Genetically Engineered Food

Overview

If you buy your food at supermarkets or restaurants, you eat genetically engineered food; an estimated 60% to 70% of processed food sold in the United States contains genetically modified ingredients. In the U.S., 89% of soy and 60% of corn is genetically modified. Soy appears in your food as soy flour, oil, protein, and dozens of additives; corn as cornmeal, oil, corn syrup (used almost universally in place of sugar, such as in soda pop), and dozens of additives. U.S. genetically modified (GM) crops currently sold are: soy, cotton, canola, corn, papaya, alfalfa, zucchini, yellow squash, and tobacco. The GM foods are unlabeled; the only way to avoid them is to buy organic food.

In no case were the crops engineered for better nutrition, taste, or yield. Most varieties were created to tolerate herbicide--to survive a lethal dose of the seed manufacturer's proprietary herbicide, which the farmer is required to buy along with the seed--and/or to manufacture its own pesticide. (Less than 1% of GM crops--zucchini, squash, and papaya--are modified for virus resistance.)

Book: Genetic Roulette: The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Foods
by Jeffrey M. Smith

Genetically Modified Ingredients Overview
Institute for Responsible Technology

The True Food Shopping Guide
The True Food Network

Genetically Engineered Food and Feed Allowed on the Market
"Not all crops allowed on the market are currently for sale."
Union of Concerned Scientists

Animal Studies

According to Genetic Roulette: The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Foods, by Jeffrey M. Smith, "By the beginning of 2007, there were just over 20 peer-reviewed animal feeding safety studies on GM crops. Only a single human feeding trial has been published."

GM Potato

In 1995, the British government sponsored a project to develop protocols for evaluating GM foods. The project engineered a GM potato, modified to produce a natural insecticide, that it planned to commercialize. However, a study, directed by Arpad Pusztai, fed the GM potatoes to rats. When the rats, as part of a balanced diet, ate the GM potatoes, they had stunting, atrophy, and enlargement of various internal organs; immune damage; and excessive cell growth, similar to precancerous changes, throughout their digestive system. The natural insecticide, even when fed to rats in huge amounts, didn't cause this damage; only the GM potatoes did, even when cooked.

Pusztai was fired and prevented from discussing his work. In February 1999, Pusztai testified before the British parliament. Consumer reaction forced food manufacturers to permanently remove GM ingredients from food sold in Europe.

Interview with Dr. Pusztai
GM-FREE, 1999

Effect of Diets Containing Genetically Modfied Potatoes Expressing Galanthus nivalis Lectin on Rat Small Intestine (abstract)
by Stanley W. B. Ewen and Arpad Pusztai, The Lancet, 1999

GNA-GM Potatoes
From Genetically Modified Foods: Potential Human Health Effects
by Arpad Pusztai, Susan Bardocz, and Stanley W. B. Ewen

World Renowned Scientist Lost His Job When He Warned About GE Foods
Physicians and Scientists for Responsible Application of Science and Technology (PSRAT)

Genetically Maniuplated Plants Used for Food
"Thorkild's Main Page on the Pusztai Case"
by Thorkild C. Bøg-Hansen, PhD

GM Pea

A study by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization in Australia fed GM peas, engineered to produce a different natural insecticide, to mice, along with a commercial diet. The GM peas, even when cooked, caused an inflammatory asthma-like immune response in the mice.

GM Pea Causes Allergic Damage in Mice
by Emma Young, NewScientist.com

Genetically Modified Peas Caused Dangerous Immune Response in Mice
by Jeffrey M. Smith, Spilling the Beans, November/December 2005

GM Soy

A peer-reviewed study in Russia fed Monsanto's Roundup Ready soy--an herbicide tolerant (HT) crop widely used in the United States--to rats, in the form of soy flour. The offspring of the rats fed Roundup Ready soy had 55% mortality, compared to 10% mortality in those whose parents were fed non-GM soy. The surviving offspring were often stunted and were infertile when mated to each other.

Most Offspring Died When Mother Rats Ate Genetically Engineered Soy
by Jeffrey M. Smith, Spilling the Beans, October 2005

Contamination of Human Gut Bacteria

Perhaps the most frightening aspect of GM food is the potential to spread unwanted genetic material, through genetic exchange, into the human body. Genetic exchange is common in bacteria. (The phenomenon may account in part for the mutations of disease-causing pathogens.) In humans, beneficial, symbiotic gut bacteria help digest food and produce nutrients, and exist naturally in the trillions in the digestive system. Irreversible contamination of human gut bacteria, through genetic exchange or other mechanisms, could have severe consequences, from poisoning and allergic reactions to antibiotic-resistant epidemics.

The only GM feeding study on humans examined the contents of ileostomy bags in seven volunteers. Genes from Monsanto's Roundup Ready soy--an herbicide tolerant (HT) crop widely grown in the United States--were found, by PCR (used for DNA testing), to have transferred into the genes of human gut bacteria in three of the subjects. The genetic material--three different genetic sequences from Roundup Ready soy--that was found in the gut bacteria included the gene for herbicide tolerance (along with a petunia gene and the cauliflower mosaic virus "promoter," which is used in genetic engineering to "switch on genes"). When cultured, the bacteria survived Roundup herbicide. But the researchers were not even able to identify the species of the affected gut bacteria.

In Bayer's Liberty Link crops, also herbicide tolerant, the plant produces an enzyme that converts Liberty herbicide (glufosinate ammonium) into a form called N-acetyl-L-glufosinate (NAG). NAG accumulates within the plant and is eaten when the crops are eaten as food. Yet studies showed that when rats and goats were fed NAG, their gut bacteria converted some of the NAG back into herbicide. The animals displayed the effects of herbicide poisoning, excreted some of the herbicide, and stored the rest of the herbicide in fat, milk, and internal organs.

Genetically Engineered Crops May Produce Herbicide Inside Our Intestines
by Jeffrey M. Smith, Spilling the Beans, April/May 2006

Genetically modified Bt corn, corn that in every cell produces the highly allergenic natural pesticide Bt-toxin, is also grown in the United States.

Genetically Engineered Foods May Cause Rising Food Allergies: Part 2: Genetically Engineered Corn
by Jeffrey M. Smith, Spilling the Beans, June 2007

Genetically Modified Corn Study Reveals Health Damage and Cover-Up
by Jeffrey M. Smith, Spilling the Beans, June 2005

It is possible that Bt-producing genes could transfer into gut bacteria and produce Bt-toxin in the human intestine.

Furthermore, most GM foods, in every cell, contain genes that confer antibiotic resistance--a byproduct of the genetic engineering process. It is known that antibiotic resistance genes can transfer to oral bacteria and to soil microorganisms. It is perhaps only a matter of time for antibiotic resistance genes to spread to gut bacteria or pathogenic bacteria.

US Government and Biotech Firm Deceive Public on GM Corn Mix-UP
by Jeffrey M. Smith, Spilling the Beans, April 2005

Contamination of Non-GM Crops

Meanwhile, GM crops distribute their genes to non-GM crops at an unknown rate through pollination.

In 2000, Aventis's StarLink, a variety of Bt corn unapproved for human consumption, was detected in brand-name supermarket foods and, despite being grown on less than 1% of corn acreage, in 22% of the corn samples tested.

In 2006, separate strains of unapproved Liberty Link rice were found to contaminate commercial rice in five rice-growing states, U.S. rice exports (refused by Europe and Japan), two major seed stocks (now banned), and supermarket foods (eaten by you).

Attack of the Mutant Rice
by Marc Gunther, Fortune, July 9, 2007

In 2007, the USDA approved field trials of rice genetically engineered to produce pharmaceuticals.

USDA Approval of Drug-Producing Rice in Kansas Poses Threat to Food Safety, Say Food Safety & Farming Groups
The Center for Food Safety, press release, May 17, 2007
Link to Center for Food Safety Report, A Grain of Caution

Drug-producing lettuce:

Be Wary of Biotech Lettuce Experiments
by Charles Margulis, The Salinas Californian, January 11, 2008

Reports

Gone to Seed: Transgenic Contaminants in the Traditional Seed Supply
Union of Concerned Scientists

Lack of Economic Benefit of GM Crops

Genetically Modified Crops Still Not Performing
Center for Food Safety
Link to summary of Center for Food Safety report, Who Benefits from GM Crops: An Analysis of the Global Performance of Genetically Modified (GM) crops 1996-2006

Genetically Modfied Sugar Beets: A Bad Bet (At the Worst Time)
by Jeffrey M. Smith, Spilling the Beans, January 2008

How Genes Are Engineered

A Challenge to Gene Theory, a Tougher Look at Biotech
by Denise Caruso, The New York Times, July 1, 2007

Executive Summary
Genome Scrambling--Myth or Realty: Transformation-Induced Mutations in Transgenic Crop Plants
by Allison Wilson, PhD, Jonathan Latham, PhD, and Ricarda Steinbrecher, PhD
EcoNexus--link to full report