A suitably alarmist headline for a blog post, and well in the tradition of lawyers (and insurers) doom-mongering so that you will buy their services…
However, there is some evidence that GM foods may be less than beneficial to one’s health:
Research by the Russian Academy of Sciences released in December 2005 found that more than half of the offspring of rats fed GM soy died within the first three weeks of life, six times as many as those born to mothers fed on non-modified soy. Six times as many offspring fed GM soy were also severely underweight.
In November 2005, a private research institute in Australia, CSIRO Plant Industry, put a halt to further development of a GM pea cultivator when it was found to cause an immune response in laboratory mice.1
In the summer of 2005, an Italian research team led by a cellular biologist at the University of Urbino published confirmation that absorption of GM soy by mice causes development of misshapen liver cells, as well as other cellular anomalies.
The trouble with this stuff is that it’s not only genie-in-the-bottle-ish, but it’s very hard to get a handle on just what genie has been let out of the bottle. On the one hand, proponents claim that that he is striding round the world feeding the poor, though many apparently knowledgeable people have expressed serious doubts about this (example: “Claims that GM foods are essential to feed the increasing world population are absurd. There are already abundant supplies of food and problems of over-consumption are apparent in almost every country”).
On the other hand, there are very real worries that, first, nobody really knows how and in what way GM foods may be harmful when you actually eat them and, secondly, nobody really knows what harm (which could be catastrophic) might arise from cross-fertilization with wild strains. Think of the cane toad.
Then there are also issues about abuse and exploitation of poorer nations by richer countries and the GM giants, though that is a larger topic and one outside the scope of even these limited comments.
Cynically, of course, one might say that it would be hard to prove just how far, say, Monsanto grain might have caused to the early death of a Congolese farmer. But multiply that many millions of times and in the ‘first world’ (whatever that is nowadays/in 10 years time) and the potential for something rather unpleasant becomes clearer.
I’m sticking to GM-free for the time being.
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