Genetically Engineered (GMO) Food - Myths & Realities.

Videos and articles on the dangers of genetically engineered food:

Documentary: Seeds Of Death - Full Movie

"The leaders of Big Agriculture--Monsanto, DuPont, Syngenta--are determined that world's populations remain ignorant about the serious health and environmental risks of genetically modified crops and industrial agriculture. Deep layers of deception and corruption underlie both the science favoring GMOs and the corporations and governments supporting them.

This award-winning documentary, Seeds of Death, exposes the lies about GMOs and pulls back the curtains to witness our planet's future if Big Agriculture's new green revolution becomes our dominant food supply..."

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Documentary: Genetic Roulette - The Gamble of our Lives (trailer)

"This documentary exposes the world’s most dangerous food scam, providing compelling evidence that helps explain the deteriorating health of Americans, especially among children, and offers a recipe for protecting ourselves and our future.

“If you put a label on genetically engineered food you might as well put a skull and crossbones on it.” - Norman Braksick, president of a Monsanto subsidiary.

Evidence identifies genetically engineered foods as a major contributor to rising disease rates among the US population. Gastrointestinal disorders, allergies, inflammatory diseases, and infertility are just some of the problems implicated in humans, pets, livestock, and lab animals that eat genetically modified soybeans and corn."

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1. GMO Foods - Myths and Reality.

"The proponents of using genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in food put forward six main reasons as to why GMOs are needed. All six are false and deliberately misleading... People are hungry because they are poor, not because there's not enough food. And if they can't afford to buy conventional food, they'll hardly be able to afford GM food... According to the US National Academy of Sciences, genetically modified herbicide-resistant soybean is less profitable than conventionally bred varieties. Yields were found to be 6-10% lower for GM crops. Claims that the need for herbicides will decrease with the use of herbicide-resistant crops were also found to be invalid..."

Full article: "GM food - myth and reality" Green Left Weekly, July 19, 2000 at http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/21941

2. GMO Wheat may Silence Vital Human Genes.

"Scientists are expressing grave concerns over a new type of genetically engineered wheat that may cause major health problems for people that consume it...

Professor Jack Heinemann announced the results of his genetic research into the wheat... "What we found is that the molecules created in this wheat, intended to silence wheat genes, can match human genes, and through ingestion, these molecules can enter human beings and potentially silence our genes," Heinemann stated. "The findings are absolutely assured. There is no doubt that these matches exist."...

Professor Judy Carman and Safe Food Foundation Director Scott Kinnear concurred with Heinemann's analysis. "If this silences the same gene in us that it silences in the wheat, well, children who are born with this enzyme not working tend to die by the age of about five," Carman said.

Full article: "New GMO Wheat May 'Silence' Vital Human Genes", Elliott Freeman
Digital Journal October, 11 2012 as printed at http://truefoodfoundation.org/articles/new-gmo-wheat-may-silence-human-genes/

3. GMO food: from the corporations who brought us the poisonous Agent Orange and DDT chemicals, amongst others.

"The corporations that are introducing genetically modified crops into the global ecosystem want you to think of genetic engineering as a well-understood science similar to laparascopic surgery. Indeed, the phrase “genetic engineering” gives the impression that moving genes from one organism to another is as straightforward as designing a rocket or a TV set. This is not the case.

Basically, a plant's genome (all of its genes, taken together) is a black box. Genetic engineering takes a gene from one black box and forces it into a second (the recipient plant), hoping that the new gene will “take”. Once in a few thousand tries, the foreign gene embeds itself in the recipient plant's genome, and the newly modified plant gains the desired trait.

That is all the technicians know. They have no idea where in the receiving plant's genome the new gene has found a home. This fundamental ignorance, combined with the speed and scale at which modified organisms are being released, raises a host of questions of safety for agriculture, for the environment and for human health.

A gene may control several different traits in a plant. Without careful study, plants with undesirable characteristics may be released into the global ecosystem. And biotechnology is not like a chemical spill that can be mopped up -- once you release a new gene sequence into nature, there's no taking it back.
The same gene can have different effects, depending on the environment in which the new plant is growing. What appears predictable and safe after a few years in a small test plot may turn out to have quite different consequences when introduced into millions of acres of crop lands where conditions vary widely.
Does the new gene destabilise the entire plant genome in some unforeseen way, leading one day to problems in that crop? Only time will tell.
Genes can travel to nearby related plants on their own. This is called gene flow. In 1996 gene flow was discovered to be much more common that previously thought.

According to Science magazine, many ecologists say it is only a matter of time before an engineered gene makes the leap to a weedy species, thus creating a new weed or invigorating an old one..."

Full article: "From the people who brought you Agent Orange", Green Left Weekly, April 28, 1999 at http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/19774

4. Against the Grain

"A new book by Marc Lappe and Britt Bailey, Against the Grain, makes it clear that genetic engineering is revolutionising US agriculture almost overnight... Fully two-thirds of the genetically engineered crops now available or in development are designed specifically to increase the sale of pesticides produced by the companies that are selling the genetically engineered seeds. For example, Monsanto is selling a line of 'Roundup Ready' products that has been genetically engineered to withstand heavy doses of Monsanto's all-time top money-making herbicide, Roundup (glyphosate).

A Roundup Ready crop of soybeans can withstand a torrent of Roundup that kills any weeds competing with the crop... To make Roundup Ready technology legal, EPA had to triple the allowable residues of Roundup that can remain on the crop..."

Full article: "GM food: Against the Grain", Green Left Weekly, May 26, 1999 at http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/19774 Also at http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/cities-of-exuberance/against-the-grain

5. Is there are a Global Food Shortage? Or is there a Food Surplus?

It seems there has been more than enough food to feed everyone, for several decades. These articles reveal a third of the world's human food is wasted and destroyed while 25,000 people die from starvation every day - around 10,000,000 people starve to death each year. Meanwhile corporate propaganda claims there is a food shortage. This leads us into supporting their desire to patent, own and profit from genetically modified food and associated chemical products.For details and sources see this article titled Not Enough Food in the World? Rubbish!

6. How We are Eating Our Future

http://EatingOurFuture.wordpress.com - summaries of medical studies and environmental-resource studies showing how what we eat shapes our future as individuals and on a global scale: increasing or decreasing our risks for disease, poverty, famine, conflicts and wars over resources like water, fuel, food supplies and agricultural land.

For example, there are more than enough crops grown already to feed humans but instead so much of it is fed to livestock so people can consume junkfood hamburgers, become obese and bring on cardiovascular disease and diabetes. From the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 2003: "The amount of grains fed to US livestock is sufficient to feed about 840 million people who follow a plant-based diet... The US livestock population consumes more than 7 times as much grain as is consumed directly by the entire American population..."

Full article: This study and several others are cited at - http://EatingOurFuture.wordpress.com