GMO getting head

[DrFever]

Unlike hybrid seeds, GMO seeds are not created using natural, low-tech methods. GMO seed varieties are created in a lab using high-tech and sophisticated techniques like gene-splicing.

Furthermore, GMO seeds seldom cross different, but related plants. Often the cross goes far beyond the bounds of nature so that instead of crossing two different, but related varieties of plant, they are crossing different biological kingdoms — like, say, a bacteria with a plant.

For example, Monsanto has crossed genetic material from a bacteria known as Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) with corn. The goal was to create a pest-resistant plant. This means that any pests attempting to eat the corn plant will die since the pesticide is part of every cell of the plant.

The resultant GMO plant, known as Bt Corn, is itself registered as a pesticide with the EPA, along with other GMO Bt crops. In other words, if you feed this corn to your cattle, your chickens, or yourself, you’ll be feeding them an actual pesticide — not just a smidgeon of pesticide residue.

GMO SEEDS: THE CONSEQUENCES

seeds of deceptionSadly, GMOs are a great, big scientific unknown.

On the one hand, biotech firms like Monsanto argue that the GMO seeds they create are so unique that they need to be patented — something that has far-reaching and devastating effects on the global economy. (Just ask Percy Schmieser.)

Yet on the other hand, the same firms argue that the GMO seeds are “substantially equivalent” to other seeds, so they have no need to be labeled, tested, or otherwise regulated.

So far, the U.S. government has allowed biotech firms to get away with this crazy juxtaposition. However, some testing of GMO seeds has been done in other countries, and it takes investigative journalism found in books like Seeds of Deception: Exposing Industry and Government Lies About the Safety of the Genetically Engineered Foods You’re Eating to expose just what’s at risk.

Vickie Mattern of Mother Earth News summarized it this way:

The trouble is that nobody knows how these unnatural new organisms will behave over time. The seed companies that develop these varieties claim intellectual property rights so that only they can create and sell the variety. In some cases, companies — such as Monsanto — even refuse to allow scientists to obtain and study their GM seeds. For some crops, such as corn, wind can carry the pollen from GM varieties and contaminate non-GM varieties. And there is no mandatory labeling of GM content in seed, says Kristina Hubbard, advocacy and communications director for the Organic Seed Alliance.
(source)

HYBRID SEEDS VS. GMOS

In short: Hybrid Seeds are nothing to fear, but you may not want to support them given that they fail to breed true and have caused so much global havoc. GMO seeds are far more unnatural and likely to cause harm — both to your environment and your health.

HOW TO AVOID GMOS

Unfortunately, because GMOs aren’t currently labeled in the U.S., you have no way of knowing whether or not you’re eating them. Roughly 85% of all grocery store foods contain GMOs, and there only a handful of sure-fire ways to avoid them:

 

[trichrider]

Largest international study into safety of GM food launched by Russian NGO

Thousands of rats will be fed Monsanto maize diets in a $23m, three-year ‘Factor GMO’ study into long-term health effects of GM food and associated pesticides

John Vidal
Tuesday 11 November 2014 11.32 EST

A Russian group working with scientists is set to launch what they call the world’s largest and most comprehensive long-term health study on a GM food.

The $25m three-year experiment will involve scientists testing thousands of rats which will be fed differing diets of a Monsanto GM maize and the world’s most widely-used herbicide which it it is engineered to be grown with.


The organisers of the Factor GMO [genetically modified organism] study, announced in London on Tuesday and due to start fully next year, say it will investigate the long-term health effects of a diet of a GM maize developed by US seed and chemical company Monsanto.

“It will answer the question: is this GM food, and associated pesticide, safe for human health?” said Elena Sharoykina, a campaigner and co-founder of the Russian national association for genetic safety (Nags), the co-ordinator of the experiment.


According to the Nags, the experiment will try to establish whether the GM maize and its associated herbicide cause cancers, reduce fertility or cause birth defects. The scientists also want to know whether the mixture of chemicals present in Roundup (Monsanto’s tradename for its glyphosate herbicide) are more or less toxic than its active ingredient glyphosate.

Farmers, governments, scientists and consumers around the world have been involved in an intense debate since GM foods were introduced in 1994. But while there have been many thousands of studies conducted, mostly by GM companies, which show that there is no health risk, government regulators have not required evidence of long-term safety and deep mistrust has built between different “sides”.

“We would clearly support well-conducted, hypothesis-driven science. If the science is conducted according to OECD guidelines and shows that there are hazards with a particular event, then the public will understand that,” said Prof Huw Jones, senior research scientist at Rothamsted Research, which specialises in agricultural research and is the only research institute in the UK currently carrying out a GM crop trial.


Oxana Sinitsyna, deputy science director at the Sysin research institute of human ecology and environmental health which is part of the Russian ministry of health, one of the three scientists on the Factor GMO study’s review board, said: “The scale and format of this research project will allow us to create a really objective and comprehensive data set on the mechanics of the impacts of a GM diet on the health of living organisms over the long term.

“From a scientific point of view the ‘Factor GMO’ project is highly ambitious, which makes it very interesting, for both the public and for the scientists involved.”


Bruce Blumberg, another board member, who is a biology professor at the University of California, Irvine, said: “The cultivation of herbicide resistant crops is widespread in the US, and the use of the herbicides to which these crops are resistant has increased many-fold in the decades since they were introduced. There is a notable lack of published, peer-reviewed data on their safety, as well as data on the safety of the increased use of herbicides with which they are grown.”


The planned study will have no input from the biotech industry or the anti-GM movement, said Sharoykina.“Comprehensive scientific safety studies on GMOs and their related pesticides are long overdue. All previous studies caused controversy for various reasons: choice of animal, insufficient statistics, duration of tests, research parameters, and researchers’ connections to the anti-GMO movement or the biotech industry.


“This study is intended to remedy the situation. The project organisers have considered all of the points of disagreement and distrust surrounding this subject.” She added that Nags would not have any involvement in the scientific process.

Most of the $25m has been raised, say the organisers, but the names of sponsors and funders will not be revealed until the experiment starts fully next year.


Fiorella Belpoggi, a cancer specialist with the Ramazzini insistute in Italy and a board member of the study said: “This is not at all an anti-GM study. We are being neutral. We don’t know if it’s good or bad. Maybe in the future I will be a cheerleader with Monsanto. But I want science to find out”.

The experiment, which will be conducted in western Europe and Russia, was cautiously welcomed by both GM sceptics and proponents of the technology. However, Monsanto did not respond to invitations for an interview.


Karl Haro von Mogel, a public research geneticist in Madison, said on the Biofortified website: “If they conduct the study and publish it in the peer-reviewed literature, it can make a contribution to the existing literature. They frame the need for this study by saying that ‘there has never been a scientific study that is comprehensive enough to give them a clear answer regarding the safety for human health of any one GM food – until now’. The study has not been done yet, so this is putting the cart before the horse.”


Doug Parr, chief scientist at Greenpeace UK, said: “There is still scientific uncertainty regarding what effects GM crops could have on the environment and the health of consumers, especially in the long term. If this is a well-designed, transparent and accountable study, then hopefully it can help to fill some of the major gaps in our knowledge of the impacts of GM glyphosate resistant maize and glyphosate on health.”

Peter Melchett, policy director with the Soil Association, said: “I welcome this. It has been a scientific fraud that no scientific study like this has been done in the past.”


Monsanto was contacted for a response but did not reply. In the past it has claimed that trillions of meals have been eaten by consumers without ill effects.

The announcement of the experiment came as British anti-GM campaigners delivered a letter to Downing street signed by US environment groups representing over 50m people, as well as celebrities including Susan Sarandon, Daryl Hannah and Robert Kennedy. The letter warns Britain that the intensive growing of GM crops has caused major environmental problems in the US.


“GM crops have never delivered on their promises to increase yields and profits or to decrease pesticide use. In fact, they have done the opposite with the cost of growing GM crops now greater than conventional crops in the US and pesticide use 24% higher amongst GM farmers than non-GM farmers planting the same crops”, says the letter which was delivered by former Labour environment minister Michael Meacher and Tory MP Zac Goldsmith.

Separately on Tuesday, MEPs voted to allow national bans on GM food crops for environmental reasons




http://www.theguardian.com/environm...nto-safety-of-gm-food-launched-by-russian-ngo

 

[trichrider]

http://www.cfr.org/agricultural-pol...ntemporary-european-regulatory-politics/p8688

In 1984, the White House suggested that the Cabinet Council on Economic Affairs, rather than the EPA, be responsible for regulating biotechnology. By convening a working group under White House auspices, the White House was able to avoid public oversight since the groups's meetings were not open to public scrutiny. [17] The Working Group, with personnel draw from a number of different agencies issued a Coordinated Framework for the Regulation of Biotechnology, which remains the key US government document on biotechnology. This framework established a biotechnology working group - the Biotechnology Science Coordinating Committee - and specified EPA, USDA, and FDA as the three primary regulatory agencies for regulating biotechnology.
Under this framework, the FDA became responsible for biotechnologically-derived medical products; the USDA for transgenic plants and the EPA for pesticidal plants and genetically-engineered microbial pesticides. According to the Coordinated Framework, new regulations were not necessary since current laws provided adequate statutory authority for biotechnology regulation. A subsequent report from the National Research Council concluded that "the product of genetic modification and selection constitutes the primary basis for decisions and not the process by which the product was obtained," and this became the basis for regulatory American policy."[18]
The FDA and USDA actively worked to promote the introduction of GMOs. In 1997, the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) simplified the notification procedure for importing, releasing into the environment (as in field tests), or moving GMOs across state lines. These simplified procedures were intended to cover eighty to ninety percent of GMOs. In addition, APHIS also allowed petitions to remove from its oversight genetically-engineered plants which it determined no longer presented a risk to the environment. The FLAVR SAVRTM tomato was exempted from APHIS oversight under this petition process. [19]
The FDA similarly paved the way for a simplified procedure for approving bioengineered foods in May 1994, when it determined that Calgene, Inc.'s FLAVR SAVRTM tomato was "as safe as tomatoes bred by conventional means." [20] This determination meant that subsequent applications for genetically-engineered foods did not have to undergo a comprehensive scientific review simply because they are produced through the process of genetic engineering. This decision also affected food labeling requirements: the FDA determined that labeling was not required on the basis of the method of food production (i.e. genetic engineering), but only if the new food itself posed safety problems for consumers. To date, the FDA has imposed no labeling requirements for any genetically modified foods. While EPA did propose relatively strict regulations for the introduction of plants genetically engineered to resist pests, thanks to protests from agricultural scientists and their supporters in Congress these proposed rules were never formally adopted.[21]

council on foreign relations, take with a grain of seasalt...

 

[DrFever]

Hey trich nothing will change 90 percent of the food we eat is contaminated with some sort of poison,, and in reality, it could very well be population control. Don't kid your self countries would go broke if they had to pay out pensions to people that live longer so the goal is least i think so is to have a person work now to 67 years old get Gov pension and die few years later 4 - 6
Cancer has been cured and the elite the higher ups have access to it were just working ants peasants that will not see the cure
Aids man made to cull the people,

It took nearly three decades of tireless research and countless millions of U.S. government dollars to produce a few grams of the experimental Ebola drug that may have saved the lives of two U.S. missionaries stricken by the virus in West Africa.

And now some are asking this question: If the drug did help missionaries Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol, whose conditions appear to be improving, could the same drug be given to the hundreds of people dying of Ebola in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Nigeria?

What would it cost? What are the ethics of distributing a drug that had never been tested on humans in foreign countries - even if medical authorities could persuade people to take it? And how fast could it be done?

"Two months," said Charles J. Arntzen, a professor at the Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University, who has collaborated for the past 15 years with Mapp Biopharmaceutical, the small San Diego company that produced the experimental serum given to the two Americans. "Maybe they could do it in a month. If they were [already] planning on it, I'm sure they could produce 10,000 doses in a month."

Anthony S. Fauci, director of the NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, was more cautious in an interview on CNN on Tuesday. "It is not easy to make this serum," he said. "The number of doses that are available right now, today... is less than a handful.
Two months, or maybe even one month! Wow, this certainly seems like a miracle, right? The only problem is this guy is kind of creepy. In fact, he was apparently caught in 2012 joking about culling 25% of the world’s population to solve the challenging problem of feeding 8 billion people.

 

[trichrider]

thanks DrFever.
I know...it's a shit sandwich.

why do you think the gubt wants you to work until you're 72 before collecting social security?

yessir...

 

[SativaBreather]

lol of course its pop control, further its active depopulation.
depopulation is THE agenda and every new policy is driven by control and depopulation

 

[DrFever]

But hey here is another thought foods that kill us or more people then any thing else

Sugar
trans fats The manufacturing process is very disgusting and requires hydrogen gas, high heat, lots of pressure and a metal catalyst.

industrial seed and oils
and

Wheat

 

[trichrider]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18191319

 

[milkyjoe]

And this is why shit don't change. We just went in 4-5 pages from legitimate concerns to tin hat bullshit any normal person can see through. You ain't helping...talk sense, not tin hat bullshit.

 

[desert fox]

I just don't like how recklessness the company is....with the top soil contamination. Once you use there stuff your land becomes baron to other species. Go do that shit on a island far far away if your going to be playing doctor morow.

Though out the years I have noticed the food taste worse. I recall a day where I could get a steak from walmart and have it come out near restaurant quality. I have tried, but when it really comes down to it I need to marinate the shit out of it for it to come out good, and that ain't my style. So I buy about $500-700 worth of mail order meat for a year...why because it comes out restaurant quality. I try to avoid farm raised fish. Not that I wont eat farm raised I would just rather avoid it or limit it my intake. (And yes I do look at the shipping boxes coming and going out the service door at restaurants). I wish they would label gmo. Not that I am totally opposed to eating it. I would just like to know how much I am subsidizing of what I would consider to be a healthy diet.

Yea I will say it. A lot of Americans are fat asses, and could care less what they shove down there throat as long as it taste good, without thinking of the consequences.

I ain't no doctor, but I can tell you this 9 out of 10 doctors visits can be indirectly link to poor diet, lack of exercise, and stress. It just so much easier to take a magic pill and be ignorant. I would make a shitty doctor to the pharma world.

I have had to go vegetarian for a few months from time to time, not to loose weight. It was the only way I could hang working 60-70+ hour work weeks, and still keep my state of mind.....I recall I was driving down a country road late at night to fix something at another job site. There where snow drifts spaced pretty evenly apart. I thought to myself...hum did they put up street light? Wait a min I am out in the middle of no where on a county road...but for that thought to cross my mind. I knew after I was fixed what needed to be fixed I need to take a short nap behind the rectifiers before heading home for the weekend. Went vegetarian and I could still have plenty of steam to play hard on the weekends.

 

[trichrider]

Toxin from GM crops found in human blood: Study

Dinesh C. Sharma New Delhi, May 11, 2011 | UPDATED 19:06 IST

Fresh doubts have arisen about the safety of genetically modified crops, with a new study reporting presence of Bt toxin, used widely in GM crops, in human blood for the first time.

Genetically modified crops include genes extracted from bacteria to make them resistant to pest attacks.

These genes make crops toxic to pests but are claimed to pose no danger to the environment and human health. Genetically modified brinjal, whose commercial release was stopped a year ago, has a toxin derived from a soil bacterium called Bacillus thuringiensis ( Bt).

Till now, scientists and multinational corporations promoting GM crops have maintained that Bt toxin poses no danger to human health as the protein breaks down in the human gut. But the presence of this toxin in human blood shows that this does not happen.

Scientists from the University of Sherbrooke, Canada, have detected the insecticidal protein, Cry1Ab, circulating in the blood of pregnant as well as non-pregnant women.

They have also detected the toxin in fetal blood, implying it could pass on to the next generation. The research paper has been peer-reviewed and accepted for publication in the journal Reproductive Toxicology. The study covered 30 pregnant women and 39 women who had come for tubectomy at the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Sherbrooke (CHUS) in Quebec.

None of them had worked or lived with a spouse working in contact with pesticides.

They were all consuming typical Canadian diet that included GM foods such as soybeans, corn and potatoes. Blood samples were taken before delivery for pregnant women and at tubal ligation for non-pregnant women. Umbilical cord blood sampling was done after birth.

Cry1Ab toxin was detected in 93 per cent and 80 per cent of maternal and fetal blood samples, respectively and in 69 per cent of tested blood samples from non-pregnant women. Earlier studies had found trace amounts of the Cry1Ab toxin in gastrointestinal contents of livestock fed on GM corn. This gave rise to fears that the toxins may not be effectively eliminated in humans and there may be a high risk of exposure through consumption of contaminated meat.

"Generated data will help regulatory agencies responsible for the protection of human health to make better decisions", noted researchers Aziz Aris and Samuel Leblanc.

Given the potential toxicity of these environmental pollutants and the fragility of the foetus, more studies are needed, particularly those using the placental transfer approach, they added Experts have warned of serious implications for India. Cottonseed oil is made from seeds of genetically modified cotton and thus Bt toxin may have already entered the food chain in India.

"Indian regulators should be immediately called for detailed toxicological studies to know the extent of contamination of the human blood with Bt toxins coming from cottonseed oil, and also ascertain its long term health impacts," said Devinder Sharma, an anti-GM activist.

http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/toxin-from-gm-crops-found-in-human-blood/1/137728.html
......................


Maternal and fetal exposure to pesticides associated to genetically modified foods in Eastern Townships of Quebec, Canada.

Aris A1, Leblanc S.

Abstract
Pesticides associated to genetically modified foods (PAGMF), are engineered to tolerate herbicides such as glyphosate (GLYP) and gluphosinate (GLUF) or insecticides such as the bacterial toxin bacillus thuringiensis (Bt). The aim of this study was to evaluate the correlation between maternal and fetal exposure, and to determine exposure levels of GLYP and its metabolite aminomethyl phosphoric acid (AMPA), GLUF and its metabolite 3-methylphosphinicopropionic acid (3-MPPA) and Cry1Ab protein (a Bt toxin) in Eastern Townships of Quebec, Canada. Blood of thirty pregnant women (PW) and thirty-nine nonpregnant women (NPW) were studied. Serum GLYP and GLUF were detected in NPW and not detected in PW. Serum 3-MPPA and CryAb1 toxin were detected in PW, their fetuses and NPW. This is the first study to reveal the presence of circulating PAGMF in women with and without pregnancy, paving the way for a new field in reproductive toxicology including nutrition and utero-placental toxicities.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21338670

 

[trichrider]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JC-q_UJbffY#t=406

What You Need to Know About GMOs and the GMA

video:

Published on May 15, 2014


http://www.theboycottlist.com/

Learn more about GMO labeling, and how the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) and its biotech members hinder your right to eating organic, healthy foods.

 

[trichrider]

Hematotoxicity of Bacillus thuringiensis as Spore-crystal Strains Cry1Aa, Cry1Ab, Cry1Ac or Cry2Aa in Swiss Albino Mice


Dr. Mezzomo and his team from the Department of Genetics and Morphology at the Institute of Biological Sciences, University of Brasilia recently performed and published a study done involving testing Bacillus thuringensis toxin (Bt toxin) on swiss albino mice. This toxin is the same one built into Monsanto’s GMO Bt crops such as corn and soy as a pesticide. While Bt toxin has been used quite safely in conventional and organic farming as an occasional spray used when dealing with a pest problem, now it has been engineered to be produced by and present throughout the inside of every cell and intercellular space of the plants themselves, which is why they chose to undertake the study. It should also be noted that as bacteria use lateral transference of genetic material, making it a possibility for this genetic material to become part of the human body’s bacterial bouquet that we depend on for our health (our bodies contain more bacteria cells than human ones by number).


“…advances in genetic engineering promise the expression of multiple Cry toxins in Bt-plants, known as gene pyramiding. Therefore, studies on non-target species are requirements of international protocols to verify the adverse effects of these toxins, ensuring human and environmental biosafety.

Due to its growing use in agricultural activities, Bt presence hasalready been detected in different environmental compartments such as soil and water. Consequently, the bioavailability of Cry proteins has increased, and for biosafety reasons their adverse effects might be studied, mainly for non-target organisms. Studies are therefore needed to evaluate Bt toxicity to non-target organisms; the persistence of Bt toxin and its stability in aquatic environments; and the risks to humans and animals exposed to potentially toxic levels of Bt through their diet.

Thus, we aimed to evaluate, in Swiss albino mice, the hematotoxicity and genotoxicity of four Bt spore-crystals…”

The scientists already knew that Bt toxin was very toxic and potentially deadly at levels above 270 milligrams per kilogram (basically ppm), so they instead tested levels ranging from 27mg/kg, 136mg/kg, and 270mg/kg for one to seven days (each of the Cry toxins were separated out and tested individually to maximize accuracy and total info). It was quite clear right off the bat that these Cry toxins were quite hemotoxic even at the lowest level of 27mg/kg administered only one time and one day as they clearly had damaged the blood, particularly in reference to red blood cells. The quantity and size of the erythrocytes (RBCs) were both significantly reduced, as was the overall levels of hemoglobin for which oxygen to attach to. All major factors regarding RBCs demonstrated some level of damage present for all levels of toxin administered and across all Cry proteins, although there were some clear variances present between different proteins and levels for certain factors. The white blood cell count was also quite noticeably raised, and as expected it dramatically increased depending on the duration the subject was tested for. The tests clearly demonstrated that Cry proteins were cytotoxic to bone marrow cells, accounting for a portion of the measured effects. It should also be noted that a previous study found that these proteins caused hemolysis (they killed blood cells) in vitro, particularly seeming to target the cell membranes of red blood cells.


Cry1Ab (the protein produced in common Bt corn and soy) induced microcytic hypochromic anemia in mice, even at the lowest tested dose of 27 mg/Kg, and this toxin has been detected in blood of non-pregnant women, pregnant women and their fetuses in Canada, supposedly exposed through diet [34]. These data, as well as increased bioavailability of these MCA in the environment, reinforce the need for more research, especially given that little is known about spore crystals’ adverse effects on non-target species.”

While Bt toxin is not known to bioaccumulate in fat cells and internal organs, it is of note that the study demonstrated clearly that there was a significant increase in measurable negative effects of the toxin as time progressed especially concerning the higher doses. Also of note was the increased inflammatory response, while it was quite minor, the scientists consider it to be statistically significant due to the intricacies of their chosen test subjects’ biology. No measurable genotoxicity was found.

The full results of the study and a more detailed explanation can be found at, along with full citations for this article here:


http://www.nationofchange.org/new-study-proves-bt-toxins-gmos-toxic-mammalian-blood-1367936953

 

[PaullyHighBred]

Animal Safety Bt products are found to be safe for use in the environment and with mammals. The EPA (environmental protection agency) has not found any human health hazards related to using Bt. In fact the EPA has found Bt safe enough that it has exempted Bt from food residue tolerances, groundwater restrictions, endangered species labeling and special review requirements. Bt is often used near lakes, rivers and dwellings, and has no known effect on wildlife such as mammals, birds, and fish.
Humans exposed orally to 1000 mg/day for 3-5 days of Bt have showed no ill effects. Many tests have been conducted on test animals using different types of exposures. The results of the tests showed that the use of Bt causes few if any negative effects. Bt does not persist in the digestive systems of mammals.
Bt is found to be an eye irritant on test rabbits. There is very slight irritation from inhalation in test animals which may be caused by the physical rather than the biological properties of the Bt formulation tested.
Bt has not been shown to have any chronic toxicity or any carcinogenic effects. There are also no indication that Bt causes reproductive effects or birth defects in mammals.
Bt breaks down readily in the environment. Because of this Bt poses no threat to groundwater. Bt also breaks down under the ultraviolet (UV) light of the sun.
Even with such widespread use of Bt-based products in the past 50 years, only two incidents of repored allergic reaction have been reported to the EPA. In the first incident, it was concluded that the exposed individual was suffering from a previously diagnosed disease. The second involved a person that had a history of life-threatening food allergies.Upon investigation, it was found that the formulation of Bt also contained carbohydrate and preservatives which have been implicated in food allergy.


http://www.bt.ucsd.edu/bt_safety.html


Analysis of Peer-Reviewed Research:
Genetic Roulette claims that because Bt in crops doesn’t wash off, because it is modified to be active upon ingestion, and because there is much more of it, we should believe that the Bt in crops is more toxic. Yes, it is more toxic to insects—that’s why Bt crops work so well. There is no data presented by Smith in this section that shows that Bt in crops is more toxic to humans or animals. Studies have repeatedly shown that animals can consume large amounts of Bt without ill effect–in fact, Bt protein is digested just like any other. This is called nutrition. Once again Smith makes a scary claim for which he can advance no factual evidence or logical argument.
1. Bt-toxins that are sprayed on plants don’t persist, while Bt proteins that are produced in plants do persist, which is one of the reasons Bt crops are more effective than Bt sprays. Scientists incorporate Bt into plants so that the plants produce biopesticide continually. Not surprisingly, they often target Bt production to the leaves, stems or roots depending on the insect pest that is being defended against (Ely and others 2000, Russell and Fromm 1997, Song and others 2000). This lowers costs since less insecticide is used, along with less labor and fuel (Brookes and Barfoot 2007). Research shows that Bt crops also have far less environmental impact than spraying chemical pesticides (and probably less than spraying Bt biopesticides)
2. The Bt-toxins incorporated into plants are modified so that they will act quickly and they are present at high levels in order to delay development of resistance. Scientists are able to produce plants that more effectively control pests than Bt sprays. Bt sprays are not always effective and it is difficult to achieve high concentrations of Bt on crops plants (Nester and others 2002). Because of this, resistance to Bt has emerged in the Diamond Back moth (Shelton and others 1993). Developers of Bt crops found a way to make Bt more potent as well as to increase the levels of Bt in the plant tissues in order to retard the development of resistant insects. They also modified the molecule so that it didn’t need to be partially digested by the insect to be active.
3. The Bt used in Bt crops is safe for humans and animals so increases in exposure to humans and animals are of no consequence. Smith’s claims that the modified Bt molecules used in groups could cause more antibodies to be formed are meaningless since IgE antibodies associated with Bt allergy have never been reported (Siegel 2001, Betz and others 2000). Despite years of planting hundreds of millions of acres of Bt crops, allergies or other adverse effects in humans have not occurred. Similarly, increases in Bt potency and concentration are not important because not only have adverse effects not been observed during widespread use, there are scientific studies that tell Bt proteins are not allergens or toxins in animals (Siegel 2001, Betz and others 2000). Bt proteins are very specifically toxic to a few closely related insects (Nester and others 2002; Whalon and Wingerd 2003). Developers of Bt crops, and other researchers, have published studies which show that animals can be fed Bt at doses that are thousands to millions of times higher than a human or animal would encounter in a Bt crop without any toxic effect. Put another way, these studies show that we can safely eat grams of Bt proteins while Bt crops contain only micrograms. That’s why regulators are able to approve Bt crops. Bt proteins don’t hurt mammals. We have to add here that the life-cycle of the bacteria that produce these Bt proteins is one of natures’ wonders. They are insect pathogens that produce proteins that kill only their host insects but which do not affect other insects. This phenomenon is called biological specificity.
4. Smith’s arguments in section 3.4 offer no evidence of harm. Smith argues that exposure is higher and that the molecules are different but he provides no evidence that this causes harm. He is essentially arguing more is worse and different is worse. Many of the claims in Genetic Roulette follow this pattern. The only actual claim of adverse effect is to Green Lacewings that have consumed lepidoptera that has consumed Bt corn containing at Bt called Cry1Ab— a study that was shown to be in error in 2004 (Romeis and others 2004)—long before Smith wrote Genetic Roulette. There are two important points to note here: 1) for scientific findings to be accepted they must be independently validated—in this case the claim was shown by other scientists to be incorrect, and 2) Smith either doesn’t know the scientific literature or is intentionally hiding information from the reader that doesn’t support his views.


http://academicsreview.org/reviewed-content/genetic-roulette/section-3/3-4-bt-in-crops-and-bacteria/


Cut and paste sure is fun


You know we could be having a real conversation about GMO's and their pro's & con's like;

Are we breeding Pesticide resistant insects through widespread GMO use?
How do we sustainably feed a growing world population with a shrinking amount of farmable land and fresh water?
How do we keep the cost of food down for a global population that is increasingly embracing "western" food habits?

Then again conspiracies are soo much fun and require very little real thought...

 

[xxPeacePipexx]

I do not find anything genetically modified by Frankenscience to be fascinating let alone beneficial to nature , it is like sanding against the grain or pissing into the wind . In my belief

 

[xxPeacePipexx]

Just about all of the produce we have come to know as our staple foods where created by Hybridization , The original method to natures own gmo . No short cuts needed , thousands of aboriginal people of the Americas and elsewhere shaped and formed what we know today into the bounty we already have .

Within a generation we could loose upwards of 80% plus of this natural resource passed down to us if this continues . It all begins with us saving seeds before the likes of Monsanto and others destroy what is left .

 

[trichrider]

Genetically Engineered Foods May be Far More Harmful than We Thought

Posted on October 23, 2013 by Jeffery Smith • 0 Comments

Millions of people are looking for foods without genetically modified organisms (GMOs); thousands of doctors are prescribing non-GMO diets; and even celebrities like Danny DeVito, Bill Maher and Dick van Dyke have chimed in with their demands that these products be labeled.

As the movement swells, proponents of GMOs have become more aggressive at suppressing adverse data and promoting their myths, desperate to stem the anti-GMO tide. They continue to proclaim that the technology is precise, environmentally friendly, and needed to feed the world, in spite of evidence that shows just the opposite. But what is working against them more than anything else is the new data confirming that GMOs are dangerous to our health. In fact the evidence is so compelling, genetically engineered foods may soon be blamed for promoting a wide range of serious diseases on the rise in the U.S. and elsewhere.

INDUSTRY-MANIPULATED APPROVAL PROCESS IN THE U.S.

One would hope that our government would take every precaution before allowing GMOs in our food and environment. After all, any health issue with GMOs could theoretically impact everyone who eats. And once GMO crops are released into the environment, the pollen and seed movement contaminate the natural gene pool on a permanent basis. Moreover, the stated goal of the leading biotech company, Monsanto, is to genetically engineer all commercial seeds in the world. This would permanently replace the products of billions of years of evolution and thousands of years of agricultural crop development with a new, untested technology, promoted by the same company that told us Agent Orange, PCBs, and DDT were safe.

But with the safety of the food supply and the integrity of our ecosystem at stake, just the opposite happened. All precaution was thrown to the wind, and the U.S. government engaged in what arguably can be called the greatest gamble of our lives.

The story at the FDA is typical. In the early 1990s, scientists at the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) repeatedly warned their superiors that GM foods could create serious health problems. According to secret documents later made public from a lawsuit, the scientific consensus at the agency was that GM foods were inherently dangerous and might create hard-to-detect allergies, toxins, new diseases and nutritional problems. They urged their superiors to require rigorous long-term tests. But the White House under George H. W. Bush had ordered the agency to promote biotechnology; the FDA responded by recruiting Monsanto’s former attorney, Michael Taylor, to head up the formation of policy on GMOs. That policy, which is in effect today, denies knowledge of the agency scientists’ concerns. In fact, it falsely claims that the FDA is not aware of any information that shows genetically engineered food to be significantly different from other food. On that basis, no safety studies on GM foods are required. The government leaves it up to GMO companies, including Monsanto, DuPont, Dow, Syngenta and Bayer, to determine whether their own foods are safe.

After overseeing GMO policy at the FDA, Mr. Taylor worked on GMO issues at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and then later became Monsanto’s vice president and chief lobbyist. In the summer of 2009, he was appointed by the Obama administration as the U.S. food safety czar back at the FDA.

Although the United States government policy today is built upon the false notion that GMOs are totally safe, evidence accumulated over nearly two decades now vindicates the original FDA scientists and validates their concerns.

ANIMAL FEEDING STUDIES INDICATE HEALTH ISSUES

After seeing all scientific precaution stripped away from the government’s approval process of GMOs, FDA microbiologist Louis Pribyl accurately predicted in 1993 that “Industry will do what it has to do to satisfy the FDA ‘requirements’ and not do the tests that they would normally do because they are not on the FDA’s list.”1 In reality, the safety research conducted by the biotech industry remains superficial in its scope and sparse in its volume. A 2007 review of published scientific literature on the health risks of GM plants, for example, described the number of studies and available data as “very scarce.”2 Nonetheless, a careful analysis of both industry and independent studies does demonstrate significant harm to animals fed GMOs.

Based on their review of this body of research, in May 2009 the American Academy of Environmental Medicine (AAEM) publicly condemned GMOs in our food supply, saying they posed “a serious health risk.” They called on the U.S. government to implement an immediate moratorium on all GM foods and urged physicians to prescribe non-GMO diets for all patients.

AAEM members have a tradition of looking for new disease trends and their causes. As such, they have come to be known as the “Academy of Firsts.” They were the first U.S. medical organization to describe or acknowledge Gulf War Syndrome, the first to acknowledge chemical sensitivity, the first to characterize food allergy/ addiction, and the first to introduce or acknowledge more than a dozen other medical issues. They are one of the first medical organizations to identify GMOs as harmful.

According to the their policy paper, several animal studies reveal a long list of disorders, including infertility, immune dysregulation, accelerated aging, dysregulation of genes associated with cholesterol synthesis, [faulty] insulin regulation, cell signaling, and protein formation, and changes in the liver, kidney, spleen and gastrointestinal system. The policy statement boldly concludes, “There is more than a casual association between GM foods and adverse health effects.” Based on established scientific criteria, “there is causation.”

“Physicians are probably seeing the effects in their patients,” says AAEM past-president Jennifer Armstrong, MD, “but need to know how to ask the right questions.” The patients at greatest risk are the very young. “Children are the most likely to be adversely affected by toxins and other dietary problems” related to GM foods, says Dr. David Schubert of the Salk Institute. They become “the experimental animals.”

RISING DISEASE RATES CORRELATE WITH GMO INTRODUCTION

Unfortunately, no system of post market surveillance on the health impacts of GMOs has been set up anywhere in the world. Although correlation clearly does not imply causation, the deteriorating health of Americans since GMOs were introduced in 1996 does raise important questions. Within nine years, the number of people with three or more chronic diseases nearly doubled—from 7 percent to 13 percent. Visits to the emergency room due to allergies more than doubled from 1997 to 2002. And overall foodrelated illnesses doubled from 1994 to 2001, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

Physicist Nancy Swanson compiled numerous charts showing high correlations between GMO production (or Roundup herbicide use) and the incidence of numerous disorders in the U.S. (See charts: thyroid cancer, kidney and renal pelvis cancer, liver and intrahepatic bile duct cancer, obesity, high blood pressure, acute kidney injury, diabetes, end stage renal disease, reproductive disorders, autism, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, senile dementia, inflammatory bowel disease, peritonitis, chronic constipation, irritable bowel, intestinal infection, and rheumatoid arthritis.)

Tragically, there is no systematic, well-funded investigation to explore links between GMO consumption and any disease. “The experiments simply haven’t been done and we now have become the guinea pigs,” says renowned Canadian geneticist David Suzuki. He adds, “Anyone that says, ‘Oh, we know that this is perfectly safe,’ I say is either unbelievably stupid or deliberately lying.”

NUMEROUS U.S. PHYSICIANS NOW BLAME GMOs

Based on evaluations of GMO research presented at medical conferences, as well as recommendations by their peers, thousands of U.S. physicians now prescribe non-GMO diets to all their patients. The Institute for Responsible Technology has started hearing reports and collecting case studies from physicians, patients and consumers about significant and often dramatic improvements in health and alleviation of symptoms from of a wide variety of diseases and disorders after removing GMOs from the diet.

Michelle Perro, MD, who is regularly named one of America’s top pediatricians, says she believes that the novel proteins found in GMOs “may be responsible in part for the profound increase in allergies and immune dysfunction that I am witnessing.”

Emily Lindner, MD, who practices internal medicine in Chicago, says, “When my patients tell my patients to avoid genetically modified foods because in my experience, with those foods there is more allergies and asthma,” as well as digestive issues such as gas, bloating, irritable bowel, colitis and leaky gut. “And what emanates from that,” she says, “is everything. Lots of arthritis problems, autoimmune diseases, anxiety . . . neurological problems; anything that comes from an impaired immune system response.”

LIVESTOCK HEALTH IMPROVES

People who switch to non-GMO diets often do so by buying organic foods—which are not allowed to use GMOs. This raises a critical point in the analysis. Were the health recoveries stemming from eliminating GMOs or from the reduction in chemicals and increased nutrition found in organics? Similarly, since most GMOs in our diet are found in processed foods, some people reduce GMOs by cooking from scratch. Thus they simultaneously eliminate numerous additives that also may contribute to disorders. It is difficult, therefore, to isolate the influence of GMOs in the presence of these other potential co-factors.

Fortunately, the experience of numerous veterinarians and farmers around the world gives us insight. When they take livestock off GMO soy or corn and substitute the non-GMO equivalent, they don’t have these confounding co-factors. The animals are not eating organic, there’s no change in nutrients or additives, and the results are breathtaking.

When a Danish pig farmer switched to non- GMO soy in April 2011 for his four hundred fifty sows and their offspring, within two days the animals’ serious diarrhea problems virtually disappeared. During the following year, death from ulcers and other digestive problems, which had claimed thirty-six pigs over the previous two years, vanished. Conception rate was up, litter size was up, diseases were down, and birth defects were eliminated.

An Iowa farmer saw immediate changes in his three-thousand-pig nursery after switching to non-GMO corn last December. Not only was there a dramatic drop in rate of disease and medicine bills, he says, “Our pigs are happier and more playful.”

A feedlot operator with five thousand head of cattle also switched to non-GMO corn and reported, “We’ve had a lot less pneumonia and health issues since that time.” Like the pig farmer, the behavior changed noticeably. His “cattle have been a lot calmer.” Many farmers who were struggling with high rates of infertility and miscarriage say they turned the situation around after switching to non-GMO feed. Renowned veterinarian and author Michael W. Fox, whose syndicated newspaper column has twenty-five to thirty million readers, says that when GMOs were introduced, cats and dogs started suffering from much higher rates of allergies, itching and gastrointestinal problems. He has a file drawer full of letters from happy pet owners confirming that his advice to switch the pets to non-GMO and organic feed cleared up the problem.

REPEATING SYMPTOMS: FROM LAB RATS TO CONSUMERS

What is striking about all these reports is the similarity of experiences. Many of the same categories of disorders identified in animal feeding studies by the American Academy of Environmental Medicine, such as gastrointestinal, immune, and reproductive problems, also clear up in humans and livestock when they switch to a non-GMO diet. Moreover, these same problems are on the rise in the U.S. population since GMOs were introduced in 1996.

HOW GM FOODS CAUSE HEALTH PROBLEMS

There are many ways that GM foods might produce or exacerbate these health problems. We examine five categories below:

First, the process of genetic engineering creates unpredicted alterations. The gene insertion process, whether accomplished via a “gene gun” or through infection by Agrobacterium, can really mess up the normal functioning of the plants’ DNA. It can create mutations, deletions, and altered gene expression near the point where the gene is inserted and elsewhere. Then the transformed cell is cloned into a GM plant using tissue culture, which can produce hundreds or thousands of additional mutations throughout the plants’ genome. In total, a GM plant’s DNA can be 2-4 percent different from that of its natural parent.3 In addition, up to 5 percent of the natural genes can alter their levels of protein expression as a result of a single insertion.4


These changes can result in new or higher levels of allergens, toxins, carcinogens and anti-nutrients. For example, Monsanto’s data on cooked GM soybeans shows as much as seven times the level of a natural soy allergen, trypsin inhibitor, compared to non-GMO soy.5 Monsanto’s Bt corn (Mon 810) produces an allergenic protein that is not produced in natural corn—the genetic engineering process switches on the silent gene.6 And both GM corn and soy produce higher amounts of lignin; the metabolic pathway that produces lignin also produces a plant pesticide called rotenone, which is linked to Parkinson’s disease.

Secondly, the protein produced by the inserted gene may cause harm. The genes inserted into GM crops produce new proteins into the human diet, which may be allergenic, toxic, or otherwise harmful. The transgenic proteins in GM soy, corn and papaya all have properties of known allergens, for example, and may trigger reactions.

The protein produced in Bt corn, however, is an insecticide and has scientists and physicians particularly worried about its effects on humans. These corn (and Bt cotton) plant varieties are engineered to produce Bt-toxin in every cell, which kills certain insects by destroying the integrity of their gut. The biotech companies claim that Bt-toxin is safe since the natural form of Bttoxin— produced from Bacillus thuringiensis bacteria—has been used by farmers for decades as a method of natural insect control. But several studies demonstrate that both humans and mammals react to the natural spray.

Mice fed natural Bt-toxin showed significant immune responses and became sensitive to other formerly harmless compounds.7,8,9 They also showed tissue damage in their small intestines.10 Farm workers and others have also had reactions to natural Bt-toxin,11-15 and authorities acknowledge that “People with compromised immune systems or preexisting allergies may be particularly susceptible to the effects of Bt.”16 When natural Bt was sprayed in Vancouver and Washington State to fight gypsy moths, approximately five hundred people reported allergy or flu-like symptoms, with some requiring emergency room visits.17,18

The bacterial gene that produces the Bt-toxin is inserted into GM crops. The Bt-toxin produced in GM plants, however, is three to five thousand times more concentrated than the spray, doesn’t wash off or biodegrade,19,20 and is designed to be more toxic than the natural version.21

A 2008 Italian government study found that Bt corn provoked profound immune responses in mice.22 Monsanto’s own rat studies with Bt corn also showed toxicity and immune responses.23 Numerous reports, including medical investigations and hospital records, show that thousands of agricultural workers in India exposed to GM Bt cotton varieties are reporting rashes and symptoms that are similar to those experienced by the five hundred people in the Pacific Northwest who were exposed to Bt-spray.24

Bt-TOXIN DAMAGES CELL WALLS

Bt-toxin kills insects by creating small holes (pores) in the cell walls of their digestive tracts, which in turn allow bacteria and other substances to pass through. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which labels Bt corn and Bt cotton plants as registered pesticides, insists that Bt-toxin will have absolutely no influence on human or mammalian cells. But research published in the Journal of Applied Toxicology25 in 2012 proves otherwise. Researchers “documented that modified Bt toxins [from GM plants] are not inert on human cells, but can exert toxicity.” In high concentrations (generally higher than that produced in average Bt corn), Bt-toxin disrupts the membrane in just twenty-four hours, causing certain fluids to leak through the cell walls. The authors specifically note, “This may be due to pore formation like in insect cells.” Thus, Bt-toxin may indeed create small holes in our intestines.

Garry Gordon, MD, warns, “If [Bt-toxin] is causing an increased propensity for our intestine to become permeable or leaky and for foods to be presented to our bloodstream in a premature fashion, the havoc that it will cause will be across the entire spectrum of disease, from premature aging and Alzheimer’s to Parkinson’s to autism to cancer to asthma.”

The EPA had also claimed that Bt-toxin was destroyed during digestion in humans. But a 2011 Canadian study conducted at Sherbrooke Hospital discovered that 93 percent of the pregnant women they tested had Bt-toxin in their blood. And so too did 80 percent of their unborn fetuses.26 Thus, not only was the toxin not fully broken down in the stomach, a toxin is circulating within our blood stream that might further damage the cell walls it encounters. And in fetuses, which don’t have developed blood-brain barriers, this might result in damage to brain cells.

UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES

The third way GMOs can cause harm stems from the fact that transgenic protein may be different from the original and create unintended health hazards. In order for the inserted gene to produce proteins, the piece of DNA is first “transcribed” into RNA, and then “translated” to produce amino acid sequences, which are only then folded into proteins. These proteins confer the desired traits in the GMOs. The insertion process, however, can cause mutations and truncations in the genetic code of the inserted transgene. Monsanto’s Mon 810 Bt corn, for example, lost 30 percent of the transgene during insertion, and another of their Bt corns (Mon 863) ended up a mutation within the transgene. If the original transgene sequences are changed, then the amino acid sequences of proteins they produce in GMOs can similarly be altered, with unpredictable side-effects.


Even if the transgene gets into the plant DNA unscathed, the transcription process from DNA to RNA may also introduce unpredicted changes. Monsanto’s Roundup Ready soybean, for example, does not produce the RNA that Monsanto engineers intended. Instead, because a portion of the genetic sequence they inserted into the plant’s DNA (the “termination” sequence) failed to function properly, the soybean actually produces four RNA transcripts.27 These can produce proteins of different shapes and sequences.

And even if the RNA functions fine and produces the amino acids in the desired sequence, they may be misfolded; or molecules may attach themselves to the folded protein causing dangerous side-effects. For example, when Australian scientists inserted a gene from kidney beans into peas, the protein produced in a genetically engineered pea had the right amino acid sequence—the same as that produced in kidney beans. But the sugar molecules attached to the protein in the peas had a slightly different shape from the molecules that attached themselves in the natural beans. This slight change of the sugar chain (called glycosylation) was credited with changing a harmless protein into a potentially deadly allergen.28

HERBICIDE DANGERS

The fourth danger concerns the large quantity of toxic herbicides used on GM herbicidetolerant crops. The vast majority of GMOs are herbicide tolerant—they allow specific herbicides to be sprayed on fields without damaging the GM plant. Roundup Ready soybeans, for example, tolerate applications of Roundup herbicide. Herbicide-tolerant crops have led to an increase in herbicide use of five hundred twentyseven million pounds in the U.S. over the first sixteen years,29 and significantly higher levels of toxic residues in GM food.

Numerous studies in the past several years have implicated Roundup, or its active ingredient glyphosate, in cancer, birth defects, endocrine disorders, Parkinson’s, and damage to gut bacteria.30 A 2013 paper in the journal Entropy goes even further. Examining the biochemical impacts of glyphosate on two key metabolic pathways, as well as its ability to bind with minerals and make them inassimilable, the authors link it to “most of the diseases and conditions associated with a Western diet, which include gastrointestinal disorders, obesity, diabetes, heart disease, depression, autism, infertility, cancer and Alzheimer’s disease.”31

GENE TRANSFER

Finally, transgenes inserted into GM crops can transfer to DNA of gut flora. According to one of the only published human feeding studies on GMOs, part of the transgenes from Roundup Ready soybeans transferred into bacteria living inside our intestines.32 In addition, the viral promoter, which turns on the gene and which forces continuous production of proteins, was also transferred intact. The gut bacteria from the human subjects that had acquired these transgenes were not killed by glyphosate— which is a powerful broad spectrum antibiotic. The survival of these bacteria in the presence of glyphosate supports the likelihood that even after being transferred into the DNA of the gut flora, the soy transgenes continued to produce the Roundup Ready proteins. If so, even short term exposure to GM foods might result in long-term exposure to transgenic proteins that are produced continuously inside our digestive systems. The medical consequences are unknown, but potentially catastrophic. Consider the various genetic components that might transfer and their implications:

The Roundup Ready gene produces a protein that has properties of a dust mite allergen, and therefore fails the World Health Organization’s recommended allergen screening protocol. If produced by our own gut bacteria, this protein might continuously trigger immune reactions.

• The viral promoter has the capacity to switch on unintended genes. It may therefore cause the overproduction of proteins from randomly switched-on genes found within the gut bacteria.

• Antibiotic resistant marker genes, used in most GM food crops, might create super diseases, untreatable with antibiotics.

• GM papaya, zucchini and yellow squash have viral transgenes that may produce viral proteins. More than one hundred studies show that viral proteins can suppress an organism’s defenses against viral infections33 or have toxic effects.

• The Bt gene might transfer from GM corn and convert our intestinal flora into living pesticide factories.

This last risk may explain the results of a study presented above. Recall that 93 percent of pregnant women tested had the Bt-toxin in their blood. The toxin is likely to wash out of our blood fairly quickly; therefore the consumption of Bt-toxin would have to be very frequent to explain this finding. But Canadians don’t eat corn products that often. (Although Canadians and Americans eat a lot of corn derivatives like corn syrup, the Bt-toxin is destroyed in these highly processed foods, so that would not be the source of this blood contaminant.)

The study authors suggest that the source of Bt-toxin—which ultimately came from Monsanto’s Bt corn—may have been acquired in milk and meat from animals fed the corn. This would require, however, that the protein remain intact both through the animals’ digestive process and the humans’. While this might be true, a more plausible explanation may be that the Bt-toxin was produced by the gut flora within the digestive tract, after the flora acquired the genes from corn tortillas, corn on the cob, etc.

OVERLAPPING CAUSATIVE FACTORS

While these are just some of the ways that GMOs may cause harm, in reality, their effects may be due to a combination of causative factors. In a French two-year feeding study published in 2012, for example, rats suffered from multiple massive tumors, shorter life spans, and organ damage. The research design used several different treatment groups: those fed Roundup Ready corn that had been sprayed with Roundup, those fed Roundup Ready corn without Roundup applied, and those fed just Roundup with no added GMO corn. All three groups suffered from these maladies to various degrees, while the controls fared much better. Thus, each component had a negative impact and the actual harm to humans and animals eating GMOs may be due to the synergy of causes.

TIPPING POINT AGAINST GMOs RISING

Although governments have not been fully responsive to the mounting evidence of harm from GMOs, consumers are reacting in greater numbers. The impact can be significant and world-changing. In Europe, after the media publicized significant health risks of GMOs in early 1999, a tipping point of consumer rejection forced the food companies to commit to remove GM ingredients on that continent. Now consumer rejection in the U.S. appears to be setting the stage for the removal of GMOs in this country as well.

Consumer concern over GMO health risks has driven unprecedented demand for non-GMO products. In fact, 2012 sales of non-GMO labeled products in the United States increased more than any other health and wellness category, according to 2012 Nielsen Health and Wellness Claims Performance Report. An executive at the national food store chain Whole Foods said that when a product becomes verified as non-GMO, sales increase by 15-30 percent.

A May 27th New York Times article entitled “Seeking Food Ingredients That Aren’t Gene-Altered” conveyed the profound industrywide ripple effect of the emerging non-GMO consumer trend. The article highlighted the “March Against Monsanto” by more than two million people in fifty-two countries; the more than two dozen U.S. state legislatures introducing GMO labeling bills; hundreds of companies recently enrolling products in the third-party non-GMO verifier, the Non-GMO Project; company executives who were worried that their supply of non-GMO ingredients would be lost to newcomer brands; and some companies that were already going overseas to get their hard-to-find non-GMO ingredients. In addition, food processors were seeking more non-GMO soy and corn, and farmers were already enjoying recent increases in non-GMO premiums per bushel.

If food company execs had any doubts about the trend, within three weeks they were likely extinguished. GMO labeling bills passed in Connecticut and Maine; the national chain of Target stores announced that their home brand will be fully non-GMO by 2014; the national restaurant chain Chipotle committed to label (then soon remove) all GMOs and two more studies highlighted GMO dangers (damaged blood cells in mice,35 inflamed and ulcerated stomachs and enlarged uteruses in pigs36). In addition, genetically engineered Roundup Ready wheat—which had not been approved for use in any country in the world—was discovered growing in an Oregon farmer’s field. Japan and South Korea temporarily suspended U.S. imports of wheat, and the food industry was once again reminded of the uncontrollable risk of GMO contamination thrust upon them by the biotech industry.

The next stage of the tipping point will come shortly, when a popular mainstream product, not sold in natural food stores, announces that it is Non-GMO Project verified. The “Battle for Market Share” between that product and the GMO-laden brand leaders on the shelves in Walmart and Safeway will be watched by the entire food industry. If the market share shifts towards the non-GMO product, then every other brand category will be inspired to quickly eliminate GMOs and declare it. Otherwise their competitor might beat them to it and grab market share as well.

MAKING A CHOICE FOR OURSELVES AND OUR FUTURE

The current situation is dangerous. GMOs are likely promoting the rise of numerous diseases in humans and animals, and creating widespread chemical and genetic pollution in the environment. Those who call for more science are ironically labeled by the biotech industry as “anti-science.” And the scientists who do discover safety problems or even express concerns are typically attacked and dismissed.

If reviewers were to reevaluate the technology in an independent manner, free from the manufactured bias of the biotech industry, they would be compelled to withdraw GMOs from our food supply and prevent releases in our environment. But the U.S. government ignores the mounting evidence of health problems linked to GMOs, the accelerating rejection of these foods by U.S. consumers, and the failure of GMOs to live up to their promises. The Obama administration, like those before him, has not backed down from their unconditional support of the biotech industry. In fact, a recent Wikileaks analysis by Food and Water Watch revealed how the U.S. State Department is secretly working on behalf of the biotech industry’s interests worldwide.

Given proper time and research, it is theoretically possible that genetically engineered products would become predictable, safe and beneficial. But at this point it is not responsible to expose the products of this infant science to all who eat, or to release them into the ecosystem where they can never be fully recalled.

Fortunately, U.S. citizens are no longer accepting the baseless claims that GMOs are safe. As they wake up to the risks of GMOs, they take matters into their own hands and seek non- GMO alternatives. If the food industry responds in America like they did in Europe, consumers will ultimately move the market and protect themselves from the risks of this dangerous technology.



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SIDEBARS



SOME Lies GMO Label ing Opponents are Recycling in Washington State
By Zack Kaldveer, Organic Consumers Association, August 21, 2013

It’s déjà vu all over again. Last year a coalition of out-of-state, multinational biotech, pesticide and junk food corporations spent nearly forty-six million dollars to narrowly defeat Proposition 37, California’s GMO Labeling Initiative. Now the same who’s who of the world’s most notorious global corporate bad actors has descended on Washington State. Why? To try to stop Washington State voters from passing I-522, a citizens’ initiative which, if passed, will require mandatory labeling of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in all food products sold in Washington State.

Lie: Labeling genetically engineered foods (GMOs) will cost taxpayers millions of dollars a year.
Truth: Empirical studies have concluded labeling would lead to no increases in prices. Since the European Union labeled GMOs in the 1990’s, there has been “no resulting increase in grocery costs.”Trader Joe’s, Clif Bar & Co. and Washington’s own PCC Natural Markets all label their non-GMO product lines at no additional cost to consumers.

Lie: I-522 is full of arbitrary special interest exemptions that will just confuse consumers.
Truth: I-522 requires labeling for the GE foods that are most prevalent in the American diet: food on supermarket shelves. I-522’s exemptions are easy to explain and guided by common sense and the law.

Lie: Consumers don’t need labels to avoid GMOs. All they need to do is buy certified organic products.
Truth: Food companies routinely and intentionally mislead consumers by labeling products “natural” in order to attract health-conscious consumers. Because the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) does not prohibit the use of the word “natural” on products containing GMOs, most consumers are fooled by this label.

Lie: Washington will be the only state in the nation to label GMOs, unfairly hurting farmers and the state’s multi-billion dollar agricultural industry.
Truth: Washington won’t be the only state labeling GE foods. Connecticut, Maine and Alaska have passed labeling laws and dozens of other states are considering identical proposals. Besides, sixty-four countries already require labeling, so many farmers are already used to labeling for exports.

Lie: I-522 encourages shakedown lawsuits by giving trial lawyers an unprecedented new right to sue farmers, food producers and store owners over the wording on food labels.
Truth: I-522 offers no economic incentives for lawyers to sue. Consumers can’t file a class action suit against food producers without first giving the food producer a warning and the opportunity to comply with the law. As long as the defendant fixes the labels, then no class action is permitted.

Lie: Labeling GMOs creates a bureaucratic nightmare for grocers and retailers and requires the state government to monitor labels on thousands of food products in thousands of stores, costing taxpayers millions.
Truth: Under I-522, the person responsible for labeling processed foods is the person who puts the label on: the manufacturer. Retailers would only have to label the few raw commodities (sweet corn, papaya, squash) that are genetically engineered. They can either stick a simple label on the bin or, if they wish, they can ask their supplier for a sworn statement that the crop is not genetically engineered. I-522 requires no costly testing for GE ingredients. No burdensome government oversight is necessary. The system is inherently designed to protect small grocers and retailers while providing consumers with the right to know what’s in their food without increasing grocery costs.

Lie: GE foods pose no health safety risks.
Truth: A growing body of peer-reviewed animal studies have linked these foods to allergies, organ toxicity, diabetes, cancer, autoimmune disorders, birth defects, high infant mortality rates, fertility problems, and sterility.

Lie: We need GMOs to feed the world.
Truth: Studies have proven that GE crops do not lead to greater crop yields. In fact, just the opposite is true. A 2009 study by the Union of Concerned Scientists found GMO crops fail to produce higher yields. And a recently released, peer-reviewed study published in the International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability found that conventional plant breeding, not genetic engineering, is responsible for yield increases in major U.S. crops.

THE EVIDENCE MOUNTS: SOME STUDIES SHOWING GMO DANGERS
• Scientists at the Russian Academy of Sciences reported between 2005 and 2006 that female rats fed Roundup
Ready-tolerant GM soy produced excessive numbers of severely stunted pups with more than half of the litter dying
within three weeks, and the surviving pups completely sterile.37

• In 2005, scientists at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization in Canberra, Australia
reported that a harmless protein in beans (alpha-amylase inhibitor) transferred to peas caused inflammation in the
lungs of mice and provoked sensitivities to other proteins in the diet.38

• From 2002 to 2005, scientists at the Universities of Urbino, Perugia and Pavia in Italy published reports indicating
that GM soy affected cells in the pancreas, liver and testes of young mice.39

• In 2004, Monsanto’s secret research dossier showed that rats fed MON863 GM corn developed serious kidney and
blood abnormalities.40

• In 1998, Dr. Arpad Pusztai and colleagues formerly of the Rowett Institute in Scotland reported damage in every
organ system of young rats fed GM potatoes containing snowdrop lectin, including a stomach lining twice as thick
as controls.41

• Also in 1998, scientists in Egypt found similar effects in the guts of mice fed Bt potato.42

• The U.S. Food and Drug Administration had data dating back to early 1990s showing that rats fed GM tomatoes
with antisense gene to delay ripening had developed small holes in their stomachs.43

• In 2002, Aventis company (later Bayer Cropscience) submitted data to UK regulators showing that chickens fed
glufosinate-tolerant GM corn Chardon LL were twice as likely to die compared with controls.43

• In 2012, researchers found that female rats fed Roundup Ready-tolerant GM corn developed large tumors and
dysfunction of the pituitary gland; males also developed tumors and exhibited pathologies of the liver and kidney.43

References

1. Louis J. Pribyl, “Biotechnology Draft Document, 2/27/92,” March 6, 1992 http://www.responsibletechnology.org/fraud/fda-quotes

2. José Domingo, “Toxicity Studies of Genetically Modified Plants : A Review of the Published Literature,” Critical reviews in food science and nutrition, 2007, vol. 47, no8, pp. 721-733

3. P. H. Bao, S. Granata, S. Castiglione, G. Wang, C. Giordani, E. Cuzzoni, G. Damiani, C. Bandi, S. K. Datta, K. Datta, I. Potrykus, A. Callegarin and F. Sala, “Evidence for genomic changes in transgenic rice (Oryza sativa L.) recovered from protoplasts” Transgen Res 5 (1996): 97-103.; M. Labra, C. Savini, M. Bracale, N. Pelucchi, L. Colombo, M. Bardini and F. Sala, “Genomic changes in transgenic rice (Oryza sativa L.) plants produced by infecting calli with Agrobacterium tumefaciens,” Plant Cell Rep 20 (2001): 325-330

4. Srivastava, et al, “Pharmacogenomics of the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) and the cystic fibrosis drug CPX using genome microarray analysis,” Mol Med. 5, no. 11(Nov 1999):753–67.

5. The original study: Stephen R. Padgette et al., “The Composition of Glyphosate- Tolerant Soybean Seeds Is Equivalent to That of Conventional Soybeans,” The Journal of Nutrition 126, no. 4, (April 1996), left out the data from the cooked soybeans, which was recovered from the Journal and referenced in A. Pusztai and S. Bardocz, “GMO in animal nutrition: potential benefits and risks,” Chapter 17, Biology of Nutrition in Growing Animals (Elsevier, 2005).

6. L Zolla, et al., “Proteomics as a complementary tool for identifying unintended side effects occurring in transgenic maize seeds as a result of genetic modifications,” J Proteome Res. 2008 May;7(5):1850-61 http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/pr0705082

7. Vazquez et al, “Intragastric and intraperitoneal administration of Cry1Ac protoxin from Bacillus thuringiensis induces systemic and mucosal antibody responses in mice,” Life Sciences, 64, no. 21 (1999): 1897–1912; Vazquez et al, “Characterization of the mucosal and systemic immune response induced by Cry1Ac protein from Bacillus thuringiensis HD 73 in mice,” Brazilian Journal of Medical and Biological Research 33 (2000): 147–155.

8. Vazquez et al, “Bacillus thuringiensis Cry1Ac protoxin is a potent systemic and mucosal adjuvant,” Scandinavian Journal of Immunology 49 (1999): 578–584. See also Vazquez-Padron et al., 147 (2000b).

9. EPA Scientific Advisory Panel, “Bt Plant-Pesticides Risk and Benefits Assessments,” March 12, 2001: 76. Available at: http://www.epa.gov/scipoly/sap/2000/october/octoberfinal.pdf

10. Nagui H. Fares, Adel K. El-Sayed, “Fine Structural Changes in the Ileum of Mice Fed on Endotoxin Treated Potatoes and Transgenic Potatoes,” Natural Toxins 6, no. 6 (1998): 219–233.

11. M.A. Noble, P.D. Riben, and G. J. Cook, “Microbiological and epidemiological surveillance program to monitor the health effects of Foray 48B BTK spray” (Vancouver, B.C.: Ministry of Forests, Province of British Columbia, Sep. 30, 1992).

12. A. Edamura, MD, “Affidavit of the Federal Court of Canada, Trial Division. Dale Edwards and Citizens Against Aerial Spraying vs. Her Majesty the Queen, Represented by the Minister of Agriculture,” (May 6, 1993); as reported in Carrie Swadener, “Bacillus thuringiensis (B.t.),” Journal of Pesticide Reform, 14, no, 3 (Fall 1994).

13. J. R. Samples, and H. Buettner, “Ocular infection caused by a biological insecticide,” J. Infectious Dis. 148, no. 3 (1983): 614; as reported in Carrie Swadener, “Bacillus thuringiensis (B.t.)”, Journal of Pesticide Reform 14, no. 3 (Fall 1994)

14. M. Green, et al., “Public health implications of the microbial pesticide Bacillus thuringiensis: An epidemiological study, Oregon, 1985-86,” Amer. J. Public Health, 80, no. 7 (1990): 848–852.

15. A. Edamura, MD, “Affidavit of the Federal Court of Canada, Trial Division. Dale Edwards and Citizens Against Aerial Spraying vs. Her Majesty the Queen, Represented by the Minister of Agriculture,” (May 6, 1993); as reported in Carrie Swadener, “Bacillus thuringiensis (B.t.),” Journal of Pesticide Reform, 14, no, 3 (Fall 1994).

16. Carrie Swadener, “Bacillus thuringiensis (B.t.),” Journal of Pesticide Reform 14, no. 3 (Fall 1994). See also, Health effects of B.t.: Report of surveillance in Oregon, 1985-87. Precautions to minimize your exposure (Salem, OR: Oregon Department of Human Resources, Health Division, April 18, 1991); and Material Safety Data Sheet for Foray 48B Flowable Concentrate (Danbury, CT: Novo Nordisk, February, 1991).

17. Washington State Department of Health, “Report of health surveillance activities: Asian gypsy moth control program,” (Olympia, WA: Washington State Dept. of Health, 1993).

18. M. Green, et al., “Public health implications of the microbial pesticide Bacillus thuringiensis: An epidemiological study, Oregon, 1985-86,” Amer. J. Public Health 80, no. 7(1990): 848–852.

19. C. M. Ignoffo, and C. Garcial, “UV-photoinactivation of cells and spores of Bacillus thuringiensis and effects of peroxidase on inactivation,” Environmental Entomology 7 (1978): 270–272.

20. BT: An Alternative to Chemical Pesticides, Environmental Protection Division, Ministry of Environment, Government of British Columbia, Canada, http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/epd/epdpa/ipmp/fact_sheets/BTfacts.htm

21. See for example, A. Dutton, H. Klein, J. Romeis, and F. Bigler, “Uptake of Bt-toxin by herbivores feeding on transgenic maize and consequences for the predator Chrysoperia carnea,” Ecological Entomology 27 (2002): 441–7; and J. Romeis, A. Dutton, and F. Bigler, “Bacillus thuringiensis toxin (Cry1Ab) has no direct effect on larvae of the green lacewing Chrysoperia carnea (Stephens) (Neuroptera: Chrysopidae),” Journal of Insect Physiology 50, no. 2–3 (2004): 175–183.

22. Alberto Finamore, et al., “Intestinal and Peripheral Immune Response to MON810 Maize Ingestion in Weaning and Old Mice,” J. Agric. Food Chem., 2008, 56 (23), pp 11533–11539, November 14, 2008.

23. de Vendômois JS, Roullier F, Cellier D, Séralini GE. A Comparison of the Effects of Three GM Corn Varieties on Mammalian Health. Int J Biol Sci 2009; 5:706-726. Available from http://www.biolsci.org/v05p0706.htm; and John M. Burns, “13-Week Dietary Subchronic Comparison Study with MON 863 Corn in Rats Preceded by a 1-Week Baseline Food Consumption Determination with PMI Certified Rodent Diet #5002,” December 17, 2002. see also Stéphane Foucart, “Controversy Surrounds a GMO,” Le Monde, 14 December 2004.

24. Ashish Gupta et. al., “Impact of Bt Cotton on Farmers’ Health (in Barwani and Dhar District of Madhya Pradesh),” Investigation Report, Oct–Dec 2005; and Sunday Indian, according to hospital records: “Victims of itching have increased massively this year . . . related to BT cotton farming.” October 26, 2008.

25. Mesnage R, Clair E, Gress S, Then C, Székács A, Séralini, GE. (2012). Cytotoxicity on human cells of Cry1Ab and Cry1Ac Bt insecticidal toxins alone or with a glyphosate-based herbicide. J. Appl. Toxicol. doi: 10.1002/jat.2712

26. Aris A, Leblanc S, “Maternal and fetal exposure to pesticides associated to genetically modified foods in Eastern Townships of Quebec, Canada.” Reprod Toxicol. 2011 May;31(4):528-33. Epub 2011 Feb 18.

27. Andreas Rang, et al., “Detection of RNA variants transcribed from the transgene in Roundup Ready soybean,” Eur Food Res Technol 220 (2005): 438–443.

28. V. E. Prescott, et al, “Transgenic Expression of Bean r-Amylase Inhibitor in Peas Results in Altered Structure and Immunogenicity,” Journal of Agricultural Food Chemistry (2005): 53.

29. Charles M Benbrook, Impacts of genetically engineered crops on pesticide use in the U.S.–the first sixteen years, Environmental Sciences Europe 2012, 24:24 http://www.enveurope.com/content/24/1/24.

30. See list at http://responsibletechnology.org/gmo-dangers/health-risks/referencehealth-effects-of-glyphosate; Michael Antoniou, et al, GM SOY, Sustainable? Responsible? Earth Open Source, September 2010 http://earthopensource.org/files/pdfs/GM-Soy-Sustainable/gm_full_eng_v15.pdf; and Michael Antoniou, et al, Roundup and birth defects: Is the public being kept in the dark? Earth Open Source, 2011 http:// www.scribd.com/doc/57277946/RoundupandBirthDefectsv5

31. Anthony Samsel and Stephanie Seneff, Glyphosate’s Suppression of Cytochrome P450 Enzymes and Amino Acid Biosynthesis by the Gut Microbiome: Pathways to Modern Diseases, Entropy, 18 April 2013, http://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/15/4/1416

32. Netherwood et al, “Assessing the survival of transgenic plant DNA in the human gastrointestinal tract,” Nature Biotechnology 22 (2004): 2.

33. Comments on GM Science Review, From Econexus, the Five Year Freeze, Friends of the Earth, GeneWatch UK, Greenpeace, the Soil Association, and Dr Michael Antoniou, October 14th 2003.

34. Seralini, et al., “Long term toxicity of a Roundup herbicide and a Roundup-tolerant genetically modified maize,” Food and Chemical Toxicology, Volume 50, Issue 11, November 2012, Pages 4221–4231 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0278691512005637

35. Bélin Poletto Mezzomo, Hematotoxicity of Bacillus thuringiensis as Spore-crystal Strains Cry1Aa, Cry1Ab, Cry1Ac or Cry2Aa in Swiss Albino Mice, J Hematol Thromb Dis 2013, 1:1 http://gmoevidence.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/JHTD-1-104.pdf 36.

36. J. Carman, et al, A long-term toxicology study on pigs fed a combined genetically modified (GM) soy and GM maize diet, Organic Systems, June 2013 www.organic-systems.org/journal/81/8106.pdf.

37. Advisory Committee on Novel Foods and Processes, Committee Paper for Discussion, Effect of GM Soya on Newborn Rats (Nov. 2005), www.bioeticanet.info/omg/transgeREC.pdf, accessed November 3, 2012.

38. Ho MW. Transgenic pea that made mice ill. Science in Society. 29, 28-29, 2006.

39. Ho MW. GM ban long overdue. Dozens ill & five deaths in the Philippines. Science in Society. 29, 26- 27, 2006.

40. French experts very disturbed by health effects of Monsanto GM corn. GMWatch. 23 April 2004. www.gmwatch.org.

41. Pusztai A and others. Genetically modified foods: Potential human health effects. Food Safety: Contaminants and Toxins. (J P F D’Mello ed.), Scottish Agricultural College, Edinburgh, CAB International, 2003.

42. Fares NH and El-Sayed AK. Fine structural changes in the ileum of mice fed on dendotoxin-treated potatoes and transgenic potatoes. Natural Toxins. 1998, 6, 219-33; Cummins J and MW Ho. Bt is toxic. ISIS News 7/8, February 2001, ISSN: 1474-1547 (print), ISSN: 1474-1814 (online) http://www.i-sis.org.uk/isisnews.php Agricultural Biotechnology 2006, www.ISAAA.org.

43. Novotny E. Animals avoid GM food, for good reasons. Science in Society. 21, 9-11, 2004.

44. Séralini, GE and others. Long term toxicity of a Roundup herbicide and a Roundup-tolerant genetically modified maize. Food and Chemical Toxicology. Volume 50, Issue 11, November 2012, Pages 4221– 4231.

http://www.westonaprice.org/health-...oods-may-be-far-more-harmful-than-we-thought/

 

[Duke Diamond]

good info, thanks for posting ya'll

 

[Mikell]

Toxin from GM crops found in human blood: Study

http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/toxin-from-gm-crops-found-in-human-blood/1/137728.html
......................


Maternal and fetal exposure to pesticides associated to genetically modified foods in Eastern Townships of Quebec, Canada.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21338670

I already referenced this study. A researcher comments in the last link and explains why their findings are bunkum.

Thank you for linking to your references though, it's mildly frustrating when people post unlinked quotes/information.

Cut and paste sure is fun

HAH

 

[trichrider]

if monsanto can patent life forms derived from GE, will they also be able to patent life forms from genetic drift like they can when pollen contaminates naturally selected crops?

study suggested lateral genetic drift in gut flora of mammals dining on BT crops; perhaps indicating those creatures now fell under their umbrella of GE patents...considering the Canadian study of women with BT in blood and tissue, would those women now belong to Monsanto?

why would they spend so much to avoid labeling?

A new splash of campaign cash from agricultural seed-producing giant DuPont Pioneer has broken another record when it comes to all-time spending on an Oregon ballot measure.

A $4.46 million contribution from the Iowa-based company brings the amount raised to fight Measure 92 – the mandatory GMO-labeling measure – to $16.3 million, according to Oregon secretary of state financial filings.

The previous record for spending by any one side on an Oregon ballot measure was the $12.1 million spent by tobacco companies in helping defeat Measure 50 in 2007. That measure would have increased cigarette taxes to pay for children's health care.



Other significant new contributions to the No on 92 Coalition included another $468,000 from Coca-Cola and $250,000 from Kellogg.

The Yes on 92 campaign has taken in $6.6 million. The largest new single donation is $100,000 from Oregon winemaker Eric Lemelson.

Combined spending on the measure, which already represents the most spent on any Oregon ballot measure, now stands at $22.9 million.

On its website, DuPont calls itself the "world's leading developer and supplier of advanced plant genetics, agronomic support, and services to farmers."

The company was founded in 1926 by Henry A. Wallace and currently conducts business operations in 90 countries.

http://www.oregonlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2014/10/new_446_million_donation_to_an.html

just for the sake of debate...