Seeds of Deception By Jeffrey M. Smith A 10-Page Summary
Exposing Industry and Government Deception
About the Safety of the
Genetically Engineered Foods You’re Eating
Praise
for the Book Seeds of
Deception
“Outrageous! That’s what you’ll say over and
over again when you read how the biotechnology companies have manipulated the
government, our food, and the media, and put an entire generation at risk.
- Ben Cohen, Co-Founder, Ben & Jerry’s
“Clear, profound, and unerringly accurate,
Seeds of Deception tells you what you need to know about genetically
engineered food — and what Monsanto won't tell you. If you care about the
safety of our food supply, if you care what corporations are doing to your food
and health, this is the book to get.”
- John Robbins, author, The Food Revolution, and
Diet For A New America
“This pivotal exposé leaves no doubt
that politics and corporate influence, not sound science, allowed these
potentially dangerous GM foods onto supermarket shelves.”
- Joe Mendelson, Legal Director, Center for Food Safety
“I have seen first hand how Monsanto and the FDA have resorted to scientific
deceit of the highest order to market genetically engineered milk. With
captivating style and a flair for describing science in clear, accurate
language, Seeds of Deception unveils the distortions, omissions, and lies
for all to see.”
- Samuel S. Epstein, M.D., professor emeritus environmental
and occupational medicine University of
Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health ; Chairman, Cancer Prevention
Coalition
Introduction
On May 23, 2003, President Bush proposed
an Initiative to End Hunger in Africa
[1] using genetically modified (GM) foods. He also blamed Europe’s
“unfounded, unscientific fears” of these foods for thwarting recovery efforts.
Bush was convinced that GM foods held the key to greater yields, expanded U.S.
exports, and a better world. His rhetoric was not new. It had been passed down from president to president, and delivered to the American people through
regular news reports and industry advertisements.
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 fifteen to twenty years.
Monsanto executives described a world with 100 percent of all commercial seeds
genetically modified and patented.
Anderson Consulting
then worked backwards 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.”
[2]
The anticipated
pace of conquest was revealed by a conference speaker from another biotech
company. He showed graphs projecting the year-by-year decrease of natural seeds,
estimating that in five years, about 95 percent of all seeds would be
genetically modified.
While some audience
members were appalled at what they judged to be an arrogant and dangerous
disrespect for nature, to the industry this was good business. Their attitude
was illustrated in an excerpt from one of Monsanto’s advertisements: “So you see, there really isn’t much difference between foods made by Mother Nature and
those made by man. What’s artificial is the line drawn between them.”
[3]
To
implement their strategy, the biotech companies needed to control the seeds—so
they went on a buying spree, taking possession of about 23 percent of the
world’s seed companies. Monsanto did achieve the dominant position, capturing 91
percent of the GM food market.
[4]
But the industry
has not met their projections of converting the natural seed supply. Citizens
around the world, who do not share the industry’s conviction that these foods
are safe or better, have not “just sort of surrendered.”
Widespread
resistance to GM food has resulted in a global showdown. U.S. exports of
genetically modified corn and soy are down, and hungry African nations won’t
even accept the crops as food aid. Monsanto is faltering financially and is
desperate to open new markets. The U.S. government is convinced that EU
resistance is the primary obstacle and is determined to change that. On May 13,
2003, the U.S. filed a lawsuit with the World Trade Organization (WTO), charging
that the European Union’s restrictive policy on GM food violates international
agreements.
On the day the WTO
suit was filed, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick declared,
“Overwhelming scientific research shows that biotech foods are safe and healthy.”
[5] This has been industry’s chant from the start. It is the key assumption
at the basis of their master plan, the WTO challenge, and the president’s
campaign to end hunger. It is also, however, untrue.
The
following chapters reveal that it was industry influence, not sound science,
which allowed these foods onto the market. Moreover, if overwhelming scientific
research suggests anything, it is that the foods should never have been
approved.
Just as the
magnitude of the industry’s plan was breathtaking, so too are the distortions
and cover-ups.
While many of the stories in this book reveal government and corporate maneuvering worthy of an
adventure novel, the impact of GM foods is personal. Most people in North
America eat them at every meal. These chapters not only dismantle the U.S. position that the foods are safe, they inform you of the steps you can
take to protect yourself and your family.
Chapter 1: A Lesson From Overseas When eminent scientist Arpad Pusztai went
public about his accidental discovery that genetically modified (GM) potatoes
severely damage the immune system and organs of rats, he was suspended from the
prestigious Scottish research institute where he had worked for thirty-five
years. He was silenced with threats of a lawsuit while the Institute denied or
distorted his findings. In the ensuing war over public opinion,
biotech advocates tried to spin the science in favor of GM foods, but were
thwarted at each attempt by leaked documents and compelling evidence. Pusztai,
who describes this chapter as “the most thorough and accurate report on the
topic,” was ultimately vindicated when his potato study was published in the
Lancet. His remains the only independent safety assessment in a
peer-reviewed journal. It contrasts sharply with the handful of published
industry studies, an analysis of which reveals how they were designed to avoid
finding problems.
Excerpt:
When Susan answered the door, she was
startled to see several reporters standing in front of her. Several more were
running from their cars in her direction and she could see more cars and TV news
vans parking along the street.
“But you all know
that we can’t speak about what happened. We would be sued and—”
[6]
“It’s OK now,” the
reporter from Channel Four Television interrupted, waving a paper in front of
her.
“They’ve released
your husband. He can talk to us.”
Susan took the
paper. “Arpad, come here,” she called to her husband.
Arpad Pusztai
(pronounced: Are-pod Poos-tie), a distinguished looking man in his late sixties,
was already on his way. As his wife showed him the document, the reporters
slipped past them, into the house. But Arpad didn’t notice; he was staring at
the paper his wife had just handed him.
He recognized the
letterhead at once—The Rowett Institute, Aberdeen, Scotland. It was one of the
world’s leading nutritional institutes and his employer for the previous
thirty-five years—until his sudden suspension seven months ago. And there it
was, clearly spelled out. They had released their gag order. He could
speak.
The document was
dated that same day, February 16, 1999. In fact, less than twenty minutesbefore,
thirty reporters had sat in the Rowett Institute press conference listening to
its director, Professor Phillip James, casually mention that the restrictions on
Dr. Pusztai’s speaking to the press had been lifted. Before James had finished
his sentence, the reporters leaped for the door. They jumped into their cars and
headed straight to the Pusztai’s house on Ashley Park North,an address most were
familiar with, having virtually camped out there seven months earlier.Now those
thirty reporters, with TV cameras and tape recorders, were piled into the
Pusztai’s living room.
Arpad Pusztai read
the document—twice. As he looked up, the reporters started asking him questions
all at once. He smiled, and breathed more easily than he had in a long time. He
had all but given up hope. Now he finally had the chance to share what he knew
about the dangers of genetically engineered foods.
The story of Arpad
Pusztai made headlines throughout Europe for months, alerting
readers to some of the serious health risks of genetically modified (GM) foods.
It was barely mentioned, however, in the U.S. press; the media watchdog group
Project Censored described it as one of the ten most underreported events of the
year.
[7] In fact, major U.S. media avoided almost any discussion of the
controversy over genetically modified organisms (GMOs) until May 1999. But that
was all about saving the monarch butterfly from GM corn pollen, not about human
food safety.
It wasn’t until the
massive food recall prompted by StarLink corn that Americans were even alerted
to the fact that they were eating GM foods everyday. Moreover, the American
press was forced to question whether GM foods were safe. Up until then, the
media had portrayed European resistance to America’s GM crops as unscientific
anti-Americanism. But as the story of Arpad Pusztai reveals, the European anti-GMO
sentiment had been fueled, in part, by far greater health risks than the
scattered allergic reactions attributed to StarLink.
Between the Chapters: The Wisdom of Animals
Mice avoid eating
GM foods when they have the chance, as do rats, cows, pigs, geese, elk,
squirrels, and others. What do these animals know that we don’t? At the end of
each chapter is a one-page story describing how farmers, students, and
scientists discovered that animals refuse to eat the same GM foods that we
consume everyday.
Excerpt:
The Washington Post reported that laboratory
mice, usually happy to munch on tomatoes, turned their noses up at the
genetically modified FlavrSavr tomato. Scientist Roger Salquist said of his
tomato, “I gotta tell you, you can be Chef Boyardee and mice are still not
going to like them.”
[8] The mice were eventually force fed the tomato through gastric tubes and
stomach washes. Several developed stomach lesions; seven of forty died within
two weeks. The tomato was approved without further tests.
Chapter 2: What
Could Go Wrong—A Partial List
Genetic engineers
continually encounter unintended side effects—plants create toxins, react to
weather differently, contain too much or too little nutrients, become diseased
or malfunction and die. This chapter describes the process of genetic
engineering and twenty-one ways in which it can create unexpected, potentially
serious problems.
Excerpt:
New DNA chip
technology has recently allowed scientists to monitor changes in DNA functioning
when foreign genes are inserted. In one experiment, there was a staggering 5
percent disruption of gene expression. In other words, after a single foreign
gene had been added through genetic engineering, one out of every 20 genes that
were creating proteins either increased or decreased their output.
According to
Professor David Schubert, “while these types of unpredicted changes in gene
expression are very real, they have not received much attention outside the
community of the DNA chip users.” He adds that, “there is currently no way to
predict the resultant changes in protein synthesis.”
[9]
Chapter 3:
Spilled Milk
“The scientists’
testimony before a Senate committee was like a scene from the conspiratorial
television show The X-Files.”
[10] This was how Canada’s leading paper described the story of six Canadian
government scientists who tried to stand up to pressure to approve Monsanto’s
genetically engineered bovine growth hormone (rbGH) which they believed was
unsafe. The scientists were threatened by senior government officials, files
were stolen from their locked file cabinets, Monsanto allegedly offered them a
bribe of $1-2 million, and one senior official suddenly quit and disappeared,
avoiding an appearance before a Parliamentary Committee.
[11] What was happening to the Canadian scientists in 1998 amounted to
“re-runs” of what U.S. government scientists faced in the 1980s. When FDA
scientists tried to blow the whistle on what was happening, they were stripped
of responsibilities or fired. The FDA eventually approved rbGH on the basis of a
research summary submitted by Monsanto that had distorted and deleted data about
serious health effects, including cancer.
Excerpt:
The FDA’s article
states, “it has also been determined that at least 90 percent of bovine growth
hormone (bGH) activity is destroyed upon pasteurization of milk. Therefore, bGH
residues do not present a human food safety concern.”
[12] Robert Cohen decided to investigate this claim. He uncovered what he
considers to be blatant scientific fraud. The research had been conducted by
undergraduate Paul Groenewegan. His three co-authors all had close ties with
Monsanto. Thepaper described how they heated milk at 162ºF for thirty minutes.
Cohen said, “when I
read that, I said, wait a second, milk is pasteurized for 15 seconds at that
temperature—not 30 minutes. They intentionally tried to destroy the hormone….
That must have been their mission. Why else would they heat the milk for 30
minutes at a high temperature reserved for a 15 second treatment?” But even
after thirty minutes only 19 percent of the bGH in milk from hormone-treated
cows was destroyed. According to Cohen, “They then ‘spiked’ the milk. This is
their word, ‘spike.’ They added artificial bGH … 146 times the level of
naturally occurring bST in powdered form to the milk and heated it. The powdered
bGH in milk was destroyed! They saved the day for Monsanto. The experiment
worked. These men of science could claim that heat treatment destroys bGH.”
[13]
Chapter 4:
Deadly Epidemic
In 1989, first
dozens, then thousands fell sick. About one hundred people died, others
struggled with paralysis, unbearable pain, and debilitating symptoms.
[14] Authorities eventually tracked its cause: contaminants produced in one
company’s genetically modified variety of the food supplement L-tryptophan.
[15] This chapter describes the evidence implicating genetic engineering as
the cause of the epidemic and the efforts by industry and the FDA to divert the
blame. Current regulations are so loose, they would allow that same type of
deadly supplement onto the market today.
Chapter 5: Government By the Industry, For
the Industry
Henry Miller was in charge of biotechnology
issues at the FDA from 1979 to 1994. According to Miller, “U.S. government
agencies have done exactly what big agribusiness has asked them to do and told
them to do.”
[16] This chapter reveals how industry influence has dictated policy, and
how the FDA ignored the recommendations by the majority of their own
scientists by approving GM foods without requiring safety tests.
Excerpts:
The biotech industry’s success with these government leaders became apparent on
May 26, 1992 in the Indian Treaty Room of the Old Executive Building. There,
Vice President Dan Quayle announced the Bush administration’s new policy on
genetically engineered food: “The reforms we announce today will speed up and
simplify the process of bringing better agricultural products, developed through
biotech, to consumers, food processors and farmers. We will ensure that biotech
products will receive the same oversight as other products, instead of being
hampered by unnecessary regulation.”
[17]
By “receive the same oversight as other products,” Quayle meant that GM foods
would be considered just as safe as natural, non-GM foods. And sidestepping
“unnecessary regulation” meant that the government would not require any safety
tests or any special labels identifying the foods as genetically engineered. The
rationale for this hands-off policy was spelled out in an FDA document dated
three days after Quayle’s announcement. “The agency is not aware of any
information showing that foods derived by these new methods differ from other
foods in any meaningful or uniform way.”
[18] Monsanto had what it wanted: government endorsement of safety, and no
regulations that would interfere with its plans for rapid worldwide sales.
Political Science at the FDA Attorney Michael Taylor was involved in
the development of FDA policy. Prior to working at the FDA, Monsanto was his
personal client. Taylor had helped Monsanto draft pro-biotech regulations that
the industry would lobby for. While working for the FDA, Taylor could implement
those laws himself. For Monsanto, there was no better person to step into a
leadership role at the FDA.
Taylor did not simply fill a vacant position at the agency. In 1991 the FDA
created a new position for him: Deputy Commissioner for Policy. He instantly
became the FDA official with the greatest influence on GM food regulation,
overseeing the development of government policy.
According to public interest attorney Steven
Druker, who has studied the FDA’s internal files,“During Mr. Taylor’s tenure as
Deputy Commissioner, references to the unintended negative effects of
bioengineering were progressively deleted from drafts of the policy statement
(over the protests of agency scientists), and a final statement was issued
claiming (a) that [GM] foods are no riskier than others and (b) that the agency
has no information to the contrary.”[19]
In 1994, Taylor became the administrator at the Department of Agriculture’s Food
Safety and Inspection Service, where he was also involved in biotechnology
issues. He later became Vice President for Public Policy at Monsanto.
When the FDA announced its policy, the public
was not aware of any internal dissent. Thepolicy boldly claimed that there was
no information to indicate that GM foods were differentor more risky than
natural varieties. Since the American public generally trusts the FDA,
peopleassumed that no such risks existed. But nearly a decade later, the
agency’s internal documents—made public for the first time through a
lawsuit—told a different story.
Linda Kahl, an FDA compliance officer,
protested that by “trying to force an ultimate conclusion that there is no
difference between foods modified by genetic engineering and foods modified by
traditional breeding practices,” the agency was “trying to fit a square peg into
a round hole.” She insisted, “the processes of genetic engineering and
traditional breeding are different, and according to the technical experts in
the agency, they lead to different risks.”
[20]
One such expert was FDA microbiologist Louis
Pribyl. “There is a profound difference between the types of unexpected effects
from traditional breeding and genetic engineering,” wrote Pribyl in a letter to
James Maryanski, the FDA’s biotech coordinator. Pribyl said that several aspects
of gene splicing “may be more hazardous.”
[21] According to the New York Times, “Dr. Pribyl knew from studies
that toxins could be unintentionally created when new genes were introduced into
a plant’s cells.”
[22] Moreover, Pribyl wrote “there is no certainty that [the breeders of GM
foods] will be able to pick up effects that might not be obvious.” He declared,
“This is the industry’s pet idea, namely that there are no unintended effects
that will raise the FDA’s level of concern. But time and time again, there is no
data to back up their contention.”
[23]
Pribyl was only one of many FDA scientists
asked to provide input during the formulation of the FDA’s policy on genetically
engineered food. According to Druker, records show that the majority of these
scientists identified potential risks of GM foods. Druker was the main organizer
of the lawsuit that forced the FDA documents into the public domain. His
nonprofit organization, the Alliance for Bio-Integrity, was the lead plaintiff.
Having sorted through tens of thousands of pages of FDA documents, he described
the opinion of the agency’s scientists as follows: “The predominant view was
that genetic engineering entails distinct risks and that its products cannot be
regarded as safe unless they have been confirmed to be so through appropriate
feeding studies.” Druker says several scientists “issued strong warnings.”
[24]
The Toxicology Group, for example, warned that
genetically modified plants could “contain unexpected high concentrations of
plant toxicants,” and described the reasons why these might be very difficult to
identify.
[25] Their director wrote, “The possibility of unexpected, accidental
changes in genetically engineered plants justifies a limited traditional
toxicological study.”
[26]
The Division of Food Chemistry and Technology
outlined four potential dangers:
“Increased levels of known naturally occurring toxins”
“Appearance of new, not previously identified” toxins
Increased tendency to gather “toxic substances from the
environment” such as “pesticides or heavy metals”
“Undesirable alterations in the levels of nutrients”
They warned, “unless genetically engineered
plants are evaluated specifically for these changes,” these four “may escape
breeders’ attention.” The division recommended testing every GM food “before it
enters the marketplace.”
[27]
Gerald Guest, the director of FDA’s Center for
Veterinary Medicine (CVM) sent a letter to the FDA’s Biotech Coordinator, James
Maryanski, saying that he and the other CVM scientists concluded that there is
“ample scientific justification” to require testing and review of each GM food
before it is eaten by the public. He stated, “CVM believes that animal feeds
derived from genetically modified plants present unique animal and food safety
concerns.” He pointed out that, “residues of plant constituents or toxicants in
meat and milk products may pose human food safety concerns.”
[28]
In spite of repeated internal memos outlining
the potential for increased health risks posed by this new technology,
subsequent drafts of the FDA’s policy statement, overseen by Taylor, deleted
more and more of the scientist’s input. In a fiery memo to Maryanski, Pribyl
challenged the direction the policy statement had taken: “What has happened to
the scientific elements of this document? Without a sound scientific base to
rest on, this becomes a broad, general, ‘What do I have to do to avoid
trouble’-type document…. It will look like and probably be just a political
document….It reads very pro-industry, especially in the area of unintended
effects.”
But while the FDA’s scientists were
emphasizing caution and testing, its leaders were beholden to an altogether
different lobbying effort. A March 1992 memo from FDA Commissioner David
Kessler, confirmed the White House’s influence in the crafting of the agency’s
policy. “The approach and provisions of the policy statement are consistent with
the general biotechnology policy established by the Office of the President…. It
also responds to White House interest in assuring the safe, speedy development
of the U.S. biotechnology industry.”
[29]
But even the draft of the policy that
Commissioner Kessler praised as White House-friendly was subject to further
revision as it went up the political chain of command. A memo from theOffice of
the Assistant Secretary for Health, at the Department of Health & Human
Services, expressed reservations about the length and depth of the policy
statement’s concern for environmental effects of GM crops. The letter said, “The
extensive twelve page discussion seems to be…dangerously detailed and
drawn-out.”
[30] In the end, it was the political, rather than scientific considerations
that prevailed.
The agency not only ignored its scientists, it
claimed their concerns never existed. For example, the State Department’s
Melinda Kimble, while negotiating GMO trade policy said, “I want to make very
clear that it is the position of the United States government that we do not
believe there is a difference between GMO commodities and non-GMO commodities.”
[31] Likewise, a March 2003 statement by Speaker of the House Hastert
declared, “There is general consensus among the scientific community that
genetically modified food is no different from conventional food.”
[32]
When the FDA documents eventually became
public, Maryanski defended the agency’s policy.
On February 28, 2000, he told the OECD
Conference on GM Food Safety in Edinburgh, Scotland that the FDA
scientists had merely been asking questions about the various issues involved in
bioengineered food. Maryanski was unpleasantly surprised when Druker, who was a
member of the conference, stood up and invited the audience to read the FDA
memos that were posted on his organization’s website. They could see for
themselves that the agency’s scientists were not merely asking questions; many
of their statements were quite emphatic about the unique risks of GM foods.
Maryanski, other FDA officials, and
representatives throughout the U.S. government continue to claim that there is
overwhelming consensus among scientists that GM foods are safe. In an October
1991 letter to a Canadian official, however, Maryanski himself had admitted that
this was not true. He said, “there are a number of specific issues… for which a
scientific consensus does not exist currently, especially the need for specific
toxicology tests.” Maryanski also said, “I think the question of the potential
for some substances to cause allergenic reactions is particularly difficult to
predict.”
[33]
Commenting on statements made by FDA
scientists, the New York Times wrote. “The scientists were displaying
precisely the concerns that Monsanto executives from the 1980’s had anticipated
-- and indeed had considered reasonable. But now, rather than trying to address
those concerns, Monsanto, the industry and official Washington were dismissing
them as the insignificant worries of the uninformed.”
[34]
Many scientists who understood the dangers, however, were not convinced by the
FDA’s assurances. Geneticist David Suzuki, for example, said, “Any politician or
scientist who tells you these products are safe is either very stupid or lying.
The experiments have simply not been done.”
[35] A January 2001 report from an expert panel of the Royal Society of
Canada likewise supported the conclusions of the FDA scientists. The report said
it was “scientifically unjustifiable” to presume that GM foods are safe. The
report explains that the “default prediction” for any GM foods is that
“expression of a new gene (and its products) … will be accompanied by a range of
collateral changes in expression of other genes, changes in the pattern of
proteins produced and/or changes in metabolic activities.” This could result in
novel toxins or other harmful substances. The report emphasized the need for
safety testing, looking for short and long-term human toxicity, allergenicity,
and other health effects.
The panel began their comprehensive 245-page
report by quoting the editors of the UK’s Nature Biotechnology. “The
risks in biotechnology are undeniable, and they stem from the unknowable in
science and commerce. It is prudent to recognize and address those risks, not
compound them by overly optimistic or foolhardy behavior.”
[36]
FDA veterinarian Richard Burroughs described the changes he saw at the FDA.
“There seemed to be a trend in the place toward approval at any price. It went
from a university-like setting where there was independent scientific review to
an atmosphere of ‘approve, approve, approve.” He said, “the thinking is, ‘How
many things can we approve this year?’ Somewhere along the way they abdicated
their responsibility to the public welfare.”
[37] A congressional aide said, “At FDA morale stinks. Hundreds of people
have either retired or quit in disgust. All the best people, who believed in
working on behalf of public health, have gone.” Dan Glickman, former Secretary
of Agriculture, describes the government’s pro-biotech mind-set. “It was almost
immoral to say that it wasn’t good because it was going to solve the problems of
the human race and feed the hungry and clothe the naked.” He said, “You felt
like you were almost an alien, disloyal, by trying to present an open-minded
view…. So I pretty much spouted the rhetoric… It was written into my speeches.”
[38]
Chapter 6:
Rolling the Dice With Allergies
An infant girl in
England broke out in cold sores from drinking soymilk, but was tested as “not
allergic” to normal soy. Was she allergic to something in GM soy instead?
Perhaps it was the increased amount of the allergen—trypsin inhibitor—found in
Monsanto’s Roundup Ready soybeans? Could this also explain why soy allergies in
the UK jumped by 50 percent after Roundup Ready soy was introduced?
It’s difficult to
say, because although scientists have confirmed that deadly allergies can be
transferred into foods via genetic engineering, there are no robust allergy
tests done on GM foods. This was brought to the public’s attention only after
StarLink had been blamed for severe, potentially fatal allergic reactions.
It took the FDA nearly a year to develop a
test to see if StarLink was allergenic. The test was so poorly designed and
unreliable, even the EPA rejected the results.
Excerpts:
In March 1999, the York Nutritional
Laboratory, Europe’s leading specialists on food sensitivity, reported that soy
allergies skyrocketed over the previous year, jumping 50 percent. The increase
propelled soy into the top ten list of allergens for the first time in the 17
years of testing. York scientists tested 4,500
people for allergic reactions to a wide range of foods. In previous years, soy
affected 10 percent of consumers.
Now, 15 percent reacted with a range of
chronic illnesses, including irritable bowel syndrome, digestion problems, and
skin complaints, as well as neurological problems, chronic fatigue syndrome,
headaches and lethargy. Researchers confirmed the link with soy by detecting
increased levels of antibodies in the blood. Furthermore, the soy tested in the
study was likely to contain significant percentages of the genetically modified
Roundup Ready variety.
The fact that GM soy had just entered the food
supply was not lost to the researchers, who, according to the Daily Express,
“said their findings provide real evidence that GM food could have a tangible,
harmful impact on the human body.” A spokesman said, “We believe this raises
serious new questions about the safety of GM foods.”
The British Medical Association had already
“warned that the technology may lead to the emergence of new allergies.” With
the York’s research in hand, now
British scientists urged their government to impose an immediate ban on GM food
until further testing evaluated their safety.
Pathologist Michael Antoniou said that the
increased allergic responses “points to the fact that far more work is needed to
assess their safety. At the moment no allergy tests are carried out before GM
foods are marketed.”
[39]
At a business lunch with co-workers,
35-year-old Grace Booth dined on three chicken enchiladas, which she later
recalled were very good. Within about fifteen minutes, however, something went
wrong. She felt hot, itchy. Her lips swelled; she lost her voice and developed
severe diarrhea. “I felt my chest getting tight, it was hard to breathe,”
recalled Booth. “She didn’t know but she was going into shock,” reported CBS
news. “I thought, oh my God, what is happening to me? I felt like I was going to
die.”
Her co-workers called an ambulance . . . .
[40]Booth didn’t know what had caused her nearly deadly allergic reaction.
But this was September 2000 and within a few days she heard the news. A
genetically modified corn product called StarLink, a potential allergen not
approved for human consumption, was discovered in tacos, tortillas, and other
corn products. More than 300 items were eventually recalled from the grocery
store shelves in what was to become one of the world’s biggest GM food debacles.
Chapter 7: Muscling the Media The biotech industry uses its considerable
resources to mold public opinion about genetically modified foods. In addition
to promoting a one-sided image of the foods as safe and necessary, they stifle
coverage about health and environmental damage. For example, a Fox TV station
cancelled a news series,
a publisher cancelled a book contract,
[41] scientific journals refused papers, and a printer shredded 14,000
magazines, all due to fear of lawsuits by Monsanto. Other stories presented in
this chapter describe how the industry manipulated news that was reported.
Excerpt:
A national TV commercial showed a montage of
smiling Asian children, caring doctors, rice paddies, and a narrator who says
that golden rice can ‘help prevent blindness and infection in millions of
children’ suffering from vitamin-A deficiency.”
[42]Time magazine went so far as to claim on their cover, “This rice
could save a million kids a year.” The biotech company Syngenta claims one month
of a delay in marketing Golden Rice, would cause 50,000 children to go blind.
[43]
The biotech industry had found its poster child, genetically engineered rice
that makes its own beta-carotene —a precursor to vitamin A. In his New York
Times Magazine article, “The Great Yellow Hype,” Michael Pollan says that
golden rice impales Americans on the horns of a moral dilemma: “if we don’t get
over our queasiness about eating genetically modified food, kids in the third
world will go blind.”
“Yet the more one learns about biotechnology’s
Great Yellow Hope,” Pollan continues, “the more uncertain seems its promise.”
[44] A closer look reveals some interesting omissions in the industry’s
numbers. According to a Greenpeace report, golden rice provides so little
vitamin A, “a two-year-old child would need to eat seven pounds per day.”
[45] Likewise, an adult would need to eat nearly twenty pounds to get the
daily-recommended dose.
“This whole project is actually based on what can only be characterized as
intentional deception,”
writes Benedikt Haerlin, former international
coordinator of Greenpeace’s genetic engineering campaign “We recalculated their
figures again and again. We just could not believe serious scientists and
companies would do this.”
[46]
Even the president of the Rockefeller Foundation, which funded development of
golden rice, said “the public-relations uses of golden rice have gone too far”
and are misleading the public and media. He adds, “We do not consider golden
rice the solution to the Vitamin A deficiency problem.”
[47]
There are other considerations as well. No
published study has confirmed that the human body could actually convert the
beta-carotene in golden rice. Also other nutrients such as fat and protein,
often lacking in the diets on malnourished children, are needed in order to
absorb Vitamin A. And it is not clear whether the genes from the daffodil, which
are used to create golden rice, will transfer known allergens from the flower.
[48]
The biotech proponents also admit that to persuade people to eat yellow rice may
require an educational campaign. But if they are going to spend the time to
educate, Pollan asks, why not instead teach “people how to grow green vegetables
[that are rich in vitamin A and other nutrients] on the margins of their rice
fields, and maybe even give them the seeds to do so? Or what about handing out
vitamin-A supplements to children so severely malnourished their bodies can’t
metabolize beta-carotene?”
Distributing supplements is precisely what the Vitamin Angel Alliance is doing.
They give children who are at risk a high potency tablet, strong enough so that
only two are required per year to prevent blindness. At a cost of only $.05 per
tablet, only $25,000 is needed to prevent 500,000 children from going blind per
year.
[49] Contrast this with golden rice, which has cost more than $100 million
dollars so far, and is not yet ready.
Michael Khoo of Greenpeace says golden rice “isn’t about solving childhood
blindness, it’s about solving biotech’s public relations problem.” If the
industry were truly dedicated to the problems of malnutrition and starvation, a
tiny fraction of their advertising budget could have been diverted to make an
enormous difference already. Khoo says, “It is shameful that the biotech
industry is using starving children to promote a dubious product.”
[50]
Grains of Delusion, a research report jointly released by humanitarian
organizations in Thailand, Cambodia, India, Philippines, Indonesia and
Bangladesh, concluded that, “the main agenda for golden rice is not malnutrition
but garnering greater support and acceptance for genetic engineering amongst the
public, the scientific community and funding agencies. Given this reality, the
promise of golden rice should be taken with a pinch of salt.”
[51]
Chapter 8:
Changing Your Diet
This chapter describes all the sources of GM foods and explains how to remove
them from your diet. It also provides additional motivation to make a change,
describing how food can dramatically influence mood and behavior.
Chapter 9: What You Can Do
This chapter offers some practical ways to stay informed and to make a real
change. One of these is to
get this book into the hands of those who can
make a difference.
Excerpt:
Books have power. Upton Sinclair’s novel The Jungle exposed the
unsanitary conditions of the meat
packing industry. After Teddy Roosevelt read
the book on a long train trip, he pushed a bill through
congress creating meat inspection. At a press
conference, President Kennedy acknowledged the
importance of Rachel Carson’s book Silent
Spring, which exposed the dangers of pesticides. Kennedy
then had his scientific advisor look into the
issue. The book was eventually “credited with beginning
the American environmental movement, the
creation of the Environmental Protection Agency, and the
Officials around the world who are in charge of GM food policy need to be made
aware of the foods’
dangers and of how their approval was based on
politics, not science. They have been subjected to
relentless promotion by the biotech industry
and bullying by the U.S. government to accept GM foods
and crops. The revelations in this book might
change that.
Epilogue This section ties in recent events with a
summary of some of the salient points from the book.
Excerpt:
There are the numerous ways in which industry researchers apparently
doctored their studies to avoid finding problems with GM foods. For example,
Aventis heated StarLink corn four times longer than standard before testing for
intact protein; Monsanto fed mature animals diets with only one tenth of their
protein derived from GM soy; researchers injected cows with one forty-seventh
the amount of rbGH before testing the level of hormone in the milk and
pasteurized milk 120 times longer than normal to see if the hormone was
destroyed; and Monsanto used stronger acid and more than 1,250 times the amount
of a digestive enzyme recommended by international standards to prove how
quickly their protein degraded.
Cows that got sick were dropped from
Monsanto’s rbGH studies, while cows that got pregnant before treatment were
counted as support that the drug didn’t interfere with fertility; differences in
composition between Roundup Ready soy and natural soy were omitted from a
published paper; antibody reactions by rats fed rbGH were ignored by the FDA;
and deaths from rats fed the FlavrSavr tomato remain unexplained.
Overturning a myth is not easy and cannot be accomplished by only a few
individuals. Please join with those of us who are dedicated to getting the truth
out.
[8]
Rick Weiss, “Biotech Food Crop Raises a Crop of Questions,” Washington Post,
August 15, 1999; p. A1
[9]
David Schubert, “A different perspective on GM food,” Nature Biotechnology,
Vol. 20, 2002, p. 969
[10]
Anne McIlroy, “Pierre Blaise thought it was his duty,” Globe and Mail
(Canada), November 18, 1998
[11]
James Baxter, The Ottawa Citizen, October 23, 1998, p. A1
[12]
Judith C. Juskevich, C. Greg Guyer, “Bovine Growth Hormone: Human Food Safety
Evaluation,” Science, 1990, vol. 249, pp. 875-884
[13]
Robert Cohen, Milk, The Deadly Poison, Argus Publishing, Englewood
Cliffs, New Jersey, 1998
[14]
Phillip A. Hertzman and others, The Eosinophilia-Myalgia Syndrome: The Los
Alamos Conference, Journal of Rheumatology, vol. 18, no. 6, 1991, pp.
867-873
[20]
Linda Kahl to James Maryanski, about Federal Register document “Statement of
Policy: Foods from Genetically Modified Plants,” January 8, 1992,
www.biointegrity.org
[25]
Edwin J. Mathews to the Toxicology Section of the Biotechnology Working Group.
“Analysis of the Major Plant Toxicants.” October 28, 1991,
www.biointegrity.org
[26]
Samuel I. Shibko to James Maryanski, “Revision of Toxicology Section of the
Statement of Policy: Foods Derived from Genetically Modified Plants,”
January 31, 1992,
www.biointegrity.org
[27]
Division of Food Chemistry and Technology and Division of Contaminants
Chemistry, “Points to Consider for Safety Evaluation of Genetically Modified
Foods; Supplemental Information,” November 1, 1991,
www.biointegrity.org
[28]
Gerald B. Guest to James Maryanski, “Regulation of Transgenic Plants--FDA Draft
Federal Register Notice on Food Biotechnology.” February 5, 1992,
www.biointegrity.org
[29]
David Kessler, “FDA Proposed Statement of Policy Clarifying the Regulation of
Food Derived from Genetically Modified Plants--DECISION.” March 20, 1992,
www.biointegrity.org
[30]
Eric Katz to John Gallivan, “Food Biotechnology Policy Statement,” March 27,
1992,
www.biointegrity.org
[31]
Bill Lambrecht, Dinner at the New Gene Café, p 322
[32] “Speaker
Hastert Calls for End of European Union’s ‘Protectionist, Discriminatory Trade
Policies,” U.S. Newswire, March 26, 2003
[33]
James Maryanski, to Dr. Bill Murray, Chairman of the Food Directorate, Canada, “The safety assessment of foods and food ingredients developed through
new biotechnology,” October 23, 1991,
www.biointegrity.org
[34]
Kurt Eichenwald, and others, “Biotechnology Food: From the Lab to a Debacle,”
The New York Times, January 25, 2001
[35] Andrea Baillie, “Suzuki Warns of Frankenstein Foods,” CP Wire, October 18, 1999
[47]
Greenpeace demands false biotech advertising be removed from TV, Letter,
February 9, 2001
[48]
“Grains of Delusion,” Jointly published by BIOTHAI (Thailand), CEDAC (Cambodia),
DRCSC (India), GRAIN, MASIPAG (Philippines), PAN-Indonesia and UBINIG
(Bangladesh), February 2001,
www.grain.org/publications/delusion-en.cfm
[50]
FIFRA Scientific Advisory Panel (SAP), Open Meeting, July 17, 2001
[51]
“Grains of Delusion,” Jointly published by BIOTHAI (Thailand), CEDAC (Cambodia),
DRCSC (India), GRAIN, MASIPAG (Philippines), PAN-Indonesia and UBINIG
(Bangladesh), February 2001,
www.grain.org/publications/delusion-en.cfm
