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Scientists representing the biotech industry claim that GM foods have been extensively tested and are safe. They say that anti-GM campaigners like you are unscientific and base their arguments on emotion. Can you comment?A recently published linguistic analysis of biotech advocates concludes what many of us have observed for years. Using unscientific, emotional, and even irrational arguments, GM proponents attack critics as unscientific, emotional and irrational. In reality, critics demand more science, not less. We demand facts, not PR hype.
There are many ways in which a GM food could create toxins, allergens, carcinogens, or nutritional problems. The process of inserting a gene into a DNA can dramatically disrupt the normal genes. One study showed that as many as 5% of the natural genes changed their levels of expression when a single gene was inserted. Genes can get turned off or deleted, switched on permanently, scrambled, duplicated, or relocated. Gene insertion coupled with growing cells from tissue culture, creates hundreds or thousands of mutations throughout the genome. On top of all this, the inserted gene can get mutated, truncated, or blended with the crop’s natural gene code. And it appears that the inserted genes get rearranged over time as well. Any of these changes can create serous problems in themselves, or set in motion a chain of reactions that can lead to problems.
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First of all, let's summarize the evidence collected from animals. Pusztai’s government-funded study demonstrated that rats fed a GM potato developed potentially pre-cancerous cell growth, damaged immune systems, partial atrophy of the liver, and inhibited development of their brains, livers and testicles. Rats fed a GM tomato developed stomach lesions, and seven of 40 died within two weeks. Mice fed GM maize had problems with blood cell formation as well as kidney and liver lesions. Those fed GM soy had problems with liver cell formation, and the livers of rats fed GM canola were heavier. Pigs fed GM maize on several Midwest farms developed false pregnancies, sterility, or gave birth to bags of water. Twelve cows fed GM maize in Germany died mysteriously. And twice the number of chickens died when fed GM maize compared to those fed natural maize.
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Documents made public from a lawsuit revealed that FDA policy on GM foods was deceitful. The policy claimed that the agency was not aware of any meaningful or uniform differences between GM and non-GM foods, and therefore did not require any safety studies. The disclosed memos showed, however, that the overwhelming consensus among the FDA’s own scientists was that GM crops were significantly different, and that they urged their superiors to require long term safety testing due to the possible presence of unpredictable toxins, allergens and new diseases. The person in charge of policy at the FDA who apparently ignored the scientists was Monsanto’s former attorney. He later became Monsanto’s vice president.
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