GMOs are safe?
Recently, Will Coggin of the Center for Consumer Freedom disseminated to newspapers an essay saying science shows genetic “improvement” of foods “is perfectly safe.” Coggin’s lobbyist outfit works for publicist Richard Berman, who also is behind similar organizations championing big corporations’ activities to the detriment of the public. Their contention that genetically modified foods are safe is blatantly false.
Researcher shows GMOs dangerous
GM forces discredited the study. But after he presented his results to the European Parliament, manufacturers agreed to keep GMOs out of their European products.
More dangers revealed
The U.S. media paid little attention, and ignored other important findings: a Russian National Academy of Science study showing that a horde of rats fed GM soy died shortly after birth; the deaths of 10,000 sheep in India a few days after grazing on plants of cotton engineered to produce their own pesticide; a study showing genes inserted into GM food crops can transfer into the DNA of our gut bacteria.
FDA ignores own scientists
The FDA doesn’t require GMO safety testing. “Research” alleging safety of GM food crops is voluntarily provided by the producers. However, after a lawsuit forced disclosure of 44,000 company documents, most FDA scientists concurred that eating GM foods “might result in unpredictable and hard-to-detect allergens, toxins, new diseases and nutritional problems.” They urged long-term studies, but superiors ignored them and, according to one scientific organization, “their statements about possible negative effects of GMOs were progressively deleted from FDA policy statement drafts.” The major media mostly ignored evidence of these occurrences presented at a 1999 press conference.
U.S. supports Monsanto
Now we have a disclosure by Wikileaks that Craig Stapleton, then-U.S. ambassador to France, urged our government in a cable several years ago to retaliate against France, primarily, and other anti-GMO nations in Europe. France had decided to ban GMO corn produced by Monsanto, the giant American chemical and bio-agricultural corporation. Stapleton wrote that the diplomatic team “recommends that we calibrate a target retaliation list that causes some pain across the EU (European Union) … .” In Europe, far fewer products than in the U.S. contain GMOs, because GMO labeling is required. Though the European Commission’s leadership advocates GMO, the people are aware of their potentially harmful effects on health and shun them. Our government also should force food processors to label the GMO ingredients in products. High fructose corn syrup from Monsanto’s GMO corn is ubiquitous in processed foods and soft drinks. If all of the other junk in processed foods weren’t enough to keep people from buying them, this ingredient should be an alarm bell to all: Let these products accumulate dust on the shelves.