What's wrong with GM food?

reply to post by Aim64C


Then why is BT toxin being found in human blood samples in Canada?

Upon taking blood samples, researchers detected the Bt Cry1Ab toxin in a shocking 93 percent of maternal and 80 percent of fetal blood samples. And 69 percent of non-pregnant women tested positive for the toxin in their blood. Learn more: www.naturalnews.com...

Are you saying that is in no way dangerous?

Originally posted by neonitus
i think its the term 'genetically modified' is what scares most people.
in most cases this genetic modification is just another term for selective breeding, which mostly gives better quality and more productive food sources.
i'd rather have GM foods.

Uh no on the selective breeding and genetically modified being the same thing.

natural breeding crosses only organisms that are already closely related—two varieties of corn, for example—whereas, in contrast, GM breeding slaps together genes from up to 15 wildly different sources

To make a GM plant, scientists need to isolate DNA from different organisms—bacteria, viruses, plants, and sometimes animals (or humans if the target gene is a human gene). They then recombine these genes biochemically in the lab to make a "gene construct," which can consist of DNA from five to fifteen different sources. This gene construct is cloned in bacteria to make lots of copies, which are then isolated. Next, the copies are shot into embryonic plant tissue (microprojectile bombardment), or moved into plant tissue via a particular bacterium (Agrobacterium) that acts as a vector. After getting the construct copies into the embryonic plant tissue, whole plants are regenerated. Only a few plants out of many hundreds will turn out to grow normally and exhibit the desired trait—such as herbicide resistance.

www.natureinstitute.org...

reply to post by neonitus


selective breeding can not add gene's from bacteria / animals / humans / fish and plants together. Selective breeding does not leave mobile viral DNA inside the nuclei (viral infection method), nor does it confer anti biotic resistance gene's which can be taken up by human gut bacteria. Selective breeding does not riddle the genome with holes, thereby increasing mutation rate, nor does it create multiple new gene insertion sites, which may adversily impact "native" gene expression.

reply to post by Griffo


Griffo I pray these replies give you true food for thought. I was born in the Mediterranean and I remember what real fruit and vegetables tastes like and how they made you feel in your body. I remember the life force that sprang from their goodness. As I would walk I would pick from the earth and be replentished. It was amazing. What I remember was a mini experience of the sun bursting into my mouth and through my body. I haven't known that now for 25 years. In it's place now I find that I have to force myself to eat fruit and vegetables. It feels foreign to me and my body.

There is a series written which I think you would benefit by reading called:
"Anastasia" by Vladimir Megre

reply to post by Ajax84


If only it was a simple as you suggest, just an additional protein we already eat, whose insertion site does not impact any of the normally occuring gene expression, that would indeed be really really great; but that's not how it works, it's sloppy it can and does cause deletions and multiple insertions in the host genome at any old random spots, there is no way of knowing where it is ending up and what other impact it is having, they only do very limited studies on the viable plants to ensure that the protein is expressing and that new protein is not dangerous ... what a joke.

Links to allergies, auto-immune disease, and other disorders

There’s already plenty of evidence that the Bt-toxin produced in GM corn and cotton plants is toxic to humans and mammals and triggers immune system responses. The fact that it flows through our blood supply, and that is passes through the placenta into fetuses, may help explain the rise in many disorders in the US since Bt crop varieties were first introduced in 1996.

In government-sponsored research in Italy, mice fed Monsanto’s Bt corn showed a wide range of immune responses. Their elevated IgE and IgG antibodies, for example, are typically associated with allergies and infections. The mice had an increase in cytokines, which are associated with “allergic and inflammatory responses.” The specific cytokines (interleukins) that were elevated are also higher in humans who suffer from a wide range of disorders, from arthritis and inflammatory bowel disease, to MS and cancer.

Elevated interleukins Associations
IL-6 Rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease, osteoporosis, multiple sclerosis, various types of cancer (multiple myeloma and prostate cancer)
IL-13 Allergy, allergic rhinitis, ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease)
MIP-1b Autoimmune disease and colitis.
IL-12p70 Inflammatory bowel disease, multiple sclerosis

The young mice in the study also had elevated T cells (gamma delta), which are increased in people with asthma, and in children with food allergies, juvenile arthritis, and connective tissue diseases. The Bt corn that was fed to these mice, MON 810, produced the same Bt-toxin that was found in the blood of women and fetuses.

When rats were fed another of Monsanto’s Bt corn varieties called MON 863, their immune systems were also activated, showing higher numbers of basophils, lymphocytes, and white blood cells. These can indicate possible allergies, infections, toxins, and various disease states including cancer. There were also signs of toxicity in the liver and kidneys.iii

source
Finamore A, Roselli M, Britti S, Monastra G, Ambra R, Turrini A and Mengheri E. (2008). Intestinal and peripheral immune response to MON810 maize ingestion in weaning and old mice. J Agric Food Chem, 16 November 2008

reply to post by Darce

Then why is BT toxin being found in human blood samples in Canada?

There are a number of possibilities.

www.emedicinehealth.com...

Gastrointestinal bleeding is one possibility.

Genetic diversity is another. Most people of European descent have the ability to digest lactose (a complex sugar structure) while most Asians lack this ability (a genetic trait). Note - it's not that Asians are largely lactose intolerant, but that they simply don't net the same calories out of it that Europeans do.

It's more than possible that these particular cases may be linked to a genetic adaptation that allows a higher uptake of Cry-series proteins than previously believed. It could also be a lack of a gene present in the majority of human populations that contributes to the rapid destruction of Cry-series proteins in the human GI tract (part of the reason why "BT Toxin" is generally considered safe - the human digestive system breaks it down in a hell of a hurry).

Are you saying that is in no way dangerous?

The levels detected in their blood was such a trace amount that it doesn't even bear consideration. No abnormalities or health consequences have been noted (or you would have posted them, I'm sure - my own research on the subject has turned up nothing of the sort). Further - the Cry-series proteins are rather inert in humans. They are processed by the liver and recycled into amino acids. The reason they are toxic to insects is the way in which they adhere to the digestive system and, literally, cause the tissue to die. Being absorbed into the blood stream is a different phenomena, entirely, and the protein is just going to float around, being ignored by all except the body's recycling mechanisms.

More harm is caused by people drinking too much water or consuming too much Vitamin A than has ever been caused by any unique property of genetically engineered crops.

I saw a comment on a youtube video... could it be the same guy who started this thread?
He had the same point. Well, first of all about not having enough food. Without GMO and Monsanto we would have more and better food.
Why better? Because it would be natural and not full of anything but natural products.
Why more? Because for example Monsanto produces the seeds that can be used only for 1 year. Means: the corn, vegetables, etc. do not sprout. The farmers have to buy the seeds every year and as a result they can not produce as much as they would. Besides, many of farmers go bankrupt.
Second: GMO is dangerous a everything that contains too much poison in it, too many chemicals. You don't have to believe me, listen to what people who are involved say. Here you are:
"If you put a label on genetically engineered food you might as well put a skull and crossbones on it." - Norman Braksick, president of Asgrow Seed Co., a subsidiary of Monsanto, quoted in the Kansas City Star, March 7, 1994

Third, I hear all the time, that GMO and Monsanto saving people from hunger.... I already answered this part at the beginning, that they do not save the world from hunger. For those who doesn't know, we do still have hunger in the world. Please, don't reply saying we would have more and worse hunger.
GMO and Monsanto not only NOT save the Earth from hunger, they make people sick and die from various diseases. They make people's life miserable. Look at the nations. What is going on? Obesity rules the world. It's getting worse and worse every day. Obese people do not feel good, they can not function properly, most of them can not even enjoy sex anymore... They suffer sooner or later in their life from horrible diseases.
I want to say it as loud as I can: Obese people are not obese because they eat too much (common thinking). They are so big because of what they eat. There were always people who ate too much and never in the history we had such an epidemic situation with obesity.
Think about ancient Rome and Greek people. They had feasts all the time and ate A LOT, while lying down. Yes, lying down. How come they didn't have a situation like we do now?
Don't even get me started on the cancer epidemic we have, which is directly connected to GMO.

Here is a good informative video about GMO. Read the comments please. I you check GMO or Monsanto on youtube, you will find a lot of information, that will hopefully change your mind, regarding the positive effect of GMO on us.

Lets not forget Monsanto brought us DDT , PCB's , Agent Orange and rBGH, a hormone that's been banned in Canada, New Zealand, Japan, Australia and all 27 nations of the European Union.

According to Mr Robert Farley of Monsanto, "what you are seeing is not just a consolidation of seed companies, it's really a consolidation of the entire food chain. Since water is as central to food production as seed is, and without water life is not possible, Monsanto is now trying to establish its control over water.

reply to post by Aim64C


Just because somethnig is a trace amounts does not mean it can't damage you.
Botulin is odorless and tasteless which means you wouldn’t know you’ve consumed the LD-50 of 0.4 billionth of a gram per kg of body weight till the paralysis has already set in.

The BT toxin study just came out in April 2011. This is the first study to reveal the presence of circulating PAGMF in women with and without pregnancy, paving the way for a new field in reproductive toxicology including nutrition and utero-placental toxicities. So this after we were told it would not get past our guts ...... now we wait for someone to secure funding to do the research (the list of fired scientists, and respected ones at that for anti gmo findings is a pretty long list ...) to see if it does do anything

and lets not forget asbestos-related illnesses do not give off visible symptoms until many years later, even decades after the early being exposed.

Finally lets not forget we are pretty contaminated with a whole host of other chemicals and we do not know how it reacts with all of the other contaminants in our body.....

reply to post by AliceBlackman

Just because somethnig is a trace amounts does not mean it can't damage you.

This is all meant within context. Tomatoes, Eggplant, and several other common edibles are all part of the "nightshade" family: waynesword.palomar.edu...

Recent studies using chloroplast DNA corroborate the genetic affinity between nightshades (Solanum) and tomatoes (Lycopersicon). Some species of nightshades contain several toxic alkaloids. In fact, the tomato was once considered to be inedible and poisonous in the United States until the early 1800s.

The nightshade family (Solanaceae) contains many species with poisonous alkaloids, including tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum), deadly nightshade (Atropa belladonna), mandrake (Mandragora officinarum) and the deadly datura species (Datura and Brugmansia). Some of the toxic alkaloids include nicotine, atropine, hyoscyamine, scopolamine and solanine. In addition, the chile peppers (Capsicum) contain the alkaloid capsaicin which is used to enhance the flavor of foods and in self defense sprays.

www.life.umd.edu...

Here's an interesting outline from a lecture.

c. Solanine present in potato (Solanum tuberosum) - most of plant except tubers is poisonous. Tuber contains solanine too, but toxic dose is about 100 potatoes. Green potatoes (which turn green after exposure to sunlight) can cause fatal poisonings. Green and damaged potatoes are even more toxic.

Potatoes will kill you - provided you eat enough.

B. Milder discouragement- poisonous but generally not toxic

1. Oxalic acid (crystals)
a. Rhubarb (Rheum rhaponticum), Dumbcane (Dieffenbachia seguine), Caladium (Caladium bicolor): oxalate (crystals cause damage, paralyze vocal cords, swelling of mouth and throat)
i. During World War I, British government mistakenly advised people to eat rhubarb leaves which resulted in many poisonings

Take home lessons:

Plants have effective chemical defenses mechanisms specifically designed to make you leave them alone.
Many household plants are very poisonous
Poisons are present in food plants
99% of carcinogens in food are in there naturally, not what we spray on them
Just a matter of location (what part of plant we eat) and certain times (ripe vs. unripe) that makes them edible
By avoiding a diet focusing on one food will reduce the level of any one toxin

www.innvista.com...

Another interesting read

Warning: Alkaloids are harmful nitrogen compounds. Potatoes, tomatoes, eggplant, and bell peppers contain relatively large amounts of these neurotoxins. Until recently, only potatoes had been thoroughly researched since they are the staple food in many countries. Depending on the type and origin, the green parts of potatoes contain considerable quantities of the alkaloid solanine. Potato tubers contain only harmless quantities; but that content increases when potatoes are not stored properly, causing the "green" to appear. Light turns potatoes green; and, when they are stored in light, the percentage of the toxin increases a hundredfold. These quantities cause nausea, diarrhea with vomiting, and headaches. In the worst cases, unconsciousness and convulsions to the point of respiratory paralysis. Potatoes should always be stored in the dark, and any green spots should be removed before cooking or eating. Very green potatoes should be thrown away since cooking does not destroy the toxin. Small quantities of solanine pass into the cooking water even from blemish-free potatoes; therefore, it is best to discard the cooking water rather than trying to reuse it. The alkaloid tomatine is found in tomatoes, and is similar to the solanine in potatoes. Again, it occurs mainly in the green parts of the fruit. Unripened green tomatoes are not suitable for eating even in chutney or pickles. This also holds true for unripe eggplant. These vegetables should never be cooked in aluminum cookware as they will leech out the aluminum.

You -can- eat green tomatoes and the vines/leaves ... your typical "fried green tomatoes" dish is not enough to cause you any real harm, so long as eaten occasionally and in moderation. Though, honestly, the things are better eaten ripe, anyway.

Seriously - people think they can just grow stuff in their back yard and it's going to be safe to eat. Sure, nibbling on a peach leaf or tomato vine isn't going to kill you - our bodies are pretty resilient - but the vast majority of people today simply lack the -respect- for plants to be trusted with growing their own. Not that I really care - I'd be somewhat relieved to see half the population poison themselves eating random fungi and chowing down on poison oak (let it be known that I am for people making their own decisions - I just understand that our society and economy has distanced people from a number of concepts that were common knowledge back-in-the-day, and that people seem to think they are capable of making decisions when they have no clue what they are doing... and it's going to get them hurt).

But the reality is that this whole: "It's better if it comes from nature" mentality is full of crap and belies a fundamental lack of knowledge and understanding regarding the natural world. There's # out there that will kill you - dead. A lot of it grows in our own back yard - and some of the most lethal stuff out there is a part of the same stuff that comprise our favorite meals. Eat the wrong part, pick it at the wrong time, cook it in the wrong way - or with the wrong plant... and it can kill you and everyone who eats it.

The BT toxin study just came out in April 2011. This is the first study to reveal the presence of circulating PAGMF in women with and without pregnancy, paving the way for a new field in reproductive toxicology including nutrition and utero-placental toxicities. So this after we were told it would not get past our guts ...... now we wait for someone to secure funding to do the research (the list of fired scientists, and respected ones at that for anti gmo findings is a pretty long list ...) to see if it does do anything

The Cry- series proteins have been tested for human and mammal reactivity plenty of times. There has been no cause for any kind of concern.

and lets not forget asbestos-related illnesses do not give off visible symptoms until many years later, even decades after the early being exposed.

You're mixing apples and oranges, here. Asbestos is not a chemical carcinogen.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...

Ah, here:

A mechanism for cell transformation, which is dependent on fiber dimension, has been proposed. The fibers are phagocytized by the cells and accumulate in the perinuclear region of the cells. When the cell undergoes mitosis, the physical presence of the fibers interferes with chromosome segregation and results in anaphase abnormalities. The transformed cells show aneuploidy and other chromosome abnormalities.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

The full text is available for free - just click on the page-browse or the pdf version along the right-hand column of the page.

Finally lets not forget we are pretty contaminated with a whole host of other chemicals and we do not know how it reacts with all of the other contaminants in our body.....

Then we may as well shoot ourselves in the head.

Seriously. Do you have any idea how the foods you eat react? Citric fruits are highly reactive with other food groups. Milk destroys a lot of antioxidants. Tomatoes leech aluminum (and will eat a hole through tin-foil). That's before all of this stuff gets into your body.

You are operating under the pretense that the food we normally cultivate and eat is somehow "safe" and "good for us." Almost every food we put on our plate has good things for us and bad things for us.

You're setting a completely unreasonable standard with your statement. No other food out there has -ever- been scrutinized in such a way. Hell - even prescription medications are not examined nearly as thoroughly as genetically engineered foods. "But, Aim, we don't need to subject organic food to such investigative procedures - it's natural and better for us!" - How do you know? If only I wouldn't have ordered those banana peppers on my subway sandwiches all these years and would have known that banana peppers + lettuce + honey mustard = 4 years taken off of my life... I would have been able to spend 4 more senile years in a nursing home!

Really - there is risk in everything. Certainty is not a property of the quantum world. I can comfortably expect that a tomato isn't going to kill me, and that a little BT toxin is not going to cause me much harm. Sure - we may find out in the future that it reacts with some anti-histamine medication or something (and that explains my hallucinations) - but we may also find out that it works well to stop a zombie-parasite from Umbrella.

Since we're on the topic of implausibility, here....

reply to post by Aim64C


You are operating under the pretense that the food we normally cultivate and eat is somehow "safe" and "good for us." Almost every food we put on our plate has good things for us and bad things for us. ....

Nope that’s your inference … I only used examples to show negliable amounts of matter can be very damaging/fatal and how some matter can take a long time to kill you ….

Really - there is risk in everything. Certainty is not a property of the quantum world.

Currently I think we can say that the uncertainty at the quantum level is due to our inability to measure more than one property at a time with certainty (measuring methodology impacts the other variables), not that uncertaininty is a fundamental property of the matter itself. Life is risk yes, but as humans we try to minimize risk, why else would we have seat belts, sprinklers and soap etc.

You're setting a completely unreasonable standard with your statement. No other food out there has -ever- been scrutinized in such a way. ;

No other food in the history of this planet has been spliced this way either, normal reproduction does not include the significant amount of deletions and duplications or genomic drift we see with our current engineering methodology. We are mere babes in arms with this sloppy technology, if we really knew what we were doing and could do it with precision , I’d be much happier about this NO LABEL / NO CHOICE guinea pig trial here in the America’s. (There’s not enough cheap organic food to go round, because government tax subsidies are going to MONSANTO & Co. and soon we’ll have to import Organic Diary as the Alfalfa travesty will contaminate everything).

Genomic expression is much more than a fascinating linear exercise in logic, we still do not have all the answers, but we do know that the processes we use currently do and can cause problems with the plants genome and there is now enough animal experimental data out there to show there really is cause for serious concern.

There’s also more to this GMO stuff, than potential human health issues. Once you roundup your fields there’s not really a way back for our average broke ass farmer who got duped by Monsanto’s business model. Just speak to the American corn / soy or canola farmers. It’s slapping more and more poison on his fields to try to avoid the inevitable hand removal of resistant weeds, lack of choice in seeds not to mention the year over year price increases, no ability to selectively breed the best of his crop to suit his changing environment, gotta love monopolies and monocultures …. Perfect storm for biblical style famines ….

There's the problem of knowing which foods would be safe and which not... People with things like certain food allergies may no longer be able to tell whether or not such or such protein or enzyme could be avoided by having a controlled and selective diet.

Degradation of good qualities in food due to too much emphasis on promoting certain traits. Somebody might make a fruit resistant to something and perhaps produce more of a certain vitamin, only to neglect that suddenly the plant no longer produces as many flavonoids which may be more beneficial nutrient-wise than whatever vitamin they were trying to produce.

Non-food things that should be never introduced into food sources. Not just pesticides either. Remember that whole melamine coming from China thing causing kidney failure in pets? Melamine is a compound used in the production of plastics that has a strong similarity to protein, but doesn't get metabolized like the real thing. The Chinese supplier was using this compound to dope the feedstock for pet food in order to give it a higher protein value on a test, even though the stuff is toxic. Note that there are people researching the production of stuff like plastic feed stocks being produced by plants. I wouldn't be surprised if they're that much different than melamine. The thing is, there are idiots are using regular agricultural plants for this purpose instead of non-food plants. Do you think it would be wise to risk having something chemically like melamine introduced into the food supply that would be much more difficult to undo once out in the wild?

GMO may have its value in regards to science and better ways for making things. It has potential to cure diseases and do other really brilliant things. But the way it's being mishandled and tossed about may be a worse environmental disaster in the making than the *snip*-all attitude towards chemical production as seen in places like Love Canal, NY. (Toxic waste dumps typically stay localized and don't spread out via reproduction in a way that could disrupt the food chain on a global scale.) This is where the big problem lies. It's kind of the grey-goo scenario being played with in real life, but instead of everything turning into goo - anything that was food becomes inedible.

reply to post by Griffo


1)I've got a better solution. Instead of playing god, and destroying the NATURAL life on this earth, perhaps as people we should learn to live more responsibly. Responsible population control is what we should be striving for, not a way to sustain an overpopulated planet.

2)GM foods are not safe. There are MANY studies that link MANY different forms of caner with GMO's.

3)GMO's destroy the natural vegetation of this planet through cross-pollination.

4) GMO's have nothing to do with sustainable food sources. If that was the point, they would not be genetically modified to be sterile, meaning there can be no seeds harvested, meaning they are not sustainable. GMO's are about profit, not about helping.

If you live in an usustainable area, logic says you move, or die. There are far too many living in usustainable city environments.

GMO toxicity, while in some cases causing considerable damage ( eg. EMS epidemic of 1989 and the aftermath) shouldn't be considered the main issue, because it is already decades old technology and strong effects would likely have shown by now.

animal testing looks conclusive but even if infertility after three generations of exposure applied to human beings, the real danger is economic and ecologic, which is well known and which is why health effects remain in the limelight, as a plain diversion i presume.


these problems started to surface in the 1990s yet nobody heeded the warning, because the PR is too powerful, see

On Genetically Modified Foods Propaganda and ''Conclusive Science''

fail, but the catastrophe proceeds in slow motion, because no-one seems to be capable of publically claiming that GMOs as field crops rarely if ever deliver on their promises outside a couple of niche applications where specific proteins are needed (spider silk, etc) but always come with strings attached (contracts) and at a high price.

a tragic example: Indian farmer suicides

we know what monopolization of the food supply means, just take the USSR planned economic model, that's where it ends and GMOs by themselves are but a minor tool to achieve that type of control. 'weaponized credit' would be another; ask yourself why a wkileaked memo contains plans for attacking EU countries somehow for avoiding GMOs? does this sound like a business or more a kind of military decision?

reply to post by Griffo


Another good documentary for you to watch: