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It is estimated that over 80% of processed foods now contain genetically modified organisms, also called GMOs. The rapidity with which these frankenfoods have invaded and continue to expand within our food supply is nothing short of terrifying. For example, Monsanto’s Roundup Ready GMO sugar beets were first introduced to the market in 2008. Now, a few short years later, at least 95% of the sugar beets grown in the United States are GMO with over 50% of the white sugar from GMO beets – NOT sugar cane which is what the majority of consumers assume!
While most world countries opt for full disclosure on product labels, the US still does not require any information to warn consumers of lurking GMOs. For parents, it is imperative to source and buy foods free of GMOs as much as possible as the long term effects on humans, especially growing children, is completely unknown.
Buying from trusted local producers and seeking products that are organic or have the Non-GMO Project Verified label is the best way to achieve this goal until manufacturers are finally required to disclose the truth on ingredient labels.
If you are still unconvinced that the effort and expense required to avoid GMOs for your family is worth it, below is a list of 11 scientific reasons why you should reconsider.
Processed food containing GMOs is not really food – it is a chemistry experiment. Be sure your family opts out. Your children deserve better than to be hapless guinea pigs for the industrial food system.
Scientific Reasons to Avoid GMOs
1) A study of GMOs reported in the June 2013 issue of the peer-reviewed Journal of Organic Systems involved research conducted over 22.7 weeks using 168 newly weaned pigs in a commercial U.S. piggery. One group of 84 pigs ate a diet that incorporated genetically modified (GM) soy and corn, and the other group of 84 pigs ate an equivalent non-GM diet. The pigs that ate the GM diet had a higher rate of severe stomach inflammation – 32 percent of GM-fed pigs compared to 12 percent of non-GM-fed pigs (see photo above). The inflammation was worse in GM-fed males compared to non-GM fed males by a factor of 4.0, and GM-fed females compared to non-GM-fed females by a factor of 2.2. (Source)
2) In 2012, researchers found that female rats fed GMOs in the form of Roundup Ready-tolerant corn developed large tumors and dysfunction of the pituitary gland; males also developed tumors and exhibited pathologies of the liver and kidney (Food and Chemical Toxicology 2012).
3) Scientists at the Russian Academy of Sciences reported between 2005 and 2006 that female rats fed Roundup Ready-tolerant GM soy produced excessive numbers of severely stunted pups with more than half of the litter dying within three weeks, and the surviving pups completely sterile. (Source)
4) In 2005, scientists studying GMOs at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization in Canberra, Australia reported that a harmless protein in beans (alpha-amylase inhibitor 1) transferred to peas via genetic engineering caused inflammation in the lungs of mice and provoked sensitivities to other proteins in the diet (Ho MW. Transgenic pea that made mice ill. Science in Society 29, 28-29, 2006).
5) From 2002 to 2005, scientists at the Universities of Urbino, Perugia and Pavia in Italy published reports indicating that GM soy affected cells in the pancreas, liver, and testes of young mice (Science in Society 29, 26-27, 2006).
6) In 2004, Monsanto’s secret research dossier on GMOs showed that rats fed MON863 GM corn developed serious kidney and blood abnormalities (GMWatch, 23 April 2004.)
7) In 1998, Dr. Arpad Pusztai and colleagues formerly of the Rowett Institute in Scotland reported damage in every organ system of young rats fed GM potatoes containing snowdrop lectin, including a stomach lining twice as thick as controls (Contaminants and Toxins, (J P F D’Mello ed.), Scottish Agricultural College, Edinburgh, CAB International, 2003).
8) Also in 1998, scientists in Egypt found similar effects in the guts of mice fed Bt potato (Fares NH and El-Sayed AK. Fine structural changes in the ileum of mice fed on endotoxin-treated potatoes and transgenic potatoes. Natural Toxins, 1998, 6, 219-33; also “Bt is toxic” by Joe Cummins and Mae-Wan Ho, ISIS News 7/8, February 2001, ISSN: 1474-1547 (print), ISSN: 1474-1814 (online), Agricultural Biotechnology 2006, www.ISAAA.org).
9) The U.S. Food and Drug Administration had data on the adverse effects of GMOs dating back to the early 1990s showing that rats fed GM tomatoes with antisense genes to delay ripening had developed small holes in their stomachs (Pusztai A, Bardocz S and Ewen SWB. Genetically modified foods: Potential human health effects. In Food Safety: Contaminants and Toxins, (J P F D’Mello ed.), Scottish Agricultural College, Edinburgh, CAB International, 2003).
10) In 2002, Aventis company (later Bayer Cropscience) submitted data to UK regulators showing that chickens fed glufosinate-
11) Testing by Monsanto itself has found that rats eating GM maize (MON863) develop smaller kidneys and show startling changes in blood chemistry. One blood change included an increase in white blood cell count which demonstrates that the GM food elicited an immune reaction by the body.
The suspicion for me is not the gene splicing – its the virus used to carry the gene from host into recipient. Ultimately, I believe that is where the deadly effects will be found. Remember, there was a time when labs around the world believed that UV light killed viruses. So scientists and technicians alike would be in labs, with many viruses. Some known to be so deadly, that they were kept inside those super-secure labs. After many years of the best practice, scientist discovered that the UV light didn’t kill the viruses. It broke them. The broken viruses recombined.
They use bacteria for that not viruses.
How many decades did doctors tell parents to give their children aspirin before they decided it caused Reye’s syndrome, Then there’s VIOXX, and countless other products that only became deadly after it was no longer possible to deny the facts. What this means is, if there’s money to be made they can’t be trusted not to kill you.
I agree, and the examples of dangerous things touted as safe that you site are just a few of the many that exist. Drug companies are notorious for getting drug approvals, after so-called safety studies, only to have the FDA remove them from the market when enough people are disabled or die from their “safe” drug. Why have many countries banned GMO’s? Are they all just buying into the hype? They haven’t found a way of preventing cross pollination with non-GMO crops, so if in the future, if we believe that GMO crops adversely affect our health, there may be no turning back! At the very least, we should have labeling that honestly tells us what is in our food, so we can decide whether we want to ingest GMO’s…that’s if there are any natural crops left to choose!
Every critter on this planet has natural diet that they thrive on. This natural diet has a long history of safe consumption. GMOs have a short history of human consumption, and I’m pretty sure they are not included in the natural diet for people. Heck, asbestos, and DDT were safe until they were deadly.
WHY IS OUR GOVERNMENT SO AFRAID OF HONEST DISCLOSURE? WE THE PEOPLE HAVE A RIGHT TO KNOW WHAT IS IN OUR FOOD AND HOW IT WAS PRODUCED. IF THEY ARE HIDING THE FACTS, JUST DON’T MAKE THE PRODUCT!
Sugar beets are different from the organic beets you eat. Like popcorn and sweet corn are two different things.
However, just because a fruit or vegetable you buy today is not GMO, does not mean there won’t be a GMO version of it at some point.
If at least 95% of the sugar beets grown in the United States are GMO, then how in the world are there so many organic beets available at the stores and farmers market, this worries me, I have been juicing with one ever day, i hope they truly are organic as the label says.
As I wrote recently in an article called “GM Golden Rice: Not The Solution”, GMOs are probably based on pseudoscience. Simply removing one gene can have unintended consequences as it leaves out the fact that theres far more to biological functioning than genetics. Theres the proteins, enzymes, and bacteria that work along with a gene, which has a whole field devoted to it called epigenetics.
The intense growing conditions of industrial agriculture are the real problem not the genetic ability of the plants being grown. Vast monocultures leave out diversity and neglect the surrounding environment. In other words, GMOs are a false solution to a human-caused problem.
Let this be a lesson on how to lie with statistics, or just plain make things up.
1. The stomach inflammation article is a good read. It seems there could be a genetic predisposition of some animals against the GM foods that causes severe stomach inflammation. However, it should also be noted that the group that was fed GM corn and soy had a HIGHER Nil stomach inflammation percentage and lower Mild and Medium stomach inflammation. In other words, 80% of the pigs had _reduced_ stomach inflammation while 15% of the pigs went to the severe category. This seems to indicate a genetic reaction to those foods in only specific cases.
Most of the inflammation in the pigs was significantly reduced in the GM group. I’m not advocating that GM food some how helps inflammation, just pointing out that inflammation didn’t increase across the board when the pigs were given GM corn and soy.
3. The paper itself says it’s too small of a study to be worth anything. Not only that they didn’t even perform autopsies on the rats to determine cause of death or even investigate other potentials causes. The sample size is way too small to be of any value. In fact, it causes harm by publishing the paper because silly sites can take it and pretend to use it as some kind of “evidence”
12. I’d like to see on which page and line number the rats had increased white blood cell count when compared to the reference and other types of meals fed to them. If you read Monsanto’s paper they clearly state no trial related problems were found.
I love your quick, informed response, Sarah! Thanks for posting.
I can understand your scepticism towards genetically modified foods but you forget to mention a lot of other things:
GMOs are everywhere and have been used for decades, just a few examples: Vitamins and Citric acid are produced by gmo-bacteria.
GMOs are used to produce medication for example insulin. Strangely, nobody critizises that. Before that they had to use either real organs or dead bodies. No longer necessary.
For decades breeding has been done by exposing a plant´s DNA to radiation. This is called mutation breeding. They either use x-rays, UV-rays, laser- rays or radiation similiar to the one from atomic plants. This is used everywhere, in fruits, vegetables, grains, ornamental plants etc. Nobody has ever complained about that either. Plants like that can be labelled as gmo-free.
A stimulated genetic mutation within a single species is far different than moving genes BETWEEN species (sometimes plants to animals and vice versa) which is what is happening today. In addition, GE derived medicines are for people already sick … the problem today is feeding foods, the majority of which have GMO ingredients, to young, developing children who are NOT sick and have the promise of an entire lifetime ahead of them.
Sometimes it is good to cut to the simple explanations and I’m not saying to leave out the science, but as another commenter posted, statistics can be misleading and used to mislead.
I think it is undeniable that what is going on recently in terms of GMOs is vastly different from plant breeding done for many, many years. What is new now is genetic tinkering, for example inserting insect genes into plants, or breeding the pesticides right into the plants themselves. This is what is new, this is why these are “frankenfoods” and really need to be studied extensively for safety before being released on the human population, promoted as being healthful or harmless with no conclusive evidence, not to mention unlabeled so we don’t even know what we are eating anymore.
For me, it is simply far easier to just eat only real food from sources I trust and avoid all processed food. This is not at all easy, it makes me angry that our food supply is being messed with for reasons not wholly known, but on the other hand it is preferable for me to work harder to ensure safe food in my home, to taking these unknown risks for myself and my family. I don’t want anyone to be the guinea pig in this, but it’s surely not going to be me or my children. If we find out in 30 years my caution and concern was for nothing, I will still say it was worth it to organically grow and make my own foods, from scratch, or buy my food from places I trust, with ingredients I can be confident of.
I am not alone in feeling this way. The ego blindness of the overly scientific-minded is going to be our downfall. Put me down all you like, I am not easily convinced by short-term studies funded by the companies that stand to gain by selling GMOs to the public as safe.
I can see your point. Don´t misunderstand me here please I am not a proponent of GMO-foods. I think they should be the last solution to a problem. But my impression is that the discussion is very onesided.
A few things about the dangers of GMOs:
– Union of German Academics and Humanities estimates that the risk for allergies is lower in GMOs than in conventional foods
– 2001: European Commission publishes a summary of 81 studies from 15 years of research: no danger to health or the environment found
– 2010 another summary of the work of 400 working groups (from 2001-2010): no danger to health or the environment found
In the scientific world there is agreement that there is no evidence that GMOs cause any damage to health or the environment (higher than in conventional foods); organizations that agree: FAO, WHO, OECD, FDA, American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Medical Association, National Institute of Medicine, National Research Council, National Academy of Scienes and numerous german, british and french science academies
The above mentioned studies conducted by Pusztai and Seralini were both critizied as not reliable. Other scientists were not able to come to the same conclusion.
GMOs can have advantages:
– reduction of pesticides and other toxic substances and the positive consequences for the environment
– better harvests
– plants with more nutrients
– resistence against diseases e.g. corn with less mycotoxin
Where are you getting this from? What farmers are seeing is that weeds are developing resistance which means they have to use more pesticides and other toxic substances:
– reduction of pesticides and other toxic substances and the positive consequences for the environment
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/12/13/monsanto-defeated-by-super-weeds.aspx
As for the nutrients comment, I can’t find it now but there’s every indication that golden rice isn’t the panacea Monsanto want you to believe.
“GMOs will save the world” is just marketing. It’s isn’t the reality by a long shot. Feeding people poison and filling their bellies isn’t nourishing them but it sure does make the corporate elite a lot of money.
Can you provide links to the studies you’ve sited and the “facts” you’ve mentioned? Thanks.
Every single study listed is sourced if you look in the list above.
(I think DD’s request for links was in response to Flausch.)
Hello Flausch:
These days I have to be highly skeptical of many, if not most, of our government agencies in Washington. The infamous “Revolving Door” in Washington is very corrupting of everything. And I have little doubt that the same is true of Europe.
Our regulatory bureaus are utterly failing us. Moreover, our St ate De partment has been pressuring sovereign nations to accept this largely untested technology. We must ourselves why.
@Flausch These comments have been brought to you by Monsanto. Savers of the worlds starving people and a company you can trust. Next time you eat corn say it with pride…..GMO corn yummy.