Just Say No to GMO’s
Sowing the Seeds of Deception - Part 2
By Jeffrey M. Smith – Extraordinary Health Article
 In
our last newsletter, we featured the first part of an exposé on GM
(genetically modified) foods.
Garden of Life is committed to procuring raw materials that are
non-GMO, and we believe you, our consumers, are best served by this
policy. We are more than a supplement company, though, and we believe
that knowledge is foremost in attaining extraordinary health. Therefore,
you should be well-informed about GM foods. That’s why we asked Jeffrey
M. Smith—who is at the forefront of the debate on the use of GM crops—to
continue to share his insight into what’s happening in the world of GM
foods.
In our previous issue, we looked at the shocking truth
behind GM foods and the huge effort by governments and biotech
corporations to keep information out of the mainstream media—and outside
of your awareness. This time, let’s peer into some of the health risks
associated with GM foods:
Infant Mortality and Reproductive Disorders
It’s rather appalling. When GM soy flour was given to
female rats, most of their babies died within three weeks. For those
that survived, they were smaller and had future fertility problems.
Likewise, male rats fed GM soy or corn experienced testicular
discoloration, damaged sperm cells, DNA function alterations, fewer
offspring and smaller babies.
Some U.S. farmers say that thousands of their pigs,
cows, or bulls experienced reproductive complications including
infertility or sterility after GM corn consumption. In India, most
buffalo that ate GM cottonseed also had reproductive issues, including
premature deliveries, abortions, infertility or prolapsed uteruses.
Additionally, many calves died.
Interestingly, in the U.S. population, the incidence
of low birth weight babies, infertility, and infant mortality are all
escalating. That coincides with increased GM food intake.
The Killing Fields of GMOs
From infant mortality and reproductive disorders to
killing animals, allergen-containing, liver- and intestinal-affecting
“food as pesticide” that can stay in our systems—GMOs can take a toll on
health, says Jeffrey M. Smith.
Jeffrey M. Smith is the international bestselling
author of Seeds of Deception and Genetic Roulette: The Documented
Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Foods.
Food: A Registered Pesticide?
Did you know that when insects bite GM Bt corn and
cotton, they get a mouthful of a built-in toxin, produced by every cell
of the plant? (Inserted genes produce an insect killing pesticide called
Bt-toxin in every cell of the plant.) The poison splits open the
insects’ stomachs and kills them. Here’s the kicker: The GM plants are
registered as pesticides with the Environmental Protection Agency.
Biotech companies claim that Bt-toxin has a history of
safe use, since organic farmers and others use Bt bacteria spray for
natural insect control. Genetic engineers, however, insert genes from
the bacteria into the DNA of the corn and cotton, so the plants
themselves do the killing.
The truth is that the Bt-toxin produced in GM plants
is thousands of times more concentrated than natural Bt spray; is
designed to be more toxic; has properties of an allergen; and, unlike
the spray, cannot be washed off the plant. Even the less toxic natural
bacterial spray is harmful, though— as evidenced by 500 people who
reported allergy or flu-like symptoms when exposed to it, and the Indian
farm workers who handle Bt cotton and report similar symptoms.
The Bt cotton (and corn) has other implications:
killing animals.
If GM crops kill animals, how safe are they for us to
eat?
 When
sheep grazed on Bt cotton plants after harvest, thousands died. Post
mortems showed severe irritation and black patches in their intestines
and livers. Investigators said preliminary evidence “strongly suggests
that the sheep mortality was due to a toxin. . . .most probably
Bt-toxin.” In a small feeding study, 100% of sheep fed Bt cotton plants
died within 30 days, while those grazing on
natural cotton plants in the adjoining field had no symptoms.
Similarly, buffalo that grazed on natural cotton
plants for years without incident are reacting to the Bt variety. In one
village, they allowed their 13 buffalo to graze on Bt cotton plants for
a single day in January 2008. All died within three days. Bt corn was
also implicated in the deaths of cows, horses, buffaloes, and chickens.
Even Monsanto’s (a GMO biotech company’s) own 90-day rat feeding study
showed evidence of poisoning in major organs due to their Bt corn.
GMOs Contain Allergens
Then there’s the problem of allergens. Immune system
problems in GMO-fed animals are “a consistent feature of all the
studies,” according to GM food safety expert Dr. Arpad Pusztai. The
American Academy of Environmental Medicine specifically notes an
increase in cytokines, “associated with asthma, allergy, and
inflammation.” While all three conditions are on the rise in the US, it
is the upsurge in food allergies among children that has generated the
most alarm nationwide. There are many reasons why GMOs might be the
cause:
- The GM proteins produced in GM soy, corn, and
papayas have properties of known allergens and fail the allergy
screening protocol recommended by the World Health Organization.
- Creating a GMO can introduce new allergens or
elevate existing ones. Both GM soy and corn contain new unintended
allergenic proteins, and GM soy has as much as seven times higher
levels of a natural soy allergen.
- Herbicide tolerant GM crops have considerably more
residues of toxic herbicides, which may provoke reactions.
- Allergy tests confirm that some people react to GM
soy, people react to GM soy, but not to non-GM soy.
Soon after GM soy was introduced to the UK, soy
allergies skyrocketed by 50%. Research shows that consuming GM
foods—including Bt toxin-tainted foods and GM peas—may provoke
sensitivity to other, non-GMO foods.
GMOs and Liver Problems
The liver is a primary detoxifier, but the livers of
mice and rats fed GM feed were smaller, partially atrophied or
significantly heavier—possibly inflamed—and some showed signs of
toxicity from eating GM food.
GMOs Remain Inside Us!
 The
only published human feeding study revealed that the genes inserted into
GM crops transfer into the DNA of bacteria living inside our intestines
and continue to function. So, long after we stop eating GMOs, we may
still have potentially harmful GM proteins produced continuously inside
of us. Although scientists tested this only on soy, if Bt genes from
corn chips also transferred, they could transform our intestinal
bacteria into living pesticide factories—possibly for the rest of our
lives. The bottom line? GM foods might be colonizing the gut flora of
North Americans.
Even if GMOs helped combat global hunger—which they
don’t—it would be hard to justify putting these high-risk organisms into
the food supply, especially since GM crops cross-pollinate and
contaminate the environment. Their self-propagating genetic pollution
may outlast the effects of global warming and nuclear waste.
Meet the Scientists Who Dared to Break the Silence on
GMOs
Arpad Pusztai
Biologist Arpad Pusztai was the world’s top expert in
his field, but when he accidentally discovered that genetically modified
(GM) foods are dangerous, he became the biotech industry’s bad boy.
Here’s what happened: Dr. Pusztai was awarded a $3 million grant to
design a system for safety testing GMOs, but the testing went sideways.
Within 10 days, the test animals fed GM potatoes
developed potentially pre-cancerous cell growth, smaller brains, livers,
and testicles, partially atrophied livers, and damaged immune systems.
Moreover, the cause was almost certainly side effects from the process
of genetic engineering itself. In other words, the GM foods on the
market—created from the same process—might have similar effects on
humans.
When Pusztai was interviewed on TV about his findings
and his concern over the safety of GM foods, he was soon fired,
threatened with lawsuits, and shut down. Fortunately, Pusztai’s research
was eventually published in the Lancet. Unfortunately, his is the only
in-depth study done on the GM foods eaten every day by Americans and
Canadians.
Irina Ermakova
Irina Ermakova, a senior scientist at the Russian
National Academy of Sciences, discovered that more than half of the baby
rats in her experiment died within three weeks. She had fed the mothers
GM soy flour purchased at a supermarket. The babies from mothers fed
natural non-GMO soy, however, had only a 10% death rate. She repeated
her experiment three times with similar results.
Dr. Ermakova reported her preliminary findings at a
conference in October 2005, asking the scientific community to replicate
her study. Instead, she was attacked, vilified and told to stop doing GM
food research.
Unfortunately, Ermakova didn’t conduct a biochemical
analysis of the feed, so it couldn’t be determined if some rogue toxin
contaminated that soy flour. More recent events, however, indicate that
the high infant mortality rate of baby rats fed GM soy may not have been
unique to that one bag of GM flour. The laboratory where Ermakova worked
used GM soy in their formulation and fed it to all the rats. After two
months, the rat infant mortality rate from those experiments was over
55%. Unfortunately, no one has yet repeated Ermakova’s study.
Andrés Carrasco
Embryologist Andrés Carrasco told a leading Buenos
Aires newspaper about the results of his research into Roundup, the
herbicide sold in conjunction with Monsanto’s genetically engineered
Roundup Ready crops. Dr. Carrasco, of Argentina’s Ministry of Science,
said his studies of amphibians suggest that the herbicide could cause
defects in the brain, intestines, and hearts of fetuses. Moreover, the
amount of Roundup used on GM soy fields was as much as 1,500 times
greater than that which created the defects.
The biotech industry ridiculed Carrasco’s research and
issued personal threats. Fortunately, Argentina’s Association of
Environmental Lawyers filed a petition calling for a ban on Roundup, and
the Ministry of Defense banned GM soy from its fields.
Terje Traavik
Prominent virologist Terje Traavik presented
preliminary data at a February 2004 meeting at the UN Biosafety Protocol
Conference, showing that:
- Filipinos living next to a GM cornfield developed
serious symptoms while the corn was pollinating.
- Genetic material inserted into GM crops transferred
to rat organs after a single meal.
- Key safety assumptions about genetically engineered
viruses were overturned, calling into question the safety of using
these viruses in vaccines.
The biotech industry mercilessly attacked Dr. Traavik.
Their excuse? He presented unpublished work. But presenting preliminary
data at professional conferences is a long tradition in science,
something that the biotech industry itself relied on in 1999 to try to
counter the evidence that butterflies were endangered by GM corn.
Why is Science and Debate Being Silenced?
There appears to be a de facto ban on scientists
asking certain questions and
finding certain results.
New Zealand Parliament member Sue Kedgley told a Royal
Commission in 2001: “Personally, I have been contacted by telephone and
e-mail by a number of scientists who have serious concerns about aspects
of the research that is taking place . . . and the increasingly close
ties that are developing between science and commerce, but who are
convinced that if they express these fears publicly . . . or even if
they asked the awkward and difficult questions, they will be eased out
of their institution.”
University of Minnesota biologist Phil Regal testified
before the same Commission, “I think the people who boost genetic
engineering are going to have to do a mea culpa and ask for
forgiveness.”
Sue Kedgley has a different idea. She recommends we
“set up human clinical trials using volunteers of genetic engineering
scientists and their families, because they are so convinced of the
safety of their products, I’m sure they would very readily volunteer to
become part of a human clinical trial.” (Human rats maybe?)
 In
the meantime, innocent humans are being forced to take part in this GMO
deception—against their will and, often, unknowingly. In short, we’re
guinea pigs in the GMO killing fields. It’s time to stop the madness.
Find out how to stop eating GMOs by visiting:
www.nongmoshoppingguide.com.
Just Say No to GMO’s
Sowing the Seeds of Deception - Part 1
By Jeffrey M. Smith – Extraordinary Health Article
Note from Christine:
We support the use of only non-GMO products for the
health reasons listed above. The nutrition and health products that we
promote are confirmed to be from non-GMO sources. We have verified this
with all of our product suppliers. We encourage you to choose non-GMO
foods for you and your family.
At Christine’s Cleanse Corner, Inc. we recommend and
carry only whole-food supplements from nutritional suppliers that use
only non-GMO and/or certified organic ingredients like
Garden of Life, Mt. Capra and New Chapter.
Garden of Life’s commitment to health goes beyond offering some of
the most effective nutritional products in the world. Garden of Life is
committed to using only raw and/or whole food sources of materials and
nutrients, from organically grown and/or non-GMO sources because it is
much more beneficial for health.
Mt. Capra’s whole food nutritional products and raw materials are
also certified to be free of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO’s).
New
Chapter became the first vitamins & supplement company verified by
the Non-GMO Project: New Chapter proudly announces that its
multivitamins are the first in the nation to achieve Non-GMO Project
Verification. New Chapter has long been committed to rooting out
Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), and is now demonstrating that
commitment by pursuing Non-GMO Project verification for its entire line
of whole-food vitamins, minerals and herbs.
Over 75% of New Chapter’s products have already been granted Verified
status by the Non-GMO Project.
New
Chapter is the first and only vitamin and supplement company to
have achieved this extraordinary breadth of verification. New Chapter is
proud to be the leading advocate of the non-GMO movement within the
dietary supplement industry.
The process of genetic modification, which takes place in a laboratory,
typically merges DNA from different species, creating combinations of
plant, animal, bacteria and viral genes that cannot occur in nature or
in traditional crossbreeding. With studies increasingly showing a
correlation between consumption of GMOs and an array of health risks and
with U.S. consumer confidence shaken by ongoing food safety failures,
distrust of GMOs is growing. As a result, more and more consumers are
seeking non-GMO choices. New Chapter is committed to meeting the demand
for safe, healthy, non-GMO vitamins and supplements.
The Non-GMO Project offers North America’s only third party non-GMO
verification. The Project was created by natural food retailers in
response to consumer concerns, and is a non-profit organization
committed to providing consumers with clearly labeled and independently
verified non-GMO choices.
“Consumers take vitamins and supplements expressly for
their health,” said Megan Westgate, Executive Director of the Non-GMO
Project. “It is therefore especially important that these products be
made from safe, healthy, non-GMO ingredients. New Chapter is a pioneer
in this regard, and is an inspiring example for the vitamin and
supplement industry.”
New
Chapter has always
been committed to quality when it comes to choosing the ingredients used
in its products. They were the first company to produce a full line of
whole-food complexed vitamins and minerals certified to be made with
organic ingredients. “Enrolling all of our products in the Non-GMO
Project reflects our obedience to best practices for GMO avoidance. It
is our continuous commitment to deliver the Wisdom of Nature in all our
dietary supplements, with organic integrity and genetic honesty “said
Tom Newmark, CEO of New Chapter.
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