When you stop buying GM foods you are not only protecting your own health, you are literally saving the ecosystem of our planet and the destruction of our food supply!
. . .There is more than a casual association between GM foods and adverse health effects. There is causation. . ."
- The American Academy of Environmental Medicine (AAEM)
"When future historians come to write about our era they are not going to write about the tons of chemicals we did or didn't apply. When it comes to glyphosate (Round- Upâ„¢) they are going to write about our willingness to sacrifice our children and to jeopardize our very existence by risking the sustainability of our agriculture; all based upon failed promises and flawed science.
The only benefit is that it affects the bottom - line of a few companies. There's no nutritional value."
- Dr. Huber, an expert on GM toxicity in foods, who has taught plant pathology, soil microbiology, and micro- ecological interactions as they relate to plant disease as a Professor on staff at Purdue University for 35 years.
Link to an article by Jeffrey Smith, author of best- seller "Seeds of Deception", that tells of the overwhelming evidence discovered by scientists on the serious and irreversible harm ensuing from GMO's in our diet today, and let's you know the great lengths that companies go to in an effort to cover- up this evidence and discredit these brave whistle-blowing scientists:
Overwhelming evidence against GMOs
Genes are artificially inserted into the DNA of an organism, usually food crops or animals. Genetic Modification (GM) can be engineered using recombinant DNA technology, which combines DNA molecules from bacteria, viruses, insects, plants, animals, or even humans into one molecule to create a new set of genes.This DNA is then transferred into an organism. Transgenic organisms, in particular, have DNA inserted that originated in a different species (called horizontal gene transfer).
Commonly known by the trade name "Roundup" (produced by Monsanto), glyphosphate is the most widely used herbicide in the world. Contrary to the popular belief propagated by industry, glyphosate use has significantly increased with the use of GM crops. Data showed that glyphosphate use in the U.S. more than doubled from 2005 to 2010 (E.g. 57 million pounds of glyphosate applied to corn fields in 2010 compared to 23 million pounds in 2005 and 4.4 million in 2000). USDA. 2010. Agricultural Chemical Use Program. National Agricultural Statistics Service. / http://grist.org/article/usda- downplays- own- scientists- research- on- danger- of- roundup. This is a serious problem for more reasons than one:
"Glyphosate is very unique and was first patented as a chelator by Stauffer Chemical Co. in 1964, because it could bind with any positively charged ion. If you look at the essential minerals for plants, you see calcium, magnesium, potassium, copper, iron, manganese, zinc, and all of those other critical transition elements . . . they all have an ion associated with them. It's the micronutrient that is an ion - that is really critical for a particular enzyme function.
. . .You have to realize that this mode of action immobilizes a critical essential nutrient. Those nutrients aren't just required by the weed, but they're required by microorganisms. They're required by us for our own physiologic functions. So if it's immobilized, it may be present if we do a regular test, but it's not necessarily physiologically available in the same efficiency that it would have been if it wasn't chelated with glyphosate. . ."
Reports of glyphosate-resistant weeds, or "super weeds,"have been on the rise since GM crops started gaining momentum, and these weeds now total 15 species—up from 2 species in the 1990s. According to the British Institute of Science in Society, the US has fared the worst, now combatting 13 different glyphosate-resistant weed species in 73 different locations. E.g. Thousands of acres in the South have been abandoned to resistant strains of giant pigweed.
Insect resistant GM Plants produce their own Bt- toxins to kill bugs. GM corn and cotton are engineered to produce built-in pesticide Bt-toxin. This chemical is produced by Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt)bacteria in soil. When bugs bite the plant and consume the Bt- toxin, it kills them by splitting open their stomachs.
Pests have become more resistant. In the U.S., GM crop production actually increased pesticide use by more than 4% between 1996 and 2004, despite early signs that GM use might be tied to an overall decline.
Engineered GM Bt- toxin, touted as safe by biotech companies, is not safe:
Designed to be more toxic. Has properties of an allergen.
Washington State Department of Health, "Report of health surveillance activities: Asian gypsy moth control program," (Olympia, WA: Washington State Dept. of Health, 1993;
Green M et al., "Public health implications of the microbial pesticide Bacillus thuringiensis: An epidemiological study, Oregon, 1985- 86," Amer. J. Public Health 8;
Ashish Gupta et. al., "Impact of Bt Cotton on Farmers'Health (in Barwani and Dhar District of Madhya Pradesh)," Investigation Report, Oct- Dec 2005.
A combination of both herbicide tolerance and insect resistance
Increased yield GM plants are promoted by Monsanto as part of the global solution to impending food shortage crisis, although there are currently no GM crops available to increase yields.
GM modified plants supposed to increase yields but don't - New study shows that yield improvements have actually come as a result of improved farming practices and traditional plant breeding, not gene splicing, and concluding that modified crops won't help solve poverty, hunger, or climate change. Despite those findings, millions of farmers continue to plant genetically modified seeds.
Livestock producers and feed makers are pushing for this technology
2008 Report of 400 scientists approved by 50 countries casts serious doubt on GM crop role in addressing food security - and pointed to more effective alternatives.
There is a significant investment into research to develop GM crops that may be able to adapt to changing climate conditions like drought and extreme temperatures. E.g.one project called "Water Efficient Maize for Africa" to develop drought-tolerant corn. However, substantial technical obstacles are delaying this possibility.
America currently leads the world in GM crop acreage with 123 million. Followed by Argentina (42 million) and Brazil (23 million). Soybeans topped the list of GM crops worldwide at 60%, followed by maize (corn) at 24% and cotton 11%.
GM crops available commercially since 1996. GM planted acreage has been growing at annual double- digit rates. Small farmers in countries such as China, India, and Brazil are making more use of GMO plants that allow them to grow more crops while reducing pesticide use.
GM food crops grown by U.S. farmers include corn, cotton, soybeans, canola, squash, papaya, alfalfa, sugar beets. Other commercially available GM crops, such aspotatoes, and sweet corn, have yet to be widely adopted by farmers. Currently on the way is GM salmon, which will be the first approved non- crop GM food. As of 2011, close to 100% of the following crops and foods are genetically modifed:
Nearly 1/3 of the agricultural land in the U.S. is planted in gene-altered crops.
The U.S., Canada, and Argentina together grow 80% of all commercial biotech crops
Beet sugar has recently entered the market, rice is next - Iran is already using gene-altered rice and in China, scientists are developing a wide variety of modified crops. Rice comprises nearly half the total calories eaten by the human race.
More than half the fields in Argentina and Paraguay sown with GMO plants
With advocacy groups long pointing out the environmental risks of GMO crops.
Even if the U.S.D.A acts on the spread of GM crops in the U.S., it won't stop their proliferation in other nations. Almost 100 million acres of GM crops are planted in the U.S.. It is becoming increasingly difficult for non- GMO crops in the area to be truly "organic", as GM crops produce pollen that contaminates the organic crops as far as the winds, birds and bees will carry them.
GM seeds are patented. Monsanto's GM crop traits are found in more than 85% of global GM crop hectares, and the company controls 23% of the global proprietary seed market.
Cost of GM seed is sky-rocketing
After 30 years of GMO experimentation, the data shows:
No increase in yields. On the contrary GM soya has decreased yields by up to 20 percent compared with non- GM soya. Up to 100% failures of Bt cotton have been recorded in India. And studies by scientists from the USDA and the University of Georgia in 2008 found that growing GM cotton in the U.S. can result in a drop in income by up to 40%.
No reduction in pesticides use. On the contrary, USDA data shows that GM crops have increased pesticide use by 50 million pounds from 1996 to 2003 in the U.S., and the use of glyphosate went up more than 15-fold between 1994 and 2005, along with increases in other herbicides to cope with rising glyphosate resistant superweeds. Roundup is used in more than 80% of all GM crops planted in the world.
GM crops harm wildlife. As revealed by UK and U.S. studies. Roundup herbicide is lethal to frogs and toxic to human placental and embryonic cells.
Bt resistant pests and Roundup-tolerant superweeds render the two major GM crop traits useless. The evolution of Bt resistant bollworms worldwide have been confirmed and documented.
Epidemic of suicides in the cotton belt of India. According to the National Crime Records Bureau of India, more than 182,900 Indian farmers took their own lives between 1997 and 2007 as a result of failed GM crops. It estimated that 46 Indian farmers committed suicide every day!
Transgene contamination is completely unavoidable. As science has recently revealed that the genome (whether plant, animal or human) is NOT constant and static, which is the scientific base for genetic engineering of plants and animals. Instead, geneticists have discovered that the genome is remarkably dynamic and changeable, and constantly 'conversing'and adapting to the environment. This interaction determines which genes are turned on, when, where, by what and how much, and for how long. They've also found that the genetic material itself has the ability to be changed according to experience, passing it on to subsequent generations.
GM food and feed linked to deaths and sicknesses. Both in the fields in India and in lab tests around the world.
http://www.worldwatch.org/node/5950
www.ResponsibleTechnology.org - There you can also order additional guides to hand out to friends, health care practitioners, and decision makers within your community, along with free online videos, pod casts, and articles that you can repost and republish.
