Dangers of Genetically Engineered Foods
Pastor Dale Morgan
Dangers of Genetically Engineered Foods*
By Jeffrey M. Smith
Aug 16, 2007 - 9:13:29 PM
(Footnotes refer to pages in the book Seeds of Deception by Jeffrey M.
Smith.)
The following presents some of the dangers of genetically engineered
foods and reasons why avoiding them is an important step to safeguard
our health. The footnotes refer to page references in the book Seeds of
Deception; there you can find meticulously documented evidence that
leaves no doubt that GM food should never have been approved.
For a more in-depth look at 65 health risks of GM foods, excerpted from
Jeffrey Smith's comprehensive new book Genetic Roulette: The Documented
Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Foods.
The biotech industry claims that the FDA has thoroughly evaluated GM
foods and found them safe. This is untrue. Internal FDA documents made
public from a lawsuit, reveal that agency scientists warned that GM
foods might create toxins, allergies, nutritional problems, and new
diseases that might be difficult to identify. 131-140 Although they
urged their superiors to require long-term tests on each GM variety
prior to approval, the political appointees at the agency, including a
former attorney for Monsanto, ignored the scientists. Official policy
claims that the foods are no different 130 and do NOT require safety
testing. A manufacturer can introduce a GM food without even informing
the government or consumers. 146 A January 2001 report from an expert
panel of the Royal Society of Canada said it was "scientifically
unjustifiable" 136 to presume that GM foods are safe. Likewise, a 2002
report by the UK's Royal Society said that genetic modification "could
lead to unpredicted harmful changes in the nutritional state of foods,"
and recommended that potential health effects of GM foods be rigorously
researched before being fed to pregnant or breast-feeding women, elderly
people, those suffering from chronic disease, and babies. 263
How could the government approve dangerous foods? A close examination
reveals that industry manipulation and political collusion-not sound
science-was the driving force.
* Government employees who complained were harassed, stripped of
responsibilities, or fired. 77-83
* Scientists were threatened. Evidence was stolen. Data was omitted
or distorted. Some regulators even claimed they were offered bribes to
approve a GM product.
There are only about two dozen published, peer-reviewed animal feeding
studies on the health effects of GM foods.
* One study showed evidence of damage to the immune system and vital
organs, and a potentially pre-cancerous condition. 12-13 When the
scientist tried to alert the public about these alarming discoveries, he
lost his job and was silenced with threats of a lawsuit. 18-20
* Two other studies also showed evidence of a potentially
pre-cancerous condition. The other seven studies, which were superficial
in their design, were not designed to identify these details. 37
* In an unpublished study, laboratory rats fed a GM crop developed
stomach lesions and seven of the forty died within two weeks. The crop
was approved without further tests. 37, 137-140
Many industry studies appear to be rigged to find no problems. In the
case of a genetically engineered bovine growth hormone (rbGH), for
example, researchers injected cows with only one forty-seventh the
normal dosage before reporting hormone residues in milk. 91-92 They
heated the milk 120 times longer than standard, to report that
pasteurization destroys the hormone. 93-94 They added cows to their
study that were pregnant before treatment, to claim that rbGH didn't
impede fertility. 89 Cows that fell sick were dropped from studies
altogether. 80-81
With soybeans, serious nutritional differences between GM and natural
soy were omitted from a published paper. 35-36 Feeding studies masked
any problems by using mature animals instead of developing ones and by
diluting their GM soy 10 to 1 with non-GM protein. 34
There are no adequate tests to verify that GM food will not create
dangerous allergic reactions. While an international organization
developed testing standards to minimize the possibility of allowing
allergenic GM varieties on the market, GM corn currently sold in the
U.S. has not been subjected to those tests and would most certainly fail
them. One of these tests, for example, uses a test tube simulation to
evaluate how long a potential GM allergen can last inside the digestive
system before being broken down. Compared to the recommended
international standards, however, one biotech company used a far
stronger acid concentration and more than 1,250 times the recommended
amount of a digestive enzyme to make the claim that their protein
degrades too quickly to cause a reaction. 179
The only human feeding trial ever conducted confirmed that genetically
engineered genes from soy transferred to the bacteria inside the
digestive tract. (The biotech industry had previously said that such a
transfer was impossible.) The World Health Organization, the British and
American Medical Associations, and several other groups have expressed
concern that if the "antibiotic resistant marker genes" used in GM foods
got transferred to bacteria, it could create super-diseases that are
immune to antibiotics. 59-60 More worrisome is that the "promoter" used
inside GM foods could get transferred to bacteria or internal organs.
Promoters act like a light switches, permanently turning on genes that
might otherwise be switched off. Scientists believe that this might
create unpredictable health effects, including the potentially
pre-cancerous cell growth found in the animal feeding studies mentioned
above. 37
The biotech industry says that millions have been eating GM foods
without ill effect.This is misleading.
* About 100 people died and 5-10,000 to fell seriously ill when they
consumed the food supplement L-tryptophan. Only those who consumed the
variety that was genetically modified became ill. That brand had minute,
but deadly contaminants that would easily pass through current
regulations today. If the disease it created had not been rare and
acute, with crippling and deadly symptoms, the GM supplement might never
have been traced as the cause. Once discovered, however, industry and
government covered up facts and diverted the blame. Even the FDA
testimony before Congress withheld vital information. 107-125
For a summary of the L-tryptophan issue, click here . For an in-depth
presentation of the issue, see Toxic L-tryptophan: Shedding Light on a
Mysterious Epidemic, by William E. Crist.
* Milk from rbGH-treated cows contains an increased amount of the
hormone IGF-1, which is one of the highest risk factors associated with
breast and prostate cancer, among others. 94-97
* Soy allergies skyrocketed by 50% in the UK, coinciding with the
introduction of GM soy imports from the U.S. 160-161
According to a March 2001 report, the Center for Disease Control says
that food is responsible for twice the number of illnesses in the U.S.
compared to estimates just seven years earlier. This increase roughly
corresponds to the period when Americans have been eating GM food. Could
that be contributing to the 5,000 deaths, 325,000 hospitalizations, and
76 million illnesses related to food each year? Might it play in role in
our national epidemic of obesity or the rise in diabetes or lymphatic
cancers? We have no way of knowing if there is a connection because no
one has looked for one.
One of the most dangerous aspects of genetic engineering is the closed
thinking and consistent effort to silence those with contrary evidence
or concerns. Just before stepping down from office, former Secretary of
Agriculture Dan Glickman admitted the following:
"What I saw generically on the pro-biotech side was the attitude that
the technology was good, and that it was almost immoral to say that it
wasn't good, because it was going to solve the problems of the human
race and feed the hungry and clothe the naked... And there was a lot of
money that had been invested in this, and if you're against it, you're
Luddites, you're stupid. That, frankly, was the side our government was
on... You felt like you were almost an alien, disloyal, by trying to
present an open-minded view" 152-153
Contrast this with the warning by the editors of Nature Biotechnology:
"The risks in biotechnology are undeniable, and they stem from the
unknowable in science and commerce. It is prudent to recognize and
address those risks, not compound them by overly optimistic or foolhardy
behavior." 137
The biotech industry and the government have been foolhardy indeed.
Blinded, perhaps by the baseless myth that GM foods are needed to feed
the world, 250-251 they gamble with our health and support their safety
claims on obsolete or unproven assumptions. Accepting their vacuous
assurances by eating these dangerous foods or serving them to your
customers may likewise be overly optimistic or foolhardy.
Please read the evidence amassed in the book Seeds of Deception by
Jeffrey M. Smith. The meticulously documented facts leave no doubt about
a massive injustice. The topic is too important to put this off until
tomorrow.