Showing posts with label GM-Food. Show all posts
Showing posts with label GM-Food. Show all posts

Sunday, January 3, 2010

The Effects of Genetically Modified Foods on Animal Health

by Rady Ananda

In what is being described as the first ever and most comprehensive study of the effects of genetically modified foods on mammalian health, researchers have linked organ damage with consumption of Monsanto’s GM maize.

All three varieties of GM corn, Mon 810, Mon 863 and NK 603, were approved for consumption by US, European and several other national food safety authorities. Made public by European authorities in 2005, Monsanto’s confidential raw data of its 2002 feeding trials on rats that these researchers analyzed is the same data, ironically, that was used to approve them in different parts of the world.

The Committee of Research and Information on Genetic Engineering (CRIIGEN) and Universities of Caen and Rouen studied Monsanto’s 90-day feeding trials data of insecticide producing Mon 810, Mon 863 and Roundup® herbicide absorbing NK 603 varieties of GM maize.

The data “clearly underlines adverse impacts on kidneys and liver, the dietary detoxifying organs, as well as different levels of damages to heart, adrenal glands, spleen and haematopoietic system,” reported Gilles-Eric Séralini, a molecular biologist at the University of Caen.

Although different levels of adverse impact on vital organs were noticed between the three GMOs, the 2009 research shows specific effects associated with consumption of each GMO, differentiated by sex and dose.

Their December 2009 study appears in the International Journal of Biological Sciences(IJBS). This latest study conforms with a 2007 analysis by CRIIGEN on Mon 863, published inEnvironmental Contamination and Toxicology, using the same data.

Monsanto rejected the 2007 conclusions, stating:

“The analyses conducted by these authors are not consistent with what has been traditionally accepted for use by regulatory toxicologists for analysis of rat toxicology data.”

[Also see Doull J, Gaylor D, Greim HA, et al. “Report of an expert panel on the reanalysis by Séralini et al. (2007) of a 90-day study conducted by Monsanto in support of the safety of a genetically modified corn variety (MON 863).” Food Chem Toxicol. 2007; 45:2073-2085.]

Séralini explained that their study goes beyond Monsanto’s analysis by exploring the sex-differentiated health effects on mammals, which Doull, et al. ignored:

“Our study contradicts Monsanto conclusions because Monsanto systematically neglects significant health effects in mammals that are different in males and females eating GMOs, or not proportional to the dose. This is a very serious mistake, dramatic for public health. This is the major conclusion revealed by our work, the only careful reanalysis of Monsanto crude statistical data.” [communication to author]

Other problems with Monsanto’s conclusions

When testing for drug or pesticide safety, the standard protocol is to use three mammalian species. The subject studies only used rats, yet won GMO approval in more than a dozen nations.

Chronic problems are rarely discovered in 90 days; most often such tests run for up to two years. Tests “lasting longer than three months give more chances to reveal metabolic, nervous, immune, hormonal or cancer diseases,” wrote Seralini, et al. in their Doull rebuttal. [See “How Subchronic and Chronic Health Effects can be Neglected for GMOs, Pesticides or Chemicals.” IJBS; 2009; 5(5):438-443.]

Further, Monsanto’s analysis compared unrelated feeding groups, muddying the results. The June 2009 rebuttal explains, “In order to isolate the effect of the GM transformation process from other variables, it is only valid to compare the GMO … with its isogenic non-GM equivalent.”

The researchers conclude that the raw data from all three GMO studies reveal novel pesticide residues will be present in food and feed and may pose grave health risks to those consuming them.

They have called for “an immediate ban on the import and cultivation of these GMOs and strongly recommend additional long-term (up to two years) and multi-generational animal feeding studies on at least three species to provide true scientifically valid data on the acute and chronic toxic effects of GM crops, feed and foods.”

Human health, of course, is of primary import to us, but ecological effects are also in play. Ninety-nine percent of GMO crops either tolerate or produce insecticide. This may be the reason we see bee colony collapse disorder and massive butterfly deaths. If GMOs are wiping out Earth’s pollinators, they are far more disastrous than the threat they pose to humans and other mammals.

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Scientists Experiment with Vaccinations in GMO Corn

Bryan Salvage
Meat & Poultry
May 11, 2009

AMES, IOWA — Iowa State University researchers are putting flu vaccines into the genetic makeup of corn, which may someday allow pigs and humans to get a flu vaccination simply by eating corn or corn products.

“We’re trying to figure out which genes from the swine influenza virus to incorporate into corn so those genes, when expressed, would produce protein,” said Hank Harris, professor in animal science and one of the researchers on the project. “When the pig consumes that corn, it would serve as a vaccine.”

This collaborative effort project involves Mr. Harris and Brad Bosworth, an affiliate associate professor of animal science working with pigs, and Kan Wang, a professor in agronomy, who is developing the vaccine traits in the corn.

According to the researchers, the corn vaccine would also work in humans when they eat corn or even corn flakes, corn chips, tortillas or anything that contains corn, Mr. Harris said. The research is funded by a grant from Iowa State University’s Plant Sciences Institute, and is their Biopharmaceuticals and Bioindustrials Research Initiative.

If the research goes well, the corn vaccine may be possible in five to seven years. In the meantime, the team is trying to expedite the process. “While we’re waiting for Wang to produce the corn, we are starting initial experiments in mice to show that the vaccine might induce an immune response,” Mr. Bosworth said.

Mr. Harris said the team still needs more answers. “The big question is whether or not these genes will work when given orally through corn,” he added. “That is the thing we’ve still got to determine.”

Stability and safety are several advantages to the corn vaccine. Once the corn with the vaccine is grown, it can be stored for long-term without losing its potency, researchers claim. If a swine flu virus breaks out, the corn could be shipped to the location to try to vaccinate animals and humans in the area quickly. Because corn grain is used as food and feed, there is no need for extensive vaccine purification, which can be an expensive process.

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Beyond Golden Rice: The Rockefeller Foundation’s long-term agenda behind Genetically Modified Food

Jurriaan Maessen
Infowars
April 28, 2009

‘A total population of 250-300 million people, a 95% decline from present levels, would be ideal.’ – Ted Turner to Audubon Magazine, 1996-

In an April 18th 2009 article on the development of GM-Food for the African continent, ‘Strange Fruit: Could genetically modified foods offer a solution to the world’s food crisis? the author mentions that the Rockefeller Foundation has recently set out to fund the process of ‘biofortified rice’ for third world nations, invented by a Swiss scientist named Ingo Potrykus.

featured stories   Beyond Golden Rice: The Rockefeller Foundation’s long term agenda behind Genetically Modified Food
Adesinafeatured stories   Beyond Golden Rice: The Rockefeller Foundation’s long term agenda behind Genetically Modified Food
On behalf of the Rockefeller Foundation, Representative Akinwumi Adesina stated before the Congressional Black Caucus Legislative Conference on September 28 2007 that the continent of Africa was especially chosen as the Foundation’s favourite playing ground.

In 2000 a Swiss scientist named Ingo Potrykus modified rice, adding a bacterial gene and two genes from the daffodil, to add Vitamin A to rice. His plan was to find an easy way of countering the vitamin deficiency which causes blindness in around half a million people, mainly children, every year. Half of them die within 12 months of going blind and others die of diseases such as malaria because the deficiency affects their immune system. Professor Potrykus called his invention Golden Rice.’

But there’s nothing recent about the Rockefeller Foundation’s involvement in the research and development of genetically enhanced rice, as we learn from a November 14, 2000 publicationby the Rockefeller Foundation in which the director of Food Security of the Rockefeller Foundation Gary H. Toenniessen states that in the early 1990’s the Swiss scientist along with a colleague:

‘… approached the Foundation. Dr. Ingo Potrykus of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich was a specialist in plant genetic transformation and his lab was one of the first to genetically engineer rice. (…) These two scientists proposed to genetically engineer `rice with daffodil genes to produce nutritionally significant levels of beta-carotene in the rice endosperm. At a foundation-sponsored workshop, other scientists agreed that this task was difficult but achievable, and the effort was funded.’

Ten years later, it seems, the experiments had proven a great success. In a keynote speech by Rockefeller Foundation’s president Judith Rodin on October 17 2008, the speaker points out that the research concerning genetically engineered rice has been underway for at least 65 years- and all this time received the generous support of the Foundation’s deep pockets. Rodin explains:

‘In the sixty-five years since they began, we’ve funded the work of Golden Rice’s engineers, Dr. Peter Beyer, Dr. Ingo Potrykus, and others for more than fifteen of them. (…) I’m delighted to announce, today, that we will be providing funding to the International Rice Research Institute - which we helped establish almost fifty years ago - to shepherd Golden Rice through national, regulatory approval processes in Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, and the Philippines. And we hope this is just the beginning.’

On behalf of the Rockefeller Foundation, Representative Akinwumi Adesina stated before the Congressional Black Caucus Legislative Conference on September 28 2007 that the continent of Africa was especially chosen as the Foundation’s favourite playing ground. But he laments:

‘Regarding genetic engineering, by and large, African countries do not currently have in place regulatory frameworks that allow their use for food production. Many challenges face the introduction and cultivation of GM crops in Africa, including fear of GE crops.’

Adesina goes on by bringing climate change into the equation, dumping fear upon fear, and hoping perhaps that a new fear will eliminate the former one:

‘Assisting Africa to meet its food needs has other advantages for climate change. (…) Increasing population pressure and reliance on extensive agricultural practises will likely lead to further deforestations and carbon dioxide emissions and contributions to climate change.’

Under the umbrella of ‘climate change’ all serious concern about playing God with the earth’s flora (and Fauna) can be thrown aside without a second thought it seems. Rockefeller Foundation representative Gary H. Toenniessen stated during a conference in his lecture ‘Opportunities for and challenges to Plant Biotechnology Adoption in Developing Countries’:

‘Public acceptance of transgenic crops and genetically modified (GM) food, or rather, lack thereof, is a major constraint to the adoption of plant biotechnology, particularly in Europe. (…) Orchestrated campaigns against GM foods have consequently found a receptive audience amongst urban consumers. The situation in developing countries may well be different’, he adds slyly.

This same opinion is being conveyed in a 2005 ‘strategic review of the organisation (the Rockefeller Foundation), wherein several ‘challenges’ are brought forward that might stand in the way of the next level of globalisation that the Foundation has mapped out for all of us, one of these being ‘resistance to the development and use of genetically modified foods’.

Here comes into play the promotion of ‘global warming’. By claiming global warming will affect all nations and all peoples, and coupling the supposed climate hazard to the necessity of GM-crops lest the third world starve and die by the lack of it, the different peaces of this diabolical puzzle come together. The spectre of global climate change hangs over the world food situation, they claim, and the anticipated resistance might well be lessened if the people are adequately bamboozled into accepting the Foundation’s genetically modified foods program for fear of a vengeful God raining his wrath onto their heads. If the globalists would lie to lure the people into accepting GM foods, they would certainly not think twice about lying about the motives behind the development of these foods for mass production.

In an October 8 2006 editorial by Dean Kleckner (member emeritus of the World Food Prize Board of Advisors) on AgWeb.Com, he comments on the announced investments by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in conjunction with the Rockefeller Foundation’s ambition to spark a ‘Green Revolution’ on the impoverished continent of Africa. He states that ‘The 21st-century’s Green Revolution must also be a Gene Revolution.’

The Foundation itself is strangely upfront about its long-term objectives, when it bragged in the 2006‘The Rockefeller Foundation’s International Program on Rice Biotechnology’:

‘The Rockefeller Foundation has a long, complex, and rich history in promoting agricultural development throughout the developing world. The Foundation began its major field-based program in Mexico in the 1940s, which led to the series of technologies, insights, and processes collectively known as the ‘Green Revolution’. (…) Through a series of strategically placed grants, some of the world’s premier laboratories were invited to participate in the program.’

As we learn from the 1968 Rockefeller Foundation annual report, the term Green Revolution has been around for quite a while. In the report the Foundation’s president J. George Harrah already speaks of the ‘Green Revolution’, built upon ‘miracle rice’ and ‘miracle wheat’.

In a  panegyric ten years later, dedicated to the Foundation’s founder John D. Rockefeller III, there is mentioned as one of his merits:

‘Mr. Rockefeller was one of the great guiding spirits of The Rockefeller Foundation over a 47-year period, and was the chairman of the Board of Trustees from 1952 to 1971. During this period, the Foundation carried out a major part of its commitment to agricultural development and the conquest of hunger, resulting in the so-called Green Revolution.’

Further on (page 21) in an unlikely frank revelation, the president of the Foundation elaborates on the true countenance of this supposed ‘Green Revolution.’

‘Because of the Green Revolution, per capita protein consumption kept pace with the doubling of populations in the less-developed countries (LDC’s) which occurred between 1950 and 1975. But it was recognised by most, and certainly by the Foundation staff, that we were merely buying time, and that the geometric expansion of population had to be reduced lest the Malthusian prediction became true globally, as contrasted with just regionally, as now applies.’

In another publication- Africa’s Turn: A New Green Revolution for the 21st century- the foundation states that ‘Before all else, the original Green Revolution was a product of philanthropy, in a carefully negotiated partnership with government.(…) After first seeking and receiving an invitation from the Mexican government, the Foundation created the Oficina de Estudios Especiales within the Mexican Department of Agriculture, initially staffed by scientists on the Rockefeller payroll.’

This is no idle bragging or foundational hubris. In an April 2008 editorial in the journal Science, Nina Fedoroff (plant geneticist, currently serving as senior scientific advisor to the U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton) wrote:

‘A new Green Revolution demands a global commitment to creating a modern agricultural infrastructure everywhere.’

The Rockefeller Foundation thoroughly agrees with this statement. In fact, it has for decades directed all its resources to create just such an infrastructure. To illustrate how far back the research and its intended international scope go, it will suffice to quote form a Rockefeller Foundation  annual reportfrom 1963:

‘The Foundation conducts international projects for the improvement of the world’s four most important foods- corn, wheat, potatoes, and rice.’

It is interesting to note here that in the very same year (1963) the Codex Alimentarius Commission was forced into being by the World Health Organisation and the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations. But then it is important to always keep in mind that these international bodies all spring from the same source and are funded by the same families. In 1984 alone, the Foundation allocated funds of millions of US dollars in appropriations to scientists on molecular genetics (Washington State University) and genetic manipulation of rice (University of Leiden). In the years after, the Foundation has energetically allocated funds every single year to research and development in GM-crops.

And the list of allocated funds literally goes on forever, with grants handed to numerous research facilities across the globe all with the aim of producing, promoting and implementing genetically modified crops in the third, second and first world. The next step in the unfolding of the Foundation’s agenda was the creation of an adequate fear on which their ‘superfood’ might thrive more rapidly. The more people who use the earth’s resources, the more a swift policy is needed to reduce global population.

But originally it was global cooling, not global warming, with which the GM-agenda was to be helped forward. In the 1974  annual report a conference on the topic of climate change was announced called ‘Climate Change, Food Production, and Interstate Conflict’:

‘This interdisciplinary conference, organised jointly by RF (Rockefeller Foundation) officers from Conflict in International Relations, Quality of the Environment, and Conquest of Hunger programs, will bring together climatologists, scientists concerned with food production (…) to examine the future implications of the global cooling trend now under way and its effects on world food production.’

In the 1973  annual report (page 54), long before the theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming was injected into society’s bloodstream, one of the funds approved for allocation to ‘international organisations’ to analyze the implications of climate modification for international affairs. The institute for World Order received a grant for the establishment of university-based world order studies.’

By the time it was decided by the globalists that a global warming hype would serve their interests better than a global cooling trend, they accelerated their program in a great hurry. In 1996, the Foundation mentioned in their  annual report that:

‘The Rockefeller Foundation created the Leadership for Environment and Development (LEAD) program to cultivate a network of talented midcareer professionals from diverse disciplines and sectors committed to sustainable development.’

In regards to the many activities of LEAD, the report mentions:

‘Economic advancement and human development are predicated on sufficient supplies of energy. Yet the byproducts of fossil-fuel energy production also pose many of humankind’s greatest threats. Carbon dioxide released form fossil fuels, if allowed to build up in the earth’s atmosphere, has the potential to seal in excess heat that could LEAD to global warming.’

So what is it all about, this elaborate program of ‘magical rice’ and ‘magical wheat’, spanning many decades in slow but strategic progression? And why is ‘global warming’ being mixed in the equation? In the 1968 annual Foundation report the real reason for this determined labour comes to light:

‘Major organisations such as the Population Council and the National and International Planned Parenthood Federations have been supported (red: by the Foundation) in a variety of ways. These and other existing organisations, as well as others that may come into being, represent exceedingly important instrumentalities for the extension of family planning information and contraceptive methods.’

In bone chilling language, the aims and future steps of the Foundation is being outlined (page 54):

‘It will explore potentialities of training programs, seminars, public forums, symposia, and other devices for conveying information about the impact of population growth on economic and social development to government officials from ministries of health, planning commissions, and other appropriate agencies, in the interest of motivating greater action on population policy and population control programs.‘

As we know, the call for more family planning in the name of the environment has been increasingly promoted by the Malthusian minded elite. It is clear that one of the ‘other devices’ the report mentions, has been found and thoroughly exploited: the great myth of Anthropogenic Global Warming was created and covered with the subtle sauce of science to give the whole thing an air of credibility. And the eugenics agenda continues.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

No need for condoms – GE corn can do the job

Greenpeace
Tuesday, January 13, 2009

India — New research from Austria shows that a commercial strain of Monsanto-made GE corn causes mice to have fewer and weaker babies. What is this doing to human fertility?

Regulators around the world said Monsanto’s GE corn was as safe as non-GE strains.

It has been approved in many countries and regions including the US, the EU, Argentina, Japan, Philippines and South Africa.

China approved the GE corn for animal feed back in 2005.

Until this research, under the Austrian Ministries for Agriculture and Health, none of the regulators had seriously questioned the safety of Monsanto’s GE corn.

The biotech industry is playing a game of genetic roulette with our food and with our health.

The GE corn research

Austrian scientists fed mice over a course of 20 weeks a mixture of 33 percent Monsanto GE corn (NK 603 x MON 810) and non-GE corn.

These mice gave birth to less babies and lighter babies in their third and fourth litters. Mice fed on non-GE corn had babies as normal.

These differences are statistically significant.

India and GE food

The GEAC(Genetic Engineering Approval Committee), a government body, has approved large scale field trials for BT corn in three agricultural universities in India. This corn is the same corn that according to a study by the Austrian government leads to infertility in the females of the rats that it was tested upon.

In the light of this latest research, Greenpeace India is urging the government to put the brakes on GE food.

“Genetic Engineering as a technology cannot be taken as safe without adequate safety tests” said Dr. Sujatha Byravan, Molecular biologist and former President of The Council for Responsible Genetics.

GE Brinjal is also in the pipeline, and being considered for approval.

Monsanto’s GE corn hurts mouse reproduction. So what is it doing to human reproduction?Considering the severity of the potential threat, Greenpeace is demanding a recall of genetically-engineered food and crops from the global market.

Research related articles:

  1. Austrian Government Study Confirms Genetically Modified (GM) Crops Threaten Human Fertility and Health Safety
  2. Genetically modified maize lowers fertility in mice, study finds
  3. FDA Set to Approve Genetically Engineered Animals
  4. White Sugar Now Coming From Genetically-Modified Sugar Beets
  5. Breast Cancer Gene-Free Baby Is Dangerous Sign of New Era of Eugenics, Genetic Class Wars
  6. Scientists Erase Specific Memories in Mice
  7. Additives used in bacon, ham and chicken ‘could make cancers grow’
  8. Arsenic in Water at EPA Approved Standards Linked to Heart Disease
  9. More Hot Propaganda - this time from Greenpeace
  10. Monsanto Announces Its Exit From the Growth Hormone Business
  11. 90 Percent of U.S. Infant Formula May Be Contaminated with Melamine; FDA Abruptly Declares Chemical Safe for Babies
  12. FDA Conspired with Chemical Industry to Declare Bisphenol-A Harmless

Sunday, December 21, 2008

Obama Chooses Monsanto Creature, Tom Vilsack, for Secretary of Agriculture

crytogon.com
December 18th, 2008

The fever dream reality of the Obama hive mind goes something like this:

Obama is just pretending to be evil so that he can get into power, but then the Hope and Change, etc. will flow.

—The Cognitive Mechanism Behind Political Fundamentalism… And Probably Lots of Other Fundamentalisms

We have just lost cabin pressure, and I don’t mean on the Monsanto corporate jet that Tom Vilsack uses.

What’s next? Obama Re-Animates Josef Mengele for Health and Human Services?

Via: Organic Consumers Association:

Six Reasons Why Obama Appointing Monsanto’s Buddy, Former Iowa Governor Vilsack, for USDA Head Would be a Terrible Idea

OCA, November 12, 2008

* Former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack’s support of genetically engineered pharmaceutical crops, especially pharmaceutical corn:

http://www.gene.ch/genet/2002/Oct/msg00057.html http://www.organicconsumers.org/gefood/drugsincorn102302.cfm

* The biggest biotechnology industry group, the Biotechnology Industry Organization, named Vilsack Governor of the Year. He was also the founder and former chair of the Governor’s Biotechnology Partnership.

http://www.bio.org/news/pressreleases/newsitem.asp?id=200…

* When Vilsack created the Iowa Values Fund, his first poster child of economic development potential was Trans Ova and their pursuit of cloning dairy cows.

* Vilsack was the origin of the seed pre-emption bill in 2005, which many people here in Iowa fought because it took away local government’s possibility of ever having a regulation on seeds- where GE would be grown, having GE-free buffers, banning pharma corn locally, etc. Representative Sandy Greiner, the Republican sponsor of the bill, bragged on the House Floor that Vilsack put her up to it right after his state of the state address.

* Vilsack has a glowing reputation as being a schill for agribusiness biotech giants like Monsanto. Sustainable ag advocated across the country were spreading the word of Vilsack’s history as he was attempting to appeal to voters in his presidential bid. An activist from the west coast even made this youtube animation about Vilsack

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hmoc4Qgcm4s

The airplane in this animation is a referral to the controversy that Vilsack often traveled in Monsanto’s jet.

*Vilsack is an ardent support of corn and soy based biofuels, which use as much or more fossil energy to produce them as they generate, while driving up world food prices and literally starving the poor.

More: Obama Picks Vilsack as Agriculture Secretary

Related posts:

  1. OBAMA CONSIDERING JON CORZINE, ANOTHER FORMER GOLDMAN SACHS CHIEF EXECUTIVE, FOR TREASURY SECRETARY
  2. Change: Timothy Geithner, (Fed, IMF, Kissinger Associates, CFR, BIS) Nominated for U.S. Treasury Secretary
  3. The World According to Monsanto
  4. PowerShares DB Agriculture Trades Just Under 52 Week High
  5. War Criminal and International Fugitive, Henry Kissinger, Says Hillary Clinton Would Be Outstanding Secretary of State

Monday, December 1, 2008

Obama's Team Includes Dangerous Biotech "Yes Men"

Biotech “Yes Men” on Obama’s team threaten to expand the use of dangerous genetically modified (GM) foods in our diets. Instead of giving us change and hope, they may prolong the hypnotic “group think” that has been institutionalized over three previous administrations—where critical analysis was abandoned in favor of irrational devotion to this risky new technology.

Clinton’s agriculture secretary Dan Glickman saw it first hand:

“It was almost immoral to say that [biotechnology] wasn’t good, because it was going to solve the problems of the human race and feed the hungry and clothe the naked. . . . If you’re against it, you’re Luddites, you’re stupid. That, frankly, was the side our government was on. . . . You felt like you were almost an alien, disloyal, by trying to present an open-minded view”

When Glickman dared to question the lax regulations on GM food, he said he “got slapped around a little bit by not only the industry, but also some of the people even in the administration.”

By shutting open-minds and slapping dissent, deceptive myths about genetically modified organisms (GMOs) persist.

  • The industry boasts that GMOs reduce herbicide use; USDA data show that the opposite is true.
  • We hear that GMOs increase yield and farmer profit; but USDA and independent studies show an average reduction in yield and no improved bottom line for farmers.
  • George H. W. Bush fast-tracked GMOs to increase US exports; now the government spends an additional $3-$5 billion per year to prop up prices of the GM crops no one wants.
  • Advocates continue to repeat that GMOs are needed to feed the world; now the prestigious International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development has joined a long list of experts who flatly reject GMOs as the answer to hunger.

Food Safety Lies

Of all the myths about GMOs, the most dangerous is that they are safe. This formed the hollow basis of the FDA’s 1992 GMO policy, which stated:

“The agency is not aware of any information showing that foods derived by these new methods differ from other foods in any meaningful or uniform way.”

The sentence is complete fiction. At the time it was written, there was overwhelming consensus among the FDA’s own scientists that GM foods were substantially different, and could create unpredictable, unsafe, and hard-to-detect allergens, toxins, diseases, and nutritional problems. They had urged the political appointees in charge to require long-term safety studies, including human studies, to protect the public.

Their concerns stayed hidden until 1999, when 44,000 pages of internal FDA memos and reports were made public due to a lawsuit. According to public interest attorney Steven Druker, the documents showed how their warnings and “references to the unintended negative effects” of genetic engineering “were progressively deleted from drafts of the policy statement,” in spite of scientists’ protests.

“What has happened to the scientific elements of this document?” wrote FDA microbiologist Louis Pribyl, after reviewing the latest rewrite of the policy. “It will look like and probably be just a political document. . . . It reads very pro-industry, especially in the area of unintended effects.”

(read full report)

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

GM crops 'to be grown in secret'

GM crops 'to be grown in secret'
GM food trials in this country have been affected by vandalism Photo: STEPHEN HIRD

Trials could also be conducted away from the public in the Government's Porton Down military research site in Salisbury, Wiltshire, it is claimed.

There are currently no GM food trials underway in the country and the more than 50 that have been conducted since 2000 have been affected by vandalism. Opponents of GM benefit from current rules, which dictate that all trials must be disclosed on a Government website.

However, a review of security arrangements for trials has been ordered by Hilary Benn, the Environment Secretary and Lord Mandelson, the Business Secretary.

The Independent reported that ministers are preparing to scrap the disclosure rule.

A Government source told the newspaper: "We need to review the security arrangements. The rules are a charter for people who want to stop the experiments. A lot of information has to be put in the public domain and that makes it very easy for people to trash them."

Mr Benn said: "We need to see if GM foods have a contribution to make, and we won't know the answer about their environmental impact unless we run controlled experiments. It's important to go with the science."

Lord Mandelson acted to loosen rules on GM licensing in his previous job as EU Trade Commisioner, and it is thought he favours a relaxation of the conditions in Britain.

(read full article)