GM Crops and the Rat Digestive Tract: Is GM Food Safe for Animals and Humans?

Global Research
by I.M. Zdziarski,  J.W. Edwards,  J.A. Carman , J.I. Haynes

ABSTRACT

The aim of this review is to examine the relationship between genetically modified (GM) crops and health, based on histopathological investigations of the digestive tract in rats. We reviewed published long-term feeding studies of crops containing one or more of three specific traits: herbicide tolerance via the EPSPS gene and insect resistance via cry1Ab or cry3Bb1 genes. These genes are commonly found in commercialised GM crops.

Our search found 21 studies for nine (19%) out of the 47 crops approved for human and/or animal consumption. We could find no studies on the other 38 (81%) approved crops.

Complete study at ScienceDirect.

Fourteen out of the 21 studies (67%) were general health assessments of the GM crop on rat health. Most of these studies (76%) were performed after the crop had been approved for human and/or animal consumption, with half of these being published at least nine years after approval. Our review also discovered an inconsistency in methodology and a lack of defined criteria for outcomes that would be considered toxicologically or pathologically significant.

In addition, there was a lack of transparency in the methods and results, which made comparisons between the studies difficult. The evidence reviewed here demonstrates an incomplete picture regarding the toxicity (and safety) of GM products consumed by humans and animals. Therefore, each GM product should be assessed on merit, with appropriate studies performed to indicate the level of safety associated with them. Detailed guidelines should be developed which will allow for the generation of comparable and reproducible studies. This will establish a foundation for evidence-based guidelines, to better determine if GM food is safe for human and animal consumption.

…. excerpts

Have enough studies been conducted to adequately state that GM crops are safe for human and animal consumption?

Genetically modified crops have been approved for human and animal consumption for nearly 20 years (Clive and Krattiger, 1996) yet the debate about their safety continues. Fifty-three crops are known to possess at least one of the genes investigated in this review (herbicide tolerance via the EPSPS gene and insect resistance via the cry1Ab or cry3Bb1 genes). Forty-seven of these crops have been approved for animal and/or human consumption, yet published toxicity studies could be found for only nine of these crops (19%) ( Table 1). Of greater concern is that for eight of these crops, publications appeared after the crop had been approved for human and/or animal consumption. We understand that other studies may exist that are commercial in confidence, but these studies are not accessible to the scientific community. Other than the few studies mentioned in the EFSA reports, where histopathological results were not reported, our review of the published literature wasn’t able to identify or locate any reported safety evaluations performed on rats on these eight crops prior to their approval. Our literature review also did not identify or locate published reports on rats for the remaining 38 crops.

The present review limited the search to only include feeding studies done on rats so that the results may be comparable. It is possible that more studies may be found if the search were to be extended to other animals. However, based on what has been found for rat studies, it is unlikely that any additional studies would involve a thorough safety investigation and a detailed report of all of the 47 approved GM crops possessing one or more of the three traits. Moreover, the rat model is the accepted OECD standard for toxicological studies of this type.

Whilst the safety of a GM crop is primarily and sometimes solely evaluated by government food regulators using the test for substantial equivalence, this is likely to be inadequate to fully assess the safety of the crop for reasons stated above. Animal feeding studies provide a more thorough method of investigating the unintended effects of the GM process or the unintended effects of ingesting GM crop components. Animal feeding studies can identify target organs as well as predict the chronic toxic effect of an ingested compound (OECD, 2008)

Conclusions

The evidence reviewed here demonstrates an incomplete picture regarding the toxicity (and safety) of GM crops consumed by humans and animals. The majority of studies reviewed lacked a unified approach and transparency in their methodology and results, making it impossible to properly review or repeat these studies. Furthermore, such lack of detail makes it difficult to generate evidence-based guidelines to aid in the delivery of an optimum safety assessment process for GM crops for animal and human consumption.

When considering how a better risk assessment could be done, it is important to consider systems established for other novel substances that may generate unintended effects. For example, the registration of pharmaceutical products requires an examination of both benefits and risks associated with their use and a complete assessment of those benefits and risks to establish whether the products are appropriate for general use at a range of doses. We argue that each GM crop should be assessed using similar methods, where a GM crop is tested in the form and at the rates it will be consumed by animals and people.

Whilst this provides for an effective general approach, there are additional issues for assessing GM crops that need to be taken into account. For example, the process of developing GM crops may generate unintended effects. Furthermore, the plant developed is a novel entity with genes, regulatory sequences and proteins that interact in complex ways. Therefore, the resultant plant should be assessed as a whole so that any pleiotropic effects can also be assessed. As a result, long-term animal feeding studies should be included in risk assessments of GM crops, together with thorough histopathological investigations using a variety of methods to better detect subtle changes or the beginning or presence of pathologies. Such robust and detailed studies will then make it possible to put evidence-based guidelines in place, which will substantially help to determine the safety of GM crops for human and animal consumption

TO READ THE COMPLETE STUDY

GMO ‘Golden Rice’ Tested on Kids Without Parental Consent

Truthstream Media

Beta-carotene enhanced GM rice, the “golden” child of biotech, is now hampered by a fudged study under ethics scrutiny. A GMO study conducted in China, but funded by the USDA, tested unapproved “Golden Rice” on children without authorization, creating serious violations of ethics rules.

Tufts University researchers admitted that their lead scientist, Guangwen Tang, had broken the rules of disclosure in tests on human subjects, but maintain that their August 2012 study titled “β-Carotene in “Golden Rice” is as good as β-carotene in oil at providing vitamin A to children” remains valid.

Greenpeace China blew the whistle on what it called a scandal over a “potentially dangerous product.” Not properly informing the parents of the children used in the study constitutes a clear and serious ethics violations, the organization indicated.

The larger Greenpeace organization has played a long-term role in opposing the approval and use of “Golden Rice” to fight disease in the developing world. They and other opponents have long argued that “tried and true” methods of treating Vitamin A deficiency render the biotech “solution” irrelevant and unnecessary.

Nature.com highlighted an investigation conducted by CCTV in China, who aired a special documentary program on the ‘scandal.’ Emails turned up by reporters showed that a Chinese CDC official hid mention of the fact that the Golden Rice was genetically modified, claiming that it was dropped because it was ‘too sensitive’ to discuss with the parents of the children being fed GMOs in the study.

Many parents have since “demanded a guarantee that the rice will not affect their children’s health” as well as compensation money for the ethics breach. “If it’s safe, why did they need to deceive us into this?” a parent angrily asked China’s CCTV in their exposé.

There were further issued raised about how often the children in the study were actually fed the “Golden Rice,” with inquiries revealing that the children may have only eaten the rice ONCE during the study rather than daily over the course of three weeks.

Nature reported: Critics note that discrepancies remain over the full details of the trial. For instance, the CDC’s investigation revealed that the children ate Golden Rice just once during the study — and not lunch every day during the three-week study as the paper states.

“How much Golden Rice did the children have exactly?” asks Wang Zheng, a policy researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Policy and Management in Beijing. “Either the researchers are lying about this now or they lied about it in their paper. It’s a serious offence either way.” [emphasis added]

According to the published study, the GM trait in “Golden Rice” that produces beta-carotene, a precursor to Vitamin A, was produced using heavy water (a technique derived from Harold Urey’s development of enriched uranium during the Manhattan Project) “harvested from a hydroponic plant system housed in the USDA-Agriculture Research Service Children’s Nutrition Research Center at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston TX.”

Along with Tang’s research conducted at the Hunan Province Center for Disease Control and Prevention in China was additional research provided by the Carotenoids & Health Laboratory, USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University in Boston. Golden Rice has been a hot-button issue in genetically-modified politics for decades now. Proponents blame GM opponents for delaying its approval, and outlandishly claiming that they have cost lives, building upon the long-standing claims that “Golden Rice” could save a million lives per year, prevent blindness (and other related pro-GM puffery).

Slate accused anti-GMO activists of lying to get their way, reporting that groups behind the destruction of a trial GM rice field had falsely claimed farmers in the Philippines were behind the sabotage.

Biotech watchdogs like GM Watch, on the other hand, have long claimed that the benefits are less than shimmering, and that instead its real significance is in expanding the reach of GM agriculture – and companies like Syngenta who push it – in the developing world. Since 2001, activist Michael Pollan, Greenpeace and others have shown that the concentration of beta-carotene is not enough to make a ‘life saving’ or disease preventing difference – a problem worsened by the fact that cooking the rice reduces the Vitamin A content by 50%.

GM Watch explained how “Golden Rice” co-inventor Ingo Potrykus acknowledged back in 2001 that Greenpeace’s argument concerning the ineffective concentrations of beta-carotene in the rice amounted to a valid concern and notable flaw.

“I am happy to acknowledge, that Greenpeace is arguing on a rational basis… I also acknowledge, that Greenpeace has identified a weak point in the strategy of using Golden Rice for reducing vitamin A-deficiency… We will know for sure of course only, when all the standard biosafety assessments have been performed… we need far more data, than we have to date.” [emphasis added]

The current levels of beta-carotene produced by the heavy water “Golden Rice” would require children to eat between 100-150 grams of rice per day (or about 1/2-3/4 of a cup of cooked rice) in order to achieve 60% of the recommended daily allowance.

Even the Rockefeller Foundation, which long funded the development of “Golden Rice” – and, arguably, the entire “Gene Revolution” that brought genetically modified crops into mainstream use – conceded in a letter written by Gordon Conway in January 2001, that “we do not consider Golden Rice the solution to Vitamin A deficiency” and noting that “the public relations uses of Golden Rice have gone too far.”

Conway writes: “The industry’s advertisements and the media in general seem to forget that it is a research product that needs considerable further development before it will be available to farmers and consumers.”

Yet more than a decade after industry proponents tried to knock environmental watchdogs for their critique and delay of “Golden Rice,” researchers are caught fudging their data and failing to properly inform the parents of the children used in the study that the product was even genetically modified.

If the benefits for the world are so profound, why is there so much to hide?

Former Pro-GMO Scientist Speaks Out on the Real Dangers of Genetically Engineered Food

Mercola . com
by Dr. Mercola

Who better to speak the truth about the risks posed by genetically modified (GM) foods than Thierry Vrain, a former research scientist for Agriculture Canada? It was Vrain’s job to address public groups and reassure them that GM crops and food were safe, a task he did with considerable knowledge and passion.

But Vrain, who once touted GM crops as a technological advancement indicative of sound science and progress, has since started to acknowledge the steady flow of research coming from prestigious labs and published in high-impact journals - research showing that there is significant reason for concern about GM crops – and he has now changed his position.

Former Pro-GMO Scientist Cites GM Food Safety Concerns

Vrain cites the concerning fact that it is studies done by Monsanto and other biotech companies that claim GM crops have no impact on the environment and are safe to eat. But federal departments in charge of food safety in the US and Canada have not conducted tests to affirm this alleged “safety.”

Vrain writes:

“There are no long-term feeding studies performed in these countries [US and Canada] to demonstrate the claims that engineered corn and soya are safe. All we have are scientific studies out of Europe and Russia, showing that rats fed engineered food die prematurely.

These studies show that proteins produced by engineered plants are different than what they should be. Inserting a gene in a genome using this technology can and does result in damaged proteins. The scientific literature is full of studies showing that engineered corn and soya contain toxic or allergenic proteins.

… I refute the claims of the biotechnology companies that their engineered crops yield more, that they require less pesticide applications, that they have no impact on the environment and of course that they are safe to eat.”

“The Whole Paradigm of Genetic Engineering Technology is Based on a Misunderstanding”

This misunderstanding is the “one gene, one protein” hypothesis from 70 years ago, which stated that each gene codes for a single protein. However, the Human Genome project completed in 2002 failed dramatically to identify one gene for every one protein in the human body, forcing researchers to look to epigenetic factors -- namely, "factors beyond the control of the gene" – to explain how organisms are formed, and how they work.

According to Vrain:

“Genetic engineering is 40 years old. It is based on the naive understanding of the genome based on the One Gene – one protein hypothesis of 70 years ago, that each gene codes for a single protein. The Human Genome project completed in 2002 showed that this hypothesis is wrong.

The whole paradigm of the genetic engineering technology is based on a misunderstanding. Every scientist now learns that any gene can give more than one protein and that inserting a gene anywhere in a plant eventually creates rogue proteins. Some of these proteins are obviously allergenic or toxic.”

In other words, genetic engineering is based on an extremely oversimplified model that suggests that by taking out or adding one or several genes, you can create a particular effect or result. But this premise, which GMO expert Dr. Philip Bereano calls “the Lego model,” is not correct. You cannot simply take out a yellow piece and put in a green piece and call the structure identical because there are complex interactions that are still going to take place and be altered, even if the initial structure still stands.

Serious Problems May Arise From Horizontal Gene Transfer

GE plants and animals are created using horizontal gene transfer (also called horizontal inheritance), as contrasted with vertical gene transfer, which is the mechanism in natural reproduction. Vertical gene transfer, or vertical inheritance, is the transmission of genes from the parent generation to offspring via sexual or asexual reproduction, i.e., breeding a male and female from one species.

By contrast, horizontal gene transfer involves injecting a gene from one species into a completely different species, which yields unexpected and often unpredictable results. Proponents of GM crops assume they can apply the principles of vertical inheritance to horizontal inheritance, but according to Dr. David Suzuki, an award-winning geneticist, this assumption is flawed in just about every possible way and is “just lousy science.”

Genes don’t function in a vacuum — they act in the context of the entire genome. Whole sets of genes are turned on and off in order to arrive at a particular organism, and the entire orchestration is an activated genome. It’s a dangerous mistake to assume a gene’s traits are expressed properly, regardless of where they’re inserted. The safety of GM food is based only on a hypothesis, and this hypothesis is already being proven wrong.

Leading Scientists Disprove GMO Safety

Vrain cites the compelling report "GMO Myths and Truths" as just one of many scientific examples disputing the claims of the biotech industry that GM crops yield better and more nutritious food, save on the use of pesticides, have no environmental impact whatsoever and are perfectly safe to eat. The authors took a science-based approach to evaluating the available research, arriving at the conclusion that most of the scientific evidence regarding safety and increased yield potential do not at all support the claims. In fact, the evidence demonstrates the claims for genetically engineered foods are not just wildly overblown – they simply aren't true.

The authors of this critical report include Michael Antoniou, PhD, who heads the Gene Expression and Therapy Group at King's College at London School of Medicine in the UK. He's a 28-year veteran of genetic engineering technology who has himself invented a number of gene expression biotechnologies; and John Fagan, PhD, a leading authority on food sustainability, biosafety, and GE testing. If you want to get a comprehensive understanding of genetically engineered foods, I strongly recommend reading this report.

Not only are GM foods less nutritious than non-GM foods, they pose distinct health risks, are inadequately regulated, harm the environment and farmers, and are a poor solution to world hunger. Worse still, these questionable GM crops are now polluting non-GM crops, leading to contamination that cannot ever be “recalled” the way you can take a bad drug off the market … once traditional foods are contaminated with GM genes, there is no going back! Vrain expanded:

“Genetic pollution is so prevalent in North and South America where GM crops are grown that the fields of conventional and organic grower are regularly contaminated with engineered pollen and losing certification. The canola and flax export market from Canada to Europe (a few hundreds of millions of dollars) were recently lost because of genetic pollution.”

American Academy of Environmental Medicine Called for Moratorium on GM Foods FOUR Years Ago

In 2009, the American Academy of Environmental Medicine called for a moratorium on GM foods, and said that long-term independent studies must be conducted, stating:

“Several animal studies indicate serious health risks associated with GM food, including infertility, immune problems, accelerated aging, insulin regulation, and changes in major organs and the gastrointestinal system. …There is more than a casual association between GM foods and adverse health effects. There is causation…"

Despite this sound warning, GM foods continue to be added to the US food supply with no warning to the Americans buying and eating this food. Genetic manipulation of crops, and more recently food animals, is a dangerous game that has repeatedly revealed that assumptions about how genetic alterations work and the effects they have on animals and humans who consume such foods are deeply flawed and incomplete. Monsanto CEO Hugh Grant claims genetically engineered crops are “the most-tested food product that the world has ever seen.” What he doesn’t tell you is that:

Industry-funded research predictably affects the outcome of the trial. This has been verified by dozens of scientific reviews comparing funding with the findings of the study. When industry funds the research, it’s virtually guaranteed to be positive. Therefore, independent studies must be done to replicate and thus verify results.

The longest industry-funded animal feeding study was 90 days, which recent research has confirmed is FAR too short. In the world’s first independently funded lifetime feeding study, massive health problems set in during and after the 13th month, including organ damage and cancer.

Companies like Monsanto and Syngenta rarely if ever allow independent researchers access to their patented seeds, citing the legal protection these seeds have under patent laws. Hence independent research is extremely difficult to conduct. There is no safety monitoring. Meaning, once the GM item in question has been approved, not a single country on earth is actively monitoring and tracking reports of potential health effects.

It Might Take More Than One Bite to Kill You …

“One argument I hear repeatedly is that nobody has been sick or died after a meal (or a trillion meals since 1996) of GM food,” Vrain said. “Nobody gets ill from smoking a pack of cigarettes either. But it sure adds up, and we did not know that in the 1950s before we started our wave of epidemics of cancer. Except this time it is not about a bit of smoke, it’s the whole food system that is of concern. The corporate interest must be subordinated to the public interest, and the policy of substantial equivalence must be scrapped as it is clearly untrue.”

Remember, Vrain used to give talks about the benefits of GM foods, but he simply couldn’t ignore the research any longer … and why, then, should you? All in all, if GM foods have something wrong with them that potentially could cause widespread illness or environmental devastation, Monsanto would rather NOT have you find out about it. Not through independent research, nor through a simple little label that would allow you to opt out of the experiment, should you choose not to take them on their word. As Vrain continued:

“The Bt corn and soya plants that are now everywhere in our environment are registered as insecticides. But are these insecticidal plants regulated and have their proteins been tested for safety? Not by the federal departments in charge of food safety, not in Canada and not in the U.S.

… We should all take these studies seriously and demand that government agencies replicate them rather than rely on studies paid for by the biotech companies … Individuals should be encouraged to make their decisions on food safety based on scientific evidence and personal choice, not on emotion or the personal opinions of others.”

At present, the only way to avoid GM foods is to ditch processed foods from your grocery list, and revert back to whole foods grown according to organic standards.

Keep Fighting for Labeling of Genetically Engineered Foods

While California Prop. 37 failed to pass last November, by a very narrow margin, the fight for GMO labeling is far from over. The field-of-play has now moved to the state of Washington, where the people's initiative 522, "The People's Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act," will require food sold in retail outlets to be labeled if it contains genetically engineered ingredients. As stated on LabelitWA.org:

"Calorie and nutritional information were not always required on food labels. But since 1990 it has been required and most consumers use this information every day. Country-of-origin labeling wasn't required until 2002. The trans fat content of foods didn't have to be labeled until 2006. Now, all of these labeling requirements are accepted as important for consumers. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) also says we must know with labeling if our orange juice is from fresh oranges or frozen concentrate.

Doesn't it make sense that genetically engineered foods containing experimental viral, bacterial, insect, plant or animal genes should be labeled, too? Genetically engineered foods do not have to be tested for safety before entering the market. No long-term human feeding studies have been done. The research we have is raising serious questions about the impact to human health and the environment.

I-522 provides the transparency people deserve. I-522 will not raise costs to consumers or food producers. It simply would add more information to food labels, which manufacturers change routinely anyway, all the time. I-522 does not impose any significant cost on our state. It does not require the state to conduct label surveillance, or to initiate or pursue enforcement. The state may choose to do so, as a policy choice, but I-522 was written to avoid raising costs to the state or consumers."

Remember, as with CA Prop. 37, they need support of people like YOU to succeed. Prop. 37 failed with a very narrow margin simply because we didn't have the funds to counter the massive ad campaigns created by the No on 37 camp, led by Monsanto and other major food companies. Let's not allow Monsanto and its allies to confuse and mislead the people of Washington and Vermont as they did in California. So please, I urge you to get involved and help in any way you can, regardless of what state you live in.

No matter where you live in the United States, please donate money to these labeling efforts through the Organic Consumers Fund.

If you live in Washington State, please sign the I-522 petition. You can also volunteer to help gather signatures across the state.

For timely updates on issues relating to these and other labeling initiatives, please join the Organic Consumers Association on Facebook, or follow them on Twitter.

Talk to organic producers and stores and ask them to actively support the Washington initiative.

Hungary torches 500 hectares of GM corn to eradicate GMOs from food supply

Natural News

When it comes to protecting the public from GMOs, Hungary knows how to get the job done: set fire to the fields growing GM corn!

Although environmentalists might at first argue about the ramifications of burning so much organic matter right out in the open, the deeper truth is that genetic pollution poses a vastly more serious threat to our world, and burning GM corn is the one sure way to destroy the poisonous genetic code contained in plant tissues. In fact, I hope to see the day when the U.S. courts order the destruction of all GM corn fields across America. And I suspect that if the courts won't rise to the occasion, the People will sooner or later find a way to get it done on their own. Think "Army of the 12 Monkeys" but with a GMO slant.

Lajos Bognar, Hungary's Minister of Rural Development, reported this week that around 500 hectares of GM corn were ordered burned by the government. Hungary has criminalized the planting of genetically modified crops of any kind, and it has repeatedly burned thousands of hectares of illegal GM crops in years past.

This news was originally published in Portuguese at Rede Brasil Atual. An English translation has been posted at GMwatch.org.

GMOs are outlawed across the planet

GMOs have been banned in 27 countries, and GMOs are required to be labeled in at least 50 countries. In America, where Monsanto has deployed an insidious degree of influence over the legislature and courts, GMOs are neither illegal nor required to be labeled. In fact, 71 U.S. Senators recently voted against a measure that would have allowed states to pass their own food labeling laws.

Those Senators are now known as the Monsanto 71. The list includes Rand Paul and Ted Cruz, both senators from agricultural states (Kentucky and Texas) where Monsanto continues to exercise heavy influence over farmers.

Shockingly, most farmers who are planting GMOs have no knowledge whatsoever of what GMOs are or why people don't want them in their food. They've been lied to by the biotech industry which promised them "higher yields" and "greater profits." In reality, GM crop yields have plummeted even while giving rise to herbicide-resistant "superweeds" that now threaten many farms. With soils that have been rendered sterile with glyphosate and crop yields falling, farmers are increasingly finding themselves in dire straights.

Their only way out, of course, is to return to planting non-GMO crops. But wisdom moves very, very slowly through Texas A&M, a Monsanto stronghold and key propaganda center for pushing frankenfoods in the South.

A genetic apocalypse may devastate America's bread basket

Hungary was wise to protect its agricultural sector from Monsanto's imperialism. In contrast, America is incredibly foolish to sell out its food supply to destructive corporate interests that value nothing but profit.

By disallowing GMO labeling and promoting the continued commercialization of genetically modified crops (thanks, USDA!), the U.S. government is playing Russian roulette with America's food future. One day, something the scientists didn't anticipate will kick in, and the crimes against nature that have been committed by Monsanto will explode into a genetic apocalypse that threatens the future of life on our planet.

Remember: GMOs aren't merely "pollution" in the classic sense. They are self-replicating pollution that may be impossible to stop. Hence the wisdom of burning GM corn fields to the ground. Fire destroys DNA and breaks down vegetable matter into its elemental constituents: carbon and mineral ash, essentially. Fields that were once dangerous are now harmless. Fire restores sanity by destroying the engineered DNA dreamed up by mad scientists working for arrogant, foolish corporations who think they're smarter than Mother Nature and God.

Mark my words: there will come a day when Americans will wish they had burned all the GM corn fields to the ground. But by then it will be too late. The blight will be upon us, and with it comes the starvation, the suffering, the desperation and the riots. Hunger turns all family men into savages, just as greed turns all corporate men into demons.

To avoid both outcomes, we must banish GMOs now. Indict the executives of Monsanto for conspiracy to commit mass poisoning of the people. Invoke the RICO Act. Pull out the Patriot Act. Use whatever laws are on the books to put this monster away so that future generations do not have to suffer the devastating consequences of open-world genetic experiments gone awry.

Frankenapple: Bad News No Matter How You Slice It

Organic Consumers Association
by Katherine Paul and Ronnie Cummins

Thanks to the biotech industry’s relentless quest to control our food, McDonald’s, Burger King and even school cafeterias will soon be able to serve up apples that won’t turn brown when they’re sliced or bitten into. A new, almost entirely untested genetic modification technology, called RNA interference, or double strand RNA (dsRNA), is responsible for this new food miracle. Scientists warn that this genetic manipulation poses health risks, as the manipulated RNA gets into our digestive systems and bloodstreams. The biotech industry claims otherwise.

Of course, like any non-organic apple, the new GMO Arctic® Apple will be drenched in toxic pesticide residues, untested by the U.S. Food & Drug Association (FDA) and likely unlabeled. And of course these shiny new high-tech apples will be cheap, priced considerably lower than a pesticide-free, nutrient-dense, old-fashioned organic apple that turns a little brown after you slice it up.

When the Biotech Industry Organization gathers next week in Chicago for the 2013 BIO International Convention, BIOTECanada will present its “Gold Leaf Award for Early Stage Agriculture” to Okanagan Specialty Fruits, Inc. (OSF), purveyor of the Arctic® Apple, slated for approval in the U.S. this year. We hate to upset the biotech apple cart, but a pesticide-intensive GMO apple, produced through a risky manipulation of RNA, doesn’t deserve a place on our grocery shelves, much less in the agriculture hall of fame.

That said, the Arctic “Frankenapple” is expected to be approved this year by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), responsible for protecting agriculture from pests and diseases. It does not require approval by the FDA, which is responsible for human food and animal feed.

Just one more bad apple

Apples, that is, apples that haven’t been certified organic, already are on the list of Should-Be-Forbidden fruits. They reliably top the Environmental Working Group’s Dirty Dozen list, for both the volume and the stunning array of pesticides consistently found on them. According to the Pesticide Action Network’s analysis of the most recent USDA data, apples tested positive for 42 pesticides, including organophosphate and pyrethroid pesticides. Both are endocrine disruptors, both have suspected neurological effects, and both are considered especially toxic for children. (Organophosphates are the basis for nerve gases used in chemical warfare, and have been linked to the development of ADHD in kids.)

Given the grim report card of non-organic apples, some might say it really doesn’t make any difference if we start tinkering with the apple’s genetic RNA. After all, unlike the case with GMO corn or salmon, scientists aren’t injecting pesticides or genes from foreign plants or animals into the genes of apples to create the Frankenapple. While most existing genetically engineered plants are designed to make new proteins, the Arctic Apple is engineered to produce a form of genetic information called double-stranded RNA (dsRNA). The new dsRNA alters the way genes are expressed. The result, in the Arctic Apple’s case, is a new double strand of RNA that genetically “silences” the apple’s ability to produce polyphenol oxidase, an enzyme that causes the apple to turn brown when it’s exposed to oxygen.

Harmless? The biotech industry, OSF and some scientists say yes. But others, including Professor Jack Heinemann (University of Canterbury, New Zealand), Sarah Agapito-Tenfen (from Santa Catarina University in Brazil) and Judy Carman (Flinders University in South Australia), say that dsRNA manipulation is untested, and therefore inherently risky. Recent research has shown that dsRNAs can transfer from plants to humans and other animals through food. The biotech industry has always claimed that genetically engineered DNA or RNA is destroyed by human digestion, eliminating the danger of these mutant organisms damaging human genes or human health. But many biotech scientists say otherwise. They point to evidence that the manipulated RNA finds its way into our digestive systems and bloodstreams, potentially damaging or silencing vital human genes.

There are indirect health consequences, too. Turns out the chemical compound that is shut off in the engineered fruit through RNA manipulation, in order to make it not oxidize or brown, is a chemical compound that also fights off plant pests. What happens when the apple’s ability to fend off insects is compromised? Growers will need to spray greater amounts, of possibly even more toxic pesticides, on a crop already saturated with at least 42 types of pesticides. Those pesticides will eventually find their way into our bodies, either because we ingested the fruit, or breathed the air or drank the water where the pesticides were sprayed.

Testing? What testing?

So what’s the trade-off? Non-organic apple growers will prosper as more moms buy more apples for more kids who will, the industry alleges, be the healthier for it. It makes for a good public relations story, but no matter how you wrap it up or slice it, taking apples that are already saturated in pesticides, and genetically engineering them for purely cosmetic purposes, does not a healthy snack make.

The pro- and anti-GMO movements will debate whether or not the GMO apple is safe for human consumption. The fact is, we’ll never know until they are properly labeled and safety-tested. As with every other GMO food ingredient or product sold in the U.S., the Arctic Apple will undergo no independent safety testing by the FDA or the USDA. Instead, the USDA will rely on OSF’s word that the apple is safe for human consumption. And without any state or federal mandatory GMO labeling laws in place, OSF will not be required to label its Frankenapple, meaning that consumers or children harmed by the dsRNA modified apple will have great difficulty identifying the mutant RNA that harmed them.

The controversy and debate surrounding dsRNA and the Arctic Apple has just begun. But there is no longer any debate about the dangers that pesticides and pesticide residues on non-organic apples pose to humans, whether we directly ingest these toxic residues by eating an apple, or whether we’re exposed to them through contaminated air and groundwater as a result of acres of orchards being sprayed to control increasingly resistant insects and diseases.

What about the argument that a kid eating a few slices of apples can’t consume enough of any one of these pesticides to cause any real risk to their health? Debunked. Recent studies reveal that during apple season, kids exhibit spikes in the level of pesticides found in their urine, spikes that exceed the U.S. government’s “safe levels.” Kids who live in apple-growing regions show even higher spikes. And those 42 varieties of pesticides? The government establishes “safe levels” for each one – but it doesn’t test for the potential effect of ingesting 42 different pesticides, all chemically interacting with each other, and ingested all at once.

From biodiversity to monoculture

How did we get to the point where it takes 42 pesticides to keep an apple crop healthy? Michael Pollan best explains it in his book Botany of Desire. Turns out that apples have an extreme tendency toward something called heterozygosity, which means genetic variability. This trait accounts for how, left to its own devices, the apple can “make itself at home in places as different from one another as New England and New Zealand, Kazakhstan and California.” Pollan writes: “Wherever the apple tree goes, its offspring propose so many different variations on what it means to be an apple – at least five per apple, several thousand per tree – that a couple of these novelties are almost bound to have whatever qualities it takes to prosper in the tree’s adopted home.”

Today, you’d have to visit the apple orchard museum in Geneva, New York, to find all the varieties of apples that used to thrive in the wild. Over time, in our quest to control the taste, texture and appearance of apples, we’ve eliminated all but a relative few varieties. We’ve gone too far, says Pollan. By relying on too few genes for too long, the apple has lost its ability to get along on its own, outdoors.

Enter the agro-chemical companies. According to the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) Agricultural Chemical Use Program, apple growers in states surveyed in 2011 applied carbaryl to 46 percent of their acreage, at an average rate of 1.566 pounds per acre for the crop year; chlorantraniliprole to 45 percent; and chlorpyrifos to 44 percent. Apple growers applied glyphosate isopropylamine salt to 25 percent of acres at an average of 1.604 pounds per acre for the crop year. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

The Arctic Apple has been in development for over a decade, the company says. OSF submitted a petition for deregulation to the USDA in May 2010. The USDA, which must hold two public comment periods, concluded the first on Sept. 11, 2011. It’s expected to open the second public comment period this spring or summer, and OSF hopes the GMO apple will be approved for growing and selling in the U.S. this year.

The Organic Consumers Association will hold a press conference and set up a picket line at the Biotechnology Industry Organization Convention in Chicago, at Noon on April 23, to protest OSF’s GMO apple.

Related:  Poison Apples: “Organic” Fruit can be Tainted by Antibiotics until Fall 2014

Monsanto threatens to sue the entire state of Vermont

RT

Lawmakers in Vermont are looking to regulate food labels so customers can know which products are made from genetically modified crops, but agricultural giants Monsanto say they will sue if the state follows through.

If the bill in question, H-722 (the “VT Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act”) passes the state Senate and House, manufacturers will be required to label products that are created either partially or in full from a genetically modified organism, or GMO. Such man-made crops have become a trademark of the billion-dollar Monsanto corporation, and in the past the company has gone to great lengths to keep themselves the number-one name in American agriculture, even if those profits are made possible from playing God.

Monsanto is going mad over the proposal, however, which would also make them unable to label their productions as “natural,” “naturally made,” “naturally grown” or “all natural,” if, in fact, they are not. For the corporation, it would seem that moving products and making money is much more of a worthwhile venture than telling its customers what exactly they are consuming.

With Vermont legislators now standing in the way of what could mean even more money for Monsanto, the company says they will sue the state if H-722 is approved. Now in fear of a lawsuit in the future, lawmakers in Vermont have put a hold on any future voting regarding the bill. If history is any indication, Monsanto is more than likely to have their way and win yet another battle.

Monsanto is no stranger to the American legal system and have forced competing farm after farm to be shut down or bought out by bringing lawsuits against the little guy throughout their history. Between 1997 and 2010, Monsanto’s legal team tried to file nearly 150 lawsuits against independent farmers, often for allegations that their patented GMO-seeds had somehow managed to be carried onto unlicensed farms. Often those farms have been unable to fight against Monsanto’s mega-lawyers and have been forced to fold in response. The Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association tried taking Monsanto to court earlier this year to keep them from following similar suits, but a Federal District Court judge in Manhattan shut down their plea. The group has since filed an appeal.

Regardless of if the Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association’s appeal will be granted, Monsanto is making waves in Vermont where they hope to continue creating GMO products and pushing them to consumers without warning. Between state lawmakers putting their vote on hold and past precedents, Monsanto looks more than likely to win their latest battle, though. Back in 1994, Vermont tried to keep dairy corporations from marketing milk made from cows injected with the Bovine Growth Hormone, citing incidents where the rBGH had been tied to cases of cancer. Monsanto was victorious in that battle and numerous others in the years since.

Related:  Senate Passes Monsanto Protection Act Granting Monsanto Power Over US Govt

Hazardous Virus Gene Discovered in GM Crops after 20 Years

Farm Wars
Dr Mae-Wan Ho ISIS

SIS has warned against the CaMV 35S promoter and called for all affected GM crops to be withdrawn since 1999 while damning evidence on its safety continues to emerge

A European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) scientist has just discovered that major GM crops and products the regulatory agency has been approving for commercial release over the past 20 years contain a potentially dangerous virus gene. The gene – Gene VI – overlaps with the cauliflower mosaic virus (CaMV) 35S promoter. The CaMV 35S promoter is the commonest, most widely used regulatory sequence for driving gene expression in GM crops. This momentous discovery was published in a little known journal during the holiday season at the end of 2012 [1], and would have passed unnoticed had it not caught the attention of Jonathan Latham and Alison Wilson of Independent Science News. They described the finding and carried out a proper retrospective risk assessment on the Gene VI fragment in a report posted on their website [2]. This attracted so much public attention that EFSA and its counterpart Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) are said [3] to have jointly “shredded” the scientific paper on which Latham and Wilson’s report is based.

EFSA and FSANZ say the allegations that the viral Gene VI hidden in the CaMV 35S promoter might not be safe for human consumption and could disturb the normal functioning of crops are completely false. A spokesperson from FSANZ states: “Human exposure to DNA from the cauliflower mosaic virus and all its protein products through consumption of conventional foods is common and there is no evidence of any adverse health effects.”

Ironically, the first author of the scientific paper [1] Nancy Podevin is from EFSA, while the second author Patrick Du Jardin is at University of Liège in Belgium; and EFSA GMO Panel is acknowledged for “advice given”. The main thrust of the paper is in fact a screening of Gene Vi amino acid sequence against existing databases for known allergens and finding none; thereby offering false reassurance while the real hazards are swept under the carpet.

This is not the first time that the safety of CaMV 35S promoter is being questioned.

Serious concerns had been raised over the safety of CaMV 35S promoter

ISIS first raised concerns over the CaMV 35S and similar promoters in a paper published in the journal Microbial Ecology in Health and Disease in 1999 [4] (Cauliflower Mosaic Viral Promoter – A Recipe for Disaster?) when it was discovered to have a recombination (fragmentation) hotspot that would enhance unintended horizontal gene transfer and recombination, and in the process create new viruses or activate old ones, and trigger cancer in animal cells by well-known processes of ‘insertion carcinogenesis’. The CaMV 35S promoter was known to be highly promiscuous in being able to function in most if not all species across the living world (including human cells, as it turned out). To make matters worse, many synthetic versions of the promoter have been constructed with additional enhancers for gene expression and sequences from other sources, all of which increase its instability (tendency to fragment) as well as its ability to drive inappropriate gene expression. (We also reported the overlap of the 35S promoter with Gene VI, so this knowledge must have been widely known, although its safety implications were not obvious, at least to us.)

As a precautionary measure, we strongly recommended that all transgenic crops containing CaMV 35S or similar promoters should be immediately withdrawn from commercial production or open field trials.

Our first paper brought a swift reaction. Within two days of its being published online, someone managed to solicit at least nine critiques, including one from Monsanto, which were posted on a website funded by the biotech industry and widely circulated on the internet. The critiques varied in tone from moderately polite to outright abusive. We wrote a detailed rebuttal, which was likewise circulated and posted to the same website, and have not received any replies from our critics since. But in January 2000, Nature Biotechnology published a distorted, one-sided and offensive account of our paper, concentrating on the criticisms and ignoring our rebuttal completely, which we published in the same journal that carried the first paper[5] (Hazards of Transgenic Plants Containing the Cauliflower Mosaic Viral Promoter).

Regulators’ objections irrelevant and false

It is of interest that the objections for ‘shredding’ the scientific paper of Podevin and du Jardin [1] and Latham and Wilson’s report [2] are exactly the ones used against us. The first objection is that humans have been eating the CaMV for millennia without ill effects; the second is that the CaMV 35S promoter is only active in plants and certainly not in animal or human cells.

Our rebuttal to the first objection is that the intact CaMV, consisting of the CaMV genome wrapped in its protein coat, is not infectious for human beings or for other non-susceptible animals and plants, as is well-known; for it is the coat that determines host susceptibility in the first instance. So eating the intact virus is of little consequence. However, the naked or free viral genomes (and parts thereof) are known to be more infectious and have a wider host-range than the intact virus. Furthermore, the synthetic CaMV 35S promoters are very different from the natural promoters, and are both much more aggressive as promoters driving inappropriate gene expression as well as more prone to fragment and recombine.

The second objection – that CaMV 35S is not active in animals and human cells – is simply false as we discovered in the scientific literature dating back to 1989, and pointed this out in a third paper [6] (CaMV 35S promoter fragmentation hotspot confirmed, and it is active in animals ). The CaMV 35S promoter was found to support high levels of reporter gene expression in mature Xenopus oocytes [7], and to give very efficient transcription in extracts of nuclei from HeLa cells (a human cell line) [8].

What of our original concern over the CaMV 35S promoter activating viruses in host genomes? There is new evidence suggesting that the CaMV 35S promoter may indeed enhance the multiplication of disease-associated viruses including HIV and cytomegalovirus through the induction of proteins required for transcription of the viruses [9] (New Evidence Links CaMV 35S Promoter to HIV Transcription).

It is in this context that Latham and Wilson’s report for ISIS [10] (Potentially Dangerous Virus Gene Hidden in Commercial GM Crops, SiS 57) should be read, which fully justifies our original recommendation for a total recall of the affected GM crops. This same call is now repeated by Latham and Wilson.

Related:  Regulators Discover a Hidden Viral Gene in Commercial GMO Crops

NEW ROW OVER GM FOOD

Express
by John Ingham

NEW fears were raised over genetically modified food yesterday after researchers claimed regulators had missed an "unsuspected viral gene" in widely used crops.

A study published last month found that the commonest modification in GM crops includes a "significant fragment of a viral gene" known as Gene VI.

The study by European Food Standards Agency experts published in the journal GM Crops and Food said the gene “might result in unintended phenotypic changes" which means it could have unintended genetic or environmental consequences. The report comes with ministers backing GM foods and claiming the technology is needed to feed the world's growing population.

Earlier this month Environment Secretary Owen Paterson said the Government should not be afraid of making the case to the public about the "potential benefits of GM beyond the food chain, for example, reducing the use of pesticides and inputs such as diesel".

But yesterday critics claimed the new discovery suggests that some GM crops could pose risks for consumers and the environment.

Dr Jonathan Latham of Independent Science News said: "This finding has serious ramifications for crop biotechnology and its regulation, but possibly even greater ones for consumers and farmers.

"This is because there are clear indications that this viral gene might not be safe for human consumption.

"It also may disturb the normal functioning of crops, including their natural pest resistance."

Gene VI is found in some of the most widely grown FGM crops including weedkiller-resistant soya beans and maize.

Two thirds of GM crops approved in the US contain the hitherto unidentified viral gene.

GM crops have been given commercially attractive properties - such as weedkiller or pest resistance - by having new genes inserted.

These genes are usually taken from species with which the crop could not breed naturally.

Last night Pete Riley of the GM Freeze pressure group said: “This discovery of this previously unidentified gene in GM crops raises serious concern about the safety of GM food and feed.

"It totally undermines claims that GM technology is safe, precise and predictable.

“The very existence of Gene VI has been missed for many years, so we don’t know what implications it might have.

"It is impossible to say if this has already resulted in harm to human or animal health, and since there is still no GM labelling in places like the US where GM is more common in the diet, no epidemiological studies can be carried out.

"Possible harmful effects of GM Organisms could easily be lost in the general morass of ailments which vets and medics have to deal with on a daily basis, especially if these were as result of low level exposure over several years, and the link to GM could take many years to establish that way.

“This is a clear warning the GM is not sufficiently understood to be considered safe.

But the biotech industry insists that its products have undergone rigorous checks - and have been eaten safely by million worldwide.

Dr Julian Little, chairman of the Agricultural Biotechnology Council, said: “The claims by Latham and Wilson were made in a blog posting, not a peer-reviewed publication. The original article by Podevin and du Jardin states that there are no elements present in the GM crops tested which are similar to known toxic and allergenic proteins.

“The GMO risk assessment carried out by EFSA is the central element of the strictest, science-based crop authorisation procedure in the world. This study is just a small part of what is a comprehensive and highly complex scrutiny process. “Over the past 25 years, the European Commission has funded more than 130 research projects involving 500 independent research groups which have found no higher risks to the environment or food chain from GM crops than from conventional plants and organisms. "Furthermore, nearly three trillion meals containing GM ingredients have been eaten without a single substantiated case of ill-health. The combination of these two facts can give consumers a huge amount of confidence in the safety of GM crops.”

The Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs said the viral gene in the research occurs naturally and will be present in non-GM food.

A spokesman said: “The world’s population is growing which means people will need more food and there will be a greater demand for water, energy and land.

“GM is one of the tools in the box that could help us tackle these challenges. But our top priority is safeguarding human health and the environment so any decisions on GM would have to be based on rigorous scientific evidence.”

The European Food Safety Authority has highlighted that the data published in the paper do not represent a new discovery of a viral gene and nor do they indicate safety concerns surrounding previously evaluated GM crops.

GM woes: no water, no birds, no butterflies, and we’re coughing at harvest time

Farm Wars
by Cindy, Coldwater Michigan, USA

A farmer with land near us next to Silver Lake in southern Michigan (Branch County) dug a deep well two years ago about 600 feet from the lake shore. He did it in the dead of winter, going through snow and frozen ground after the summer crowd left for the season. When everyone returned in the spring, we and some of our neighbours found that our water pipes often sucked air. The farmer used immense irrigation systems the whole summer on his GM crops. Another GM farmer near a pond that our friend owns a few miles away in the same county also drilled a well to irrigate his fields and the pond went dry.

The first farmer started planting GM crops about 3 or 4 years ago. We knew he did it because he put out signs indicating that they were GM when he planted his corn that year. Then in the fall, when he began to harvest, he actually flew a skull-and-crossbones flag on his combine and harvester! My husband and I started coughing, and we coughed our way through his harvest, as we do every fall now, and getting worse every year.

The other thing that’s happened is that we have almost no birds here anymore. I have bird feeders out, for both songbirds and hummingbirds. For years I’ve enjoyed a wide variety of birds outside my window. But sadly, this year I never once had to replenish my bag of feed. The birds are gone. So are the butterflies. I saw zero butterflies this summer, and there were hardly any bees.

The bees used to battle the hummingbirds for food, but the two lonely hummingbirds that visited our feeder this year had very little competition from the handful of bees that came around. I used to enjoy flocks of hummingbirds, but this year my hummingbird feeder actually went sour before I had to change it. The wild deer are gone too. In other parts of our country, people are blaming the drought for low bird populations. But we’re sitting on a lake.

There’s plenty of water here. And there are no birds. Again, the only thing that’s changed is we’re surrounded by GM fields.

Frankenscientists announce mutant GMO cows to produce hormone-induced 'engineered' milk for human babies

Natural News

The world of genetic engineering has fallen even further into the surreal with the announcement that New Zealand "scientists" have unveiled a genetically modified mutant cloned cow which they say produces a reduced-allergen milk for consumption by human babies. This is being reported by the BBC and elsewhere.

Horrifyingly, these Frankenscientists cloned a cow and then altered the embryo using RNA interference. After gestation, the mutant GMO cow was born without a tail! But these scientists say that's no problem, and that the mutation of having no tail couldn't possibly be related to anything they did with the cow's DNA.

I'm not making this up. This is the insanity of the quack science world in which we now live.

Milk causes allergies primarily because of pasteurization

The entire project is a fool's errand to begin with since the reason most humans are allergic to cow's milk is because of pasteurization which destroys lactase enzymes. RAW MILK is far easier to digest, but of course raw milk has been all but criminalized in America, where the FDA along with Ventura County and LA County in California actually stage armed raids on raw milk distribution centers and throw people in jail. James Stewart, for example, remains in jail this very day for the "crime" of being involved in raw milk. Sign the petition HERE to demand freedom for James.

So while criminalizing fresh milk and pushing an inferior, dead, pasteurized milk that causes allergies in those who drink it, the corrupt food system in America is almost certain to embrace mutant genetically modified cloned cow's milk and call it "safe" for infants!

Never mind the fact that the genetically altered milk produced by this cow had "double the concentrations of caseins," as The Guardian is reporting.

Oh, and by the way, the milk being produced by this mutant, cloned, tail-less GMO cow is of course 100% driven by artificial hormones! As the BBC reports:

"It has not yet become pregnant and produced milk normally so the scientists used hormones to jump-start milk production."

How to make a mutant GM cow and tell your friends you're a mad scientist

This story gets even more disturbing. Take a look at how this cow was produced! According to The Guardian:

To make Daisy [the cow], scientists took a cow skin cell and genetically modified it to produce molecules that block the manufacture of BLG protein. The nucleus of this cell was then transferred into a cow egg that had its own nucleus removed.

The reconstituted egg was grown in the lab until it formed what is called a blastocyst, a ball of around 100 cells, and then transplanted into the womb of a foster cow.

The cloning technique is not efficient. Of around 100 blastocysts the scientists implanted into cows, more than half of the pregnancies failed early on, and only one live calf, Daisy, was born.

And even that calf was a mutant calf, born without a tail, rendering the whole thing a horrifying example of genetic mutilation.

STOP the genetic mutilation of animals and humans

These outrageous experiments on animals are rightly called "genetic mutilation." These animals are being mutilated. Ninety-nine percent of them DIE before they're even born, and the ones that somehow manage to be born are mutants.

This research is a dangerous journey into the horrors of "unanticipated consequences." And to think... these Frankenscientists want human babies to drink this milk! It must be great for babies!

So let me get this straight: It's illegal in America to milk a cow, sell that fresh milk to a neighbor and have their baby drink fresh milk with all the digestive enzymes intact. But it's perfectly acceptable in our world to engineer mutant cloned genetically modified cows to produce hormone-induced, artificially-engineered milk that will be fed en masse to human babies?

What's wrong with this picture?

Humanity is risking a genetic apocalypse

This has got to stop, friends. The mad GMO scientists are operating in gross violation of natural law. They are playing genetic roulette with Mother Nature. They're fumbling in the dark with dangerous tools, like children with suitcase nukes and a happy red button that seems inviting to just push and see what happens.

Our modern-day human civilization has neither the ethical foundation nor the wisdom to pursue such technologies. Altering the digital code for the expression of life is not something to be pursued under the crude selfishness of corporate greed, nor the wild fantasies of naive scientists who relish in playing "what if" experiments with all remaining life on our planet.

These experiments on animals -- and crops -- are worse than foolish. They are inherently evil... even demented. Just because we know how to alter DNA doesn't mean we have the wisdom to understand the consequences of doing so. Yet in the race for the next biological profit machine -- a cow, a crop, or even a pharmaceutical -- caution is thrown out the window and replaced by pure mindless greed.

With the GM crops, the GM wheat that alters human liver function, the GM corn that causes cancer tumors, the GM cows and the GM seeds being carelessly strewn about, we are risking a genetic apocalypse that could destroy humanity in a cosmic blink of an eye.

No one knows what happens when the genetic engineering of mutant chimera animals get unleashed across the land. Nobody really knows the long-term effects of genetic pollution. Nobody even knows the long-term effects of humans eating GM crops!

So it's all a grand, malicious, conceited genetic experiment being carried out on us all: our bodies, our children, our lands, our animals, our crops and our planet.

The GM "scientists" are risking EVERYTHING. And they do so blindly, while mutilating animals and calling it "progress."

It is disgusting. It is an abomination. I pray for the sake of humanity that all genetic engineering activity in our planet is halted by any means necessary.

We are floating through space, my friends, on a blue ball of water inhabited by fools who call themselves "scientists."

They risk everything. And there is no backup plan.

Related: GM cow heralds allergy-free milk

ANALYSIS: Are we being told the full truth about GM mosquitoes?

The Ecologist
by Helen Wallace

Promotion of GM mosquitoes as a way to tackle a tropical disease is simply part of a PR strategy intended to pave the way to a new global business selling GM agricultural pests, says Helen Wallace

In November 2010, Oxford University spin-out company Oxitec announced it had released 3 million genetically modified (GM) male mosquitoes in the Cayman Islands. Shock and surprise was muted by enthusiastic press coverage of its claims to have reduced the wild population of the Aedes aegypti species of mosquitoes by 80 per cent. This is one of two species of mosquito that can transmit the tropical disease dengue fever. In January 2011, the company submitted its results to the journal Science. This week – two years after completing the experiments – the findings have finally been published as Correspondence to the Editor of journal Nature Biotechnology.

Oxitec reports several different estimates of the temporary reduction in the wild population of mosquitoes, ranging from 60 per cent to 85 per cent. There is no baseline data on mosquito populations at the site. At different times, Oxitec moved mosquito traps from one location to another and changed the size of the release site. It is unstandable then that a succession of peer reviewers have rejected its results.

To achieve the claimed effect, Oxitec had to significantly increase the number of adult GM mosquitoes it released each week and focus on a 500m by 200m area where it added GM pupae at locations spaced 70 to 90m apart. The release ratio of 25 GM mosquitoes to one wild one means that adult GM males are very inefficient at finding and mating with wild females. Preliminary unpublished results from Brazil are even worse: a release ratio of 54 was needed. The well-established public health approach of removing the flower pots and water containers where mosquitoes breed is likely to be more effective and has the added benefit of reducing both mosquito species that spread dengue, not just one of them.

Ethical standards in the paper are as poor as scientific ones. Oxitec failed to send the required risk assessment which meets European standards to the EU and UK authorities before exporting GM mosquito eggs to the Cayman Islands. Informed consent is not possible without a published risk assessment, which did not exist. Scientists, as well as environmental groups, have criticised the company for conducting its first experiments in a British Overseas territory which has no biosafety law, and for not meeting these legal and ethical requirements.

Oxitec’s GM mosquitoes are not “sterile”: they mate with wild mosquitoes and produce offspring which survive to the late larval or pupal stage. Some 3-4 per cent of these survive to adulthood and this can rise to 15% in the presence of the common antibiotic tetracycline: information which Oxitec tried to conceal from public scrutiny. When Oxitec was forced to release a risk assessment, following the trials, scientists from the Max Planck Institute published a critique arguing that the risk of releasing GM biting females, and the survival of GM mosquito offspring, should have been properly considered.

It is hard to justify planned commercial releases based on these results. Poorly effective approaches to reducing mosquito populations can actually increase the risk of the more severe form of dengue in dengue-endemic countries (such as Brazil), due to the loss of cross-immunity to different dengue virus serotypes. Other risks include a possible increase in the numbers of the Asian Tiger mosquito, which also transmits dengue; and increases in the number of surviving GM mosquitoes over time.

Back in 2010, Oxitec’s exaggerated claims that it had a GM solution to the dengue virus were widely reported despite no published results. A Nature News blog even stated that the company had wiped-out the disease although dengue is not endemic in the Cayman Islands and no tests have ever been conducted of the impacts on the illness. The effect of suppressing mosquito populations on the incidence of dengue is poorly understood and may be very limited. Plans to scale-up releases of GM mosquitoes in Brazil to 2.5 million a week may still go ahead regardless, following a 2007 agreement between the Brazilian and UK governments. UK Trade and Investment is targeting developing countries as potential markets to help Oxitec commercialise its patents, and helping Brazil to secure venture capital investment. Experiments are also planned in Florida and Panama.

Oxitec’s funders include the multinational pesticide and GM seed company Syngenta. Most of its management team and consultants are ex-Syngenta staff. Promotion of GM mosquitoes as a way to tackle a tropical disease is part of a PR strategy intended to pave the way to a new global business selling GM agricultural pests. GM olive flies, tomato borers, diamond back moths (which eat cabbages and broccoli), fruit flies and pink bollworms (cotton pests) will be just the start. Other ideas for the future include GM pesticide-resistant bees.

Oxitec’s GM insects could soon end up in your food. The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA)’s new Guidance on risk assessments for GM animals could be adopted as early as December, opening the door for large-scale commercial releases of GM insects in the EU. Oxitec has indicated that it wishes dead and surviving GM larvae, pupae and adult insects on food crops to be treated as “technically unavoidable”: allowing them to enter the food chain without any labelling. If used commercially, many GM pests will die as larvae inside olives and tomatoes, as well as on the outside of some other crops. Ecosystem impacts are poorly understood and surviving GM pests could spread across national borders and into sensitive environments and organic crops.

Concerned individuals should - urgently - be thinking about contacting their MPs and MEPs and writing to supermarkets to ask them not to stock such products.

Gates Foundation Gives $10 Million to Support Genetically Modified Cereal Crops

Natural Society
by Lisa Garber

British scientists at the John Innes Center recently won a $10 million grant from the Gates Foundation. Where’s the money going? Not surprisingly, as Gates owns over 500,000 shares of Monsanto stock, the organization is putting even more money into genetically modified cereal crops (corn, wheat and rice, to name a few).

The pledge seems righteous at face value to some, but what the Gates Foundation failed to mention is that countries like Hungary, France, India, and Poland have battled GMOs because not only do GM seeds and pesticides decrease yields over time, but GM is bad news for farmers and consumers everywhere. Putting farmers in Africa in the pockets of the likes of Monsanto and other GM companies will only lead to crop monoculture, soil depletion, water contamination, pesticide-resistant insects, and a powerless local population of sick and impoverished farmers.

And this should be of no surprise to Bill Gates, who has openly stated that Monsanto’s GMOs are the ultimate ‘solution’ to world hunger yet continues to ignore the bounty of evidence showing that they do just the opposite — crushing soil yields and impoverishing local farmers.

Perhaps even more devastating is the rising suicide toll associated with the use of Monsanto’s seeds, with a farmer committing suicide every 30 minutes thanks in part due to GMO seeds.

Gates Foundation Ignores Fact that “GM is Failing to Deliver”

The John Innes Center’s aims include engineering crops capable of harnessing nitrogen from the air. Peas and beans do this naturally, but cereal crops—as raised by conventional farmers—require chemical ammonia spread upon the field.

Opponents of GM like Pete Riley, campaign director of GM Freeze, decry that “GM is failing to deliver.” He adds, “If you look in America, yields haven’t increased by any significant amount and often go down. Now we’re seeing real, major problems for farmers in terms of weeds that are resistant to the herbicides which GM crops have been modified to tolerate.”

This is old news to farmers in north India, where earlier this year the Maharashtra state government demanded compensation from a German seed company when unsatisfactory yields of their cotton hybrids disadvantaged small farmers.

“Productivity in north India is likely to decline because of the declining potential of hybrids; the emerging problem of leaf curl virus on the new susceptible Bt-hybrids; a high level of susceptibility to sucking pests,” said Keshav Raj Kranthi, head of the Central Institute for Cotton Research. In a paper published in June 2011, Kranthi added that GM crops consume more water and nutrients, depleting the soil and requiring farmers to purchase more fertilizers (putting more money in the hands of the likes of Monsanto).

The High Cost of GM

If the earth suffers, people suffer. In February, a court in Lyon, France railed against GMOs by finding Monsanto guilty of failing to put warning labels on Lasso weedkillers, the use of which caused neurological damage like memory loss and headaches. Dangers of GM end up literally on our—the consumers’—plates; consumption of GM crops has been linked to weight gain and organ disruption.

More courts across the world are fighting genetically modified food, but one wonders how much of an effect they will have in the face of behemoth agribusinesses.

Genetically Modified Grass Kills Cattle by Producing Warfare Chemical Cyanide

Nation of Change
by Anthony Gucciardi

Another report of genetically modified creations taking the lives of livestock has hit the media, and this time genetically modified grass has been identified as the culprit according to CBS News. Shockingly (and quite disturbingly), the GM grass actually produced toxic cyanide and sent the cattle into a life-ending fit that included painful bellowing and convulsions. The deaths have led to a federal investigation centered in Central Texas, where the cattle had resided.

Just east of Austin, the cows lived on an 80-acre ranch owned by Jerry Abel. Abel says that the fields were used for over 15 years for cattle grazing and hay, and that the genetically modified grass was ‘tested’ previously and should have been ‘perfect’. The GM grass however, known as Tifton 85, appears have been producing toxic cyanide. Used as a genocidal agent in World War 2 by the Germans and considered to be an extremely dangerous substance internationally, it is extremely concerning that cyanide is now being produced by once harmless grass thanks to the modification process.

The 18 cattle went off to enjoy some ‘fresh’ new genetically modified grass, when Abel says they went into a fit of convulsions and shrieks. He explains:

“When our trainer first heard the bellowing, he thought our pregnant heifer may be having a calf or something,” said Abel. “But when he got down here, virtually all of the steers and heifers were on the ground. Some were already dead, and the others were already in convulsions.”

Within 15 hours of this incident, all of the cattle had died as a result of the grass ‘suddenly’ producing cyanide and therefore throwing them into a lethal fit. According to USDA scientists, it may be the result of a mutation — the same kind of mutation that has been seen in many of Monsanto’s Roundup-Ready crops.

What’s more is the fact that many other farmers are now testing their grounds and also finding the presence of cyanide. While there is not yet a large number of reports concerning cattle deaths from cyanide, it was recently revealed that one large biotech company Syngenta had been covering up further animal deaths from genetically modified corn.

Monsanto-Funded Science Denies Emerging Roundup-Cancer Link

GreenMedInfo
by Sayer Ji

Monsanto-funded research has been proliferating as uncontrollably as their genetically modified (GM) plants, and the bugs increasingly resistant to them.

Two studies have appeared in scientific journals in the past eight months, both funded by Monsanto, and both discrediting a Roundup herbicide-cancer link.

The context within which these new studies are appearing is the growing body of experimental research indicating that the active ingredient in Roundup, glyphosate, along with the surfactants and related "inactive" ingredients found within glyphosate-based formulations, cause genetic damage associated with cancer initiation, and at levels far below those used agricultural applications and associated with real-world exposures.

This has put manufacturers and proponents of glyphosate, as well as "Roundup Ready" GM plants in a vulnerable position.

If, the precautionary principle is employed and a much-needed reclassification of glyphosate as a class III carcinogen to a class II or I occurs, the increasingly global dominance of GM-based food crop systems will come to a screeching, regulation-induced halt.

So, given the threat posed by non-industry funded research on glyphosate’s toxicity, Monsanto has been putting money into research and development -- but not in the reputable sense of the phrase -- bypaying for research to develop the storyline that, despite damning research to contrary, Roundup is still safe.

The newest study, published in the journal Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology titled, "Epidemiologic studies on glyphosate and cancer: A review," declared its glaring conflict of interest in the following manner:

Conflict of Interest Statement
The authors have disclosed the funding source for this research. JSM [study author] has served has a paid consultant to Monsanto Company. Final decisions regarding the content of the manuscript were made solely by the four authors.
Acknowledgment
This research was supported by the Monsanto Company, St. Louis, Missouri

Even if no such a conflict was explicitly declared, industry-funded research is almost exclusively positive, minimizing or denying harms to exposed populations associated with the products they are evaluating.

A salient example is the recent summary of 176 studies by Baker[viii] which found that published research looking into the impact of Bisphenol A on human health resulted in exclusively pro-industry findings:

Funding Harm No Harm Industry 0 13 (100%) Independent (e.g. government) 152 (86%) 11 (14%) Adding to the problem, the editorial boards of some of the journals within which the questionable science is printed are populated by paid consultants of the very industries they publish ostensibly impartial research on.

For example, the editor of the journal Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology withinwhich latest Monsanto-funded glyphosate-cancer review was published, Gio Batta Gori, is notorious for being a tobacco industry consultant and for publishing junk science in his journal, which has been called: "A Scientific Journal with Industrial Bias as Its Specialty."

His journal published research in 2003, provided by the same company, Exponent, which employs three of the researchers who authored the latest glyphosate-cancer study, as well as one author on the 2011 glyphosate-cancer study, on the purported non-carcinogenicity of dioxin, a highly toxic ingredient in Agent Orange.

Given these obvious conflicts of interest, from the bottom up and the top down, the time has come for people to enact reform with their dollars and their forks, and when worthwhile ballot initiatives emerge, their votes.

#1: Stop buying anything not explicitly labeled non-GMO or certified organic, which amounts to the same assurance.

#2: Grow it yourself, or support local organic growers.

#3: Support the California Ballot Initiative to label GMOs.

Busted: Biotech Leader ‘Syngenta’ Charged Over Covering Up Animal Deaths from GM Corn

Natural Society

In a riveting victory against genetically modified creations, a major biotech company known as Syngenta has been criminally charged for denying knowledge that its GM Bt corn actually kills livestock. What’s more is not only did the company deny this fact, but they did so in a civil court case that ended back in 2007. The charges were finally issued after a long legal struggle against the mega corp initiated by a German farmer named Gottfried Gloeckner whose dairy cattle died after eating the Bt toxin and coming down with a ‘mysterious’ illness.

Grown on his own farm from 1997 to 2002, the cows on the farm were all being fed exclusively on Syngenta’s Bt 176 corn by the year 2000. It was around this time that the mysterious illnesses began to emerge among the cattle population. Syngenta paid Gloeckner 40,000 euros in an effort to silence the farmer, however a civil lawsuit was brought upon the company. Amazingly, 2 cows ate genetically modified maize (now banned in Poland over serious concerns) and died. During the civil lawsuit, however, Syngenta refused to admit that its GM corn was responsible. In fact, they went as far as to claim having no knowledge whatsoever of harm.

The case was dismissed and Gloeckner, the farmer who launched the suit, was left thousands of euros in debt. And that’s not all; Gloeckner continued to lose many cows as a result of Syngenta’s modified Bt corn. After halting the use of GM feed in 2002, Gloeckner attempted a full investigation with the Robert Koch Institute and Syngenta involved. The data of this investigation is still unavailable to the public, and only examined one cow. In 2009, however, the Gloeckner teamed up with a German action group known as Bündnis Aktion Gen-Klage and to ultimately bring Syngenta to the criminal court.

Using the testimony of another farmer whose cows died after eating Syngenta product, Gloeckner and the team have charged the biotech giant for the death of over 65 cows, withholding knowledge of the death-link, and holding the corporation liable for not registering the cattle deaths. The team is even charging Hans-Theo Jahmann, the German head of Syngenta , personally over the withholding of knowledge.

The charges bring to light just how far large biotechnology companies will go to conceal evidence linking their genetically modified products to serious harm. Monsanto, for example, has even threatened to sue the entire state of Vermont if they attempt to label its genetically modified ingredients. Why are they so afraid of the consumer knowing what they are putting in their mouths?

Monsanto Buys Whole Foods: Fact or Rumor?

Natural Society

Since early 2011, there has been a lot of information circulating regarding Monsanto’s purported purchasing of the natural health food store known as Whole Foods; topics like ‘Monsanto buys whole foods‘ and others quickly became hot search terms. Interestingly enough, Monsanto was also rumored to have bought Blackwater (Xe), a private military company. While it is understandable that Monsanto would buy or at least work with Blackwater (as they are both in the same corrupt business), who would believe that Monsanto could scoop up Whole Foods? In actuality, the biotechnology giant did not buy Blackwater, and did not buy Whole Foods. Here are the details.

Monsanto Buys Whole Foods?
It all started in early 2011, when the USDA finally made the decision to deregulate genetically modified alfalfa without restrictions – a decision which caused many individuals, companies, and farmers to become very upset. Before the decision was made, the USDA was considering two options which they would present to the industry: to fully deregulate the alfalfa or to deregulate it with restrictions. Unfortunately, there was no option presented to the industry by the USDA for an outright ban on GM alfalfa, so Whole Foods went with the better option available.

“Whole Foods Market advocated strongly for deregulation with restrictions to preserve the ability of non-GE and organic growers to avoid contamination. It seemed that the USDA was finally recognizing that cross-contamination of GE alfalfa could potentially impact organic and non-GE farmers and consumers, both domestically and for our export markets…Unfortunately, the USDA’s decision fell far short of this mark, and we believe that unrestricted planting of GE alfalfa without setting any clear coexistence framework, with thresholds for contamination and providing for ongoing testing and verification, is irresponsible,” states a post on the Whole Foods website.

“Many people have asked us why we endorsed the coexistence option rather than an outright ban on GE alfalfa. That was never an option in Washington!..the option of an outright ban was not on the table,” the post on the Whole Foods website said. “Whole Foods Market — along with the National Cooperative Grocers Association, the National Organic Coalition, the Organic Trade Association, and other companies and groups — endorsed the path of deregulation with restrictions, or coexistence, not because it was a perfect path, but because it was a path to create meaningful change right now in the regulating of genetically engineered foods and the protection of non-GE foods. “

Since Whole Foods supported the USDA’s approach of coexistence, some consumer groups said the company started supporting GM foods, but along with the ‘Monsanto buys Whole Foods’ rumors, this also wasn’t true. The Organic Consumer Association’s (OCA) released a rather misleading article titled “Whole Foods Caves to Monsanto” in 2011, which was the start of ‘Monsanto buys Whole Foods’ rumors.

“No! What crazy talk! We’ve never had any affiliation with that company. We are publicly traded; our majority shareholders are listed in documents filed with the SEC and, I promise, Monsanto is not on the list and never has been…You see, Whole Foods Market and others in the organic food industry met with the US Secretary of Agriculture in support of farmers’ rights to grow Non-GMO crops. Because we did not take the exact hard-line stance that the OCA did, they accused us of ‘being in bed with Monsanto’” said a Whole Foods employee.