Jeffrey M. Smith
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 Farmers report pigs and cows became sterile from gm corn................................................................36
1.9 Twelve cows in Germany died mysteriously when fed Bt corn..............................................................38
1.10 Mice fed Roundup Ready soy had liver cell problems...........................................................................40
1.11 Mice fed Roundup Ready soy had problems with the pancreas............................................................42
1.12 Mice fed Roundup Ready soy had unexplained changes in testicular cells............... |
| Rosman had fed his hogs gm corn since 1997. When he switched to Bt Liberty Link varieties from Garst Hybrids in 2000, the problem started. It persisted through most of 2001 with "several brief upswings in pregnancy rates"49 coinciding with the times when sows were fed the previous year's (1999) corn.
Four nearby farmers told Rosman they too were having hog conception problems and were using Garst corn. Right after the Farm Bureau Spokesman ran a story on Rosman in 2002, other farmers called complaining of sterile pigs. As media coverage expanded, so did the calls. |
| In chicks fed gm corn, antibiotic resistance marker genes were found in their stomachs.10 The transgene for a Bt corn line (the full length of the coding portion for crylAB) was found in-tact in sheep rumen (the first compartment of a ruminant animal's stomach). The authors concluded, "DNA in maize grains persists for a significant time and may, therefore, provide a source of transforming DNA [i.e., horizontal gene transfer] in the rumen.
Short DNA fragments from plant chloroplasts were found in the lymphocytes of cows, and possibly in their milk. |
| Twelve cows in Germany died mysteriously when fed Bt corn
Gottfried Glockner started growing gm corn variety Bt 176 in his fields in Woelfersheim in the state of Hesse, Germany in 1997. He increased the amount over the years and in 2000 and 2001, switched over entirely to the GM variety. "The farmer reports that his cows had become sick more frequently after being fed the maize harvest from the year 2000."54 Within four months of being fed Bt 176 corn and silage (made from corn plants), five cows died in 2001 and another seven in 2002. |
| One hundred and forty chickens were divided into four pens of 35 chickens each and fed as much of the gm corn as they wanted. Chickens in four other pens were fed a commercial corn diet. Ten chickens (7.14%) from the GM group died, while only 5 died (3.57%) from the non-GM group. The UK industry average was 4%. The GM-fed group also gained less weight and had far greater body weight variability. Their feed intake was also more erratic. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 I think that human civilization will someday have a huge price to pay for relying on genetically-engineered crops like GM soybeans and gm corn while ignoring the tremendous importance of agricultural biodiversity. The very idea of allowing corporations to patent and "own" the DNA of seeds used to grow staple food crops is, in my view, a crime against nature that will only lead to disaster. |
Jeffrey M. Smith
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| Thus, the high level in the gm corn was not considered significantly different because the controls it was compared to were so unusual. INBI said, "This observation again leads us to question how the applicant came to choose specific lines for this study, and whether or not those reasons were consistent with a design to optimize the analysis of LY038 as a human food. |
KC Craichy
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 Read labels—if a label lists ingredients such as corn flour and meal, dextrin, starch, soy sauce, margarine, and tofu, there is a good chance that it has come from gm corn or soy.11 Look closely at produce stickers. These stickers on fruit and vegetables contain different PLU codes depending on how the item was grown. The PLU code for conventionally grown fruit consists of four numbers; organically grown fruit has five numbers, prefaced by the number 9; and GM fruit has five numbers prefaced by the number 8. Avoid all fortified or enriched foods. |
by Michael Murray, N.D. and Joseph Pizzorno, N.D.
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| Another concern is that some GM foods, such as gm corn, are being manipulated to resist synthetic pesticides. As a result, more of the pesticide is being used and humans' exposure to toxic pesticides is actually increasing while insects develop resistance to the pesticides' toxic effects. Finally, we also respect the strong sentiment that genetic engineering is morally wrong as it implicates an attempt to modify nature beyond natural laws. |
Peter Pringle
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 Short of some human health hazard, it was hard to think of a bigger propaganda setback than monarchs being killed by gm corn.
In America, people of all ages are so enamored of the monarch that some chart almost each flutter of its migration from Mexico to the Canadian border and back again. En route the monarchs mate in an elegant embrace and the females each lay up to four hundred eggs, usually on the underside of milkweed leaves for maximum protection. The monarch has its own website, Monarch Watch, started by Orley "Chip" Taylor, an entomologist from the University of Kansas. |
| The USDA found gm corn containing a pharmaceutical protein growing in two soybean plots in Iowa and Nebraska. The offending corn had grown from seeds left over from the test crop planted the year before by a Texas-based company, Prodigene. Exactly what genes were found and what drugs they were for remained a company secret. The USDA ordered the burning of 155 acres of surrounding corn and the quarantine of half a million bushels of harvested soybeans from the test field. The accident was potentially more disastrous than Star-Link—as the food processors made clear. |
| Even though Quist was in Mexico at the time, he came under suspicion among his colleagues as the staff member who might have told the activists which plot contained the gm corn. He was quickly exonerated from this charge by the university, but the suspicion lingered on, according to Quist. When he and Chapela published their work, some critics linked Quist and his partner to these earlier disagreements.
In the wider scientific community, few actually doubted that Quist and Chapela could have found transgenic DNA in criollo corn. |
Jeffrey M. Smith
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 The complete body of research on the safety of GM foods also includes: a study published in a non-peer-reviewed journal, which demonstrated that tissue samples from the digestive tract of both humans and monkeys reacted with GM tomatoes in a test tube33; an unpublished feeding study of a gm corn grown in the U.S. |
Peter Pringle
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| For the previous three years, in an effort to protect their ancient varieties, the Mexican government had forbidden the planting of gm corn. If the Berkeley researchers were correct, farmers had either knowingly defied the ban on planting GM crops, or the modern corn genes had somehow slipped over the border in undocumented alien seeds and into the Mexican gene pool.
Trying to make sense of the academic bickering, reporters traveled to the remote hills an hour and a half's drive from the city of Oaxaca where the Berkeley team had taken their corn samples. |
| They had been caught defying the ban against planting gm corn and feared that the government might burn their fields or even prosecute them. When they heard the word "contamination," they didn't understand its implications. They began to worry that some kind of poison was in the corn that they had planted in the hope of improving their harvest. Now they wondered if the foreign corn could harm their chickens or even their families. One farmer said, "I feel guilty. But another woman told me she planted it too. We don't know the damage we can do. |
Jeffrey M. Smith
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| Vlieger said he respectfully disagreed and described how his cows refused to eat the gm corn. He added, "My cows are smarter than those scientists were." The room erupted in applause. Gore asked if any other farmers noticed a difference in the way their animals responded to GM food. About twelve to fifteen hands went up.1
"If a field contained GM and non-GM maize, cattle would always eat the non-GM first."2 —Gale Lush, Nebraska "A neighbor had been growing Pioneer Bt corn. When the cattle were turned out onto the stalks they just wouldn't eat them. |
| It is an issue for gm corn and it has not been adequately tested.
8. Effects of the environment on gene expression and differences in genetic make-up of soy varieties were assessed only under limited conditions. Their effects were measured using only a few factors, such as crop yield.
9. Synthetic genes were considered equivalent. Any potential differences were not addressed in the research.
10. Very little research has evaluated unanticipated changes due to complex interactions or to multiple foreign genes, either produced by intentional gene stacking or through cross-pollination.
11. |
| Studies have pointed out numerous differences in the composition of gm corn and soy compared to their natural non-GM counterparts. Altered nutrition can lead to unanticipated side effects. Cows fed GM Roundup Ready soy, for example, produced milk with increased fat content.24 This illustrates a cascading effect, where one problem leads to others.
20. Allergens
Genetic engineering can transform a harmless food into one containing a potentially deadly allergen in at least three different ways: 1. The level of a naturally occurring allergen might be increased; 2. |
| In fact, scientists accidentally discovered that the Bt toxin created by varieties of gm corn, cotton, and canola becomes "more deadly" to insects when mixed with very small amounts of a naturally occurring antibiotic—a byproduct of bacteria. Tests have not been conducted to determine if the "greatly enhanced"23 toxicity is dangerous to humans or wildlife.
19. Nutritional Problems
Changes in the DNA—both intended and accidental—can influence a plant's nutritional content. In fact, many of the potential problems already addressed in this list might change the health value of a GM food. |
| Suppose, for example, that the CaMV promoter from a gm corn kernel wanders off inside the stomach of a human and gets reattached to the DNA of a dormant virus. Instead of promoting an insecticide gene as was intended, it may now be switching on a virus.
In their paper, "Cauliflower Mosaic Viral Promoter—A Recipe for Disaster," Ho, Ryan, and Cummins warn, "Horizontal transfer of the CaMV promoter . . . has the potential to reactivate dormant viruses or [create] new viruses in all species to which it is transferred."19
12. |
Peter Pringle
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| Even governments, such as Japan's, that had allowed GM imports slowed their approval after the StarLink disaster—when gm corn approved only for animal feed was found mixed with corn for humans. And the United States and Canada were both postponing commercial planting of GM wheat because of market jitters. A Canadian study suggested that any big wheat exporter stood to lose a third of its wheat market if it started to plant GM wheat.8
In addition, there was still uncertainty over the supposed benefits from GM crops. Did Bt crops cut down on pesticide use? |
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