When
was the last time you thought about how food was made, where it came
from, whether and if it was chemically treated? With the first ever
Non GMO Month around the corner, an awareness campaign launched by the
Non GMO Project,
perhaps now is a good time to pay attention. As you look at each food
item and its ingredients, consider these fundamental unanswered
questions concerning genetically modified (GM) foods — which are
most foods
that you eat today. Disturbingly, while we are force-fed “wholesome”
messages about the alleged benefits of GM foods, a decade and a half
after the first GM crops went commercial many of the same concerns
persist.
Read on and find out whether you want frankenfood to be your next meal.
1. Human Health Concerns
Many scientists, doctors and health advocates raise concerns about the unintended impact of
GMOs on human health.
Yes, because there is no independent research (and in fact, seed
companies’ agreements forbid the use of seeds for independent research),
nobody can say with any degree of certainty that GMOs are safe. And so
it is not surprising that there are
unresolved questions concerning the potential alteration in human genome, allergenicity of introduced genes and high toxin production in plants and
animals that may lead to long-term health effects.
What’s more is that certain GMOs may also have the potential to
further lower the effectiveness of antibiotics in the population.
Amflora, the GM potato, for example, that was recently approved in the
European Union for industrial uses, has a
gene for antibiotic resistance. Superbugs anyone?
While biotech supporters often argue that GM crops have been around
since at least 1996 and that people have been consuming GM foods or
foods with GM ingredients for a long time without alleged side-effects,
the argument is misleading. There are no specific tests designed to
analyze the long term safety of GM foods, little or no independent
research, and no post-marketing follow-up analysis.
Furthermore, from a policy standpoint, since the
safety assessment of GMOs
at the Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) has been based on the idea
of “substantial equivalence” such that “if a new food is found to be
substantially equivalent in composition and nutritional characteristics
to an existing food, it can be regarded as safe as the conventional
food,” FDA gives its stamp of approval. Interestingly this
substantial equivalence
determination is made by the biotech company and not FDA. Obviously this policy is
fraught with problems
and is a creature of politics and not science. Moreover, such policies
create the undeniable impression that government agencies charged with
regulating GMOs and ensuring public safety are pandering to industry
interests. (Read
here,
here and
here
to find out how government regulatory agencies suffer from the
revolving-door syndrome as industry insiders go back and forth between
leading industry jobs and government regulatory posts.)
If this makes you think that the fox is running the chicken coop, you would be correct. Just take a look at this
report from the Union of Concerned Scientists on the issue.
It is inappropriate, at best, for biotech companies to
prevent independent testing of its products, as they hide behind the
wall of intellectual property protection, and then go on to argue that
their products are safe. As the
Scientific American editorial noted,
“when scientists are prevented from examining the raw ingredients in
our nation’s food supply or from testing the plant material that covers a
large portion of the country’s agricultural land, the restrictions on
free inquiry become dangerous.”
It is the same merry-go-round with GM animals, whose approval is
within the jurisdiction of the FDA. The FDA relies on company data
to evaluate the safety of the GM animal. Even so, since the FDA does not
have an approval process designed specifically for GM animals, it
evaluates the GE animal under the process used for new veterinary drugs.
As demonstrated by recent submission for approval of GE salmon, what
that means is that
much of the data provided to the FDA to demonstrate the safety of the GM animal is considered a trade secret.
That’s not safety. That’s secrecy enshrouded in enigma, and tied tightly with a pink bow of pro-gmo policies.
2. Animal Health Concerns
Often less discussed is the impact of GMOs on animal health. While
we should be altruistically concerned about the well being of our fellow
creatures, the fact is that if they are impacted by GMOs, we are not
far behind.
Worker bee. Original by Makro Freak
Animals, especially insects who feed off GM crops, are our canaries in a coal mine. Take bees and the
colony collapse disorder.
Many scientists believe that while several causes may have contributed
to the massive bee die-offs of the last four years, at least one
contributing factor is the increased use of
pesticides.
If there is anything we learned since GM crops went commercial is that
pesticides and GMOs go hand-in-hand.
In fact, recent research indicates that since GMOs were introduced, farmers applied 318 million
more pounds
of pesticides than compared to the amount of pesticide likely to have
been applied in the absence of GM seeds. Now, you’ve heard it before: if
bees become extinct then humankind has about four years left.
Oh, and by the way,
increased use of pesticides
and herbicides leads to superweeds, the weeds that are resistant to
those same pesticides we are told are “safer” (ahem, glyphosate, the
active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup line of pesticides). Such
superweeds
include the common ragweed, common water hemp, giant ragweed, hairy
fleabane, horseweed, Italian Ryegrass, Johnson grass, palmer amaranth
and rigid ryegrass.
This resistance to glyphosate, which is now ravaging the nation’s
South and Midwest, leads to the use of more toxic pesticides such as
paraquat and 2,4-D, one component of the Vietnam War defoliant, Agent
Orange. (See our discussion on GMOs leading to the use of more toxic
pesticides
here.)
In addition to impacting bees, GMOs may also be negatively impacting
other insects — insects that serve as food for larger animals or serve
other beneficial purposes in the ecosystem. For example, some
researchers point out that
the monarch butterflies are at risk and that more long term studies are needed. There is also
research
demonstrating that glyphosate adversely impacts the composition of soil
thereby causing adverse impact in nematoes (earthworms) and other
beneficial soil bacteria. Finally,
plants engineered to express toxic substances could present risks to other organisms, thus disrupting the natural food chain.
3. Environmental Concerns
Eucalyptus
In addition to the threats that GMOs may have on human and animal
health, there are also numerous pressing environmental concerns. The
list of potential problems highlighted by the
Union of Concerned Scientists is long and portentous. First, the engineered crops themselves could become weeds. For example,
some compared
the recently approved for trial planting of GE eucalyptus trees with
kudzu, a plant imported for purposes of preventing soil erosion but
which became a pest throughout the southern U.S. states.
Second, the crops might serve as conduits through which new genes move to wild plants, which could then become weeds.
Third, crops engineered to produce viruses could facilitate the creation of new, more virulent or more widely spread viruses.
Fourth, plants engineered to express potentially toxic substances
could present risks to other organisms like birds or deer thereby
potentially disrupting the ecosystem and, as such, have a negative
impact on the natural food chain.
Fifth, crops may initiate a perturbation that may have effects that
ripple through an ecosystem in ways that are difficult to predict.
Finally, the crops might threaten centers of crop diversity.
Similar alarm bells are ringing for GE animals. As examples, take this report from
Greenpeace concerning GE fish and a recent
Jill Richardson article discussing the “science” behind testing of GE salmon.
In addition, the
World Health Organization also noted
that concerns about GMOs impact on the environment include the
persistence of the gene after the GMO has been harvested as well as the
stability of the gene.
While GMO supporters argue that there have been no
major environmental catastrophes, the absence of something that we are
not looking for is not evidence of non-existence. As
authors of the Union of Concerned Scientists report
point out, “[o]ther than for insect resistance, there is no systematic
monitoring underway in the United States to detect adverse effects of
genetically modified crops. So much may be going on that we are simply
not aware of.”
4. Moral and Ethical Concerns
In addition to the practical and earthly concerns over the health and
ecological impacts of GMOs, there are also considerations of the higher
sorts. Since genetic modification, by its very essence, requires
manipulation of the genetic make-up of an organism, the very core of
its existence, some religious scholars question
whether scientifically altered crops and animals are unnatural
or threaten the natural order, whether genetic manipulation is
tantamount to playing God, whether it is a violation of the laws of
nature or tampering with nature. (See GMO Journal’s series of articles
regarding
religious perspectives on GMOs.)
In a some cases, GM manipulation involves using animal genes from
different species and, for example, if these were pig genes, consuming
derived foods may be prohibited by some religions. Vegetarians and
vegans would also want to avoid consuming foods containing genetic
material from animals.
Genetic modification of animals also raises animal welfare concerns because such mutation may result in animal suffering.
Even if you are told that GMOs are permitted under your religious or
philosophical point of view, you should still engage in some soul
searching to determine if
you believe that all is right with the world if GMOs are what you eat.
5. Socioeconomic Concerns
GM crops bring to the forefront issues of dominance, power and
control, both, domestically and abroad. As William F. Engdahl exposes
in his book “Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic
Manipulation”, “control the food and you control the people.”
Socioeconomic concerns stem in part from intellectual property
protection and the profit interest that flows from it. Fundamentally,
however, it is not simply the profit-driven perspectives of the biotech
industry that have so many civil society advocates concerned. Knowledge
that once belonged to everyone, a communal understanding of seeds,
crops, farming practices, and an appreciation for biodiversity is now
being gobbled up, privatized, patented, and sold to those same farmers
in licensed chunks.
As many farmers have
painfully discovered, using GM seeds comes with legal strings (and penalties) attached. Biotech companies require farmers to enter into
license agreements
in which farmers waive rights, including the right to save seeds.
These contracts also, among other things, “encourage” farmers to use
company specific pesticides. And thanks to the advocacy of the
United States State Department and the Office of the
U.S. Trade Representative, biotech
companies are exporting and imposing their idea of agricultural
practices to many impoverished parts of the world with great success.
No wonder many farmer advocates are concerned that such imposition of GM seeds is tantamount to corporate colonialism.
And while biotech companies want us to believe that GMOs will save
the world from hunger (it sure makes for a great PR message), in
reality, complex problems such as hunger and malnutrition will not be
solved with GMOs. Hunger has many contributing factors, as Jim Goodman
wrote in a
recent article,
such as natural disaster, discrimination, war, poor infrastructure and
ineffective or corrupt governments. Similarly, food shortages often have
little to do with lack of food and more to do with, as Francis Moore
Lappe’ put it, a lack of justice.
And, by the way, the best hope for ending hunger lies with local,
traditional, farmer-controlled agricultural production, not high tech
industrial agriculture.
So let’s dispense with the
faux humanitarianism and call spade a spade.
6. Labeling Concerns
Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise: Consumers want to know!
Just recently, an article appearing on The Daily Green reported on a
survey about American attitudes on GMOs. According to the survey by the
Pew Research Center for the People and the Press,
53% of Americans would not eat GM foods if given the choice, while 87%
believe GM foods should be labeled as such regardless.
Furthermore, broad public opposition to GMOs in the United States and abroad goes back many years.
Another survey by the Pew Global Attitudes Project, conducted in 2002,
reported that 55% of Americans considered GMOs bad. According to that
survey, the opposition to GMOs was far less wide-spread in the U.S. than
in Europe and Asia. Nearly nine-in-ten in France (89%) said it is bad
to scientifically alter fruits and vegetables. More than seven-in-ten
in Germany (81%), Japan (76%) and Italy (74%) also took a negative view
of scientifically altered produce.
At the same time, the
research fact sheet from the U.S. Department of Agriculture
is still citing a 1999 study that boldly proclaims that American
“consumers are quite positive regarding continued acceptance of
biotechnology.” The statistic would be different if those same
consumers had a better understanding about what was involved in the
process of genetic modification, what types of tests were conducted on
GE animals and crops to assess their safety, as well as the duration of
those tests, and the type of non-health related consequences that they
may be facing. (We’d also like to see what types of questions were
asked during that study and how the questions were worded.)
Mass media is also not free from blame for the lack of public debate
about labeling. Genetic modification is an obscure topic that is hard to
explain in a 30 second sound news byte. It is much easier to talk
about the alleged benefits of biotechnology in those 30 seconds —
feeding the world, sustainability, saving fish populations, making
hardier, drought resistant plants, lowering the costs of foods — than to
discuss the lack of progress on those lofty goals and the
adverse impacts of GMOs. It is also too convenient that the biotechs
purchase plenty of ad space and air time in many news media outlets.
Consumers not only want to know, they also deserve to know if their food contains GMOs or GM ingredients.
Note that the Food and Drug Administration does allow voluntary
labeling and some “No GMOs. No Bioengineered Ingredients.” labels have
started to appear on packaging.
Next time you shop, consider if you can avoid GMOs and use this Non-GMO
Shopping Guide (or the
iPhone version) to help you navigate the store isles. And remember, if you are what you eat, then aren’t you a GMO?
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