Kaayla T. Daniel, PhD, CCN
See book keywords and concepts |
 Soon after, farmers began growing Monsanto's roundup ready strain of soybean, designed to be resistant to the herbicide glyphosate. The farmers were seduced by Monsanto's promise of increased productivity and decreased herbicide use with roundup ready soy.
The economic dream crop, however, soon became a nightmare. Problems with herbicide resistant "superweeds" led GM soy growers to double the amount of herbicides used by conventional farmers. Bacteria died, leaving soil so inert that dead weeds would not rot. |
Jeffrey M. Smith
See book keywords and concepts |
 Regarding roundup ready canola: "When statistically significant differences in compositional analyses were determined between the GE plant and its control, Monsanto did not follow-up these results with substantial further experimentation to determine why these differences occurred. Instead, such differences in composition tend to be dismissed as being within the natural variation of the plant. Such a statement ignores the evidence from the controls and the reason for having controls in the first place. |
| Researchers have already shown that some roundup ready soy varieties contain 12%-14% less of the cancer-fighting isoflavones touted by the USDA. The levels in GM soy were also more variable.101
A study in Science in December 2002 described that "food molecules act like hormones, regulating body functioning and triggering cell division. The molecules can cause mental imbalances ranging from attention-deficit and hyperactivity disorder to serious mental illness."102 Preliminary evidence of changed behavior in GM-fed animals was presented in section 1.14 and 1.19. |
| Here again, in mice fed roundup ready soy, the shapes of the nucleoli were more irregular. Furthermore, the size and distribution of structures within the nucleoli (the fibrillar centers and dense fibrillar components) had changed significantly. This too suggests an increased metabolic rate.
The GM-fed mice also had more splicing factors in their liver cells. These are the complex molecular machines that process RNA (by removing introns, if present). An increased number of splicing factors suggests increased gene expression, i.e., DNA in the liver is making more RNA copies. |
| About 89% of soybeans grown in the United States are roundup ready. They are also grown extensively in parts of South America. Most is fed to livestock, but soy and soy derivatives are also used for food. Given our widespread exposure to soy, soy derivatives and animals raised on soy, it is urgent that we track down the reason why the liver reacts as it does.
"O:
^urdata indicate that the reduction in alpha-amylase synthesis and secretion is related to GM food at all ages considered.... [A] diet containing significant amount of GM food seems to influence zymogen synthesis andprocessing. |
| Rats fed roundup ready canola had heavier livers...............................................................................52
1.17 Twice the number of chickens died when fed Liberty Link corn..........................................................54
1.18 GM peas generated an allergic-type inflammatory response in mice....................................................56
1.19 Eyewitness reports: Animals avoid GMOs...........................................................................................58
1. |
| Although there were no changes in the levels of major liver proteins found in the mice, biochemical analyses carried out on rabbits fed roundup ready soy exhibited altered expression of LDH1 liver isoenzymes. This provides supporting evidence of "a general increase of cell metabolism."71 (See section 1.13.)
Implications for human health
According to Michael Antoniou, "The long-term health consequences of this type of metabolic and possibly toxic insult on the liver is unknown, but could lead to liver damage and consequently general toxemia. |
Jonny Bowden, Ph.D., C.N.S.
See book keywords and concepts |
 The organic movement valued a time and place where animals were not fed growth hormones and steroids and antibiotics and where crops were left to fend off the elements with their own protective antioxidants and anthocyanins, rather than chemical pesticides and carcinogens, and where "Roundup Ready," genetically modified plants (GMOs) were unknown. |
by Michael Murray, N.D. and Joseph Pizzorno, N.D.
See book keywords and concepts |
| For example, Monsanto created roundup ready (RR) soy, corn, and cotton specifically so that farmers would continue to buy Roundup, the company's best-selling chemical weed killer, which is sold with RR seeds. Instead of reducing pesticide use, one study of more than eight thousand university-based field trials indicated that farmers who plant RR soy use two to five times more herbicide than farmers who use traditional weed control methods.
Our View ofGM Foods
We are concerned about the development of GM foods for several reasons. |
Kaayla T. Daniel, PhD, CCN
See book keywords and concepts |
| The protein analysis did not come from the roundup ready soybean itself but from the resistant bacterium whose genes were inserted into the new plant. The two may or may not be equivalent. Tests used to verify antigenic equivalence do not prove that the amino acid sequences are the same and rearrangements are normal in the DNA sequence of a plant as it accommodates a new gene.
þ In acute toxicity tests on rats, scientists used the bacterium, not the GM soybean. |
| THEY CANT BE DIFFERENT, THEY SHOULDN'T BE DIFFERENT
Monsanto claims that its roundup ready GM soybean is substantially equivalent to the conventional soybean—hence safe. In fact, tests showed that concentrations of trypsin inhibitors and lectins (another antinutrient) were significantly higher in the toasted GM soybean. And unlike the antinutrients in the conventional soybean, those in the GM strain were stubbornly resistant to deactivation by a heat treatment known as "toasting. |
| The farmers were seduced by Monsanto's promise of increased productivity and decreased herbicide use with roundup ready soy.
The economic dream crop, however, soon became a nightmare. Problems with herbicide resistant "superweeds" led GM soy growers to double the amount of herbicides used by conventional farmers. Bacteria died, leaving soil so inert that dead weeds would not rot. Farmers and neighbors near GM fields have suffered health problems such as rashes and tearing eyes, while many livestock have died or given birth to deformed young. |
| Cows fed roundup ready soybeans produced higher levels of milk, which might be a direct consequence of higher estrogen levels in these soybeans.
þ Data from an early experiment were omitted because they showed lower protein levels and significantly lower levels of the essential amino acid phenylalanine.
These and many other indications of experimental manipulation, misinterpretation, falsified conclusions and flagrant disregard of data have led to demands for independent safety assessments.
SOURCES
Monsanto genetically engineered soya has elevated hormone levels: public health threat. |
Kelly Harford, M.C., C.N.C.
See book keywords and concepts |
 Data published by Monsanto in the Journal of Nutrition, March 1996, shows that relative to conventional soy meal, roundup ready soy meal contains 27% more trypsin inhibitor, meaning it has even greater potential for setting off allergic reactions and digestive disturbance. In 1999, the York Nutritional Lab in the U.K. attributed a 50% increase in soy allergies to the fact that British consumers had started eating large amounts of imported genetically engineered (GE) soybeans the previous year. |
Jeffrey M. Smith
See book keywords and concepts |
 According to a 1999 Acres USA article, cattle even broke through a fence and walked through a field of roundup ready corn to get to a non-GM variety that they ate. The cows left the GM corn untouched.3
Gary Smith, Montana
—Tim Eisenbeis, South Dakota
Chapter 3
Spilled Milk
''l ^he scientists' testimony before a [Canadian] Senate committee
-A- was like a scene from the conspiratorial television show 'The X-Files.' |
Peter Pringle
See book keywords and concepts |
 Louis headquarters that more than 90 percent of Schmeiser s crop consisted of Monsanto's roundup ready canola seeds. In the company's book, Schmeiser looked suspiciously like another seed thief.
Any farmer growing Monsanto's canola, or its Bt corn, was required to sign a "technology-use" agreement and pay the company fifteen dollars an acre. In 1996, the first year the GM canola seeds went on the market, six hundred Canadian farmers signed up; four years later the number had grown to twenty thousand. These farmers produced nearly 40 percent of the canola grown in Canada. |
| For its part, the company argued that "forces of nature such as wind and bees are clearly insufficient to produce a 90 percent crop of roundup ready canola."43
Monsanto wanted to make an example of Schmeiser. The company spared no expense in aggressively prosecuting the case. They hired an expert in road vehicle aerodynamics to see if canola seeds really could fly off a passing grain truck onto Schmeiser's land. The expert, having developed a theoretical model using local weather conditions and prevailing winds, estimated that the maximum distance a canola seed could fly would be 8. |
| It continued, "This is the same virus used in Monsanto's roundup ready soy that is available in markets around the world." The author was Benedikt Harlin, then Greenpeace's genetic engineering coordinator. His reference was to the cauliflower mosaic virus and its 35S promoter. The implication was that if Pusztai's rats were harmed by eating GM potatoes, they might also be harmed by eating other foods.
After he retired, Pusztai also focused on the 35S promoter as a possible culprit. The 35S had been used to switch on the lectin gene in the British experimental potato. |
| Whether Schmeiser's roundup ready seeds had come as whole seeds from the store or from a neighbor, or had fallen off a truck, or had been created in his conventional canola by pollen flown in by bees, or had blown in on the wind was not the issue. The fact that Schmeiser "knew or ought to have known" that he was growing Monsanto's patented canola was an infringement of that patent and put the responsibility squarely on him to pay the company a royalty. |
| The company's roundup ready corn and canola seeds, which were resistant to the herbicide, were the cornerstone of the company's food crop business. The new weeds were not "superweeds" in one biotech sense because they had not developed their resistance as a result of gene flow from a transgenic crop, but simply by evolution. But the lesson was clear—sameness can be a plague in agriculture whether it be mono-crops or mono-herbicides. |
Jeffrey M. Smith
See book keywords and concepts |
| 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. A gene taken from one type of food might transfer allergenic properties when inserted into another food; and 3. Unknown allergens may result from foreign genes and proteins never before part of the human food supply. |
Peter Pringle
See book keywords and concepts |
| Ben-brook said the soybean farmers didn't spend $ 1 billion less by using roundup ready. The supposed saving of $ 1 billion represented the estimated extra cost to GM farmers of using alternative weed killers to Monsanto's Roundup. But, he argued, farmers who don't use Roundup find other, cheaper ways of controlling weeds, including tilling their fields. According to Benbrook, Roundup users probably only break even on GM soybeans.10 The Bt corn figures were right, but one variety's gain represented less than 1 percent of the 250 million tons of corn grown each year. |
Jeffrey M. Smith
See book keywords and concepts |
| In particular, the bacterial genes used in Bt crops and roundup ready soy and corn are changed a great deal." He says governmental agencies simply accept the companies' assumptions of equivalence since "the regulators are naive in the area of genetics and molecular biology."9
15. Genetic Disposition: For reasons not well understood, inserting the same gene into different varieties of the same plant species can have widely varying results. |
Marion Nestle
See book keywords and concepts |
 The company's research "pipeline" mainly emphasizes roundup ready crops designed for animal feed. Monsanto's emphasis on these crops is understandable; annual sales of Roundup exceed those of the next six leading herbicides combined. The company also produces a variety of crops genetically engineered to contain a toxin derived from Bacillus thuringiensis {Bt). As we saw in the introductory chapter, the Bt toxin inhibits the growth of insect pests and has been used for years as a spray on organic farms. |
| Monsanto scientists, for example, wondered whether making soybeans "Roundup Ready" would make them more allergenic. They voluntarily tested and found the proteins in their soybeans to be similar in structure and quantity to those in conventional soybeans. On this basis, they assumed that no new allergens had been introduced but were not required to test for that possibility.15 Like testing for microbial pathogens, testing for allergens is risky: you might find one.
Indeed, finding an allergen in a new transgenic food is a disheartening experience, and not only for its maker: it is a "shadow . |
| Thailand Bans new field trials; approves roundup ready soybeans.
European Requires member states to ensure the traceability of
Union genetically modified foods at all stages of marketing; restricts new product approvals to 10 years with renewal for another 10 years; establishes public registers for field-testing sites; phases out use of certain antibiotic-resistance markers; establishes labeling threshold of 1%. France, Italy, Luxembourg, Austria, Denmark and Greece declare moratorium on planting until these rules take effect. source: Food Chemical News, 2001. |
Jeffrey M. Smith
See book keywords and concepts |
| Monsanto's roundup ready soybeans had already been on the market for seven years. The company thoughtthey had inserted only a single foreign gene (along with its CaMV promoter). The gene, derived from bacteria, allowed the soy plant to survive high concentrations of Monsanto's herbicide called Roundup. To the company's surprise, they discovered that there were two additional gene fragments that had been inserted into the soy DNA accidentally. |
Marion Nestle
See book keywords and concepts |
| In contrast, an analysis of data from 1999 found that roundup ready soybeans alone saved $216 million in the costs of controlling weeds and required 19 million fewer applications of herbicides. The contradictions in these results are due to the large number of variables that have to be considered in such analyses, many of them constantly changing, and some easier to measure than others.33 What seems most evident from attempts to evaluate benefits is that it is still too early to do so. We do not yet know the overall effects of transgenic crops on cost, productivity, and use of pesticides. |
| Underlying questions about the potential risks of transgenic plantings are more general concerns about what roundup ready and Bt crops might do to biodiversity. The huge amount of U.S. farmland devoted to transgenic crops borders on monoculture—the planting of one variety of a crop to the exclusion of all others. The lack of biological diversity means that any point of vulnerability leaves monocultured crops open to overwhelming attack by insects, weeds, or diseases—and to catastrophic losses. |
Jeffrey M. Smith
See book keywords and concepts |
| Susan and Mark Fitzgerald, Minnesota Writer Steve Sprinkel described a herd of about forty deer that ate from the field of organic soybeans, but not the roundup ready variety across the road. Likewise, raccoons devoured organic corn, but didn't touch an ear of Bt corn growing down the road. "Even the mice will move on down the line if given an alternative to these 'crops.'"3
A farmer in Holland verified the food preference of mice when he left two piles of corn in his mice-infested barn. One pile was genetically modified; the other was natural. |
Email this page to a friend
