Agricultural genetically modified organisms (GMO's)

Written By: 

Nathan Daley, MD, MPH  for GreenMedInfo

"You might ask, "why all the fuss about agricultural genetically modified organisms (GMOs)?" After all, regulatory agencies have approved these technologies for widespread application and consumption, so they must be safe, right? Well, the truth is that there is no agency and no industry that works to protect our health. At best, the EPA, USDA, and FDA attempt to respond to our disease after the cause is widespread. At that point only risk reduction, rather than risk avoidance, can be achieved. This has been the case historically with radium paint, tobacco, particulate air pollution, water pollution, asbestos, lead, food-borne illnesses, and DDT. A number of the various 80,000 chemicals in production will likely be added to this list in the future while the majority of them that actually do contribute to disease (often in combination and in complex ways) will never be scientifically associated with disease. This is because science is far from perfect, scientific methodology is always biased and often manipulated, and scientific interpretation by stakeholders and decision makers is alarmingly inept (I'm not being political or condescending, these are well known and easily observed facts)."


GMOs Have Never Been "Proven" Safe

"Let me be clear; despite the following negative review of industry science, this article is not a hatchet job against the agricultural GMO industry but, rather, a vehicle for consolidated scientific information on the safety or risks of GMO foods intended to allow readers to make informed choices about this technology. It is just that, well, the science coming from the industry tends to raise serious concerns and suggests that the agricultural GMO industry has little concern for protecting public and ecosystem health. Before we dive into the independent non-industry studies which suggest potential harm from GMO crops and foods, we must first look at the studies which supposedly demonstrate the safety of GMO crops and foods. A critique of these studies remained impossible for some time as the data was kept private, until French researchers obtained a court order for their release. This team of researchers, lead by Joel Spiroux de Vendomois, then analyzed the raw data from studies on three varieties of GMO corn owned by Monsanto. Yet, it immediately became apparent that this data was not extremely helpful as the study methodology was profoundly insufficient. In a 2010 paper published in the International Journal of Biological Sciences, the researchers summarize several major flaws in the study."

Effects of GMO associated pesticide exposure and ingestion:

"Another route of possible harms from GMO foods comes from the exposure to and ingestion of GMO associated pesticides. The most successful GMO crops have been the "Roundup Ready" or glyphosate resistant varieties of corn, soybean, and cotton. The same genes have been inserted into alfalfa, wheat, and canola (rapeseed) but these have not yet been widely introduced. The result of glyphosate resistance is that glyphosate can then be applied without discrimination to area or dose. In the past, the use of a pesticide like glyphosate to control weeds had to be balanced with the cost of losing crop due to inadvertently heavy crop exposure. Glyphosate spraying has dramatically increased with the introduction of glyphosate resistant crops. This logically increases the risk for excessive occupational exposure, the magnitude of environmental contamination with glyphosate, and the direct and indirect exposures to the general public and consumers of GMO foods (including livestock). Presumably, the glyphosate residue on (and inside... it can't be washed out) glyphosate resistant food products is higher than that on non-resistant varieties, but data supporting this is scarce. I've failed to find any study which quantifies and contrasts the amount of pesticide residue between GMO and non-GMO foods. More research is needed, but again we can't assume that the absence of evidence is evidence of absence. It is simply unknown if there are any differences, but assuming so is a very logical assumption."


Environmental and ecosystem effects of agricultural GMOs:

"In addition to the possible harm of GMOs and GMO associated pesticides on the microbiome, cells, and physiology of humans and other mammals, there is concern about environmental effects (which always end up affecting the health of the environment's inhabitants as well). These environmental effects involve the same or similar mechanisms as those above. For example, GMO genes can transfer to environmental (soil and aquatic) microorganisms as well as native plants (like grasses) and possibly other food crops (like organic corn and soy, the fields of which may become contaminated with GMO seeds)."

Details in the full article HERE.

An extensive resource of GMO research HERE.