- Everyone is allergic to the GM foods, it comes out as
depression, anger, memory loss, confusion, nerve tics, aches and pains
in joints and muscles, brain, breast, pancreatic, bladder, gallbladder,
liver, kidney and colon cancers. The cancer index for adults and children
have risen several thousand times in the last several years. As in 5000%
increase. Think about that for a minute. The antennas of the microwaves,
and EMF's, cell phones, Frankenfoods, polluted air, water, and land.
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- In two hundred years we have pushed MotherEarth to the
brink of disaster. And people who can see the evidence of all of this
still backstroke down denial. When people deny the evidence they can see
and taste they are beyond unreachable. They are sleeping away and will
only awaken when the Doctor tells them I have good news and bad news.
The good news is cancer, the bad news is, it is too late. Sorry.
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- Sheryl
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- GM - Summary Of Independent Science Panel Report
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- The Institute of Science in Society
- Science Society Sustainability
- www.i-sis.org.uk
-
-
- Independent Science Panel Report
- June 15, 2003
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- The Case for a GM-Free Sustainable World - A Summary
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- Why GM-Free?
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- 1. GM crops failed to deliver promised benefits
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- No increase in yields or significant reduction in herbicide
and pesticide use
- United States lost an estimated $12 billion over GM crops
amid worldwide rejection
- Massive crop failures of up to 100% reported in India
- High risk future for agbiotech: "Monsanto could
be another disaster waiting to happen for investors"
-
- 2. GM crops posing escalating problems on the farm
-
- Transgenic lines unstable: "most cases of transgene
inactivation never reach the literature"
- Triple herbicide-tolerant volunteers and weeds emerged
in North America
- Glyphosate-tolerant weeds plague GM cotton and soya fields,
atrazine back in use
- Bt biopesticide traits threatening to create superweeds
and bt-resistant pests
-
- 3. Extensive transgenic contamination unavoidable
-
- Extensive transgenic contamination found in maize landraces
in remote regions of Mexico
- 32 out of 33 commercial seed stocks found contaminated
in Canada
- Pollen remains airborne for hours, and a 35 mile per
hour wind speed is unexceptional
- There can be no co-existence of GM and non-GM crops
-
- 4. GM crops not safe
-
- GM crops have not been proven safe: regulation was fatally
flawed from the start
- The principle of 'substantial equivalence', vague and
ill defined, gave companies complete licence in claiming GM products 'substantially
equivalent' to non-GM, and hence 'safe'
-
- 5. GM food raises serious safety concerns
-
- Despite the paucity of credible studies, existing findings
raise serious safety concerns
- 'Growth-factor-like' effects in the stomach and small
intestine of young rats were attributed to the transgenic process or the
transgenic construct, and may hence be general to all GM food
-
- 6. Dangerous gene products are incorporated into food
crops
-
- Bt proteins, incorporated into 25% of all GM crops worldwide,
are harmful to many non-target insects, and some are potent immunogens
and allergens for humans and other mammals
- Food crops are increasingly used to produce pharmaceuticals
and drugs, including cytokines known to suppress the immune system, or
linked to dementia, neurotoxicity and mood and cognitive side effects;
vaccines and viral sequences such as the ÔspikeÕ protein gene
of the pig coronavirus, in the same family as the SARS virus linked to
the current epidemic; and glycoprotein gene gp120 of the AIDS virus that
could interfere with the immune system and recombine with viruses and bacteria
to generate new and unpredictable pathogens.
-
- 7. Terminator crops spread male sterility
-
- Crops engineered with 'suicide' genes for male sterility,
promoted as a means of preventing the spread of transgenes, actually spread
both male sterility and herbicide tolerance traits via pollen.
-
- 8. Broad-spectrum herbicides highly toxic to humans and
other species
-
- Glufosinate ammonium and glyphosate, used with herbicide
tolerant GM crops that currently account for 75% of all GM crops worldwide,
are both systemic metabolic poisons
- Glufosinate ammonium is linked to neurological, respiratory,
gastrointestinal and haematological toxicities, and birth defects in humans
and mammals; also toxic to butterflies and a number of beneficial insects,
to larvae of clams and oysters, Daphnia and some freshwater fish, especially
the rainbow trout; it inhibits beneficial soil bacteria and fungi, especially
those that fix nitrogen.
- Glyphosate is the most frequent cause of complaints and
poisoning in the UK, and disturbances to many body functions have been
reported after exposures at normal use levels; glyphosate exposure nearly
doubled the risk of late spontaneous abortion, and children born to users
of glyphosate had elevated neurobehavioral defects; glyphosate retards
development of the foetal skeleton in laboratory rats, inhibits the synthesis
of steroids, and is genotoxic in mammals, fish and frogs; field dose exposure
of earthworms caused at least 50 percent mortality and significant intestinal
damage among surviving worms; Roundup (MonsantoÕs formulation of
glyphosate) caused cell division dysfunction that may be linked to human
cancers.
-
- 9. Genetic engineering creates super-viruses
-
- The most insidious dangers of genetic engineering are
inherent to the process; it greatly enhances the scope and probability
of horizontal gene transfer and recombination, the main route to creating
viruses and bacteria that cause disease epidemics.
- Newer techniques, such as DNA shuffling, allow geneticists
to create in a matter of minutes in the laboratory millions of recombinant
viruses that have never existed in billions of years of evolution
- Disease-causing viruses and bacteria and their genetic
material are the predominant materials and tools of genetic engineering,
as much as for the intentional creation of bio-weapons.
-
- 10. Transgenic DNA in food taken up by bacteria in human
gut
-
- Transgenic DNA from plants has been taken up by bacteria
both in the soil and in the gut of human volunteers; antibiotic resistance
marker genes can spread from transgenic food to pathogenic bacteria, making
infections very difficult to treat.
-
- 11. Transgenic DNA and cancer
-
- Transgenic DNA known to survive digestion in the gut
and to jump into the genome of mammalian cells, raising the possibility
for triggering cancer
- Feeding GM products such as maize to animals may carry
risks, not just for the animals but also for human beings consuming the
animal products
-
- 12. CaMV 35S promoter increases horizontal gene transfer
-
- Evidence suggests that transgenic constructs with the
CaMV 35S promoter could be especially unstable and prone to horizontal
gene transfer and recombination, with all the attendant hazards: gene mutations
due to random insertion, cancer, re-activation of dormant viruses and generation
of new viruses.
-
- 13. A history of misrepresentation and suppression of
scientific evidence
-
- There has been a history of misrepresentation and suppression
of scientific evidence, especially on horizontal gene transfer. Key experiments
failed to be performed, or were performed badly and then misrepresented.
Many experiments were not followed up, including investigations on whether
the CaMV 35S promoter is responsible for the 'growth-factor-like' effects
observed in young rats fed GM potatoes.
-
- GM crops have failed to deliver the promised benefits
and are posing escalating problems on the farm. Transgenic contamination
is now widely acknowledged to be unavoidable, and hence there can be no
co-existence of GM and non-GM agriculture. Most important of all, GM crops
have not been proven safe. On the contrary, sufficient evidence has emerged
to raise serious safety concerns, that if ignored could result in irreversible
damage to health and the environment. GM crops should therefore be firmly
rejected now.
-
- Why Sustainable Agriculture?
-
- 1. Higher productivity and yields especially in the Third
World
-
- 8.98 million farmers adopted sustainable agriculture
practices on 28.92 million hectares in Asia, Latin America and Africa;
reliable data from 89 projects show higher productivity and yields: 50-100%
increase in yield for rainfed crops, and 5-10% for irrigated crops; top
successes include Burkina Faso, which turned a cereal deficit of 644 kg
per year to an annual surplus of 153 kg, Ethiopia, where 12 500 households
enjoyed 60% increase in crop yields, and Honduras and Guatemala, where
45 000 families increased yields from 400-600 kg/ha to 2,000-2,500 kg/ha
- Long-term studies in industrialised countries show yields
for organic comparable to conventional agriculture, and often higher
-
- 2. Better soils
-
- Sustainable agricultural practices reduce soil erosion,
improve soil physical structure and water-holding capacity, which are crucial
in averting crop failures during periods of drought
- Soil fertility maintained or increased by various sustainable
agriculture practices
- Biological activity higher in organic soils: more earthworms,
arthropods, mycorrhizal and other fungi, and micro-organisms, all beneficial
for nutrient recycling and suppression of disease
-
- 3. Cleaner environment
-
- Little or no polluting chemical inputs with sustainable
agriculture
- Less nitrate and phosphorus leached to groundwater from
organic soils
- Better water infiltration rates in organic systems, therefore
less prone to erosion and less likely to contribute to water pollution
from surface runoff
-
- 4. Reduced pesticides and no increase in pests
-
- Integrated pest management cut the number of pesticide
sprays in Vietnam from 3.4 to one per season, in Sri Lanka from 2.9 to
0.5 per season, and in Indonesia from 2.9 to 1.1 per season
-
- No increase in crop losses due to pest damage resulted
from withdrawal of synthetic insecticides in Californian tomato production
-
- Pest control achievable without pesticides, reversing
crop losses, as for example, by using 'trap crops' to attract stem borer,
a major pest in East Africa
- Supporting biodiversity and using diversity
-
- Sustainable agriculture promotes agricultural biodiversity,
which is crucial for food security; organic farming can support much greater
biodiversity, benefiting species that have significantly declined
- Integrated farming systems in Cuba are 1.45 to 2.82 times
more productive than monocultures
- Thousands of Chinese rice farmers doubled yields and
nearly eliminated the most devastating disease simply by mixed planting
of two varieties
- Soil biodiversity enhanced by organic practices, bringing
beneficial effects such as recovery and rehabilitation of degraded soils,
improved soil structure and water infiltration.
- Environmentally and economically sustainable
-
- Research on apple production systems ranked the organic
system first in environmental and economic sustainability, the integrated
system second and the conventional system last; organic apples were most
profitable due to price premiums, quicker investment return, and fast recovery
of costs
- A Europe-wide study showed that organic farming performs
better than conventional farming in the majority of environmental indicators
- A review by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization
(FAO) concluded that well-managed organic agriculture leads to more favourable
conditions at all environmental levels
- Ameliorating climate change by reducing direct &
indirect energy use
-
- Organic agriculture uses energy much more efficiently
and greatly reduces CO2 emissions compared with conventional agriculture,
both with respect to direct energy consumption in fuel and oil and indirect
consumption in synthetic fertilizers and pesticides
- Sustainable agriculture restores soil organic matter
content, increasing carbon sequestration below ground, thereby recovering
an important carbon sink
- Organic agriculture is likely to emit less nitrous dioxide
(N2O), another important greenhouse gas and also a cause of stratospheric
ozone depletion
- Efficient, profitable production
-
- Any yield reduction in organic agriculture more than
offset by ecological and efficiency gains
- Smaller farms produce far more per unit area than larger
farms characteristic of conventional farming
- Production costs for organic farming are often lower
than conventional farming, bringing equivalent or higher net returns even
without organic price premiums; when price premiums are factored in, organic
systems are almost always more profitable
- Improved food security and benefits to local communities
-
- A review of sustainable agriculture projects showed that
average food production per household increased by 1.71 tonnes per year
(up 73%) for 4.42 million farmers on 3.58 million hectares, bringing food
security and health benefits to local communities
- Increasing productivity increases food supplies and raises
incomes, thereby reducing poverty, increasing access to food, reducing
malnutrition and improving health and livelihoods
- Sustainable agricultural approaches draw extensively
on traditional and indigenous knowledge, and place emphasis on the farmersÕ
experience and innovation, thereby improving their status and autonomy,
enhancing social and cultural relations within local communities
- For every £1 spent at an organic box scheme from
Cusgarne Organics (UK), £2.59 is generated for the local economy;
but for every £1 spent at a supermarket, only £1.40 is generated
for the local economy
- Better food quality for health
-
- Organic food is safer, as organic farming prohibits pesticide
use, so harmful chemical residues are rarely found
- Organic production bans the use of artificial food additives,
such as hydrogenated fats, phosphoric acid, aspartame and monosodium glutamate,
which have been linked to health problems as diverse as heart disease,
osteoporosis, migraines and hyperactivity
- Studies have shown that on average, organic food has
higher vitamin C, higher mineral levels and higher plant phenolics - plant
compounds that can fight cancer and heart disease, and combat age-related
neurological dysfunctions - and significantly less nitrates, a toxic compound.
- Sustainable agricultural practices have proven beneficial
in all aspects relevant to health and the environment. In addition, they
bring food security and social and cultural well being to local communities
everywhere. There is an urgent need for a comprehensive global shift to
all forms of sustainable agriculture.
-
-
- The Independent Science Panel on GM Final Report
-
- Dozens of prominent scientists from seven countries,
spanning the disciplines of agroecology, agronomy, biomathematics, botany,
chemical medicine, ecology, histopathology, microbial ecology, molecular
genetics, nutritional biochemistry, physiology, toxicology and virology,
joined forces to launch themselves as an Independent Science Panel on GM
at a public conference, attended by UK environment minister Michael Meacher
and 200 other participants, in London on 10 May 2003.
-
- The conference coincided with the publication of a draft
report, The Case for a GM-free Sustainable World, calling for a ban on
GM crops to make way for all forms of sustainable agriculture. This authoritative
report, billed as "the strongest, most complete dossier of evidence"
ever compiled on the problems and hazards of GM crops as well as the manifold
benefits of sustainable agriculture, is being finalised for release 15
June 2003.
-
- Ahead of the release of the 120-page final report, the
Independent Science Panel is pleased to provide a four-page summary as
its contribution to the National GM Debate in the UK.
-
- It is a challenge to the proponents of GM to answer the
case presented, rather than having to argue against the case for GM crops,
which has yet to be made.
-
- Please circulate this document widely.
-
- Members of the Independent Science Panel on GM
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- Prof. Miguel Altieri
- Professor of Agroecology, University of California, Berkeley,
USA
-
- Dr. Michael Antoniou
- Senior Lecturer in Molecular Genetics, GKT School of
Medicine, King's College, London.
-
- Dr. Susan Bardocz
- Biochemist, formerly Rowett Research Institute, Scotland
-
- Prof. David Bellamy OBE
- Internationally renowned botanist, environmentalist,
broadcaster, author and campaigner; recipient of number awards; President
& Vice President of many conservation and environmental organisations.
-
- Dr. Elizabeth Bravo V.
- Biologist, researcher and campaigner on biodiversity
and GMO issues; co-founder of Acci"n Ecol"gica; part-time lecturer
at Universidad Politcnica Salesiana, Ecuador.
-
- Prof. Joe Cummins
- Professor Emeritus of Genetics, University of Western
Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada.
-
- Dr. Stanley Ewen
- Consultant Histopathologist at Grampian University Hospitals
Trust; formerly Senior Lecturer in Pathology, University of Aberdeen; lead
histopathologist for the Grampian arm of the Scottish Colorectal Cancer
Screening Pilot Project.
-
- Edward Goldsmith
- Recipient of the Right Livelihood and numerous awards,
environmentalist, scholar, author and Founding Editor of The Ecologist.
-
- Dr. Brian Goodwin
- Scholar in Residence, Schumacher College, England.
-
- Dr. Mae-Wan Ho
- Co-founder and Director of the Institute of Science in
Society; Editor of Science in Society; Science Advisor to the Third World
Network and on the Roster of Experts for the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety;
Visiting Reader, Open University, UK and Visiting Professor of Organic
Physics, Catania University, Sicily, Italy.
-
- Prof. Malcolm Hooper
- Emeritus Professor at the University of Sunderland; previously,
Professor of Medicinal Chemistry, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Sunderland
Polytechnic; Chief Scientific Advisor to the Gulf War Veterans.
-
- Dr. Vyvyan Howard
- Medically qualified toxico-pathologist, Developmental
Toxico-Pathology Group, Department of Human Anatomy and Cell Biology, The
University of Liverpool; Member of the UK Government's Advisory Committee
on Pesticides.
-
- Dr. Brian John
- Geomorphologist and environmental scientist; Founder
and long-time Chairman of the West Wales Eco Centre; one of the coordinating
group of GM Free Cymru
-
- Prof. Marijan Josÿt
- Professor of Plant Breeding and Seed Production, Agricultural
College Krizÿevci, Croatia.
-
- Lim Li Ching
- Researcher, Institute of Science in Society and Third
World Network; deputy-editor of Science in Society.
-
- Dr. Eva Novotny
- Astronomer and campaigner on GM issues for Scientists
for Global Responsibility, SGR
-
- Prof. Bob Orskov OBE
- Head of the International Feed Resource Unit in Macaulay
Institute, Aberdeen, Scotland; Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh,
FRSE; Fellow of the Polish Academy of Science.
-
- Dr. Michel Pimbert
- Agricultural ecologist and Principal Associate, International
Institute for Environment and Development.
-
- Dr. Arpad Pusztai
- Private consultant; formerly Senior Research Fellow at
the Rowett Research Institute, Aberdeen, Scotland.
-
- David Quist
- Microbial ecologist, Ecosystem Science Division, Environmental
Science, Policy and Management, University of California, Berkeley, USA.
-
- Dr. Peter Rosset
- Agricultural ecologist and rural development specialist;
Co-director of the Institute for Food and Development Policy (Food First),
Oakland, California, USA.
-
- Prof. Peter Saunders
- Professor of Applied Mathematics at King's College, London.
-
- Dr. Veljko Veljkovic
- AIDS virologist, Center for Multidisciplinary Research
and Engineering, Institute of Nuclear Sciences, VINCA, Belgrade, Yugoslavia.
-
- Roberto Verzola
- Secretary-General, Philippine Greens, Member of the Board
of Trustees, PABINHI (a sustainable agriculture network), Coordinator,
SRI-Pilipinas (network of advocates for the System of Rice Intensification).
-
- Dr. Gregor Wolbring
- Biochemist, University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada; Adjunct
Assistant Professor for bioethical issues, University of Calgary; Adjunct
Assistant Professor, University of Alberta; Founder and Executive Director,
International Center for Bioethics, Culture and Disability; Founder and
Coordinator, International Network on Bioethics and Disability
-
- Prof. Oscar B. Zamora
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