Tell Congress not to Force GE Crops on other Countries

June 4, 2009

http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/

An effort to fight global poverty and hunger may become a Trojan horse to force genetically engineered crops on countries and farmers that do not want them. In the Senate, Senators Bob Casey (D-Penn.) and Dick Lugar (R-Ind.) introduced the Global Food Security Act, which increases funding for agricultural research in the developing world, and a companion bill in the House of Representatives is expected to be introduced soon. While the bill recognizes the desperate need to increase funding for agricultural development and food security, it also requires that foreign agricultural development aid include investment in genetically engineered (GE) crops.

Most developing countries, especially in Africa, do not allow genetically engineered crops to be commercially grown, but that's changing with international pressure. Biotech companies have mounted a misinformation campaign to sell themselves and their products as â€œhumanitarian.â€ But, genetically engineered crops are not a solution to world hunger. To date, not a single GE crop released for commercial growing has increased yield potential or elevated nutritional levels. In reality, fully 85% of all GE crops globally are engineered to survive spraying with chemical weedkillers. These chemical-dependent GE crops have sharply increased overall use of pesticides and are best-suited to large growers seeking to reduce labor needs for weed control, not poor farmers anxious to produce more to feed their families.

A recent report by the Center for Food Safety and Friends of the Earth found that agricultural biotechnology feeds the profits of biotech companies â€“ not the poor. The reportâ€™s findings support the United Nationsâ€™ assessment of world agriculture released in a report in 2008, which concluded that GE crops have little potential to alleviate poverty and hunger in the world, and instead recommended low-cost, low-input agroecological farming methods.

The solutions for food security through agricultural development lie in promoting agroecological practices that not only increase agricultural productivity, but are affordable and accessible to small-scale developing world farmers. As Ben Burkett, an African American farmer from Mississippi and President of the National Family Farm Coalition who has visited Africa many times, said in a recent article, â€œMore expensive genetically modified seeds, pesticides and chemical-intensive practices wonâ€™t help the hungry and will only allow more profits and control for seed companies like Monsanto and Syngenta.â€

Food aid and development assistance should never be pre-conditioned on accepting unwanted and ineffective genetically engineered crops. Tell Congress to keep genetic engineering out of any food aid and agricultural research legislation. Send a letter to the following decision maker(s): Your Congressperson Your Senators

Below is the sample letter:

Keep genetic engineering out of food aid and agricultural research legislation

Dear [decision maker name automatically inserted here],

I urge you to oppose any food aid or agricultural development aid legislation that promotes genetic engineering, or that mandates its development or use, such as the Global Food Security Act of 2009 (S. 384), Section 202, subsection number 4. This provision would require that agricultural research include "research on biotechnological advances, including genetically modified technology."

The food crisis makes clear how vital it is that we increase our foreign assistance funding to help the world's poor - primarily small farmers - become more productive and capable of feeding their families and communities. However, as Congress examines the ways to do so, genetically modified (GM) crops should not be mandated as part of that funding. Thus far, GM crops have failed to offer food security or agricultural development assistance in developing countries throughout the world. Currently 85% of all GM crops are engineered for pesticide tolerance. These chemical-dependent crops have sharply increased overall use of pesticides and are best-suited to large growers seeking to reduce labor needs for weed control, not poor farmers striving to produce more to feed their families. In addition, GM seeds are two to four-fold more expensive than conventional seeds, well beyond the means of many developing country farmers. Not a single GM crop

commercially available offe rs nutritional benefits, enhanced yield potential, drought-tolerance, or other attractive sounding traits often touted in the media. Thus, it is not surprising that many developing countries do not allow the commercial growing of GM crops, particularly in Africa, where only two countries allow them.Fortunately, much more effective and affordable solutions already exist - only they desperately require additional funding to spread their benefits to more farmers. In fact, a comprehensive assessment sponsored by the United Nations and the World Bank concluded in 2008 that while such agroecological techniques hold tremendous promise, GM crops have little potential to alleviate poverty and hunger in the world.Farmers and governments in the developing world have the right to make their own choices about GM crops. Food aid and development assistance should never be pre-conditioned on acceptance of unwanted, expensive,

and ineffective technology. Instead, our le gislative efforts to increase food security and agricultural development assistance should be based on the proven agroecological methods already being promoted by the international community and the United Nations.Please oppose Section 202, subsection number 4 of the Global Food Security Act (S. 384) which would force genetically engineered crops on the developing world.

Sincerely,cc:Senator Harry Reid Senator John Kerry Senator Richard Lugar

Take Action!

Instructions:Click here to take action on this issue or choose the "Reply to Sender" option on your email program.

Tell-A-Friend:Visit the web address below to tell your friends about this. Tell-a-Friend!

What's At Stake:

Campaign Expiration Date:June 30, 2009

http://www.responsibletechnology.org/GMFree/AboutGMFoods/DangersofGMFoods/index.cfm

Dangers of Genetically Engineered Foods

(Footnotes refer to pages in the book Seeds of Deception by Jeffrey M. Smith.)

The following presents some of the dangers of genetically engineered foods and reasons why avoiding them is an important step to safeguard our health. The footnotes refer to page references in the book Seeds of Deception; there you can find meticulously documented evidence that leaves no doubt that GM food should never have been approved.

For a more in-depth look at 65 health risks of GM foods, excerpted from Jeffrey Smith's comprehensive new book Genetic Roulette: The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Foods,

For more information, see also these articles:

Jeffrey Smith's Testimony to the EPA - June 2007

Genetically Modified Foods Are Inherently Unsafe

Genetically Engineered Foods Pose Higher Risk for Children

Case Study on Industry Research: Soy Study by Monsanto

Inhaled GM Maize Pollen May Cause Disease

GM Food Promoter Transfers to Rat Cells

GM Vaccines Recombine into Unpredictable Hybrid Viruses in Human and Animal Cells

A Deadly Epidemic and the Attempt to Hide its Link to Genetic Engineering

55.6% Mortality in Rats Whose Mothers Were Fed GM Soy

Terje Traavik, PhD, responds to criticism about his studies

Article update linking health problems in the Philippines with Bt corn

The biotech industry claims that the FDA has thoroughly evaluated GM foods and found them safe. This is untrue. Internal FDA documents made public from a lawsuit, reveal that agency scientists warned that GM foods might create toxins, allergies, nutritional problems, and new diseases that might be difficult to identify.131-140 Although they urged their superiors to require long-term tests on each GM variety prior to approval, the political appointees at the agency, including a former attorney for Monsanto, ignored the scientists. Official policy claims that the foods are no different130 and do NOT require safety testing. A manufacturer can introduce a GM food without even informing the government or consumers.146 A January 2001 report from an expert panel of the Royal Society of Canada said it was "scientifically unjustifiable"136 to presume that GM foods are safe. Likewise, a 2002 report by the UK's Royal Society said that genetic modification "could lead to unpredicted harmful changes in the nutritional state of foods," and recommended that potential health effects of GM foods be rigorously researched before being fed to pregnant or breast-feeding women, elderly people, those suffering from chronic disease, and babies.263

How could the government approve dangerous foods? A close examination reveals that industry manipulation and political collusion-not sound science-was the driving force.

Government employees who complained were harassed, stripped of responsibilities, or fired.77-83 Scientists were threatened. Evidence was stolen. Data was omitted or distorted. Some regulators even claimed they were offered bribes to approve a GM product.

There are only about two dozen published, peer-reviewed animal feeding studies on the health effects of GM foods.

One study showed evidence of damage to the immune system and vital organs, and a potentially pre-cancerous condition.12-13 When the scientist tried to alert the public about these alarming discoveries, he lost his job and was silenced with threats of a lawsuit.18-20 Two other studies also showed evidence of a potentially pre-cancerous condition. The other seven studies, which were superficial in their design, were not designed to identify these details.37 In an unpublished study, laboratory rats fed a GM crop developed stomach lesions and seven of the forty died within two weeks. The crop was approved without further tests.37, 137-140

Many industry studies appear to be rigged to find no problems. In the case of a genetically engineered bovine growth hormone (rbGH), for example, researchers injected cows with only one forty-seventh the normal dosage before reporting hormone residues in milk.91-92 They heated the milk 120 times longer than standard, to report that pasteurization destroys the hormone.93-94 They added cows to their study that were pregnant before treatment, to claim that rbGH didn't impede fertility.89 Cows that fell sick were dropped from studies altogether.80-81

With soybeans, serious nutritional differences between GM and natural soy were omitted from a published paper.35-36 Feeding studies masked any problems by using mature animals instead of developing ones and by diluting their GM soy 10 to 1 with non-GM protein.34

There are no adequate tests to verify that GM food will not create dangerous allergic reactions. While an international organization developed testing standards to minimize the possibility of allowing allergenic GM varieties on the market, GM corn currently sold in the U.S. has not been subjected to those tests and would most certainly fail them. One of these tests, for example, uses a test tube simulation to evaluate how long a potential GM allergen can last inside the digestive system before being broken down. Compared to the recommended international standards, however, one biotech company used a far stronger acid concentration and more than 1,250 times the recommended amount of a digestive enzyme to make the claim that their protein degrades too quickly to cause a reaction.179

The only human feeding trial ever conducted confirmed that genetically engineered genes from soy transferred to the bacteria inside the digestive tract. (The biotech industry had previously said that such a transfer was impossible.) The World Health Organization, the British and American Medical Associations, and several other groups have expressed concern that if the "antibiotic resistant marker genes" used in GM foods got transferred to bacteria, it could create super-diseases that are immune to antibiotics.59-60 More worrisome is that the "promoter" used inside GM foods could get transferred to bacteria or internal organs. Promoters act like a light switches, permanently turning on genes that might otherwise be switched off. Scientists believe that this might create unpredictable health effects, including the potentially pre-cancerous cell

growth found in the animal feeding studies mentioned above.37

The biotech industry says that millions have been eating GM foods without ill effect.This is misleading.

About 100 people died and 5-10,000 to fell seriously ill when they consumed the food supplement L-tryptophan. Only those who consumed the variety that was genetically modified became ill. That brand had minute, but deadly contaminants that would easily pass through current regulations today. If the disease it created had not been rare and acute, with crippling and deadly symptoms, the GM supplement might never have been traced as the cause. Once discovered, however, industry and government covered up facts and diverted the blame. Even the FDA testimony before Congress withheld vital information.107-125

For a summary of the L-tryptophan issue, For an in-depth presentation of the issue, see Toxic L-tryptophan: Shedding Light on a Mysterious Epidemic, by William E. Crist.

Milk from rbGH-treated cows contains an increased amount of the hormone IGF-1, which is one of the highest risk factors associated with breast and prostate cancer, among others.94-97 Soy allergies skyrocketed by 50% in the UK, coinciding with the introduction of GM soy imports from the U.S.160-161

According to a March 2001 report, the Center for Disease Control says that food is responsible for twice the number of illnesses in the U.S. compared to estimates just seven years earlier. This increase roughly corresponds to the period when Americans have been eating GM food. Could that be contributing to the 5,000 deaths, 325,000 hospitalizations, and 76 million illnesses related to food each year? Might it play in role in our national epidemic of obesity or the rise in diabetes or lymphatic cancers? We have no way of knowing if there is a connection because no one has looked for one.

One of the most dangerous aspects of genetic engineering is the closed thinking and consistent effort to silence those with contrary evidence or concerns. Just before stepping down from office, former Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman admitted the following:

"What I saw generically on the pro-biotech side was the attitude that the technology was good, and that it was almost immoral to say that it wasn't good, because it was going to solve the problems of the human race and feed the hungry and clothe the naked... And there was a lot of money that had been invested in this, and 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"152-153

Contrast this with the warning by the editors of Nature Biotechnology: "The risks in biotechnology are undeniable, and they stem from the unknowable in science and commerce. It is prudent to recognize and address those risks, not compound them by overly optimistic or foolhardy behavior." 137

The biotech industry and the government have been foolhardy indeed. Blinded, perhaps by the baseless myth that GM foods are needed to feed the world,250-251 they gamble with our health and support their safety claims on obsolete or unproven assumptions. Accepting their vacuous assurances by eating these dangerous foods or serving them to your customers may likewise be overly optimistic or foolhardy.

Please read the evidence amassed in the book Seeds of Deception by Jeffrey M. Smith. The meticulously documented facts leave no doubt about a massive injustice. The topic is too important to put this off until tomorrow.

*****************

Other sources:

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/270101

Monsanto GM-corn harvest fails massively in South Africa

***********

http://www.whale.to/a/gm_genocide.html

The GM genocide: Thousands of Indian farmers are committing suicide after using genetically modified crops

*********

http://www.whale.to/b/gm23.html

The Untold Dangers of GM Crops

*********

http://www.seedsofdeception.com/Public/TheGMOTrilogy/index.cfm