More on genetic engineering and the dangers it presents.
Interview of
Jeffrey Smith, author of Seeds of Deception
[website
http://www.seedsofdeception.com]
"Integral to the plan was Monsanto's influence in government, whose role
was to promote the technology worldwide and to help get the foods into the
marketplace quickly, before resistance could get in the way. A biotech
consultant later said, 'The hope of the industry is that over time, the
market is so flooded that there's nothing you can do about it. You just
sort of surrender'."
From:
newsletter@responsibletechnology.org
Date: September 10, 2005
To:
research@healingcommunity.info
Subject: Spilling the Beans newsletter - Rammed down our throats
Spilling the Beans, September 2005
Jeffrey Smith travels this month to South Africa. Here is a reprint of a
hard hitting interview with him by noseweek, an influential South African
investigative magazine. noseweek has generously given permission for you to
reprint this in whole or in part, by acknowledging them as the source. For
commercial use in South Africa, please check with us first.
Click here for a PDF version of the formatted article.
Rammed down our throats
Jeffrey Smith, author of Seeds of Deception, the best-selling book on
genetic engineering, spills the beans to noseweek about the hidden dangers
in the foods we eat and the way massive seed and agrichemical corporations
such as Monsanto are manipulating governments and science to foist their
questionable products on us. South Africa (along with Brazil and India) is
one of Monsanto's key targets
noseweek: What motivated you to write 'Seeds of Deception'?
Jeffrey Smith: In addition to having the inside scoop on many of the
dangers of GM foods, I was also aware of several scandalous stories about
the biotech industry that would make good reading. Scientists were offered
bribes or threatened. Evidence was stolen. Data was omitted or distorted.
Government employees who complained were harassed, stripped of
responsibilities, or fired. Laboratory rats fed a GM crop developed stomach
lesions and seven of the 40 died within two weeks. The crop was approved.
When a top scientist tried to alert the public about other alarming
discoveries, he lost his job and was silenced with threats of a lawsuit.
The warnings of US government scientists were ignored and denied by the
Food and Drug Administration, whose policy chief was a former attorney, and
later vice president, for Monsanto. A University of California professor
claimed he was threatened by a senior Mexican government official who
allegedly implied, "We know where your children go to school," trying to
get him to withdraw an incriminating paper from publication. And news
reports about GMOs were cancelled due to threats from Monsanto's attorneys.
I figured that these stories alone would be fascinating to readers. So I
weaved the science and facts about the technology into the stories, and the
book became the international bestseller on the topic.
What is your interest in Africa?
Many senior African officials I have met at various international
conferences have confided that they have been pressurised by the US
government and biotech companies, and have little access to the type of
information that I have documented. I hope to pierce the biotech myths that
advocates propagate, so that the public and Africa's leaders can make
decisions based on facts, not spin.
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.
Tragically, the studies conducted on GM crops are not designed to identify
the vast majority of possible problems. When scientists understand the
dangers involved with GM technology and then discover what studies are
actually conducted, they're shocked. They realize the extent to which
consumers are being used as guinea pigs, just so the biotech industry
doesn't have to spend the money doing the proper research. There are fewer
than 20 peer-reviewed animal-feeding safety studies. And many of these are
industry-funded and clearly rigged to avoid finding problems. No, GM crops
are not adequately tested for safety. Part of my work is to bring that to
the public's attention.
In 'Seeds of Deception' you cite a study by a leading expert on genetic
modification, Dr Arpad Pusztai, which showed that a strain of GM potatoes
retarded the growth of rats and damaged their immune systems. But is there
any evidence of GM foods harming humans?
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.
Remarkably, there have been no human clinical feeding trials, and no post
market surveillance of possible health effects in humans. The UK's Food
Standards Agency had asked supermarket executives for the purchasing data
from the 20 million consumers using loyalty cards, so they could see if
those eating GM had higher rates of cancer, birth defects, or childhood
allergies. When the study was made public, the embarrassed government
cancelled their plans.
Soon after GM soy was introduced to the UK, soy allergies skyrocketed by
50%. Without follow-up tests, we can't be sure if genetic engineering was
the cause, but there are plenty of ways in which genetic manipulation can
boost allergies. For example, the most common allergen in soy is called
trypsin inhibitor. GM soy contains significantly more of this compared with
natural soy.
I have also documented how one epidemic in the 1980s was caused by a brand
of the food supplement L-tryptophan, which had been created through genetic
modification. The disease killed about 100 Americans and caused sickness or
disability in about 5,000-10,000 others. The Food and Drug Administration
withheld information from Congress and the public, in an apparent attempt
to protect the biotech industry.
If GM foods do affect the human immune system, what are their potential
risks in South Africa where we have a high incidence of HIV/AIDS?
If the foods were creating health problems in the population, it might take
years or decades before we identified the cause. The L-tryptophan epidemic
provides a chilling example. The only reason that doctors were able to
identify that an epidemic was occurring, was because the new disease had
three simultaneous characteristics: it was rare, acute, and fast acting.
Even then it took years to discover and was nearly missed entirely.
If GM foods affect the immune system, which has been shown in animal
models, there are numerous ways that could manifest in humans, from mild
symptoms to serious diseases. Certainly it could worsen existing diseases
or create complications. Since no human studies are conducted, however, we
don't know. It's best just to avoid eating GM products.
Critics of Monsanto demonise the company, but it has publicly pledged
itself to the principles of 'dialogue, transparency, sharing, sharing in
benefits, and respect'. Doesn't this indicate that their heart is in the
right place?
Actions speak louder than words. Consider just a few of the facts about
this company:
In 2005, Monsanto paid a $1.5 million fine to the US justice department for
giving bribes and questionable payments to at least 140 Indonesian
officials, trying to get their cotton approved without an environmental
impact study.
Six government scientists testified before the Canadian Senate that a
Monsanto official offered them a bribe of $1-2 million, if they approved
the company's GM bovine growth hormone (rbGH) without further study.
Legal threats from Monsanto resulted in the cancellation of a TV news
series about rbGH, the cancellation of a book critical of Monsanto, and the
shredding of 14,000 issues of a magazine dedicated to exposing Monsanto.
Monsanto's PR firm created the so-called "Dairy Coalition" in order to
pressure major US newspapers to withdraw stories critical of rbGH.
Documents that were stolen from the FDA showed that when Monsanto
researchers wanted to show that rbGH didn't interfere with fertility, they
allegedly added cows to the study that were pregnant, prior to injection.
Other researchers supporting rbGH had pasteurized milk 120 times longer
than normal and even spiked the milk with huge amounts of powdered hormone,
to try to claim that pasteurization destroyed the hormone.
Monsanto omitted incriminating data altogether from their 1996 published
study on GM soybeans. When it was later recovered by an investigator, it
showed that GM soy contained significantly lower levels of protein and
other nutrients, and toasted GM soy meal contained nearly twice the amount
of a lectin that may block the body's ability to assimilate other
nutrients. Furthermore, the toasted GM soy contained as much as seven times
the amount of trypsin inhibitor, a major soy allergen. Monsanto named their
study, "The composition of glyphosate-tolerant soybean seeds is equivalent
to that of conventional soybeans."
In the feeding portion of the same study, they fed mature animals instead
of the more sensitive young ones, diluted their GM soy with non-GM protein
10- or 12-fold, used too much protein, and never weighed the organs or
examined them under a microscope. These and other flaws have made it the
subject of peer-reviewed critiques, which exposed how GM food studies are
designed in such a way as to overlook detection of even significant problems.
In July 1999, independent researchers published a study showing that GM soy
contains 12-14% less cancer-fighting phytoestrogens. Monsanto responded
with its own study, concluding that soy's phytoestrogen levels vary too
much to even carry out a statistical analysis. Researchers failed to
disclose, however, that they had instructed the laboratory to use an
obsolete method of detection - one that had been prone to highly variable
results.
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.
One FDA scientist arbitrarily increased the allowable levels of antibiotics
in milk 100-fold, in order to facilitate the approval of Monsanto's rbGH.
She had just arrived at the FDA from Monsanto.
Monsanto consistently reported increased yields on GM soy, canola and
cotton, whereas independent studies show decreases. For example, scientists
published a study demonstrating a nearly 80% increase in Indian cotton
yields based only on test plot data supplied to them by Monsanto. In May,
2005, however, a study by the government of Andrah Pradesh found a decrease
of about 18%. When they told Monsanto to pay about US$10 million
compensation to the farmers, the corporation refused and was kicked out of
the state altogether.
Monsanto has a long history of wrongdoings. They had claimed PCBs were
safe, DDT was safe, Agent Orange was safe. They were wrong. In fact, court
documents revealed that the company withheld evidence about the safety of
their PCBs to the residents of the town that was being poisoned by their
factory. On February 22, 2002, a court found Monsanto guilty of negligence,
wantonness, suppression of the truth, nuisance, trespass, and outrage.
Outrage, according to Alabama law, usually requires conduct "so outrageous
in character and extreme in degree as to go beyond all possible bounds of
decency so as to be regarded as atrocious and utterly intolerable in
civilized society."
Monsanto's detractors criticize the fact that the company has patented
seeds and other genetic material. Surely they are entitled to protect their
intellectual property, just like any other inventor?
There is enormous controversy about patents on life. Further, many believe
that patenting genes is more about discovery than invention, and is
therefore privatizing what should remain in the public commons. It's also
interesting how Monsanto chooses to enforce its patents. They have sued 150
farmers in North America and received more than $15 million in judgments.
In one case, they sued a farmer who had the company's seeds blow onto his
land from a nearby farm and by passing trucks.
Have Monsanto ever tried to silence you?
Because my book is now influencing policy in many regions, I occasionally
hear criticism from biotech advocates who try to dismiss the book as a
whole. They don't challenge specific details, however, since the book is
carefully documented and has been through a thorough review by many senior
scientists.
The website www.health24.com says that
'there are exhaustive tests to
ensure that any genetic change in a foodstuff does not increase the
allergenicity of the food.' If GM food is as questionable as you say, why
have US regulatory authorities allowed products that contain GM material
onto supermarket shelves?
The FDA's own scientist Carl Johnson wrote in a memo, "Are we asking the
crop developer to prove that food from his crop is non-allergenic? This
seems like an impossible task." It is impossible to guarantee that a GM
crop isn't an allergen. People tend to develop allergies after being
exposed to a substance over time. But the proteins newly introduced into GM
crops typically come from bacteria and have never before existed in the
human diet.
The World Health Organization developed a list of criteria designed to
minimize the likelihood that a foreign protein from a GM crop will be
allergenic. Unfortunately, the GM soy, maize, and papaya already on the
market fail those criteria.
In addition, the process of gene insertion can disrupt the DNA and increase
a known allergen or create a new unknown allergen.
Not only is there no comprehensive allergy testing before GM foods are
released, remarkably there is no post market surveillance. When it was
revealed that soy allergies skyrocketed by 50% after GM soy was introduced
into the UK, it's simply amazing that no follow up studies were conducted
to see if GM soy was more allergenic.
You are clearly concerned about the way GM foods are being developed and
marketed, but do you think the technology has any potential benefits?
The current technology used in GM crops on the market is based on science
that is 40 years old. Many of the key assumptions used as the basis for
safety claims have been overturned. We know very little about how the DNA
functions, and our paradigms are being shifted every few months with new
discoveries. I am not against DNA research. And perhaps in the future we
can safely manipulate genes for crops or food. But at this stage, it is
irresponsible to feed the products of this infant science to millions of
people or release them into the environment where they can never be recalled.
My focus, by the way, is not on medical uses of biotechnology, which has an
entirely different equation of risk versus benefit.
South Africa has authorized the growing of GM maize for human consumption.
Do you know the nature of this modification? What is its intended outcome?
The primary trait added to GM corn is the insertion of a gene that creates
the Bt-toxin, which is a pesticide. The industry claims that Bt is safe,
since it has been used in an organic pesticide for years. This is utter
nonsense.
The GM Bt-toxin is engineered to be far more toxic than the natural spray
We are the only country in the world where a GM staple food has been
authorized. How will this affect people where 80-90% of their diet consists
of maize meal and fresh maize on the cob?
The GM Bt-toxin in maize is hundreds or even a thousand times more
concentrated than the spray
The spray degrades in the sunlight in a few days, but the GM variety is
produced by every cell of the maize, around the clock, and eaten by the
consumer.
Mice exposed to Bt-toxin developed an immune response equal to that of
cholera toxin, developed a greater susceptibility to allergies, and
developed abnormal and excessive cell growth in their small intestines.
Farm workers exposed to even the low dose Bt spray showed evidence of
allergic sensitivity, and blood tests showed an immune response.
Preliminary evidence found that thirty-nine Philippinos living next to a Bt
maize field developed skin, intestinal, and respiratory reactions while the
maize was pollinating. Tests of their blood also showed an immune response
to the Bt. The only human feeding study ever conducted showed that genes
inserted into GM soy actually transferred into gut bacteria. Imagine if the
gene that produces the Bt-toxin were to transfer from the maize we eat into
our gut bacteria. It could theoretically transform our intestinal flora
into living pesticide factories.
In the US, we eat only 3-5% of our caloric intake as maize. I dread to
think what might happen to those eating GM maize as the majority of their
diet. Some farmers who fed 100% GM corn to their livestock had
catastrophes. Twelve cows died on a German farm. And about 25 farmers in
North America say their pigs became sterile or had false pregnancies, or
gave birth to bags of water.
In the US, GM potatoes were withdrawn from the market due to consumer
pressure, but in South Africathe Agricultural Research Council with
additional funding from USAID are fast-tracking GM potatoes, ostensibly to
benefit resource-poor small farmers. Will GM crops benefit Africa's poor
and starving?
The US decided to fast track GM food in 1992, because the Council on
Competitiveness identified it as a promising area for increasing US exports
and gaining control over the lucrative food supply. USAID has been trying
to implement the US agenda in Africa, and many believe that they
consciously use contamination as a means to promote acceptance of GM. In
fact, University of Washington professor Phil Bereano reported in the
Seattle Times in 2002 that Emmy Simmons, assistant administrator of USAID,
"said to me after the cameras stopped rolling on a vigorous debate we had
on South African TV, 'In four years, enough GE [genetically engineered]
crops will have been planted in South Africa that the pollen will have
contaminated the entire continent.'"
There are many safe, sustainable, and life-supporting technologies that can
benefit Africa's poor and starving. Perhaps genetic engineering technology
will progress to the point someday that it can also be a worthy candidate.
But in its current version, I say, "Run away."
There is an interesting feature about GM potatoes that makes them
potentially more dangerous than most other GM crops. We know that the
process of gene insertion combined with tissue culture typically results in
hundreds or thousands of mutations throughout the genome. Many of these
mutations can be corrected through the process of outcrossing - mating the
GM crop with non-GM crops. Potatoes are not propagated through outcrossing,
and the massive number of mutations created from the transformation process
may theoretically remain intact in the GM potatoes on the market.
Scientists typically don't identify the genome-wide mutations before
putting GM crops onto the market. It's a form of gambling with every bite.
South Africa, along with the US, is one of the very few countries in the
world that allow the use of genetically engineered recombinant bovine
growth hormone (rBGH) on its dairy cows. Is drinking milk from cows
injected with rBGH safe?
There are a few known differences between milk from cows injected with rbGH
and natural milk. Typically, rbGH milk has more pus, due to increased
infections, more antibiotics, used to treat the infections, and more bovine
growth hormone.
The hormone level that most critics are concerned about, however, is
insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1). Natural milk contains IGF-1. Milk
drinkers increase their levels of IGF-1. Studies suggest that
pre-menopausal women under 50 with high levels of IGF-1 are seven times
more likely to develop breast cancer. Men are four times more likely to
develop prostate cancer. IGF-1 is also implicated in lung and colon cancer.
Milk from cows treated with rbGH has significantly higher levels of IGF-1.
(No comprehensive study has yet evaluated a direct link between rbGH and
human cancer.)
Up to 30% of the soya grown in SA is GM. Soya is used as a protein source
by many poor people and in infant formulas. It is also routinely fed to
prisoners and mineworkers. What are the implications?
In addition to all that was said above, we know that:
GM soy has sections of its DNA that were scrambled during the gene
insertion process. These might result in the creation of toxins, allergens,
anti-nutrients, etc.
We know that the inserted gene appears to be unstable and can rearrange
over time. This means that it will create a protein that was never intended
or tested, and may be a toxin, etc.
The protein it was designed to create has two sections that are identical
to known allergens, and therefore might cause dangerous allergic reactions.
Since the inserted gene transfers to gut bacteria, even if you stop eating
GM soy for the rest of your life, you still might have this foreign protein
being created inside of your intestines.
The promoter, which is inserted into soy to activate the foreign gene, also
transfers to gut bacteria, and may switch on one of the bacterium's genes
at random. And this could create a problem.
These are only a few of the reasons why people should just say no to GM soy.
Science is supposedly objective, yet many university academics defend the
use of GM crops while others condemn their introduction vigorously. Why?
What may come as a shock to people is the extent to which science is no
longer independent and objective. Studies show that the source of funds has
a lot to do with the research outcome. Industry-funded studies favour
industry's products. Many scientists admit to making changes in their
findings to suit funders. In the field of plant biotech, practically all
jobs are funded directly or indirectly by industry. We know of many
examples of scientist who lost their jobs, or were threatened or penalized,
after expressing concerns about GM products. Attacks on scientists can get
quite vicious. As a result, those scientists who still dare to challenge
biotechnology are often of retirement age and feel less vulnerable.
So-called independent panels and committees are often stacked with industry
representatives. This is part of the industry's plan, as revealed in leaked
documents. They have been remarkably successful at this.
As the technology flounders, revealing how unsafe and unpredictable it is,
the industry promotes their biotech myths more vigorously. It appears that
they are trying to prop up the image of the technology so they can recoup
their investment before the public and the regulators figure out what's
really going on.
Seeds of Deception: Exposing Industry and Government Lies About the Safety
of Genetically Engineered Foods by Jeffrey Smith is published by Yes!
Books. His website is at
www.seedsofdeception.com
BIOG
Jeffrey Smith has studied the issues around genetic modification for nearly
10 years. He has lectured on the subject, consulted with a nonprofit group
trying to get GM foods labelled, run for US Congress to raise the public
awareness about the issues, worked as the vice president for marketing
communications at a genetically modified organism (GMO) detection
laboratory, and has extensively interviewed scientists and experts
worldwide. Over the past two years, he has toured more than 150 cities on
five continents, debated with scientists, testified before various
government committees, and interviewed activists, scientists, politicians,
and farmers. He collaborates with numerous scientists on a monthly
syndicated column and is preparing material for two more books on GMOs.
SIDEBAR
On May 23, 2003, President Bush proposed an Initiative to End Hunger in
Africa using genetically modified (GM) foods. He also blamed Europe's
"unfounded, unscientific fears" of these foods for hindering efforts to end
hunger. Bush was convinced that GM foods held the key to greater yields,
expanded US exports, and a better world. His rhetoric was not new. It had
been passed on from president to president, and delivered to the American
people through regular news reports and industry advertisement.
The message was part of a master plan that had been crafted by corporations
determined to control the world's food supply. This was made clear at a
biotech industry conference in January 1999, where a representative from
Arthur Anderson Consulting Group explained how his company had helped
Monsanto create that plan. First, they asked Monsanto what their ideal
future looked like in 15 to 20 years. Monsanto executives described a world
with 100% of all commercial seeds genetically modified and patented.
Anderson Consulting then worked backward from that goal, and developed the
strategy and tactics to achieve it. They presented Monsanto with the steps
and procedures needed to obtain a place of industry dominance in a world in
which natural seeds were virtually extinct.
Integral to the plan was Monsanto's influence in government, whose role was
to promote the technology worldwide and to help get the foods into the
marketplace quickly, before resistance could get in the way. A biotech
consultant later said, 'The hope of the industry is that over time, the
market is so flooded that there's nothing you can do about it. You just
sort of surrender'.
From: Seeds of Deception by Jeffrey Smith
Spilling the Beans is a monthly column available at
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