HARMFUL FOODS Menubar
GMO Foods - Detrimental to immune and reproductive systems
Overwhelming Evidence against Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) in food
Overwhelming GMO evidence / cover-ups
•Concerned Scientists -Willing to
put their careers on the line
•Companies Prevent Studies on Their GM Crops
•GMO
Contamination: Don't Ask and Definitely Don't Tell
•Science and Debate is Silenced
•About the author
The following is an article by Jeffrey Smith, renowned author and a
knowledgeable resource on GMOs:
This supermarket "Health Food" killed these
baby rats in 3 weeks
Litter from female rat fed GM soy flour(bottom) compared with control
(from Dr. Erina Ermakova)
(willing to put their careers on the line by speaking out)
Arpad Pusztai
Biologist Arpad Pusztai had more than 300 articles and 12 books to his credit
and was the world's top expert in his field.
But when he accidentally discovered that genetically modified (GM) foods are
dangerous, he became the biotech industry's bad-boy poster child, setting an
example for other scientists thinking about blowing the whistle.
In the early 1990s, Dr. Pusztai was awarded a $3 million grant by the UK
government to design the system for safety testing genetically modified
organisms (GMOs). His team included more than 20 scientists working at three
facilities, including the Rowett Institute in Aberdeen, Scotland, the top
nutritional research lab in the UK, and his employer for the previous 35 years.
The results of Pusztai's work were supposed to become the required testing
protocols for all of Europe. But when he fed supposedly harmless GM potatoes to
rats, things didn't go as planned.
Within just 10 days, the animals developed potentially pre-cancerous cell
growth, smaller brains, livers, and testicles, partially atrophied livers, and
damaged immune systems. Moreover, the cause was almost certainly side effects
from theprocessof
genetic engineering itself. In other words, the GM foods on the market, which
are created from the same process, might have similar affects on humans.
With permission from his director, Pusztai was interviewed on TV and expressed
his concerns about GM foods. He became a hero at his institute -- for two days.
Then came the phone calls from the pro-GMO prime minister's office to the
institute's director. The next morning, Pusztai was fired. He was silenced with
threats of a lawsuit, his team was dismantled, and the protocols never
implemented. His Institute, the biotech industry, and the UK government,
together launched a smear campaign to destroy Pusztai's reputation.
Eventually, an invitation to speak before Parliament lifted his gag order and
his research was published in the prestigiousLancet.
Irina Ermakova
Irina Ermakova, a senior scientist at the Russian National Academy of Sciences,
was shocked to discover that more than half of the baby rats in her experiment died within three
weeks
Dr. Ermakova reported her preliminary findings at a conference in October 2005,
asking the scientific community to replicate her study. Instead, she was
attacked and vilified. Her boss told her to stop doing anymore GM food research.
Samples were stolen from her lab, and a paper was even set fire on her desk. One
of her colleagues tried to comfort her by saying, "Maybe the GM soy will solve
the overpopulation problem."
Of the mostly spurious criticisms leveled at Ermakova, one was significant
enough to raise doubts about the cause of the deaths. She did not conduct a
biochemical analysis of the feed. Without it, we don't know if some rogue toxin
had contaminated the soy flour. But more recent events suggest that whatever
caused the high infant mortality was not unique to her one bag of GM flour.
In November 2005, the supplier of rat food to the laboratory where Ermakova
worked began using GM soy in the formulation.Allthe rats were now eating it. After two
months, Ermakova asked other scientists about the infant mortality rate intheirexperiments. It had
skyrocketed to over 55 percent.
It's been four years since these findings were reported. No one has yet repeated
Ermakova's study, even though it would cost just a few thousand dollars.
Andres Carrasco
Embryologist Andrés Carrasco told a leading Buenos Airesnewspaper about the results of
his research into Roundup, the herbicide sold in conjunction with Monsanto's
genetically engineered Roundup Ready crops.
Dr. Carrasco, who works in Argentina's Ministry of Science, said his studies of
amphibians suggest that the herbicide could cause defects in the brain,
intestines, and hearts of fetuses. Moreover, the amount of Roundup used on GM
soy fields was as much as 1,500 times greater than that which created the
defects.
Tragically, his research had been inspired by the experience of desperate
peasant and indigenous communities who were suffering from exposure to toxic
herbicides used on the GM soy fields throughout Argentina.
According to an article inGrain ,
Argentina's Association of Environmental Lawyers filed a petition calling for a
ban on Roundup, and the Ministry of Defense banned GM soy from its fields.
Judy Carman
Epidemiologist Judy Carman used to investigate outbreaks of disease for a state
government in Australia. She knows that health
problems associated with GM foods might be impossible to track or take decades
to discover. Moreover, the superficial, short-term animal feeding studies
usually do not evaluate "biochemistry, immunology, tissue pathology, gut
function, liver function, and kidney function"and are too short to test for
cancer or reproductive or child health.
Dr. Carman has critiqued the GMO approval process on behalf of the Public Health
Association of Australia and speaks openly about her concerns. As a result, she
is repeatedly attacked. Pro-GM scientists threatened disciplinary action through
her Vice-Chancellor, and circulated a defamatory letter to government and
university officials.
Carman was awarded a grant by the Western Australiagovernment to conduct some
of the few long-term animal feeding studies on GMOs. Apparently concerned about
what she might find, GMO advocates wrote letters to the government demanding
that the grant be withdrawn. One scientist tried to convince the Western
Australia Agriculture minister that sufficient safety research had been
conducted and he should therefore cancel the grant.
As his evidence, however, he presented a report summarizing only 60 GMO animal
feeding studies -- an infinitesimal amount of research to justify exposing the
entire population to GM foods.
A closer investigation, however, revealed that most of the 60 were not safety
studies at all. They were production studies, measuring, for example, the
animals'carcass weight. Only 9 contained data applicable to human health. And 6
of the 9 showed adverse effects in animals that ate GM feed!
Furthermore, there were several other studies with adverse findings that were
mysteriously missing from the compilation. Carman points out that the report
"does not support claims that GM crops are safe to eat. On the contrary, it
provides evidence that GM crops may be harmful to health."
When the Western Government refused to withdraw the grant, opponents
successfully interfered with Carman's relationship with the university where she
was to do the research.
Terje Traavik
Prominent virologist Terje Traavik presented preliminary data at a February 2004
meeting at the UN Biosafety Protocol Conference, showing that:
1. Filipinos living next to a GM cornfield developed
serious symptoms while the corn was pollinating;
2. Genetic material inserted into GM crops
transferred to rat organs after a single meal; and
3. Key safety assumptions about genetically
engineered viruses were overturned, calling into question the safety of using
these viruses in vaccines.
The biotech industry mercilessly attacked Dr. Traavik. Their excuse? -- he
presented unpublished work. But presenting preliminary data at professional
conferences is a long tradition in science, something that the biotech industry
itself relied on in 1999 to try to counter the evidence that butterflies were
endangered by GM corn.
Ironically, three years after attacking Traavik, the same biotech proponents
sharply criticized a peer-reviewed publication forNOTciting
unpublished data that had been presented at a conference. The paper shows how
the runoff of GM Bt corn into streams can kill the "caddis fly,"which may
seriously upset marine ecosystems. The study set off a storm of attacks against
its author, ecologist Emma Rosi-Marshall, whichNature
When Ohio State University plant ecologist Allison Snow discovered problematic side effects in GM
sunflowers, Pioneer Hi-Bred International and Dow AgroSciences blocked further
research by withholding GM seeds and genes.
After Marc Lappé provide samples.
Research by a plant geneticist at a leading USuniversity
was also thwarted when two companies refused him GM corn. In fact, almost no
independent studies are conducted that might find problems. According to a
scathing opinion piece in an August 2009Scientific
American,
"Agritech companies have given themselves veto power over the work of
independent researchers ... Only studies that the seed companies have approved
ever see the light of a peer-reviewed journal."
A group of 24 corn insect scientists protested this restriction in a letter
submitted to the Environmental Protection Agency. They warned that the inability
to access GM seeds from biotech companies means there can be no truly
independent research on the critical questions. The scientists, of course,
withheld their identities for fear of reprisals from the companies.
Restricted access is not limited to the US. When a
Japanese scientist wanted to conduct animal feeding studies on the GM soybeans
under review in Japan,
both the government and the bean's maker DuPont refused to give him any samples.
Hungarian Professor Bela Darvas discovered that Monsanto's GM corn hurt
endangered species in his country. Monsanto immediately shut off his supplies.
Dr. Darvas later gave a speech on his preliminary findings and discovered that a
false and incriminating report about his research was circulating. He traced it
to a Monsanto public relations employee, who claimed it mysteriously appeared on
her desk -- so she faxed it out.
Turkish
Daily News ,
The unexpected transfer may have saved this Turkish scientist from an even worse
fate, had she discovered and reported contamination.
Ask Ignacio Chapela, a microbial ecologist from UC Berkeley. In 2001, he
discovered that the indigenous corn varieties in Mexico-- the
source of the world's genetic diversity for corn—had become contaminated through
cross pollination with GM varieties.
The government had a ban against GM corn to prevent just this possibility, but
apparently US corn imported for food had been
planted nonetheless.
Dr. Chapela submitted the finding to Nature,
When a traumatized Chapela still did not back down, the Underminister for
Agriculture later sent him a fax claiming that because of his scientific paper,
Chapela would be held personally responsible for all damages caused to
agriculture and to the economy in general.
The day Chapela's paper was published, Mary Murphy and Andura Smetacek began
posting messages to a biotechnology listserve called AgBioWorld, distributed to
more than 3,000 scientists. They falsely claimed that Chapela was biased, that
his paper had not been peer-reviewed, that Chapela was "first and foremost an
activist,"and his research was published in collusion with environmentalists.
Soon, hundreds of other messages appeared, repeating or embellishing the
accusations. The listserve launched a petition and besieged Nature with a worldwide campaign demanding retraction.
UC Berkeley also received letters from all over the world trying to convince
them not to grant Chapela tenure. He had overwhelming support by his college and
department, but the international biotech lobby was too much. Chapela's tenure
was denied. After he filed a lawsuit, the university eventually reversed its
decision.
When investigators later analyzed the email characteristics sent by agitators
Mary Murphy and Andura Smetacek, the two turned out not to be the average
citizens they claimed. According to the Guardian,
both were fabricated names used by a public relations firm that worked for
Monsanto. Some of Smetacek's emails also had the internet protocol address of
gatekeeper2.monsanto.com -- the server owned by Monsanto.
The attacks on scientists have taken its toll. According to Dr. Chapela, there
is a de facto ban on scientists "asking certain questions and finding certain
results."He says, "It's very hard for us to publish in this field. People are
scared."He told Nature
New Zealand Parliament member Sue Kedgley told a Royal Commission in 2001:
"Personally I have been contacted by telephone and e-mail by a number of
scientists who have serious concerns about aspects of the research that is
taking place ... and the increasingly close ties that are developing between
science and commerce, but who are convinced that if they express these fears
publicly ... or even if they asked the awkward and difficult questions, they
will be eased out of their institution."
University of Minnesota biologist Phil Regal testified before the same Commission, "I think the people
who boost genetic engineering are going to have to do a mea culpa and ask for
forgiveness, like the Pope did on the inquisition."Sue Kedgley has a different
idea. She recommends we "set up human clinical trials using volunteers of
genetically engineered scientists and their families, because I think they are
so convinced of the safety of the products that they are creating and I'm sure
they would very readily volunteer to become part of a human clinical trial."
To learn more about the health dangers of GMOs, and what you can do to help end
the genetic engineering of our food supply, visit
www.ResponsibleTechnology.org .
To learn how to choose healthier non-GMO brands, visit
www.NonGMOShoppingGuide.com .
International bestselling author and filmmaker
Jeffrey Smith is the leading spokesperson on the health dangers of genetically
modified (GM) foods. His first book, Seeds
of Deception ,
is the world's bestselling and #1 rated book on the topic. His second,Genetic
Roulette: The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Foods , provides overwhelming evidence that GMOs are unsafe and should never
have been introduced.
Mr. Smith is the executive director of the Institute
for Responsible Technology ,
whoseCampaign
for Healthier Eating in America is
designed to create the tipping point of consumer rejection of GMOs, forcing them
out of our food supply.
