Countering the misleading spin put out by agribusinesses, an interview with a leading activist against genetically modified food:
“Q: What are the health risks posed by genetically engineered (GE) foods?
A: GMOs are linked to toxic and allergic reactions in people, the deaths of thousands of sick, sterile livestock, and damage to virtually every organ studied in lab animals. Soy allergies skyrocketed by 50 per cent in the UK soon after GM soy was introduced. A human subject showed a skin prick allergic-type reaction to GM soy, but not to natural soy.
In the 1980s, a contaminated brand of food supplement called L-tryptophan killed about 100 Americans and caused sickness and disability in another 5,000 to 10,000 people. The source of contaminants was almost certainly the genetic engineering process used in its production. The disease took years to find and was almost overlooked. It was only identified because the symptoms were unique, acute, and fast-acting. If all three characteristics were not in place, the deadly supplement might never have been identified or removed.
If GM foods on the market are causing common diseases or if their effects appear only after long-term exposure, we may not be able to identify the source of the problem for decades, if at all.
Q: Has there been a perceptible impact of GE crops on India’s farming community?
A: Hundreds or thousands of Indian farm workers who pick Bt cotton by hand are developing allergic-type reactions. The cotton is engineered with a gene from a soil bacterium called Bt (bacillus thuringiensis), which produces a natural insecticide. The reason it is in our crops is that the industry and government say the Bt toxin is completely safe for humans. In its natural state, it’s used in organic agriculture and forestry. They, therefore, claim that Bt toxin has a history of safe use, and doesn’t even interact with mammals; that it’s destroyed in the digestive tract.
But this assumption ignores the evidence. About 500 people in the US and Canada developed allergic-type reactions when they were sprayed with natural Bt discharged from airplanes. When they fed natural Bt to mice, the mice developed a powerful immune response and damaged intestines. But the Bt engineered into crops is thousands of times more concentrated than the natural form and is designed to be more toxic.
When I reviewed the symptoms from the Indian cotton workers, they turned out to be the same symptoms that were described by the 500 people in North America who were sprayed with Bt. The Indian Bt cotton farmers allow sheep to graze on the cotton plants after harvest. According to several shepherds, within five to seven days, one out of every four sheep dies. Thousands of sheep have died in the Andhra Pradesh region, and more will be added to those numbers the next year. There are also widespread reports of disease and death among buffalo, who either grazed on the Bt cotton plants or consumed Bt cottonseed or oil cakes.
When I visited Andhra Pradesh, I spoke to a group of women and asked if any of them experienced any reaction to BT cotton crop. After some hesitation, two women stood up and one of them revealed that she suffered from itching. I was also told that women cotton workers are embarrassed to discuss the details of their symptoms, so they don’t come forward.
Q. A chapter in your book says that the risks posed by GE crops/GM foods are greater for women and children.
A: Pregnant women should most definitely avoid GMOs. A Russian study found that more than half of the babies from mother rats fed GM soy died within three weeks, compared to only a 10 per cent death rate for babies whose mothers ate non-GM soy. The offspring from the GM group were also smaller and could not conceive.
Q. In your opinion, does India really require GM foods?
A: The US spends three to five billion dollars per year to subsidise the GM crops that no one else wants. They are trying to force other countries to take GMOs to solve their own problems. The US department of Agriculture confirms that GMOs do not increase yields or farmer income, and in many cases reduce both.
In developing countries, GM crops are clearly disadvantageous. A study by the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) concluded that GMOs are not appropriate, and that industrial farming practices in general force small farmers and landless peasants off the land. Analysis of Bt cotton in India consistently reveals that it provides far less income compared to farmers growing organic or NPM (non-pesticidal management) cotton. But these more appropriate and healthy systems don’t have corporate champions to promote them.
Q. What would be the best strategy to regulate the introduction of GM food?
A: The best regulation would be to demand a ban of current GM crops and all outdoor field trials. Then India can invest in proper independent studies, which I am sure will confirm our conclusions that the current generation of GM crops is unsafe for humans, animals, and the environment.
From an interview with Professor Jeffrey Smith, author of “Seeds of Deception.”
Here is a link to a piece I did a while back for Counterpunch, on the scientific evidence about the risks of genetic modification: “Of Mice, Men and GM Peas.”
And here is a piece on the impact of globalization on local communities in India, “The Globalized Village” (the piece was edited atrociously).
In “Mobs, Messiahs, and Markets” (Bonner & Rajiva, 2007), I have this to say:
“Leading Columbia U. economist, Dr. Jagdish Bhagwati, thinks the agreements on safety in agricultural trade contained in what’s called the Uruguay round of the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT) must be grounded in scientific evidence. In his book, In Defense of Globalization,
he gives the example of the European Union initiative to ban the sale of hormone fed beef. Since the EU couldn’t muster enough scientific proof for the ban, the World Trade Organization was bound to find the EU in violation of WTO rules.
Dr. Bhagwati objects to the EU’s moratorium on the sale of Genetically Modified seeds and foods for the same reason. There simply isn’t enough scientific evidence to warrant it, he claims. The anti-globalization crew, on the other hand, thinks that scientific proof is not essential. They think the principle of precaution should be enough, while Dr. Bhagwati sides with “respectable scientists,” who consider the ban fear-mongering.1
One can only be pleased to be on the opposite side of respectable science. One vastly prefers disrespectful, unrespectable science – the kind of science that blows wind up the skirts of pompous blowhards. Respectable scientists are consensus mongers, organization men……only with higher IQs. The tools with which they arrive at proofs sufficient to pass peer review are so fine we fear we can hardly see them. And, like the mills of god, they grind exceeding slow. It might take them 20 years to definitely prove that genetically modified beef plays Chinese checkers with your immune system. When the worst case scenario is as awful as an international plague, then the reasonable position actually becomes the most unreasonable. The unexpected, low risk event may be just what should occupy center stage in people’s consciousness.
This doesn’t mean one is in favor of government regulation of food. We are neither prescribing policy nor proscribing it…. we are merely grumbling that we liked the old genetically unmodified world better. We have no desire to eat strawberries armed against frostbite with herring genes or cauliflower with an IQ higher than ours.
We would like the state to stop telling us what to do…whether it is in airports, in our schools, or in our bedrooms…but we dig in our heels equally at efforts by global corporations to improve our water or our vittles at the expense of our health and with subsidies from our tax dollars…..”
“Playing the Global Trade Game,” Endervidualism, February 2007, copyright Lila Rajiva (reused in the book).