- You may have heard that genetically modified (GM) foods
are safe, properly tested, and necessary to feed a hungry world. UNTRUE!
Genetically modified organisms (GMOs), introduced into our food supply
in the mid-1990s, are one of history's most dangerous and radical changes
in our diet. These largely unregulated ingredients are in 60-70% of the
foods in the US, but are well worth efforts to avoid them.
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- Fortunately, health-conscious retailers, distributors,
manufacturers, and growers are now participating in The Campaign for Healthier
Eating in America, which will eliminate GMOs from thousands of products.
This will make it easier for you to feed your family a healthier "non-GMO"
diet and may even end the genetic engineering of the entire US food supply.
This industry-wide rejection of GMOs can be achieved by a "tipping
point," in which a sufficient number of shoppers in the US avoiding
GM ingredients force the major food companies to stop using them.
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- Informed European Shoppers Say No to GMOs
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- Europe reached the tipping point in April 1999 and within
a single week, virtually all major manufacturers publicly committed to
stop using GM ingredients in their European brands. This consumer-led revolt
against GMOs in the EU was generated by a February 1999 media firestorm
after a top GMO safety researcher, Dr. Arpad Pusztai, was "ungagged
by Parliament" and able to tell this alarming story to the press.
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- Dr. Pusztai was the world's top researcher in his field
and a senior researcher at the prestigious Rowett Institute in Scotland.
He had been working on a UK government grant to design long-term testing
protocols that were intended to become part of the official European GM
food safety assessment process. But when Pusztai fed supposedly harmless
GM to rats, they developed potentially pre-cancerous cell growth, smaller
brains, livers, and testicles, partially atrophied livers, and a damaged
immune system. Moreover, the results clearly indicated that the cause of
the problem was due to the unpredictable side effects arising from the
process of genetic engineering itself. In other words, it suggested that
the GM foods already on the market, which were created from the same process,
might also create such effects.
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- When he expressed his concern he was fired from his job
after 35 years and silenced with threats of a lawsuit, his 20 member research
team was disbanded, the testing protocols were abandoned, and the pro-GM
establishment embarked on an extensive disinformation campaign to discredit
the study's results and protect the reputation of GM foods. But when an
invitation to testify before Parliament allowed Pusztai to finally tell
his story, all hell broke loose. The outpouring of news coverage, wrote
one columnist, "divided society into two warring blocs"[1] over
the GM food issue. The tipping point was reached quickly thanks to the
buying power of consumers that convinced manufacturers to keep GMOs out
of the EU, in spite of official approvals by the pro-GM European Commission.
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- Americans are Uninformed and Misinformed on GMOs
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- In the US, the Pusztai story was barely mentioned. Project
Censored described it as one of the 10 most underreported events of the
year. Indeed, the US mainstream media has been consistently close-lipped
about the enormous health risks of GM foods. They failed to cover the preliminary
study from the Russian National Academy of Sciences, for example, that
showed that more than half the offspring of mother rats fed GM soy died
within three weeks (compared to 9% from mothers fed natural soy).
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- They neglected to report that the only human GM feeding
study ever published showed that the foreign genes inserted into GM food
crops can transfer into the DNA of our gut bacteria. This means that long
after we stop eating GM corn chips, our intestinal flora might continue
to manufacture the "Bt" pesticide that the GM corn plants are
engineered to produce. And Americans were not told about the estimated
10,000 sheep that died within 5-7 days of grazing on GM cotton plants-also
designed to produce this Bt-toxin.
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- Many consumers in the US mistakenly believe that the
FDA approves GM foods through rigorous, in-depth, long-term studies. In
reality, the agency has absolutely no safety testing requirements. (The
tests that biotech companies voluntarily perform on their own crops are
often meticulously designed to avoid finding problems.) The reason for
the FDA's industry-friendly policy on GMOs is that the White House (under
the first George Bush) ordered the agency to promote biotechnology.
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- Also, the person in charge of developing the policy was
the former attorney of biotech giant Monsanto-and later their vice president.
The policy he oversaw claimed that the agency was not aware of any information
showing that GM crops were different "in any meaningful or uniform
way," and therefore didn't need testing. But 44,000 FDA internal documents
made public from a lawsuit show that this was a complete lie. The overwhelming
consensus among the FDA's own scientists was that GM foods were quite different
and could lead to unpredictable and hard-to-detect allergens, toxins, new
diseases, and nutritional problems. They had urged superiors to require
long-term studies, but were ignored. Evidence of this apparent fraud at
the FDA was presented at a Washington, D.C. press conference in 1999. Although
major media were in attendance, they didn't run that story either.
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- Americans know so little about this subject, that only
about 1 in 4 are aware that they have ever eaten a GM food in their lives
(even though the vast majority of processed foods contain derivatives from
the four major GM crops: soy, corn, cottonseed and canola). Thus, the same
companies that carefully avoid GM ingredients for concerned Europeans are
happy to sell GMOs to unknowing consumers in the US.
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- The Campaign is Moving the Market to Non-GMO
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- The fact that GMOs flourish in the US because of ignorance
leaves the biotech industry extremely vulnerable. If some campaign or event
were to push this issue above the national radar screen, consumer reaction
could force a Euro-style retreat from GMOs. How many of us would have to
reject brands that contain GMOs to reach this tipping point? Even 5 percent
of shoppers, or 15 million Americans, would likely be more than enough.
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- When marketing executives at top companies see the drop
in market share and the emergence of a trend, kicking out GMOs will be
a natural reaction. After all, the brands don't gain anything from using
them. Their foods aren't fresher, tastier, or healthier. The two major
traits in GM crops are herbicide tolerance, which allows farmers to spray
herbicide on the crops without killing them, and pesticide production,
in which the crops produce an insect-killing toxin in every cell.
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- So, how do we inspire enough consumers to avoid GM brands?
Do the math. Already, 29 percent of Americans are strongly opposed to GM
foods and believe they are unsafe.[2] That represents about 87 million
people. But even among the 28 million Americans who regularly buy organic
(and therefore non-GMO) food,[3] many do not conscientiously avoid GM ingredients
in their non-organic purchases; they usually don't know how. By educating
health-conscious shoppers about GM food dangers and providing clear choices
in the store, brands without GM ingredients will have the clear advantage.
As millions begin to make brand choices based on GMO content, it is just
a matter of time before the food industry responds.
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- Three Practical Industry and Consumer Steps to Success
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- The nonpartisan Campaign for Healthier Eating in America
will move the market in three ways.
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- 1. Industry-Wide GMO Cleanout
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- The Campaign is helping to orchestrate a full clean out
of GMOs from the entire natural food industry. The mechanism is being organized
by a group called The Non-GMO Project, which offers a uniform standard
for defining non-GMO and a low-cost, online, third-party verification program
to ensure that farming and production methods are designed to meet that
standard. When the Campaign for Healthier Eating was announced at the March
2007 Natural Products Expo in Anaheim, California, the Non-GMO Project
announced endorsements from Whole Foods Market, United Natural Foods (the
industry's largest distributor), Eden Foods, Lundberg Family Farms, and
Straus Family Creamery. Many others throughout the natural product sector,
including Organic Valley and Nature's Path, have also jumped on board this
impressive initiative in self-regulation and healthier food. Retailers,
distributors, manufacturers, and growers are embracing this practical plan
to rid their industry of GMOs.
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- Organic products are included in this program. They are
not allowed to use GMOs and have been an important oasis for non-GMO shoppers.
But research shows that some batches of organic seed and crops contain
tiny amounts of GM contamination. If unchecked, this can grow over time.
By including the organic sector in the campaign, organic producers will
use GMO testing methods and procedures that will help clean up seeds and
crops and ensure that certified organic foods continue to be a trusted
source of non-GMO products.
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- 2. Educating Health-Conscious Shoppers
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- To reach health-conscious shoppers, the Campaign will
provide GMO-education centers in natural food stores nationwide. The brochures,
books, DVDs, and CDs, will make it absolutely unmistakable that "Healthy
Eating Means No GMOs." The Campaign will also provide regular features
on GMO health risks to magazines and websites. These compelling facts should
inspire a turning point in your digestive life.
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- 3. Providing Clear Non-GMO Product Choices in the Store
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- As more and more products participate in The Non-GMO
Project's verification program, the Campaign will offer a series of updated
Non-GMO Shopping Guides, listing non-GMO products by brand and category.
It is expected that all the brands in the natural products industry will
be able to successfully achieve non-GMO status within about 18 months.
At that time the Campaign will provide in-store, on-shelf labels for retailers
to indicate any holdout products that have not participated in the GMO
cleanout and are still using GM ingredients.
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- ______
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- Jeffrey Smith's Brilliant New Book, Genetic Roulette,
Documents Serious Health Dangers
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- The sourcebook for the Campaign is the newly released
Genetic Roulette: The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Engineered
Foods. With input from more than 30 scientists over two years, it presents
65 health risks of GM foods and why current safety assessments are not
competent to protect us from most of them. The book documents lab animals
with damage to virtually every system and organ studied; thousands of sick,
sterile, or dead livestock; and people around the world who have traced
toxic or allergic reactions to eating GM products, breathing GM pollen,
or touching GM crops at harvest. It also exposes many incorrect assumptions
that were used to support GM approvals. Organizations worldwide are presenting
the book to policy makers as evidence that GM foods are unsafe and need
to be removed immediately.
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- But we don't need to wait for governments to step in.
We can make healthier choices for ourselves, our families, and our schools
now, and together we can inspire the tipping point for healthier, non-GM
eating in America. We believe that this can be achieved within the next
24 months.
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- Footnotes
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- 1, Ziauddin Sardar, "Loss of Innocence: Genetically
Modified Food," New Statesman (UK), 129, no. 4425, (February 26, 1999)
47
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- 2, Public Sentiment About Genetically Modified Food (2006
update). The Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology, December 2006
- 3, Hot New Consumer and Retail Trends," The Natural
Marketing Institute, Presented at Expo West, March 24, 2006.
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- © 2007 Jeffrey M. Smith- All Rights Reserved
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