The American Academy of Environmental Medicine called on medical professionals to educate the public and talk to their patients about avoiding genetically modified foods to prevent the associated health risks. GMO's stay in our bodies and affect our DNA. They cause immune reactions, are killing animals and are affecting pregnant mothers and their babies.
The infiltration of GMO products into the marketplace is so pervasive, is there a tipping point that could stop the toxic GMO invasion of our ag lands, livestock and bodies? Consider this:
"If even a small percentage of people choose non-GMO brands, the food industry will likely respond as they did in Europe—by removing all GM ingredients. Thus, AAEM’s non-GMO prescription may be a watershed for the US food supply." Read the full article.
After reading this article, I highly, highly recommend you watch the documentaries The Future of Food and King Corn.
Photo Credit: Michael Hogue, Dallas News
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Evan C. says:
"GMO's stay in our bodies and affect our DNA. They cause immune reactions, are killing animals and affecting pregnant mothers and their babies."
This is a total fabrication.
Cris Bisch says:
Evan, may I assume you read the full article and not just my recap here? If you believe otherwise... that GMOs are good for you, good for the community and good for the planet, then on what do you base your statement "this is a total fabrication"?
Zoey L. says:
Greg - It's unclear to me how Cris's request for some evidence that the above is a total fabrication.. is "incoherent."
Also - I don't think Cris is a scientist, and I doubt she's conducted any of these studies on her own. I'm guessing you're not a scientist yourself - you seem to sit at home, zipping around the internet insulting people in forums (which I bet SustainLane actually appreciates; good for page views).
Either way, you've offered nothing concrete, enlightening, or helpful to the conversation. Anyone can sign on to a forum to [baseless-ly] insult peoples' intelligence or argue semantics. I'd prefer to read something informative.
Evan C. says:
Fortunately I don't have to prove a negative, the burden of proof is on the person making outrageous claims.
I hate to be the guy to burst your precious little bubble but there's no such thing as NON genetically modified food. If you took an ear of corn that was bred in the wild over centuries and an ear of corn that was cloned off and modified in a lab, there is absolutely no test that you can perform to tell which is which.
There is NO distinction between traditional genetic manipulation done over centuries of selective breeding and genetic manipulation done in a lab.
Millions of people starved to death every year all over the world because of failed crops. Scientists have created crops that will grow in almost any climate or soil, but people like Cris B. have caused such a maelstrom of baseless controversy that GMO is almost a bad word. With no evidence, Cris B. and her compatriots have sentenced millions of people to a slow agonizing death from starvation.
I want to be clear that I am not overstating this at all. As far as I'm concerned Cris B and anyone else responsible for the global anti-GMO furor is guilty of mass murder.
Evan C. says:
I may not have been clear enough. We have the technology to feed every single person on the face of the Earth. Starvation is a solved problem. Every person who has died from starvation in the last decade was murdered.
Evan C. says:
Cris B, you are literally slaughtering African children.
Evan C. says:
No natural disaster, religious cause, genocide, or disease has killed as many people as the anti-GMO activists. Virtually every social issue plaguing our world today is a direct result of the homicide perpetrated by Cris B and her accomplices at Greenpeace et al.
Evan C. says:
hey you know what does actually have an effect on "pregnant women and their babies"? Starving to death. Thousands do, every day. Their blood is on your hands, Cris B.
Evan C. says:
It's not insulting it's an accusation. Cris B is engaging in a systemic class-based genocide on an unimaginable scale.
Evan C. says:
Cris B., even a conservative estimate would implicate you and those who believe as you do in the intentional, premeditated, unprovoked decimation of tens if not hundreds of millions of men, women, and children. Whole families slaughtered by your hand, entire villages lay dead in your wake. Countries fight wars over food that could be plentiful if not for your selfishness.
You have the unmitigated gall to claim that you care about human life when no group in the history of the planet has done more to destroy it. You are a hypocrite and a murderer. Any court in the land would not hesitate to put someone with your crimes in jail for life. Yet you walk free.
The most nihilistic sociopath would feel some remorse for ending so many lives, yet you continue to wage war on the poor, the underprivileged, the impoverished, and the needy. They have committed no crime, no offense to deserve the painful agony you have sentenced them to. Without hesitating you plunge the knife into another child's frail, weakened frame.
What must be done to quell your bloodlust?
Elli A. says:
I met a scientist who was creating corn spices that are more resilient to drought and diseases. He was a true ideologist. He could have got a job in one of the big pharma doing the same development he was doing for governments in universities. He believed that this is the only way to save millions from poverty and starvation. I think he is right. It is one thing that intellectuals in Europe (which are not facing immediate starvation problems) want to get their food non GMO. It is a completely different matter when millions of poor people on the planet depend on GMO crops as the only way to have food.
Lets face it, the planet has too many people to support with traditional agriculture and crops. If the population keeps growing, not only the only food you will get will be from GMO crops, the materials that you use for building and cloth, the energy that powers the economy, etc, all will be made from organisms that were genetically modified.
The other option, of course, is not to have that many people, and then this is not necessary. Ironically the intellectuals in Europe that want to stop GMO crops will be denying food from many poor nations, causing starvation, and reduction in population. So maybe they did figure out how to solve the planets problem in a very cynical way (and that was me being cynical :)
Cris Bisch says:
Perhaps you would care to read and to respond to another related article on Sustainlane, posted by AlterNet on May 21, 2009: "Corporate Agriculture Is to Blame for the Hundreds of Thousands of Farmer Suicides in India" -... "The government should also impose a moratorium on GMO seeds such as Bt cotton until full independent assessment of its performance in small farmers' fields has been completed. The government should also promote organic farming, since from the perspective of farmers this is the only way to get out of the debt and suicide trap...." Read more @ http://tinyurl.com/pot3at.
Evan C. says:
Oh so suddenly you DO care about human life? Weighted against your crimes your facade is unconvincing.
Evan C. says:
One wonders how a person could be quite literally pro-starvation. Just absolutely ghastly. You are a deplorable, sub-human creature. There are few actual demons in this world, Cris, but I am fully convinced that you are one of them. You society's disease.
Cliff B. says:
Evan,
You might look at some of these items:
"The poor are not saved by GMO"
The frequently advanced grounds for introducing GMO crops – that its supposed increase in productivity will lessen the problems of hunger – is open to direct challenge. From the case of Zambia and other poor countries, it is clear that hunger is not primarily a matter of scarce food resources but of the economic structures of distribution and accessibility and the social structures of traditional practices and education. In short, hunger is directly related to poverty. We all know the figures that tell us there is no shortage of actually produced food in the world today, and no shortage of potential food production. Referring to the latter, a statement from the Justice and Peace Environment Desk of the Southern African Catholic Bishops Conference noted the untapped potential within the wealth of existing crop varieties. “In Africa, for instance, more than two thousand native grains, roots, fruits and other plants are found. These have been feeding people for thousands of years, but most are receiving no scientific attention whatsoever today.”
http://www.familyfarmdefenders.org/pmwiki.php/GeneticEngineering/CriticalFaith-BasedPerspectivesOnBiotechAndGeneticallyModifiedOrganismsGMOs
GMO foods violate the four major world religions.
Vegetarians must eat genes against their religion:
Corn engineered with human genes (Dow)
Sugarcane engineered with human genes (Hawaii Agriculture Research Center)
Corn engineered with jellyfish genes (Stanford University)
Rice engineered with human genes (Applied Phytologics)
Corn engineered with hepatitis virus genes (Prodigene)
http://myrighttosafefood.blogspot.com/2009/04/gmos-and-jews-muslims-christians-hindus.html
Cliff B. says:
Another for Evan:
GMO is uncontrolled and subject to the company that produces them
Under current guidelines, a genetically-modified ear of corn sold at a produce stand is not regulated by the FDA because it is a whole food, but a box of cornflakes is regulated because it is a food product. The FDA's stance is that GM foods are substantially equivalent to unmodified, "natural" foods, and therefore not subject to FDA regulation.
Companies working to create new GM foods are not required to consult the FDA, nor are they required to follow the FDA's recommendations after the consultation.
http://www.csa.com/discoveryguides/gmfood/overview.php#n1
Evan,
You blindly accept that quantity of food, ala GMO, has value. There are no controls on GMO to insure that it is good and safe. The FDA is "hands off" as it is a whole food, unprocessed.
You are completely wrong on the nature of GMO. The initial scientific problem was how to break into the cell walls of corn, in order to insert useful products. Round Up Ready grain uses swine DNA to accomplish this.
When Bayer made Round Up Ready rice, and some got away in Missisppi, local rice farmers were enraged. The grain, indeed was resistant to Round Up. You could spray the RoundUp and not kill the rice. Weeds would die. Only one problem...the RR rice cross bred with red rice, a common problem weed for rice farmers. Whereas Bayer had no intention of releasing the experimental rice, when the farmers rose up in protest, the FDA quickly (in 2 weeks) approved the rice for use in order to protect Bayer.
This is a discussion board for environmental topics. Your behavior is totally inappropriate. True, you have strong emotions on the topics presented, and I can sympathize. Cris cares deeply for the well being of others. You say that you care but you use a shotgun to prove your point. Personal attacks and insults serve one purpose, and that is to totally discredit you as a source for adult debate. Take a breath.
Evan C. says:
You talk about corn with human genes, rice with human genes, etc but you fail to mention that those are research experiments, not something planned for human consumption.
And what if it were? Corn and humans both have DNA and it is not as dissimilar as you may believe. We already share many of the same genetic sequences. There's one chromosome in particular that is identical in humans and corn.
Adding a few animal genes to a plant is more akin to employing the same construction company that once built a prison to build your house. Does that make your house a prison? Of course not. They might even build a sturdier house.
A handful of examples have been posted where GMO crops have caused problems ranging from a nuisance to allegedly causing the suicide of a hundred thousand (even though the story is extremely sketchy and does not appear in any reputable news source). This is a worthless argument because these same problems would exist with "non" GMO crops (even though that's a ridiculous thing to say because as previously discussed, all domesticated crops have been genetically modified *by definition*). Let's call them "Traditional" crops- Traditional crops fail, traditional crops cross-pollinate, traditional crops spread into fallow fields.
This is an irrefutable fact:
There is not a single verified case of any person being affected negatively in any way by genetically modified food.
There has never been a single death caused by genetically modified food. Not one. Millions of people every year could be saved from death by starvation if they only had access to crops that resist disease and thrive in harsh climates, but you would deprive them of this because /maybe/ this, /maybe/ that. You claim to care about human life, but this is clearly untrue.
What is your true motivation, then?
Cliff B. says:
Simple safety and health is my motivation.
If you would review this report of illness and death from GMO, I would like your comments.
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/GMBanLongOverdue.php
Evan C. says:
I dismiss it as the propaganda it is. A bunch of people in a third world nation got sick. If that were caused by the plants, it would be recurring all over the world. If this were truly caused by the crops, it would recur in thousands of fields all over the world, anywhere the crop was planted. It hasn't.
What is the vector through which pollen causes dizziness, headaches, chest pains, nausea, and discolored fingernails?
A fungus could explain those symptoms and is pretty likely given that his crop apparently failed and was rotting in the field.
If they were experiencing itchy eyes, runny noses, and sneezing then yeah your pollen theory would be spot on.
Evan C. says:
Also- do you know what "reputable source" means? I'm no fan of the mainstream media but "i-sis.org.uk" is blatant propaganda.
Here's where we're at: "Anti-GMO" means uncountable millions of people die each year. "Pro-GMO" means that those millions live. Even if you are taking that ridiculous article as truth, "Pro-GMO" means that a couple dozen farmers are sick for a week, and millions of people live.
How selfish do you have to be to choose the Anti-GMO path? I ask again: What is your true motivation?
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