When she was twelve years old, Rachel Parent did a school
project on genetically modified foods. It changed her life.
That was two years ago. Today, Parent is the founder of
Kids Right to Know, an organization that
promotes labeling food to reflect its content, and she speaks at events like
the recent global “March on Monsanto” in Toronto, ON. She scored several goals
in a face off with Kevin O’Leary on
CBC’s TheLang and O’Leary Exchange.
In that short time since her school project, this young
teenager has informed herself extremely well and can eloquently explain her
position on the right to know labeling campaign, what risks GMO products pose
to the environment and ourselves, and the insidious nature of how multinational
GMO-producing corporations like Monsanto are contributing to this potential
negative impact.
Her main issue is also mine: the purposeful deception by corporations (and governments) for
self-serving reasons. Being a bully. Not playing nice.
The Right To Know
 |
| Rachel Parent |
No matter what people might believe about GMO and its
effects on ecosystem function, biological integrity and human health, enough
concern has been raised to warrant clarity in product description. This is a
democratic right.
Our democratic free world is predicated on transparency and
freedom of choice. Citizens of the world have demonstrated the need to know and
choose according to their beliefs. In order to make informed choices, we must
have enough information—in this case the presence, or not, of GM foods in
consumables. Mandatory labeling of consumables made from GMO products currently
exists throughout the world—with the exception of most of the United States
(some states like Connecticut have instituted their own laws) and Canada. “Canada,”
Parent tells us, “is one of only two industrialized nations in the world that
don’t have mandatory GMO labeling. The other country is the United States.”
“The truth is,”
says Parent, “it’s no coincidence that since GMOs have been introduced into our
food system, we’ve started seeing more cases of irritable bowel syndrome, leaky
gut syndrome, acid reflux, infertility, cancer, autism, Parkinson’s and many
other diseases. Unfortunately, it seems like we’re all a big part of a science
experiment.” She adds, “All of this could lead up to be
the most devastating, destructive, unspoken environmental catastrophe of all
time. “Unfortunately, the media is not talking about it because most of their
advertisers are brands that use GM ingredients. In fact, over 90% of the
advertised packaged goods that are advertised on TV contain GMOs, such as corn,
canola, soy, vegetable oils and high fructose corn syrup.”
Parent’s goal is “to make sure that food is clearly and
accurately labeled [for all Canadians] and then people can choose for
themselves.”
Parent has certainly made
up her mind and chosen for herself. But, having made that choice, she admits to
the challenge of living by it, based on the lack of sufficient labeling. So,
Parent makes a best guess, based on what she knows. She avoids corn, canola,
soy, and vegetable oil “because,” says Parent, “if you’re eating food that
contains these ingredients, there’s about a 90% chance that they contain GMOs.”
The evidence, in fact, is clear regarding the
risk to both human health andnatural ecosystems that GMO pose.
For
instance, the American Academy of Environmental Medicine (AAEM) reported that
“several animal studies indicate serious health risks associated with GM food.”
Studies identified infertility, immune problems, accelerated aging, faulty
insulin regulation, and changes to major organs and the gastrointestinal system
as impacts created by GM foods.
The AAEM asked physicians to advise patients to avoid GMfoods. The only human feeding experiment revealed that the genetic material
inserted into GM soy transfers into bacteria living inside our intestines and
continues to function—long after we stop eating GM foods.
While no study has been done to date about
gene transfer, if the antibiotic gene inserted into most GM crops were to
transfer, it could create super diseases, resistant to antibiotics. If the gene
that creates Bt-toxin in GM corn were to transfer, it might turn our intestinal
bacteria into living pesticide factories.
In a recent interview with Courtney Shea of Toronto’s The Grid, Parent explained that Health
Canada’s official position of genetically modified food being as healthy as
other food is based on dangerously limited and potentially biased scientific
evidence: “Health Canada relies on tests that are conducted by the [very] companies
[who produce the product] … and who stand to profit from GMOs. The companies
doing the testing are only testing for [periods of] 90 days. How does 90 days
determine how these things might affect us in the long term?”
This is the $$$$$ question.
What Is Really Being
Tested?
The acute 90-day test used by Monsanto and other GMO
researchers, is just one of many types of toxicity tests conducted by
toxicologists in risk assessment studies of varying exposure.
One can generally
characterize toxicity tests as:
1)
Acute Tests, which test the immediate, worse-case effects of a compound, usually measured through the concentration that kills fifty percent of the organisms tested:
LC50); and
2)
Chronic
Toxicity Tests, which assess a quantitative biological function, usually
growth or reproductive success (not death), usually measured through the NOEC
[no observed effect concentration]).
Both kinds of tests should be
run to provide a realistic and robust measure of effect (e.g., both intense
short term and chronic long term). The latter is more often what occurs in the
real world because of its insidious nature. Low dose chronic exposure is
therefore a critical measure for the following reasons: 1) this dose is less
likely to be noticed and may add to critical accumulative effects; 2) because
of this, chronic doses may exist for prolonged periods with greater hidden
adverse effects; 3) this dose may affect different receptors than higher doses with
great hidden costs; 4) this dose, though not lethal, is less likely to be
regulated and therefore more likely to contribute to aggressive negative
synergy; 5) this dose is more likely to be encountered and persist in the environment for all the reasons given above.
In 2012, French and Italian scientists headed by Gilles-Eric Seralini (see the entire
Séralini et al. paper here), published the results of a two-year long term sub-chronic toxicity study of a Roundup herbicide and a Roundup-tolerant genetically modified maize in Food and Chemical Toxicity
—the first of its kind. Authors concluded in their paper that: "The results of the study...clearly demonstrate that lower levels of complete agricultural guy-phosphate herbicide formulations, at concentrations well below officially set safety limits, induce severe hormone-dependent mammary,hepatic and kidney disturbances."
Despite the
barrage of bad press and efforts to discredit the two-year study on rats (it
has since been validated by the
European Food and Safety Authority), the
paper’s results cannot be refuted entirely or ignored (if only from the basis
of scientific inquiry and professional due diligence to do with Type II Error).
In November 2012, California’s Proposition 37, the bill to
enforce the labeling of GMO products, was defeated. In an article entitled,
“
Writing About Truth…and Other Lies” I explored why. Over $47 million dollars
were spent to fight the California ballot for the right to know. That campaign
ultimately revealed a surprising “who’s who” in the GMO controversy. When some
of the largest “organic” brands like Kashi, Cascadian Farm, and Horizon Organic
joined the anti-labeling effort, it was no surprise that these “organic” brands
are owned by larger conglomerates like Kellogg, General Mills, Dean Foods,
Smucker’s and Coca-Cola—all companies, along with Monsanto, PepsiCo., Nesl
é
and ConAgra Foods, that use GMO materials in their products. Companies who
supported the bill to label GMO products included Whole Foods, Nature’s Path (a
Canadian company) Organic Valley, Cliff Bar and Amy’s Kitchen—brands that do
not use GMO.
Whenever an issue of importance arises, the truth reveals
itself. When someone fights against transparency, condones secrecy, and
ultimately promotes deception alarm bells should go off.
The controversy over the benefits and risks of GMO products
continually rages today, despite sound research findings from years of
experimentation that provide alarming evidence on the risks of GMO practice,
both to the Earth’s ecosystems and human health directly. I’m sad to say that
much of the controversy is due to huge propaganda efforts by multi-nationals
(and governments) who have created an Orwellian reality that has made a lie “a
truth”.
It is interesting to note here
that when someone like Rachel Parent, does her homework and speaks out, she is
challenged and berated by media buffoons.
In her article The Seeds of
Suicide: How Monsanto Destroys Farming in Global Research,
Dr. Vandana Shiva tells us that, “Control over seed
is the first link in the food chain because seed is the source of life. When a
corporation controls seed, it controls life, especially the life of farmers.”
Dr.
Shiva adds, “Patents on seed are illegitimate because putting a toxic gene into
a plant cell is not “creating” or “inventing” a plant. These are seeds of
deception — the deception that Monsanto is the creator of seeds and life; the
deception that while Monsanto sues farmers and traps them in debt, it pretends
to be working for farmers’ welfare, and the deception that GMOs feed the world.
GMOs are failing to control pests and weeds, and have instead led to the
emergence of superpests and superweeds… A renewable resource became a
non-renewable, patented commodity.”
Ecosystem Risks and
Dangers of GMO
In 2007 I published an article here entitled “
Biomimicry,Nature’s Alternative to Genetically Engineered Foods”, I explored the risks to
ecosystem balance posed by genetically engineered crops.
In the article I reiterated ecologists’
fear—based on years of research—of potential devastation from genetically
modified crops released in the natural ecosystem.
Jane Rissler of the Union of Concerned Scientists of America suggested
that transgenic science practices may release a seemingly harmless gene into
our food supply with life-threatening consequences.
“The genome is a
miniature ecosystem,” said Dr. Wes Jackson, director of the Land Institute in
Kansas, a non-profit research facility devoted to alternative agricultural
practices. He warns that, if misused, biotechnology may lead to the
human-induced degradation of the genomes of plant species. “What is being more
or less ignored” in the rush to biotechnology, he said in an interview with the
Chronicle of Higher Education, “is that some of the same principles and
processes that govern an ecosystem, like a forest or a prairie, also operate
with genomes.”
Jackson and The Land Institute promotes “natural systems
agriculture”, a polyculture of herbaceous perennials, that provide a natural
alternative to genetically engineered crops.
Seralini Reference
and Links to Other Studies:
Seralini, G.-E.,et al. Long term toxicity of a Roundup herbicide and a Roundup-tolerant
genetically modified maize. Food Chem. Toxicol. (2012).
