GMOs and human health

A natural genetic material that is modified by inserting a synthetic material produces a genetically modified organism (GMO). That is how GM crops are grown for food and feed, for fiber and for a range of pharmaceutical and industrial products in the latest offerings, if we don’t manage to stop it.

Some scientists claim that GM food is perfectly safe because the technology is so very precise and wonderful and the regulation the strictest in the world. The further claim that GM is good for biodiversity, increase yields, reduces pesticide use, and so on and so forth. All the claims have been proven false with the data collected by the US Department of Agriculture and by independent scientists.

The World Health Organization (WHO) in a report – Modern food biotechnology, human health and development: an evidence-based study – claims that although there may be potential risks involved in the use of GMOs, the GM crops that are grown today are not likely to present health risks.

There has been a string of incidents indicating GM food and feed are far from safe. These include studies carried out by biotech companies producing the GM crops, which they have kept secret under confidential business information.

Kidney and blood abnormalities in rats fed one of Monsanto’s GM maize in Monsanto’s secret dossier.

Villagers in the south of the Philippines suffered mysterious illnesses when another GM maize came into flowering in a nearby field two years in a row. Antibodies to the Bt protein inserted into the GM maize were found in the villagers.

A dozen cows that died after eating a third GM maize made by Syngenta, and others in the herd had to be slaughtered because of mysterious illnesses. Autopsies failed to be carried out which is why Greenpeace and farmers are demonstrating in front of the Robert Koch Institute.

Senior scientist Arpad Pusztai and colleages in Scotland found young rats fed with GM potatoes ended up with damage in every organ system – the most dramatic being an increase in thickness of the stomach lining to twice that in controls. Scientists in Egypt found similar effects in mice fed GM potatoes with another gene. The US Food and Drug Administration had data dating back to early 1990s that rats fed GM tomatoes had developed small holes in their stomachs.

In effect, different species of GM food and feed crops with different genes had adversely affected several species of animals. You don’t have to be scientific to see that there may something in the genetic engineering process itself that is harmful.