Dangers of Genetically Modified Food Confirmed + The Sabotage of the Earth's Foo

[Guest guest]

Dangers of Genetically Modified Food Confirmed

 

http://projectcensored.org/censored_2007/index.htm#11

 

Sources:

 

Independent/UK, May 22, 2005

Title: Revealed: “Health Fears Over Secret Study in GM Foodâ€

Author: Geoffrey Lean

 

Organic Consumers Association website, June 2,2005

Title: “Monsanto's GE Corn Experiments on Rats Continue to Generate Global

Controversyâ€

Authors: GM Free Cymru

 

Independent/UK, January 8, 2006

Title: GM: New Study Shows Unborn Babies Could Be Harmedâ€

Author: Geoffrey Lean

 

Le Monde and Truthout, February 9, 2006

Title: “New Suspicions About GMOsâ€

Author: Herve Kempf

 

Faculty Evaluator: Michael Ezra

Student Researchers: Destiny Stone and Lani Ready

 

Several recent studies confirm fears that genetically modified (GM) foods

damage human health. These studies were released as the World Trade Organization

(WTO) moved toward upholding the ruling that the European Union has violated

international trade rules by stopping importation of GM foods.

 

 

-- Research by the Russian Academy of Sciences released in December 2005

found that more than half of the offspring of rats fed GM soy died within the

first three weeks of life, six times as many as those born to mothers fed on

non-modified soy. Six times as many offspring fed GM soy were also severely

underweight.

 

-- In November 2005, a private research institute in Australia, CSIRO Plant

Industry, put a halt to further development of a GM pea cultivator when it was

found to cause an immune response in laboratory mice.1

 

-- In the summer of 2005, an Italian research team led by a cellular

biologist at the University of Urbino published confirmation that absorption of

GM soy

by mice causes development of misshapen liver cells, as well as other

cellular anomalies.

 

-- In May of 2005 the review of a highly confidential and controversial

Monsanto report on test results of corn modified with Monsanto MON863 was

published

in The Independent/UK.

 

Dr. Arpad Pusztai (see Censored 2001, Story #7), one of the few genuinely

independent scientists specializing in plant genetics and animal feeding

studies,

was asked by the German authorities in the autumn of 2004 to examine Monsanto’

s 1,139-page report on the feeding of MON863 to laboratory rats over a

ninety-day period.

 

The study found “statistically significant†differences in kidney weights

and certain blood parameters in the rats fed the GM corn as compared with the

control groups. A number of scientists across Europe who saw the study (and

heavily-censored summaries of it) expressed concerns about the health and safety

implications if MON863 should ever enter the food chain. There was particular

concern in France, where Professor Gilles-Eric Seralini of the University of

Caen has been trying (without success) for almost eighteen months to obtain full

disclosure of all documents relating to the MON863 study.

 

Dr. Pusztai was forced by the German authorities to sign a “declaration of

secrecy†before he was allowed to see the Monsanto rat feeding study, on the

grounds that the document is classified as “CBI†or “confidential business

interest.†While Pusztai is still bound by the declaration of secrecy,

Monsanto

recently declared that it does not object to the widespread dissemination of the

“

Pusztai Report.â€2

 

Monsanto GM soy and corn are widely consumed by Americans at a time when the

United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization has concluded, “In several

cases, GMOs have been put on the market when safety issues are not clear.â€

 

As GMO research is not encouraged by U.S. or European governments, the vast

majority of toxicological studies are conducted by those companies producing

and promoting consumption of GMOs. With motive and authenticity of results

suspect in corporate testing, independent scientific research into the effects

of

GM foods is attracting increasing attention.

 

 

Comment:

In May 2006 the WTO upheld a ruling that European countries broke

international trade rules by stopping importation of GM foods. The WTO verdict

found that

the EU has had an effective ban on biotech foods since 1998 and sided with

the U.S., Canada, and Argentina in a decision that the moratorium was illegal

under WTO rules.3

 

Notes

1. “GM peas cause immune response–A gap in the approval process?â€

http://www.gmo-compass.org/eng/home/ , http://www.GMO-Compass.org , January 3,

2006.

2. Arpad Pusztai, “Mon863-Pusztai Report,†http://www.GMWatch.org, September

12, 2004.

3. Bradley S. Clapper, “WTO Faults EU for Blocking Modified Food,â€

Associated Press, May 11, 2006.

 

 

---

 

This book review reminds me of what Dr. Shiv Chopra told the NFU at the AGM

in

Ottawa in 2005.  Same story with more connections, tho' without the overt

government complicity that Dr. Chopra talks about from his Health Canada

experience.   It also is in harmony with NFU documents.

Pieces of the puzzle.... starting to come together into view, as the puzzle

begins to fray at the edges.

 

The quote by Midland Archer Daniels CEO is classic and quite to the point,

 

We will change all this and have a brighter future,

 

Robbie

 

 

 

 

NEW BOOK   http://www.price-pottenger.org/newbooks.htm

 

 

MODERN FOODS: THE SABOTAGE OF EARTH'S FOOD SUPPLY,

by David Casper,MA, and Thomas Stone, ND, CN, forward by Jonathan V. Wright,

MD

 

 

Review by Carol Simon, PPNF Staff Writer

 

 

The title of this well-researched expose is descriptive of its contents. In

fact, the careful reader will realize that the insertion of the word sabotage

in the subtitle is reflective of the facts, not an editorialization of them.

 

 

Casper and Stone discuss first the betrayal of American consumers by their

government and the health consequences of our current food supply system,

providing example after example of unbridled greed, amoral business practices,

powerful entanglements between regulators and the regulated, near monopolistic

concentrations of economic power in our food and seed supply, vertical corporate

integration and interlocking directorates, and a media largely indebted to

large pharmaceutical interests. They also discuss the effects of globalization

on

our food and nutritional choices, and an almost

blind scientific pride in man-made, laboratory engineered 'foods' and

'seeds'.

Former Archer Daniels Midland CEO Dwayne Andreas' boast to Reuters' News

Service that he wanted ADM to be the world's dominant agricultural firm because

there's simply nothing more powerful than controlling the world's food supply,

is an eerie admission lending validity to the authors' concerns.

 

 

Subsequent chapters explain the food problem in painstaking detail, covering

everything from processed food and food additives to food and water pathogens

and other contaminants. What will be the legacy of using one billion pounds

annually of 10,000 different food additives, 95 percent of which have never been

tested for long-term

safety on humans? Why is it necessary to use three billion pounds annually of

50,000 different insecticides, herbicides, and fungicides?

 

 

In light of the discovery of Mad Cow disease on our own shores, a national

dialogue of our food raising and processing seems in order. Is it by accident

that we now have a near 50 percent cancer rate (projected to be 100 percent in a

few decades), together with a rash of modern, chronic, incurable, and

long-term diseases, both physical

and mental? With a global food supply increasingly controlled and dominated

by a few mega-corporations, what are the new prospects for disease and epidemic

outbreaks at centralized feed lots, giant slaughterhouses, and heavily

mechanized processing plants and packaging centers? What civilization has long

survived on packaged foods, genetically engineered crops, and pesticided and

chemically altered foods grown on artificially fertilized soil? What are the

potential ethical and social consequences of having the same companies control

our

food, seed, pesticide, and pharmaceutical

supplies, and what are the global consequences of failure?

 

 

This book should arouse any reader from complacency. Taken to heart, it might

just scare food addictions away! Meanwhile, it should inspire informed and

responsible food decisions. Fortunately, the authors conclude with a message of

hope. At every turn, website addresses and other resources are thoughtfully

provided. &

 

 

Modern Foods: The Sabotage Of Earth's Food Supply,

178 pp. (CenterPoint Press, 2002), $14.95 , is available from PPNF. (See

order page)