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What are the Health Risks?
From Ronnie Cummins article "Hazards of Genetically Engineered Foods and Crops: Why We Need a Global Moratorium.
Toxins & Poisons
Genetically engineered products clearly have the potential to be toxic and a threat to human health. In 1989 a genetically engineered brand of L-tryptophan, a common dietary supplement, killed 37 Americans and permanently disabled or afflicted more than 5,000 others with a potentially fatal and painful blood disorder, eosinophilia myalgia syndrome (EMS), before it was recalled by the Food and Drug Administration.
The manufacturer, Showa Denko, Japan's third largest chemical company, had for the first time in 1988-89 used GE bacteria to produce the over-the-counter supplement. It is believed that the bacteria somehow became contaminated during the recombinant DNA process. Showa Denko has already paid out over billion in damages to EMS victims.
In 1999, front-page headline stories in the British press revealed Rowett Institute scientist Dr. Arpad Pusztai's explosive research findings that GE potatoes, spliced with DNA from the snowdrop plant and a commonly used viral promoter, the Cauliflower Mosaic Virus (CaMv), are poisonous to mammals. GE-snowdrop potatoes, found to be significantly different in chemical composition from regular potatoes, damaged the vital organs and immune systems of lab rats fed the GE potatoes.
Most alarming of all, damage to the rats' stomach linings --apparently a severe viral infection -- most likely was caused by the CaMv viral promoter, a promoter spliced into nearly all GE foods and crops.
Dr. Pusztai's pathbreaking research work unfortunately remains incomplete (government funding was cut off and he was fired after he spoke to the media). But more and more scientists around the world are warning that genetic manipulation can increase the levels of natural plant toxins in foods (or create entirely new toxins) in unexpected ways by switching on genes that produce poisons.
And since regulatory agencies do not currently require the kind of thorough chemical and feeding tests that Dr. Pusztai was conducting, consumers have now become involuntary guinea pigs in a vast genetic experiment.
Proponents of GE foods often claim that because no definite link has yet been established between the genetic engineering of a food and human disease, it implies these foods are safe. However, a large portion of human food-borne illness develops over a long time through repeated doses of harmful substances. This applies not only to cancer but to many other diseases as well. Further, some diseases can result from a single exposure but still take a long time to manifest. The human variant of "mad cow" disease, which is often fatal, has a latency period of over 12 years from the ingestion of the harmful substance to the initial appearance of the symptoms.
Accordingly, numerous experts have pointed out that the mere absence of hard evidence linking the genetic engineering of foods to disease in no way constitutes evidence that foods so produced are safe. They say that due to the hazards entailed by GE foods, it is possible that some of them are causing disease conditions now that will only be clearly documented many years in the future. In this vein, the head of the FDA's Biological and Organic Chemistry Section cautioned agency bureaucrats that lack of proof that a GE food is dangerous does not assure its safety and noted, "in this instance ignorance is not bliss."
Increased Cancer Risks
In 1994, the FDA approved the sale of Monsanto's controversial GE recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH) -- injected into dairy cows to force them to produce more milk -- even though scientists warned that significantly higher levels (400-500% or more) of a potent chemical hormone, Insulin-Like Growth Factor (IGF-1), in the milk and dairy products of injected cows, could pose serious hazards for human breast, prostate, and colon cancer.
A number of studies have shown that humans with elevated levels of IGF-1 in their bodies are much more likely to get cancer. In addition the US Congressional watchdog agency, the GAO, told the FDA not to approve rBGH, arguing that increased antibiotic residues in the milk of rBGH-injected cows (resulting from higher rates of udder infections requiring antibiotic treatment) posed an unacceptable risk for public health.
In 1998, heretofore undisclosed Monsanto/FDA documents were released by government scientists in Canada, showing damage to laboratory rats fed dosages of rBGH. Significant infiltration of rBGH into the prostate of the rats as well as thyroid cysts indicated potential cancer hazards from the drug. Subsequently the government of Canada banned rBGH in early 1999. The European Union has had a ban in place since 1994.
Although rBGH continues to be injected into 4-5% of all US dairy cows, no other industrialized country has legalized its use. Even the GATT Codex Alimentarius, a United Nations food standards body, has refused to certify that rBGH is safe.
Food Allergies
In 1996 a major GE food disaster was narrowly averted when Nebraska researchers learned that a Brazil nut gene spliced into soybeans could induce potentially fatal allergies in people sensitive to Brazil nuts. Animal tests of these Brazil nut-spliced soybeans had turned up negative.
People with food allergies (which currently afflicts 8% of all American children), whose symptoms can range from mild unpleasantness to sudden death, may likely be harmed by exposure to foreign proteins spliced into common food products. Since humans have never before eaten most of the foreign proteins now being gene-spliced into foods, stringent pre-market safety-testing (including long-term animal feeding and volunteer human feeding studies) is necessary in order to prevent a future public health disaster.
Mandatory labeling is also necessary so that those suffering from food allergies can avoid hazardous GE foods and so that public health officials can trace allergens back to their source when GE-induced food allergies break out.
Unfortunately the FDA and other global regulatory agencies do not routinely require pre-market animal and human studies to ascertain whether new allergens or toxins, or increased levels of human allergens or toxins we already know about, are present in genetically engineered foods. As British scientist Dr. Mae-Wan Ho points out "There is no known way to predict the allergenic potential of GE foods. Allergic reactions typically occur only some time after the subject is sensitized by initial exposure to the allergen."
Damage to Food Quality & Nutrition
A 1999 study by Dr. Marc Lappe published in the Journal of Medicinal Food found that concentrations of beneficial phytoestrogen compounds thought to protect against heart disease and cancer were lower in genetically modified soybeans than in traditional strains. These and other studies, including Dr. Pusztai's, indicate that genetically engineering food will likely result in foods lower in quality and nutrition. For example the milk from cows injected with rBGH contains higher levels of pus, bacteria, and fat.
Antibiotic Resistance
When gene engineers splice a foreign gene into a plant or microbe, they often link it to another gene, called an antibiotic resistance marker gene (ARM), that helps determine if the first gene was successfully spliced into the host organism.
Some researchers warn that these ARM genes might unexpectedly recombine with disease-causing bacteria or microbes in the environment or in the guts of animals or people who eat GE food, contributing to the growing public health danger of antibiotic resistance -- of infections that cannot be cured with traditional antibiotics, for example new strains of salmonella, e-coli, campylobacter, and enterococci. EU (European Union) authorities are currently considering a ban on all GE foods containing antibiotic resistant marker genes.
{http://www.foodlabeling.org/information/risks_health.asp}
DRUGS AND CHEMICALS WILL CONTAMINATE FOOD SUPPLY CONCLUDES NEW REPORT
JULY 10, 2002
More than 300 field trials of genetically engineered biopharmaceuticals crops already conducted in secret locations nationwide
Washington, DC - A coalition of consumer and environmental groups called on the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) today to prohibit a new class of genetically engineered food crops that threatens to contaminate the food supply much the way StarLink genetically engineered corn did in September 2000. In a letter to the USDA, the coalition called for an end to open air cultivation of crops engineered to produce prescription drugs or industrial chemicals. The new crops, already planted in over 300 field trials at secret locations nationwide, include plants that produce an abortion-inducing chemical, growth hormones, a blood clotter, and trypsin, an allergenic enzyme. The coalition proposed that the USDA permit only contained cultivation of non-food plants under the same controlled circumstances as other drug production.
"Just one mistake by a biotech company and we'll be eating other people 's prescription drugs in our corn flakes," said Larry Bohlen, Director of Health and Environment Programs at Friends of the Earth, a member of the coalition. "The USDA should prohibit the planting of food crops engineered with drugs and chemicals to protect the food supply from contamination."
The National Academy of Sciences warns: ".it is possible that crops transformed to produce pharma- ceutical or other industrial compounds might mate with plantations grown for human consumption, with the unanticipated result of novel chemicals in the human food supply." And the editors of Nature Biotechnology recently warned: "Current gene-containment strategies cannot work reliably in the field." A contamination incident may already have occurred as one biotech company official noted at an government-industry conference that: "We've seen it on the vaccine side where modified live seeds have wandered off and have appeared in other products."
In a new report released today, the Genetically Engineered Food Alert coalition details the threats that biopharm crops pose, the extent to which they have been planted across the U.S., the failure of regulatory agencies to serve the public, and a set of recommendations. The report, entitled "Manufacturing Drugs and Chemicals in Crops: Biopharming Poses New Threats to Consumers, Farmers, Food Companies and the Environment," may be found at www.gefoodalert.org.
The majority of engineered biopharmaceuticals and chemicals are in corn, a prolific pollinator. ProdiGene, the company with the most plantings of drug and chemical-producing plants, projects that 10% of the corn crop will be devoted to biopharm production by 2010. StarLink corn, planted on less than 1% of total US corn acreage, contaminated hundreds of food products and corn seed stock with a potentially allergenic protein despite the use of gene containment measures. Far from supporting containment strategies such as buffer areas, Anthony Laos, ProdiGene's CEO, wrote farmers in 2001 that: "We will be dealing with these distances until we can gain regulatory approval to lessen or abandon these requirements altogether." Some companies also propose extracting drugs or chemicals from plants, then selling the remainder. Incomplete extraction would mean drugs or chemicals in food or feed.
"Farmers cannot afford another contamination incident hurting sales and throwing the harvest into turmoil like StarLink did in 2000" said Matt Rand, Biotechnology Campaign Manager at the National Environmental Trust.
ABOUT THE GE FOOD ALERT COALITION AND GEFoodAlert.org Genetically Engineered Food Alert founding members include: Center for Food Safety, Friends of the Earth, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, National Environmental Trust, Organic Consumers Association, Pesticide Action Network North America, and the State Public Interest Research Groups.
Genetically Engineered Food Alert supports the removal of genetically engineered ingredients from grocery store shelves unless they are adequately safety tested and labeled. The campaign provides web-based opportunities for individuals to express concern about genetically engineered food and fact sheets on health, environmental and economic information about genetically engineered food. The coalition is endorsed by more than 250 scientists, religious leaders, doctors, chefs, environmental and health leaders, as well as farm groups.
BACKGROUND MATERIAL AVAILABLE ON WEB The executive summary, the full report, the letter with recommendations to USDA and a link to the ProdiGene statement are located at: {http://www.gefoodalert.org}
Hazards of Genetically Engineered Foods and Crops: Why We Need A Global Moratorium
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The patenting of genetically engineered foods and widespread biotech food production threatens to eliminate farming as it has been practiced for 12,000 years.
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Ronnie Cummins
Little Marais, Minnesota
Introductory Overview
The technology of genetic engineering (GE), wielded by transnational "life science" corporations such as Monsanto and Novartis, is the practice of altering or disrupting the genetic blueprints of living organisms -- plants, animals, humans, microorganisms -- patenting them, and then selling the resulting gene-foods, seeds, or other products for profit.
Life science corporations proclaim, with great fanfare, that their new products will make agriculture sustainable, eliminate world hunger, cure disease, and vastly improve public health. In reality, through their business practices and political lobbying, the gene engineers have made it clear that they intend to use GE to dominate and monopolize the global market for seeds, foods, fiber, and medical products.
GE is a revolutionary new technology still in its early experimental stages of development. This technology has the power to break down fundamental genetic barriers -- not only between species -- but between humans, animals, and plants. By randomly inserting together the genes of non-related species -- utilizing viruses, antibiotic-resistant genes, and bacteria as vectors, markers, and promoters -- and permanently altering their genetic codes, gene-altered organisms are created that pass these genetic changes onto their offspring through heredity.
Gene engineers all over the world are now snipping, inserting, recombining, rearranging, editing, and programming genetic material. Animal genes and even human genes are randomly inserted into the chromosomes of plants, fish, and animals, creating heretofore unimaginable transgenic life forms. For the first time in history, transnational biotechnology corporations are becoming the architects and "owners" of life.
With little or no regulatory restraints, labeling requirements, or scientific protocol, bio-engineers have begun creating hundreds of new GE "Frankenfoods" and crops, oblivious to human and environmental hazards, or negative socioeconomic impacts on the world's several billion farmers and rural villagers.
Despite an increasing number of scientists warning that current gene-splicing techniques are crude, inexact, and unpredictable -- and therefore inherently dangerous -- pro-biotech governments and regulatory agencies, led by the US, maintain that GE foods and crops are "substantially equivalent" to conventional foods, and therefore require neither mandatory labeling nor pre-market safety-testing. This Brave New World of Frankenfoods is frightening.
There are currently more than four dozen genetically engineered foods and crops being grown or sold in the US. These foods and crops are widely dispersed into the food chain and the environment. Over 70 million acres of GE crops are presently under cultivation in the US, while up to 500,000 dairy cows are being injected regularly with Monsanto's recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH).
Most supermarket processed food items now "test positive" for the presence of GE ingredients. In addition several dozen more GE crops are in the final stages of development and will soon be released into the environment and sold in the marketplace. According to the biotechnology industry almost 100% of US food and fiber will be genetically engineered within 5-10 years. The "hidden menu" of these unlabeled genetically engineered foods and food ingredients in the US now includes soybeans, soy oil, corn, potatoes, squash, canola oil, cotton seed oil, papaya, tomatoes, and dairy products.
Genetic engineering of food and fiber products is inherently unpredictable and dangerous -- for humans, for animals, the environment, and for the future of sustainable and organic agriculture. As Dr. Michael Antoniou, a British molecular scientist points out, gene-splicing has already resulted in the "unexpected production of toxic substances... in genetically engineered bacteria, yeast, plants, and animals with the problem remaining undetected until a major health hazard has arisen."
The hazards of GE foods and crops fall basically into three categories: human health hazards, environmental hazards, and socioeconomic hazards. A brief look at the already-proven and likely hazards of GE products provides a convincing argument for why we need a global moratorium on all GE foods and crops.
Toxins & Poisons
Genetically engineered products clearly have the potential to be toxic and a threat to human health. In 1989 a genetically engineered brand of L-tryptophan, a common dietary supplement, killed 37 Americans and permanently disabled or afflicted more than 5,000 others with a potentially fatal and painful blood disorder, eosinophilia myalgia syndrome (EMS), before it was recalled by the Food and Drug Administration.
The manufacturer, Showa Denko, Japan's third largest chemical company, had for the first time in 1988-89 used GE bacteria to produce the over-the-counter supplement. It is believed that the bacteria somehow became contaminated during the recombinant DNA process. Showa Denko has already paid out over billion in damages to EMS victims.
In 1999, front-page headline stories in the British press revealed Rowett Institute scientist Dr. Arpad Pusztai's explosive research findings that GE potatoes, spliced with DNA from the snowdrop plant and a commonly used viral promoter, the Cauliflower Mosaic Virus (CaMv), are poisonous to mammals. GE-snowdrop potatoes, found to be significantly different in chemical composition from regular potatoes, damaged the vital organs and immune systems of lab rats fed the GE potatoes.
Most alarming of all, damage to the rats' stomach linings --apparently a severe viral infection -- most likely was caused by the CaMv viral promoter, a promoter spliced into nearly all GE foods and crops.
Dr. Pusztai's pathbreaking research work unfortunately remains incomplete (government funding was cut off and he was fired after he spoke to the media). But more and more scientists around the world are warning that genetic manipulation can increase the levels of natural plant toxins in foods (or create entirely new toxins) in unexpected ways by switching on genes that produce poisons.
And since regulatory agencies do not currently require the kind of thorough chemical and feeding tests that Dr. Pusztai was conducting, consumers have now become involuntary guinea pigs in a vast genetic experiment. As Dr. Pusztai warns, "Think of William Tell shooting an arrow at a target. Now put a blindfold on the man doing the shooting and that's the reality of the genetic engineer doing a gene insertion."
Increased Cancer Risks
In 1994, the FDA approved the sale of Monsanto's controversial GE recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH) -- injected into dairy cows to force them to produce more milk -- even though scientists warned that significantly higher levels (400-500% or more) of a potent chemical hormone, Insulin-Like Growth Factor (IGF-1), in the milk and dairy products of injected cows, could pose serious hazards for human breast, prostate, and colon cancer.
A number of studies have shown that humans with elevated levels of IGF-1 in their bodies are much more likely to get cancer. In addition the US Congressional watchdog agency, the GAO, told the FDA not to approve rBGH, arguing that increased antibiotic residues in the milk of rBGH-injected cows (resulting from higher rates of udder infections requiring antibiotic treatment) posed an unacceptable risk for public health.
In 1998, heretofore undisclosed Monsanto/FDA documents were released by government scientists in Canada, showing damage to laboratory rats fed dosages of rBGH. Significant infiltration of rBGH into the prostate of the rats as well as thyroid cysts indicated potential cancer hazards from the drug. Subsequently the government of Canada banned rBGH in early 1999. The European Union has had a ban in place since 1994.
Although rBGH continues to be injected into 4-5% of all US dairy cows, no other industrialized country has legalized its use. Even the GATT Codex Alimentarius, a United Nations food standards body, has refused to certify that rBGH is safe. (Also see: Monsanto and Fox TV Unite to Suppress Journalists'Free Speech on Hazards of Genetically Engineered Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH or rBST)
Food Allergies
In 1996 a major GE food disaster was narrowly averted when Nebraska researchers learned that a Brazil nut gene spliced into soybeans could induce potentially fatal allergies in people sensitive to Brazil nuts. Animal tests of these Brazil nut-spliced soybeans had turned up negative.
People with food allergies (which currently afflicts 8% of all American children), whose symptoms can range from mild unpleasantness to sudden death, may likely be harmed by exposure to foreign proteins spliced into common food products. Since humans have never before eaten most of the foreign proteins now being gene-spliced into foods, stringent pre-market safety-testing (including long-term animal feeding and volunteer human feeding studies) is necessary in order to prevent a future public health disaster.
Mandatory labeling is also necessary so that those suffering from food allergies can avoid hazardous GE foods and so that public health officials can trace allergens back to their source when GE-induced food allergies break out.
Unfortunately the FDA and other global regulatory agencies do not routinely require pre-market animal and human studies to ascertain whether new allergens or toxins, or increased levels of human allergens or toxins we already know about, are present in genetically engineered foods. As British scientist Dr. Mae-Wan Ho points out "There is no known way to predict the allergenic potential of GE foods. Allergic reactions typically occur only some time after the subject is sensitized by initial exposure to the allergen."
Damage to Food Quality & Nutrition
A 1999 study by Dr. Marc Lappe published in the Journal of Medicinal Food found that concentrations of beneficial phytoestrogen compounds thought to protect against heart disease and cancer were lower in genetically modified soybeans than in traditional strains. These and other studies, including Dr. Pusztai's, indicate that genetically engineering food will likely result in foods lower in quality and nutrition. For example the milk from cows injected with rBGH contains higher levels of pus, bacteria, and fat.
Antibiotic Resistance
When gene engineers splice a foreign gene into a plant or microbe, they often link it to another gene, called an antibiotic resistance marker gene (ARM), that helps determine if the first gene was successfully spliced into the host organism.
Some researchers warn that these ARM genes might unexpectedly recombine with disease-causing bacteria or microbes in the environment or in the guts of animals or people who eat GE food, contributing to the growing public health danger of antibiotic resistance -- of infections that cannot be cured with traditional antibiotics, for example new strains of salmonella, e-coli, campylobacter, and enterococci. EU (European Union) authorities are currently considering a ban on all GE foods containing antibiotic resistant marker genes.
Increased Pesticide Residues in the Soil and on Crops
Contrary to biotech industry propaganda, recent studies have found that US farmers growing GE crops are using just as many toxic pesticides and herbicides as conventional farmers, and in some cases are using more. Crops genetically engineered to be herbicide-resistant account for 70% of all GE crops planted in 1998.
The so-called "benefits" of these herbicide-resistant crops are that farmers can spray as much of a particular herbicide on their crops as they want -- killing the weeds without damaging their crop. Scientists estimate that herbicide-resistant crops planted around the globe will triple the amount of toxic broad-spectrum herbicides used in agriculture. These broad-spectrum herbicides are designed to literally kill everything green.
The leaders in biotechnology are the same giant chemical companies -- Monsanto, DuPont, AgrEvo, Novartis, and Rhone-Poulenc -- that sell toxic pesticides. These companies are genetically engineering plants to be resistant to herbicides that they manufacture so they can sell more herbicides to farmers who, in turn, can apply more poisonous herbicides to crops to kill weeds.
Genetic Pollution
"Genetic pollution" and collateral damage from GE field crops already have begun to wreak environmental havoc. Wind, rain, birds, bees, and insect pollinators have begun carrying genetically-altered pollen into adjoining fields, polluting the DNA of crops of organic and non-GE farmers.
An organic farm in Texas has been contaminated with genetic drift from GE crops on a nearby farm and EU regulators are considering setting an "allowable limit" for genetic contamination of non-GE foods, because they don't believe genetic pollution can be controlled. Because they are alive, gene-altered crops are inherently more unpredictable than chemical pollutants -- they can reproduce, migrate, and mutate. Once released, it is virtually impossible to recall genetically engineered organisms back to the laboratory or the field.
Damage to Beneficial Insects and Soil Fertility
Earlier this year, Cornell University researchers made a startling discovery. They found that pollen from genetically engineered Bt corn was poisonous to Monarch butterflies. The study adds to a growing body of evidence that GE crops are adversely affecting a number of beneficial insects, including ladybugs and lacewings, as well as beneficial soil microorganisms, bees, and possibly birds.
Creation of GE "Superweeds" and "Superpests"
Genetically engineering crops to be herbicide-resistant or to produce their own pesticide presents dangerous problems. Pests and weeds will inevitably emerge that are pesticide or herbicide-resistant, which means that stronger, more toxic chemicals will be needed to get rid of the pests.
We are already seeing the emergence of the first "superweeds" as GE herbicide-resistant crops such as rapeseed (canola) spread their herbicide-resistance traits to related weeds such as wild mustard plants. Lab and field tests also indicate that common plant pests such as cotton boll worms, living under constant pressure from GE crops, will soon evolve into "superpests" completely immune to Bt sprays and other environmentally sustainable biopesticides. This will present a serious danger for organic and sustainable farmers whose biological pest management practices will be unable to cope with increasing numbers of superpests and superweeds.
Creation of New Viruses and Bacteria
Gene-splicing will inevitably result in unanticipated outcomes and dangerous surprises that damage plants and the environment. Researchers conducting experiments at Michigan State University several years ago found that genetically-altering plants to resist viruses can cause the viruses to mutate into new, more virulent forms. Scientists in Oregon found that a genetically engineered soil microorganism, Klebsiella planticola, completely killed essential soil nutrients. Environmental Protection Agency whistle blowers issued similar warnings in 1997 protesting government approval of a GE soil bacteria called Rhizobium melitoli.
Genetic "Bio-Invasion"
By virtue of their "superior" genes, some genetically engineered plants and animals will inevitably run amok, overpowering wild species in the same way that introduced exotic species, such as kudzu vine and Dutch elm disease, which have created problems in North America. What will happen to wild fish and marine species, for example, when scientists release into the environment carp, salmon, and trout that are twice as large, and eat twice as much food, as their wild counterparts?
Socioeconomic Hazards
The patenting of genetically engineered foods and widespread biotech food production threatens to eliminate farming as it has been practiced for 12,000 years. GE patents such as the Terminator Technology will render seeds infertile and force hundreds of millions of farmers who now save and share their seeds to purchase evermore expensive GE seeds and chemical inputs from a handful of global biotech/seed monopolies.
If the trend is not stopped, the patenting of transgenic plants and food-producing animals will soon lead to universal "bioserfdom" in which farmers will lease their plants and animals from biotech conglomerates such as Monsanto and pay royalties on seeds and offspring. Family and indigenous farmers will be driven off the land and consumers' food choices will be dictated by a cartel of transnational corporations. Rural communities will be devastated. Hundreds of millions of farmers and agricultural workers worldwide will lose their livelihoods.
Ethical Hazards
The genetic engineering and patenting of animals reduces living beings to the status of manufactured products and will result in much suffering. In January 1994, the USDA announced that scientists had completed genetic "road maps" for cattle and pigs, a precursor to evermore experimentation on live animals. In addition to the cruelty inherent in such experimentation (the "mistakes" are born with painful deformities, crippled, blind, and so on), these "manufactured" creatures have no greater value to their "creators" than mechanical inventions.
Animals genetically engineered for use in laboratories, such as the infamous "Harvard mouse" which contains a human cancer-causing gene that will be passed down to all succeeding generations, were created to suffer. A purely reductionist science, biotechnology reduces all life to bits of information (genetic code) that can be arranged and rearranged at whim.
Stripped of their integrity and sacred qualities, animals who are merely objects to their "inventors" will be treated as such. Currently, hundreds of genetically engineered "freak" animals are awaiting patent approval from the federal government. One can only wonder, after the wholesale gene-altering and patenting of animals, will GE "designer babies" be next? {http://www.mercola.com/2000/dec/3/ge_food.htm}
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RBGH Milk Sweeping the Nation, Despite Health Concerns
Despite evidence that it may be harmful to human health, recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH) milk is spreading across the nation.
rBGH is injected into about 30 percent of the nation's cows, according to Monsanto, the company behind the controversial hormone. Extracted from cows' pituitary glands, rBGH increases milk input by as much as 20 or 30 percent. rBGH milk is added to cream, cheese, yogurts and baked goods, but is not labeled.
While Monsanto claims that rBGH milk is just as safe as regular milk, experts say dozens of studies show otherwise.
Dr. Samuel Epstein, professor of environmental and occupational medicine at University of Illinois School of Public Health in Chicago, told MSNBC that some studies indicate that insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1), a protein found in slightly higher levels in milk from hormone-treated cows than normal milk, has been linked to cancer.
The Food and Drug Administration gave its stamp of approval to rBGH in 1993, dismissing safety concerns. Two FDA scientists cleared rBGH in an article appearing in the journal Science. In Canada, however, government scientists came to a much different conclusion. Shiv Chopra of Canada's Health Protection Branch and four of his colleagues found evidence that the FDA had overlooked, or even suppressed, studies showing adverse reactions to rBGH in rats, Chopra says.
"Although the paper published in Science gave the product a clean bill of health, the U.S. FDA ignored the harder information, a 90-day study of rats showing that the hormone did indeed get absorbed into their bloodstreams, and that it produced antibodies and lesions," Chopra told MSNBC. He added, "I'm afraid to say that despite all that is known about the adverse reactions that cows have to the drug, and the ample evidence of human health concerns as well, that the U.S. government took an expedient route to approval with this drug."
In 1999, Canada decided not to approve rBGH milk.
Ben & Jerry's ice cream, which has an arrangement with its dairy supplier to purchase only non-rBGH dairy products, has a web page devoted to its arguments against the hormone. According to Ben & Jerry's, some studies report a 79 percent increase in mastisis (infection of the udder) in cows, resulting in the need for greater use of antibiotics, reduced pregnancy rates, cystic ovaries and uterine disorders, digestive disorders and lacerations, and enlargements and calluses of the knee. {http://www.thecampaign.org/education/brochure_rbgh.htm}
STARKLINK FIASCO INCREASES PRESSURE FOR REGULATION
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The StarLink corn fiasco of 2000 represents one of the most embarrassing oversights in the history of U.S. regulatory oversight of food.
In September 2000, scientists discovered StarLink biotech corn, a variety unapproved for human consumption, in Kraft Foods Taco Bell taco shells. Kraft recalled millions of dollars of shells. Since then, StarLink corn has been found in as many as 300 different foods throughout the country, as more than 9 million bushels of the corn were dumped into American grain elevators.
Aventis, the manufacturer of StarLink corn, sought approval for both animal and human consumption of the corn in 1997. The EPA, though, said the corn could be used only for animal feed. Approval for human consumption was not granted because the corn shares characteristics with other foods that cause allergic reactions. "It gave us enough doubt that we were not comfortable to put it into the food supply," said Susan Hazen, deputy director of the EPA's Office of Pesticide Programs.
How did unapproved corn find its way into the food supply? Aventis says that it may not have notified a number of its customers about restrictions on the use of StarLink corn. Analysts estimate the StarLink corn recall ultimately will cost Aventis between million and million.
"It's very clear that the emergence of biotechnology has brought about a whole new set of regulatory challenges which the current regulatory structure is not able to handle," said Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), in late 2000. "In the next session of Congress, there is going to be a push for labeling, for safety testing, and potentially for some revision of the agencies' responsibilities."
Calls for reform are coming from some unexpected places. Shortly after the StarLink disaster broke, Business Week, in a commentary, wrote: "Once again, it seems the industry has hurt itself with its unyielding opposition to labeling or special regulations for biotech foods. Biotech foods are new, they are different, and they deserve special regulations. The industry should drop its opposition to tougher regulations."
Even the president of Monsanto's Argentina division, Carlos Popik, has announced his support for labeling. He told reporters recently that "I think people have a right to know what they're consuming. I believe the lion's share of their fears will subside once that kind of information is made available."
It's clear that the StarLink corn recalls and other worries about genetically engineered foods are having an impact on the American public. In a November survey of 1,210 adults, a Reuters/Zogby poll found that a majority of Americans (54 percent) believe the recalls raise concerns about food safety, and one-third said that farmers should not be allowed to grow biotech crops.
[Reference: The Campaign to Label GM Foods http://www.thecampaign.org/education/brochure_starlink.htm]
Tierra Azul Projects: www.tierraazul.20m.com
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