Is food safe?

19.01.2009

Biotech corporations claim that GM food is safe.

One of the mantras which the Biotech corporations constantly chant is that GM food is safe.  In his introduction to the booklet of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences' Study the author Dr Potrykus writes of "putative risks" rather than any real risk.

Other scientists, especially health professionals, are not at all convinced that GM food is harmless.  On May 8, 2009, the American Academy of Environmental Medicine published a paper entitled "Genetically Modified Food."¹

The authors, Amy Dean and Jennifer Armstrong, begin with a quotation from the World Health Organisation which states that Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) are "organisms in which the genetic material (DNA) has been altered in such a way that does not occur naturally."

In the case of Bt corn, a gene to produce the pesticide Cry1ab protein (commonly known as Bt toxin), is inserted randomly into the DNA of the corn. In response to the claims that this operation is scientific and precise, the document points out that both the location of the transferred gene sequences in the corn DNA and the consequences of the insertion differ with each insertion.  In other words, it is both imprecise and random.

The authors are at pains to contrast the natural breeding procedures which have been in use since the beginning of agriculture with those involved in genetic engineering. They quote David Schubert and W. Freese, who write that, "GM crop technology abrogates natural reproductive processes, selection occurs at the single cell level, the procedure is highly mutagenic and routinely breeches genera barriers, and the technique has only been used for 10 years."²

Furthermore, the authors claim that the safety assessment of GM food has been based on the flawed notion of "substantial equivalence."  This means that if the GM food is found to be substantially equivalent, both in its composition and nutritional characteristics to an existing food, it can be declared as safe as the conventional variety.

This means that Bt potatoes, which have the toxin Bt inserted into them, are considered safe, since humans have been eating potatoes for thousands of years without any ill-effect.

The authors argue that there is a causal relationship between GM food and adverse health effects.

To determine this causal relationship, they use what are known as Hill's criteria. One of those criteria is 'specificity.'³ They argue that animal studies confirm there is an association between eating GM food and specific disease processes. In terms of other health impacts, they point to a 2008 study which linked GM corn with infertility. The mice that had been fed on GM corn, showed a significant decrease in offspring over time and considerably lower body weight.⁴

The American Academy of Environmental Medicine believes that regulatory agencies ought to apply a strict interpretation of the 'precautionary principle'.  The researchers argue that currently the regulatory regime is very weak and that therefore GM foods have not been properly tested for human consumption.

In the light of the research of Amy Dean and Jennifer Armstrong, the American Academy of Environmental Medicine is calling on doctors to educate their patients and the general public about the possible dangers of GM food.  If possible avoid eating GM food altogether. This is difficult, especially in the United States, as GM foods are not labelled.⁵

Above all GM food should be labelled. It is an indication of the political strength of the biotech corporations that GM foods are not labelled in the United States.

Read more stories from the The Far East, January/February