CLA found in foods such as grass-fed beef is far superior to a man-made version in pill form--not to mention that CLA supplements are outrageously expensive. Other natural sources include dairy products from grass-fed cows like raw milk, raw butter and raw milk cheese.
Another health benefit of CLA – and hence grass-fed beef and dairy, as a main source of it – is that it can inhibit the formation of body fat while preserving muscle tissue. This is why it’s also popular among body builders.
And, as detailed by Mary Shomon in an About.com article from 2003, studies suggest that CLA:
• Increases metabolic rate
• Decreases abdominal fat
• Enhances muscle growth
• Lowers cholesterol and triglycerides
• Lowers insulin resistance
• Reduces food-induced allergic reactions
• Enhances your immune system
This is in stark contrast to the findings from another study, which found that the type of CLA used in supplements has been associated with an array of negative side effects, such as:
• Promoting insulin resistance
• Raising glucose levels
• Reducing HDL (good cholesterol)
• Stomach upset
Clearly, getting your CLA from a natural source like grass-fed beef is the logical choice when faced with such findings!
Where’s the Beef?
Americans as a whole wrongly shunned many animal products when the "fear of fat" mentality swept across the nation.
The fact is that animal products can significantly benefit your health, IF you choose them wisely. That means avoiding conventionally-farmed and processed meat, dairy and egg products, opting for organically-raised and farmed varieties.
Keep in mind that you are what you eat. So if you’re just eating the commercially raised meat available in most grocery stores, your health will not benefit because those animals were not fed a healthy diet.
It’s important to understand that once cows and other grass-eating animals are fed grains, they stop producing CLA. So the ideal source of natural CLA is from 100 percent, exclusively grass-fed animals. The least expensive way to obtain grass-fed beef would be from a local farmer, to avoid high shipping fees. I also carry 100 percent grass-fed beef in my store, if you don’t have access to more local sources.
Final Thoughts
The more we return to traditional farming practices, the more nutritious our food will be and the lesser the environmental impact of our agricultural industry. So, whenever possible, support your own health and the livelihood of the farmers out there who are trying to do things the right way.
For more information about the farming practices used to raise most commercial beef, I highly recommend reading this previous article series by Michael Pollan called Discover How Your Beef is Really Raised. It’s an eye-opener.
Related Links:
Why Grass Fed Beef is Better For You
At Last, New Rules Set for Grass-Fed Meat
The Six Dangers of Common Beef, and How to Avoid Them
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/03/23/how-grassfed-cows-could-save-the-planet.aspx
Posted by Dr. Mercola | March 23 2010 | 148,283 views
Of all the animals that humans eat, none are held more responsible for climate change than cows. Cows not only consume more energy-intensive feed than other livestock, they also produce more methane, a powerful greenhouse gas.
But grass-fed cows may have the opposite effect.
Grass is a perennial. If cattle and other ruminants are rotated across pastures full of it, the animals' grazing will cut the blades, spurring new growth, while their trampling helps work manure and other decaying organic matter into the soil, turning it into rich humus. And healthy soil keeps carbon dioxide underground and out of the atmosphere.
Currently, 99 percent of U.S. beef cattle live out their last months on feedlots, where they are stuffed with corn and soybeans. Much of the carbon footprint of beef comes from growing grain to feed the animals, which requires fossil-fuel-based fertilizers, pesticides, and transportation.
Even though grass-fed cattle produce more methane than conventional ones (high-fiber plants are harder to digest than cereals), their net emissions are lower because they help the soil sequester carbon.
Sources:
Time Magazine January 25, 2010
Dr. Mercola's Comments:
Although this Time magazine article goes into some of the details about how cows may be partly responsible for global warming, I think the MAIN point here is the very real difference between conventionally-raised, grain-fed livestock, and organically-raised, grass-fed cows as it pertains to both your health, and the health of the planet as a whole.
The differences between the two are so vast; you’re really talking about two different animals, and two separate industries with entirely different farming practices and environmental impact.
As reported in Time magazine above, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization released a report in 2006 entitled Livestock’s Role in Climate Change and Air Pollution. In it, they estimate that 18 percent of the world’s man-made greenhouse-gas emissions are produced by livestock. This information was heralded by vegetarians and environmentalists alike as proof that eating meat was bad not only for you, but for the entire planet.
But, it’s important to realize that this detrimental effect comes from modern farming practices, not from cows being raised naturally as they were designed to be.
The carbon footprint of conventional farming is mainly due to the unnatural feed that these animals are given, which requires lots of fossil fuels. Many don’t think about this, but fossil fuels are used in everything from the fertilizers and pesticides that are sprayed onto the crop to the transportation of the feed.
Grass does not require fossil fuels to grow (rotating pastures does the job instead), and other health harming practices, such as injecting the livestock with hormones and antibiotics, are also not allowed in organic farming.
This equates to healthier meat, a healthier you, and benefits to the planet.
Open Your Eyes With this Movie
If you prefer to be passively educated and enjoy watching videos, then I would highly recommend you view Food, Inc
I personally had not had a chance to view this movie until it was released on Netflix. You can actually stream it for free if you have a Netflix account and you don’t even have to order the DVD.
The full 90-minute movie highlights two of the most prominent investigative journalists in the industry, Michal Pollan (Omnivore’s Dilemma) and Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation), providing a very graphic and powerful reinforcement of the material presented in this article.
I highly encourage you to view this film as it will empower you and your family to make changes. Collectively we can have a very profound impact.
Why Grass-Fed Only Beef?
If you’re not already convinced that grass-fed beef is healthier for you, I highly recommend you take a look at the evidence. There’s quite a bit of support in the scientific literature, a few of which can be found at this reference link.
Some people are still confused on the issue of grass-fed as all cattle are initially raised on grass. Conventionally-raised cattle, however, are then shipped off to feed lots where they gain their last several hundred pounds of weight. They’re also typically treated with growth hormones to pack on the pounds faster, which cuts down on the cost of production.
It is this feeding phase that causes most of the problems and increases the risk of disease and contamination, both in the cattle, and in you.
The feedlot is a completely unnatural environment for the cattle, and this is also one of the reasons they’re put on so many antibiotics.
You know, the rationale behind my nutritional guidelines really boils down to one thing: Common sense. My recommendations stem largely from what scientific research has determined are the types of foods that humans are naturally designed to eat.
Health problems invariably surface the further you stray from eating such foods. Another way to say this would be that your body's biochemical make-up is adversely affected if you eat things that aren't right for it. One result of this is that your body's composition will inevitably change.
And why would things be any different for a cow?
When you think of a cow in its natural environment, doing what it naturally does, you likely will picture it grazing. Is it grazing on stalks of corn? Never! It's grazing on GRASS.
Grass is a cow's natural food. Corn and other grains are not.
When cows eat grains their body composition changes. Most importantly for you, these changes include an alteration in the balance of essential fats.
Grass-Fed Cows have Radically Different Nutritional Benefits
Previous studies have found that grass-fed beef not only has less fat, but also higher conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) than grain-fed beef, indicating grass-fed may be an all-around healthier choice.
In addition, a previous study by North Dakota State University on the nutritional differences between grass-fed and grain-fed bison found that grass-fed bison had omega-6 to omega-3 ratios of 4 to 1, whereas the grain-fed bison had ratios of 21 to 1. Additional studies by others clearly show that the longer cattle are fed grain, the greater the fatty acid imbalance.
As you may remember, the ideal ratio between these two fats is 1 to 1, so clearly, the grass-fed variety is far closer to the ideal.
Additionally, since grass-fed beef has been raised sans unnecessary antibiotics and growth hormones, they also have other added health benefits.
Grass-Fed Animal Products are a Natural, Healthy Source of CLA
Aside from having a far superior balance of omega fats, both the beef and milk from grass-fed cattle also contain far higher levels of another fatty acid, known as conjugated linoleic acid (CLA).
For example, meat from grass-fed animals contains three to five times more CLA than meat from grain-fed animals.
CLA has previously been deemed a potential weapon against cancer, which spurred its popularity as a dietary supplement. In fact, CLA is so potent a cancer fighter that animal studies show as little as 0.5 percent CLA in the diet could reduce tumors by over 50 percent.
It’s worth noting here, however, that I do not recommend that you take CLA supplements in any form.
As with all nutrients, you’re better off getting them from food than from synthetic supplements. Natural CLA found in foods such as grass-fed beef is far superior to a man-made version in pill form--not to mention that CLA supplements are outrageously expensive. Other natural sources include dairy products from grass-fed cows like raw milk, raw butter and raw milk cheese.
Another health benefit of CLA – and hence grass-fed beef and dairy, as a main source of it – is that it can inhibit the formation of body fat while preserving muscle tissue. This is why it’s also popular among body builders.
And, as detailed by Mary Shomon in an About.com article from 2003, studies suggest that CLA:
• Increases metabolic rate
• Decreases abdominal fat
• Enhances muscle growth
• Lowers cholesterol and triglycerides
• Lowers insulin resistance
• Reduces food-induced allergic reactions
• Enhances your immune system
This is in stark contrast to the findings from another study, which found that the type of CLA used in supplements has been associated with an array of negative side effects, such as:
• Promoting insulin resistance
• Raising glucose levels
• Reducing HDL (good cholesterol)
• Stomach upset
Clearly, getting your CLA from a natural source like grass-fed beef is the logical choice when faced with such findings!
Where’s the Beef?
Americans as a whole wrongly shunned many animal products when the "fear of fat" mentality swept across the nation.
The fact is that animal products can significantly benefit your health, IF you choose them wisely. That means avoiding conventionally-farmed and processed meat, dairy and egg products, opting for organically-raised and farmed varieties.
Keep in mind that you are what you eat. So if you’re just eating the commercially raised meat available in most grocery stores, your health will not benefit because those animals were not fed a healthy diet.
It’s important to understand that once cows and other grass-eating animals are fed grains, they stop producing CLA. So the ideal source of natural CLA is from 100 percent, exclusively grass-fed animals. The least expensive way to obtain grass-fed beef would be from a local farmer, to avoid high shipping fees. I also carry 100 percent grass-fed beef in my store, if you don’t have access to more local sources.
Final Thoughts
The more we return to traditional farming practices, the more nutritious our food will be and the lesser the environmental impact of our agricultural industry. So, whenever possible, support your own health and the livelihood of the farmers out there who are trying to do things the right way.
For more information about the farming practices used to raise most commercial beef, I highly recommend reading this previous article series by Michael Pollan called Discover How Your Beef is Really Raised. It’s an eye-opener.
Related Links:
Why Grass Fed Beef is Better For You
At Last, New Rules Set for Grass-Fed Meat
The Six Dangers of Common Beef, and How to Avoid Them
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/03/23/how-grassfed-cows-could-save-the-planet.aspx
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