Article by Rhio on Genetically Engineered Foods

As we all know, recently the United States suffered the worst environmental disaster in its history. And it was more than an environmental issue because it directly affected the health and livelihoods of untold numbers of people in five states and Mexico. And indirectly it affects us all because we are all connected. Every part of the earth is connected to every other part. Can you tell the wind and the sea where to blow and flow?

A deep gash in our soul has been created… as deep as the wound in the seabed that gushed earth’s blood.

If it could be said that one good thing has come out of this catastrophe, it is the realization that WE have allowed multi national companies to run roughshod over our sacred Earthmother and when things go wrong, these companies have no plans in place to put things right. And our government stood by with very little power or authority to act, apparently, while BP added insult to injury by pouring millions of gallons of toxic dispersants into the Gulf to try to hide the oil slicks. Days, weeks and months passed with no relief in sight.

What does all this have to do with the genetic engineering of food? I’m getting to it.

With the chemical model of pollution (oil, pesticides, chemicals), if we have the will and the money, we can bring the earth back to normal. There are numerous technologies available for clean up and we have achieved this in various locations where rivers and other bodies of water that were literally dead were brought back to life.

NEW MODEL OF POLLUTION

The genetic engineering of life forms… plants, animals and humans, presents a new model of pollution. Biological pollution. And for this we have no remedies, no remediation, no way to reverse the damage. Anything foreign that we insert into the genome of a life form continues on in it’s evolution… albeit an intercepted evolution… and if something goes wrong… how do we make it right once again? By allowing the Monsanto’s of the world to genetically alter life forms, we are playing genetic roulette with the planet and by extension our own lives as well.

Since we’ve already had numerous examples of multinational companies’ incompetence, and indifference when it comes to protecting the environment… are we going to make the same mistake again by allowing the contamination of our gene pool by these private industries? And for what? For the purpose of satisfying their greed for power and profit?

Genetic engineering of seeds/plants threatens our very survival on this planet. This is because human interference, by artificially manipulating the nature of Nature is altering the course of the biology of seeds and plants forever. The products of genetic manipulation, as stated before, once released into the environment, cannot be retrieved because life forms (living organisms) continue on in their evolutionary path.

Almost any country in the world is more aware of GMO¹ issues than Americans, yet more acreage is devoted to GE production in the US than any other country… 64 million hectares (160 million acres) compared, as an example, to Canada’s 8.2 ². We are the engine driving this technology and that is why it is so important for Americans to become aware and knowledgeable about the issue.

GOVERNMENT POLICY OF SUBSTANTIAL EQUIVALENCE

Industry and our own government tell us that GE food is “substantially equivalent” to conventional food, but what tests were done to come to this conclusion? Through documents ³ received from the FDA from a lawsuit filed by the Alliance for Bio-Integrity (Alliance for Bio-Integrity et al, vs. Shalala, et al.), it was discovered that the FDA’s own scientists strongly opposed the policy of substantial equivalence. Regardless, the policy was pushed through over the protests of numerous agency experts who recognized the potential for bioengineering to produce unexpected and unpredictable toxins, carcinogens and allergens – hazards not ordinarily seen with conventional breeding.

The hypocrisy of the pulled-out-of-thin-air phrase “substantial equivalence” becomes evident when the GE companies go to the patent office. There, they tell the truth that their artificial construct is “new, novel and never existed before” and therefore they get a patent.

PLAYING GOD – THE OWNERSHIP OF LIFE FORMS

How did the patenting of life forms begin? Prior to 1980 the patenting of life forms was not permitted. But in 1980, a scientist named Chakrabarty came up with a GE bacterium that would eat and break down crude oil, applied for a patent and got it through a landmark 5 to 4 Supreme Court decision. (This bacterium, by the way, was never marketed because it was considered too dangerous when it was found to eat other things too.) This landmark patent opened a Pandora’s box, and five years later the patent office (on its own without the Court’s approval) extended the original patent to cover seeds, and a few years after that, to cover animals. Since the allowance of patenting of seeds, many chemical and “Life Science” companies, such as Monsanto (now Pharmacia), Dow Chemical, DuPont, Novartis, Bayer Crop Science and a handful of others have been buying up seed companies worldwide.

In the 1990s Monsanto purchased 8 billion dollars worth of seed companies and in 2005 they purchased Seminis Seeds, suppliers of 40% of the vegetable seeds in the US. Their agenda is to CONTROL all food production by forcing the use of their patented mutant seeds. Control comes because when a farmer needs seeds, he usually goes to a seed company to get them, but with a substantial number of seed companies owned by the multinationals, the farmers have to buy the limited selection of seeds being offered. These companies prefer to sell their GE seeds because under contracts that farmers are obligated to sign:

• Farmers have to pay a separate “technology” fee for the use of the patented GE seeds, currently from $6.30 per bag for soy, to an average of $230. for cotton ⁴;
• Farmers also pay for the actual seeds;
• Farmers agree not to save their own seeds under threat of lawsuit;
• Farmers agree to give access to their land to the companies for “property investigations”; and
• 90% of the GE seeds sold today are engineered to be resistant to herbicides, and come with the added expense of having to purchase the herbicides which, whadda-ya- know, the company also sells!

And all this renders farmers slaves, rather than owners and operators of their own independent operations. The modern version of serfdom.

In Ireland, one of the multinationals refused to sell the farmers their conventional potato spuds unless the farmers also agreed to grow GE potatoes. So coercion does happen and is taking place.

In Canada, Percy Schmeiser, a farmer growing conventional canola, was sued by Monsanto when GE canola was found growing in his fields. Percy did not purchase or plant GE seed. His crop may have been contaminated by the pollen from neighboring farms growing GE canola, or perhaps some GE seed had blown off trucks passing on the road by his property. Monsanto won its lawsuit against Percy and he was ordered to pay $10,000 in technology fees (for seed he did not purchase), plus $80,000 from the sale of his crop. And he could no longer save his own seed, which he and his ancestors had previously done for generations. Percy’s appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada rendered equally unjust results. The Court stated that it didn’t matter how the patented seed got onto his property, the crop belonged to Monsanto. But in an equally puzzling twist, Monsanto was not awarded any money.

If someone leaks a toxic chemical or other effluvium onto your land, you would have a valid case in the courts and receive compensation for the damage to your property. Why is it not the same thing when your crops are contaminated with unwanted organisms? Why is it not a trespass in the same way? This is yet for the US courts to decide.

THE BIOLOGY OF GENETICALLY ENGINEERED PLANTS

Two things distinguish GE plants from any other form of plant breeding:

• It is done at the cellular level with no input from the natural environment.
• It is transfering genes from unrelated species; for example, flounder genes into tomatoes, or rat genes into broccolini. This is something that Nature, since plants appeared on earth, has NEVER done. Nature has placed constraints against cross-breeding - biological barriers which prevent most species from interbreeding.

How do the geneticists get the selected gene into the target plant? Several methods are used ⁵. What invades cells? Bacteria and viruses. One method is to piggyback the gene splice onto a bacterium or virus. (In plants they use agrobacteria and in animals they use viruses.) The bacterium invades the cell and takes the gene with it. Do they know where it lands in the chromosome chain? Scientists have no control over precisely where it will land in the chromosome sequence. This creates what is called “mutagenic instability” in the plant and so the results and effects of GE foods become unpredictable. This unpredictability became a horrifying reality in 1989 when a genetically modified version of L-tryptophan, a natural amino acid food supplement, caused the death of 100 Americans, the permanent disability of 1500 others and affected between 5000 and 10,000 people ⁶. Prior to the Showa Denko Company’s GE version, L-tryptophan had been safely on the market for many years.

A gene by itself in the chromosome will do nothing. It needs what is called a promoter. The promoter tells the gene when to turn on and produce its proteins. So into the “genetic cassette” (this is what they call it), they insert cauliflower mosaic virus which acts as a promoter… the only thing is that this artificial promoter doesn’t have the ability to turn off, so it is constantly on, telling the gene to make proteins. In Nature’s gene system, the promoter tells the gene to turn off making proteins when the particular need for the protein being made is fulfilled.

Next, the geneticists need to know whether they actually created the GE plant, so into the genetic cassette they add an antibiotic resistant marker gene. When they then test the solution with antibiotics, whichever plant didn’t die is their GE construct because it was resistant to antibiotics. Doctors warn that this antibiotic resistant marker gene could lead to the diminished effectiveness of antibiotics as medicine. The 115,000 member British Medical Association has called for a moratorium on the planting of GE foods. The BMA warned that the marketing of untested GE foods could lead to the development of new allergies, potential toxins and antibiotic resistance in humans. Among thousands of other organizations expressing concern are the Union of Concerned Scientists, Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, Organic Consumers Association and the Center for Food Safety.

According to Jeffrey Smith of the Institute for Responsible Technology, “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 five per cent 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 serious problems in themselves, or set in motion a chain of reactions that can lead to problems.”

Please note also that normal conventional plants do not have the carrier bacterium, the foreign gene splice, the artificial promoter or the antibiotic resistant marker gene, so how then can GE plants be “substantially equivalent” to normal plants?

ALLEGED REASONS THAT WE NEED GMOs

• People are starving in the world and we need to increase food production to feed them.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (as well as other organizations) state that there is enough food just in the grains to feed every man, woman and child on this planet with a surplus to boot. When you add in fruits, vegetables, meat, etc., there is no shortage of food. The FAO says “The world produces enough food to feed everyone. World agriculture produces 17 percent more calories per person today than it did 30 years ago, despite a 70 percent population increase. This is enough to provide everyone in the world with at least 2,720 kilocalories (kcal) per person per day (FAO 2002, p.9). The principal problem is that many people in the world do not have sufficient land to grow, or income to purchase, enough food.”

It is no myth that people are going hungry, but this reality has more to do with poverty, distribution and politics than a genuine lack of food.

• The world’s population is going to increase and we will need more food production in the future.

When plants are genetically engineered it creates mutagenic instability in the plant which has proven time and again to decrease yield. Also, if GE companies are so concerned with feeding the world, why have they created the Terminator technology which essentially causes a seed to commit suicide after one planting, thereby guaranteeing that the plant cannot continue on? And how can farmers in so-called third world countries afford to purchase GE seed every year when food security for them means being able to save and share seeds from one crop to another? Saving and sharing seeds is the way it has been done for thousands of years. And how can we condone patenting of seeds when Nature shares her open pollinated seeds so generously?

• GE decreases the use of pesticides.

Ninety percent (90%) of the genetically engineered plants being produced are genetically engineered to resist herbicides. These are called herbicide resistant or herbicide tolerant, which means the GE plant will live through repeated sprayings of herbicides which kill other plant life. The company profits 3 ways… from selling the seeds, licensing the proprietary technology and selling the herbicide that goes along with the package. One example: Monsanto’s Roundup Ready Soy. According to the USDA, use of herbicides has increased, rather than decreased.

In any agricultural field, there are periphery areas surrounding the crops which support wild plants and all the insect and animal life that depend on these plants for their existence. What gives GE companies the right to destroy all of this biodiversity in favor of their proprietary plant?

• GE will produce plants with more nutritional value…

The purveyors of GE have yet to make good on this promise. Since the introduction of GE in 1996, there is not one GE crop that has any increased nutritional value. The thought that GE companies can do better than Nature in this area is arrogant, as well as misguided… in the words of Chaplain, Dr. Joseph Moorman, “Thinking himself wise, man continues to exalt his foolish and uncontrolled pride, believing he can improve upon the unparalleled working of a flawless and all-knowing Creator… To me genetic engineering is like spitting in God’s face and saying, ‘God, sit down and watch us correct your dumb mistakes, because evidently you know not what you do.’”

CONTAMINATION IS INEVITABLE

I’m using the word contamination to describe what happens when GE plant pollen interacts with regular plants. The non-GE plant picks up the GE trait. But, I don’t like to use the word contamination in describing what Nature does in her wondrous system of plant diversity and abundance. Nature spreads plant pollens far and wide to assure fertility, so that there may be a a harvest. Nature is bountiful, generous and diverse. When it comes to GMOs however, Nature’s system spreads contamination of mutant genes.

Mexico is renowned as the cradle of maize, with numerous heirloom varieties not found anywhere else in the world. In Southern Mexico, far from the genetically engineered corn of the US, these varieties have been contaminated with GMOs. This was probably caused by the US flooding Mexico with cheap subsidized corn and some of the Mexican farmers who had no idea of the implications of planting this corn, did so, and contaminated their prized heirloom varieties.

With the genetic engineering of salmon (recently in the news). The GE varieties will wipe out the already threatened wild salmon stocks. The best methods of separation will not work, just as they didn’t work in the remotest regions of Mexico. It would only take one release in the wild to affect the wild stock. Aqua Bounty, the company gearing up to produce GE salmon, claim their salmon is sterile, but up to 5% could be fertile. GE salmon is bigger and grows faster, but bigger and faster is not better because they also die at an accelerated rate, and the excessive growth hormones that they have been engineered with make growth deformities common. Because of their bigger size, they do have a mating advantage, but they also produce fewer viable offspring. The FDA is evaluating GE salmon as a new animal drug rather than as a food. How many drugs have been recalled in the past because of adverse effects on the public? And how are they going to recall a life form? It’s impossible to turn back a life form because it continues on in it’s evolution (intercepted evolution that is).

A study at Purdue University concluded that the release of only 60 GE salmon in a population of 60,000 wild salmon would spell extinction in less than 40 generations.

WHAT THE INDEPENDENT RESEARCH SHOWS

We want to evaluate independent research because industry research is suspect and could be biased in favor of the industry it serves.

One of the most notable pieces of research on GE potatoes was done by Arpad Pusztai who worked at the Rowett Research Institute in Scotland. In a well-constructed study, Dr. Pusztai fed GE potatoes to one group of rats for ten days.⁷ They were genetically engineered to contain Lectin. Two control groups were also employed in the study. In one control group, the rats were fed conventional (non-GE) potatoes and in the second control group, the rats were fed conventional potatoes which were sprayed with Lectin rather than genetically engineered to contain it.

After ten days, tests showed the rats that were fed the GE altered potatoes had damaged immune systems, stunted growth, and the weight of all of their organs, including kidneys, heart, liver, etc. had decreased. The two control groups did not suffer any adverse consequences.

Dr. Pusztai’s study continued well beyond the ten days and he was to publish his findings in a scientific journal, but because he was concerned that people were already eating the products of GE, and with permission from his Institute, he went on a TV show with the information. Forty-eight hours later, Dr. Pusztai was relieved of his position at Rowett and put under a gag order on the threat that his fellow team of scientists would also be fired. A year later the gag order was lifted and Dr. Pusztai, formerly a proponent of GE has been talking loud and clear ever since. To get more information on Pusztai, put his name into a search engine.

OTHER RESULTS OF INDEPENDENT RESEARCH

• In 1994, a GE bacterium, developed to aid in the production of ethanol, produced residues that rendered the land infertile. New crops planted on this soil grew three inches tall and fell over dead.

• In 1996, scientists discovered that ladybugs that had eaten the aphids that had eaten GE potatoes, died.

• A 1998 study showed that DNA from the GE food fed to pregnant mice ended up in their intestinal lining, white blood cells, brain cells and their fetuses. This suggests that the GE DNA in the food we eat can end up in our own cells. Subsequent research has corroborated these findings.

• In 1999, researchers at Cornell University discovered that Monarch butterflies (in the larvae stage) died unexpectedly from eating milkweed plants that had been dusted with the pollen of GE Bt corn. This is corn that is engineered to contain pesticides.

• In 2000, a leading European zoologist found that genes from GE canola jumped the species barrier and were picked up by the bacteria in the digestive tracts of bees. This indicates that antibiotic resistant marker genes in GE foods can cause the bacteria in our own intestines to mutate into superbugs that cannot be killed by antibiotics.

• Recently, the Austrian government commissioned a study which found that in the third generation of rats ingesting GMOs, they become sterile. This reflects the results of many other studies. And, in view of the proliferation of artificial insemination in humans, isn’t this what is already happening in our human family?

WHAT YOU CAN DO

• Eliminate all processed foods from your diet. The Grocery Manufacturers of America have estimated that 70 to 80% of the processed foods on the grocery shelves contain GMOs⁸.

• Buy organic food. Organic food is not supposed to contain GMOs, however, also be aware that sometimes contaminations do occur, even in organic food, because of the aforementioned pollen flow. However, this is not common at this time. Support small family farms and local food production systems.

• Petition your Congress people to make labeling of GE foods mandatory. This has been done in Europe and many other countries with the result that GE foods are being rejected in the marketplace.

• Educate the produce managers in your supermarket on GE. Talk to them in a non threatening way. Give them materials to read. Let them know that you do not want to feed GE foods to your family.

• Petition companies to remove GE ingredients from their products. This has been accomplished successfully with Whole Foods Market brands and also Trader Joe’s. In Europe some of the major food companies, such as Gerber Baby Foods, Kelloggs, Campbells, and Kraft have removed GMOs from their products, why can’t they do that for us here? If we start calling and writing them, believe me they will.

• Dennis Kucinich, a congressman from Ohio, has introduced right to know legislation into Congress pertaining to GE which would mandate labeling, traceability, making the developers of GE responsible in case of harm, rather than the farmers, long term safety testing (remember, the government does NO TESTING, relying on the companies’ tests which are voluntary), and more. Ask your representatives to co-sponsor Kucinich’s GE bills. For more information go to: http://kucinich.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=191609

• Write letters to the editors of your favorite newspapers and magazines and ask them to examine the GE issue from both sides, rather than the biased mainstream reporting that has gone on thus far. Do the same with your favorite TV news magazines, and radio shows.

• Educate yourself about GE issues and become more vocal about them. Remember, always be polite but firm. Educate your friends and family if they are willing to listen.

• Get together with other concerned parents and petition your schools to remove GE ingredients from their menus. In Berkeley, California, a group of parents decided that they wanted to get rBGH milk and cheese out of the school system. (rBGH is a GE hormone that is being injected into cows so that they will produce excessive amounts of milk.) The Berkeley parent group put pressure on the school board and now only organic milk and cheese is fed to their children. That school system is also buying more organic products and the students are growing organic foods in school gardens, that are then used in the school cafeteria.

• Support seed companies that supply organic and open pollinated seeds. Grow at least some of your own food using these seeds.

• Become the guardian and protector of just one open pollinated seed variety. If we all did just one, we’d be preserving these seeds for posterity.

• Boycott Monsanto products and all products from companies that produce GMOs. (Bayer Crop Science, DuPont, Dow Chemical, Novartis, Syngenta, BASF, Scotts, etc.)

• Advocate for laws that prevent people who work for GE companies from being appointed or revolved into positions of power at the FDA, USDA, HHS or any other agency set up to protect the people concerning food issues. It should be self evident that this is a blatant conflict of interest.

• Hand out flyers at supermarkets and other places where GE foods are sold. Organize a group to work on the issue.

• Divest yourself of shares in GE producing or distributing companies.

• Vote out politicians that support GE.

SOME GOOD NEWS

• Ecuador’s new Constitution (approx. 2 years old) is the very first in the world to grant a Bill of Rights to Nature. “New laws will change the legal status of nature from being simply property to being a right-bearing entity⁹.” If damage is done to Nature, this grants individuals and communities the right to go to court in behalf of Nature and argue in her behalf.

• Some states in the US have outlawed corporate farms. This supports small and medium sized family farming.

• Some counties in California have outlawed the growing of GE in those counties.

• Companies have responded to public pressure to take GE ingredients out of their products.

• The European Union countries have instated labeling of GE, have placed restrictions on any additional plantings of GE and have even refused to accept GE shipments from the US. Other countries have followed suit.

• Germany is largely GMO-free. Russia and Serbia are GMO-free. Italy has banned GMO crops. Switzerland has a moratorium on planting GE. In Brazil there are large tracts of land which are designated GMO-free zones. Poland also has GMO-free zones and the International Coalition to Protect the Polish Countryside is working to abolish GMOs in Poland. Other countries with growing GMO-free zones are Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, England, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Latvia, Luxembourg, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden¹⁰.

For more detailed information on GE, check out an excellent article by Nathan Batalion entitled 50 Harmful Effects of Genetically Modified (GM) Foods at: http://www.raw-wisdom.com/50harmful.

Whosoever controls the food supply controls the population. We need to move towards decentralization of the food supply with more local growing, even in greenhouses during the off season in colder climates. People need to take control of their own foods and seeds and not allow this further contamination of their food to take place.

About Rhio

Rhio is a singer and author, as well as an investigative reporter in the area of health and environmental issues. Her best-selling book Hooked on Raw is about living a life more closely aligned with Nature by adopting a raw/live food lifestyle. CNN and American Journal aired stories on raw foods featuring Rhio. She is considered an expert in the area of raw and living foods and lectures on both the raw/live food lifestyle and the genetic engineering of seeds/plants.

Rhio’s website: www.rawfoodinfo.com provides extensive information on the raw/live food lifestyle, as well as organic agriculture, environmental, human rights, civil rights, globalization and economic justice issues.

Rhio and her partner Leigh, are also fledgling biodynamic, permaculture eco-farmers in Upstate New York with a focus on growing edible wild foods, heirloom vegetables, leafy greens and lettuces, fruit, berries and nuts.


Hooked on Raw by Rhio

¹ GMO stands for genetically modified organisms and GE stands for genetically engineered and they both mean the same thing.

² Ref: www.gmo-compass.org

³ View copies of the FDA’s documents on the hazards of genetically engineered foods at www.biointegrity.org

⁴ Ref: Inter Press Service News Agency

⁵ Alternate ways used to get the target gene into the plant are gene guns with tiny gold bullets coated with the genetic cassette materials, and also electrically making holes in the chromosomes so that they can achieve penetration.

⁶ Genetic Roulette by Jeffrey Smith

⁷ The study went on for much longer than ten days, but already at the ten day mark, Dr. Pusztai observed negative effects.

⁸ Elizabeth Weise, "Americans are iffy on genetically modified foods," USA Today, September 17, 2003.

⁹ EcoEarth.Info

¹⁰ http://www.gmo-free-regions.org