Regulators Discover a Hidden Viral Gene in Commercial GMO Crops

www.independentsciencenews.org - January 24th, 2012

How should a regulatory agency announce they have discovered something potentially very important about the safety of products they have been approving for over twenty years?

In the course of analysis to identify potential allergens in GMO crops, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has belatedly discovered that the most common genetic regulatory sequence in commercial GMOs also encodes a significant fragment of a viral gene (Podevin and du Jardin 2012). This finding has serious ramifications for crop biotechnology and its regulation, but possibly even greater ones for consumers and farmers. This is because there are clear indications that this viral gene (called Gene VI) might not be safe for human consumption. It also may disturb the normal functioning of crops, including their natural pest resistance.

What Podevin and du Jardin discovered is that of the 86 different transgenic events (unique insertions of foreign DNA) commercialized to-date in the United States 54 contain portions of Gene VI within them. They include any with a widely used gene regulatory sequence called the CaMV 35S promoter (from the cauliflower mosaic virus; CaMV). Among the affected transgenic events are some of the most widely grown GMOs, including Roundup Ready soybeans (40-3-2) and MON810 maize. They include the controversial NK603 maize recently reported as causing tumors in rats (Seralini et al. 2012).

The researchers themselves concluded that the presence of segments of Gene VI “might result in unintended phenotypic changes”. They reached this conclusion because similar fragments of Gene VI have already been shown to be active on their own (e.g. De Tapia et al. 1993). In other words, the EFSA researchers were unable to rule out a hazard to public health or the environment.

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Are Un-Labeled Genetically Modified Foods Already in Circulation?

www.huffingtonpost.com - January 22nd, 2013

Sixty two countries have either banned or required mandatory labels for GMO foods (as of late 2012). This includes not only all of Europe, but also China, India, Brazil, Russia, and Syria. In Europe, GMO food represents a very small proportion of the food supply, but it's not banned. 

In the USA, GMO food quietly entered the food supply in the 1990s and has been sold to unsuspecting consumers ever since, without any labeling. In that time, America has seen sharp rises in allergies, bowel-related diseases, and autism compared to countries that don't eat GMOs.There are many different GMO foods, and we have almost no scientific knowledge as to which ones are safe.

There have been very few controlled studies on the health impact of GMOs; no controlled human trials; and only one long-term animal study. Scientists are impeded from conducting tests. Researchers are legally barred from access to the GMOs, and the derivative foods are unlabeled, making controlled experiments nearly impossible. 

The only long-term study found that GMO corn caused massive tumors and premature death in rats starting after one hundred days. Critics complained about the sample size and types of rats used in this study; but those were the exact same as the FDA-approval study, which cleared the GMO corn as "safe" after monitoring impact on rats for only ninety days. I believe the science so far is inconclusive, and I'd love to see more studies.

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Monsanto and GMO Food: Playing Roulette With Our Health

www.truth-out.org - November 14th, 2012

Genetically modified organisms, genetically engineered foods, transgenics - these all refer to the process of taking a gene or genes from one species and forcing it into the DNA of other species. You can mix and match between plant, animal, human, insect, bacteria and viruses, creating new organisms that were not part of the billions of years of evolution. The process itself is prone to unpredictable side effects.

The American Academy of Environmental Medicine identifies the following categories of diseases and disorders as afflicting the lab animals fed genetically modified soy and corn: problems with the immune, gastrointestinal and reproductive systems, organ damage, accelerated aging and insulin and cholesterol issues. Thousands of doctors now prescribe non-GMO diets to their patients and report dramatic improvements in these same categories. Similarly, livestock that switch from GM feed to non-GM feed also show health improvements in these areas. We don't think it's a coincidence that these same disorders and diseases are on the rise in the US population since GMOs were introduced in 1996.

The characteristics of the two main types of GMOs help explain why they might cause health problems in these areas. The "Bt" corn, for example, produces a toxic insecticide (Bt-toxin) that has recently been found to create holes and leakage in human cells. Bt-toxin was also discovered in the blood of pregnant women and their unborn fetuses. Other studies show that it provokes immune and allergic-type responses. Taken together, the characteristics of the Bt-toxin alone may explain the rise of digestive disorders, immune system problems, organ damage, and leaky gut—which itself may promote allergies, auto-immune diseases, gluten intolerance, cancer, Alzheimer's, and autism.

Most GMOs are "herbicide tolerant" and therefore have high amounts of herbicides such as Roundup, which is absorbed into the food. Roundup is directly toxic, linked with cancer, birth defects, endocrine disruption, Parkinson's and other diseases. A study released last month showed that rats fed Roundup in their drinking water at levels considered safe suffered massive tumors, premature death and organ damage. Other lab animals showed severe reproductive failures, such as sterility, smaller and fewer offspring, infertile offspring, huge infant mortality and even hair growing in the mouths of hamsters. Roundup also kills beneficial gut bacteria, and can render trace minerals unusable by our system.

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