Genetically Modified Foods: A Concern for the Allergic

Judy Tidwell
About Allergies

"...Genetically modified (GM) foods should be a concern for those who suffer from food allergies because they are not tested, regulated, or required to be labeled.

"...Soy beans, corn, canola (rapeseed) and cotton are the most widely grown GMO crops. Almost all of these crops are either 'insect resistant' or 'herbicide tolerant'. The list also includes: peppers, peanuts, potatoes, sugar beets, sunflowers, and tomatoes.

"...Currently the list of GM food products intersect with the eight most common food allergens: eggs, milk, fish, peanuts, shellfish, soy, tree nuts, and wheat.
Proteins in food are what trigger most allergic reactions in people. Most of the foreign proteins being gene-spliced into foods have never been eaten by humans before or tested for their safety.

"There also is no mandatory labeling of genetically modified foods. Those who suffer from food allergies have no way of knowing if the food they purchase contains GM foods.

"...A genetically engineered corn, Starlink, contains a special protein that takes longer than normal to break down in the digestive system. For this reason, it has NOT been approved for human consumption. However, it was discovered in the human food chain in the year 2000.

"Scientists believe a protein's ability to withstand heat and gastric juices may cause an allergic reaction. Some allergy producing foods, such as peanuts, have this same characteristic." Click the title to read the article.

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GM crop 'ruins fields for 15 years'

By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor
Published: 09 October 2005
The Independent Online Edition

"GM crops contaminate the countryside for up to 15 years after they have been harvested, startling new government research shows.

"The findings cast a cloud over the prospects of growing the modified crops in Britain, suggesting that farmers who try them out for one season will find fields blighted for a decade and a half.

"Financed by GM companies and Margaret Beckett's Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the report effectively torpedoes the Government's strategy for introducing GM oilseed rape to this country.

"Ministers have stipulated that the crops should not be grown until rules are worked out to enable them to 'co-exist' with conventional ones. But the research shows that this is effectively impossible.

"...The researchers found that nine years after a single modified crop, an average of two GM rape plants would grow in every square metre of an affected field. After 15 years, this came down to one plant per square metre - still enough to break the EC limits on permissible GM contamination.

"Last night Pete Riley, the director of GM Freeze, said; 'It is becoming clearer and clearer that it is going to be impossible to grow GM crops in Britain.'" Click the title to read the article.

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FDA to rule on sales of clones' products

10/4/2005
by: Jonathan D. Rockoff
The Baltimore Sun
Truth About Trade Technology

"Washington - The federal government is nearing a decision to allow the sale of meat and milk from cloned cows and their offspring, according to officials from government, industry and consumer groups.

"The Food and Drug Administration is expected to take a major step toward approval soon, proposing to permit the sales, subject to 60 days of public comment and additional review.

"...'You're not producing them to eat - you're producing them to breed,' said Scott K. Davis, president of Start Licensing, a joint venture of biotechnology companies that own the licenses for cloning livestock. He said cloning a cow would cost $15,000.

"Even after the FDA reaches a final decision, livestock producers will need up to four years or more to raise offspring ready for slaughter, and most dairy farmers may ignore the technology until the cost falls, their trade groups said.

"Once approval comes, however, industry and consumer groups are concerned that a public backlash will follow. Scientific studies support the safety of the food products, but surveys indicate that many Americans remain jittery or harbor ethical concerns.

"'A train wreck is coming,' said Carol Tucker Foreman of the Consumer Federation of America. 'It's not about the science. It's how people see their food.'

"...When the FDA makes an announcement, the agency said, it will release the draft of a report on the safety of eating and drinking from cloned animals and, in all likelihood, tentative rules governing the sale of the foodstuffs.

"...The FDA said its ruling will encompass cloning of goats, pigs and sheep, as well as cows.

"Many livestock producers support approval because cloning increases the odds that it will yield beef with the grade, marbling and other qualities that fetch the highest prices and provide the best taste and tenderness.

"Leah Wilkinson, director of food policy at the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, said she expects the beef to be sold in supermarkets, though how widely it will be marketed will depend on the cost and the speed with which producers use the technology.

"Since 1997, Americans have been eating processed foods made with genetically modified vegetables, such as corn and soybeans. But many consumers regard goats and pigs differently from canola and squash, polls show. Also, talk of cloning prompts fears straight out of science fiction movies.

"...Although the agency seems close to reaching a decision, many observers don't expect the issue to subside soon. One fight might be over labeling.

"Some consumer advocates want products of cloned animals and their offspring labeled. But the FDA wouldn't require labels unless it found that food derived from clones was not as safe as, or materially different from, food from naturally born animals. Studies don't indicate such a difference." Click the title to read the article.

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Chimeras Among Us

Alynne Morris

"Scientific research throughout this century has been turning science fiction concepts into reality. Nicholas Wade recently published an article in the NY Times (May 3, 2005) about the current state of embryonic stem cell research and the realities and possibilities of generating chimeric organisms.

"The realm of mythology yields the classical Greek chimera, which is typically female and comprised of a lion, goat, and fire-breathing serpent. Further mythological examples include centaurs, minotaurs, mermaids, sphinxes, and werewolves. Egyptian deities are commonly represented as chimeras of one form or another. Mr. Wade indicates an interesting theme in our mythology: these chimeric forms have sinister tendencies, which bode heavily as an archetypical example not to mix species.

"However, scientists and physicians have been quietly producing chimeras, right under our noses. By a more technical interpretation of chimera, the mixing of tissues or cells, either through genetic engineering, transplants or grafting to produce an organism or even an organ, qualifies as a chimera. Some people can even be classified as chimeras, because of certain transplant/grafting procedures, such as replacing human heart valves with those of pigs. The insulin used by diabetics is produced by bacteria and/or yeast which contain the human gene which produces the hormone that helps control blood sugar levels.

"Horticulturists have been creating chimeric plants for years. Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) and Genetically Engineered Organisms (GEO) are also chimeras. Chimeric organisms pervade our everyday lives, and have sparked much debate. According to the Department of Energy website, benefits of GMOs include increased crop yields, improved nutrition and flavor, enhanced disease resistance, and the potential for more natural "biocontrol" agents, such as bio-herbicides and bio-insecticides rather than chemical treatments which are known to be toxic and/or carcinogenic. As positive as these benefits seem, the controversies are equally disturbing. The potentially unknown consequences to human health include the possible effects on the environment, allergen effects, and loss of biodiversity. Other questions surround ethical and responsibility concerns, such as inducing stress in the animal or plant and labeling of food products as being genetically modified or engineered.

"...Further advances in science, such as those that will result from stem cell research, will only increase the shades of gray in the ethical landscape of our collective future." Click the title to read the article.

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Genetically Modified Foods: Breeding Uncertainty

By Charles W. Schmidt
Sep 16, 2005, 20:15
Foodconsumer.org

"...Today, GM crops are grown commercially by 8.25 million farmers on 200 million acres spread throughout 17 countries, reports the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications (ISAAA), an international nonprofit that advocates for the technology. The world's top five producers--the United States, Argentina, Canada, Brazil, and China--account for 96% of global GM cultivation; of this, more than half is in the United States.

"Yet these impressive numbers tell only part of the story. Fully as notable as the growth of GM agriculture is the relentless backlash that has developed against it. Although GM supporters insist the technology raises harvest yields, reduces agrochemical use, and will eventually even produce high-nutrition food that can grow in depleted soils, skeptics counter that the risks of GM foods--made with gene splicing methods from biotechnology--are unknown and poorly addressed by current testing methods. They also worry that the spread of GM crops, which are supplied mainly by a handful of multinational companies, fuels corporate ownership of the seed supply and threatens the purity of indigenous crops, with which GM varieties can breed by cross-pollination.

"The opposition's attacks are generating sustained impacts. In April 2004, biotech companies including Novartis Seeds, Aventis CropScience, and Bayer CropScience abandoned GM field trials in England, citing challenges raised by British consumers. The next month, Monsanto dropped its new variety of herbicide-resistant wheat despite hundreds of millions reputedly spent on research and development. The product was shelved in part because of threatened boycotts by Europe and Japan, which together buy 45% of all U.S. wheat exports, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service (UDSA/ERS). And in November 2004, the world's largest agrochemical company, the Swiss-based Syngenta, moved its European GM field trials to the United States, also citing public resistance.

"...Developing countries are also heavily divided, even though they could arguably benefit the most from the technology.

"...Meanwhile, a slew of 'GM-free zones,' where all transgenic organisms are banned (including fish, other animals, and plants used to make drugs), are cropping up around the world. Three are in the United States, all in California. More than 3,000 are found throughout Europe, with others in Canada, Australia, and the Philippines, says Renata Brillinger, director of the citizens group Californians for GE [genetically engineered]-Free Agriculture." Click the title to read the article.

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Food For Thought

September 16, 2005
by Mark Rice, Movie Editor
The Cornell Daily Sun

"Before biting into that sandwich or pouring that bowl of cereal have you ever wondered what is exactly going into the food you are eating? Besides the obvious answers of water, corn syrup and other common ingredients, we may now be entering an age when we have to consider if our foods have been altered on a genetic level.
A new documentary, The Future of Food, poses this question and extends an interesting argument about the consequences that genetically altered food may have on the environment and us. The film, created by Deborah Koons Garcia (actually the widow of well know guitarist Jerry Garcia) will be shown at the Willard Straight Theater this Saturday at 7p.m. and be followed by a panel discussion.

"The Future of Food actually starts out highlighting the early stages of the green revolution when scientists attempted to make crops more similar and mass produced. However this industrialization of agriculture also made it easier for diseases to attack the uniform food supply. As a result, the need for pesticides increased giving a larger market to pesticide corporations, particularly Monsanto.

"Garcia highlights the unusual phenomenon of how pesticide companies like Monsanto bought up seed companies to control both sides of the market, and then started to develop crops that would hold up to powerful pesticides like Round Up. Even more interesting, the documentary shows how corporations have managed to patent their plants so they can actually own a living organism. The Future of Food is quite straightforward in its criticism of genetically engineered plants. It highlights how farmers have been bullied by large corporations when patented seeds inadvertently pollinate in their fields. The documentary shows how genetically modified organisms, usually referred to as GMOs, threaten the natural development of plant life. It also is highly critical of the government’s passive nature toward the spread of genetically modified organisms as its agencies have been courted and manipulated by powerful corporations.

"The main theme through the documentary is the unpredictability of GMO science. Garcia’s film argues that unlike other technology which can be built, tested, and dismantled if necessary, GMOs are living organisms that change and adapt. Once a GMO is in the food supply, it cannot be taken back. Therefore GMO technology is taking us into uncharted territory with little hope of retreat. The documentary also asserts that the main argument for GMOs, to combat world hunger, is also false. Instead, Garcia argues that GMOs force subsistence farmers off their land to make for large scale planting and forces them into large urban slums.

"The film is not just an attack on GMO technology. It offers solutions and other opportunities to GMO food. One such recommendation is the need to label all food that comes from GMOs, which is already being considered in many countries. The other solution offered by Garcia is relatively simple: support you local farmer. The Future of Food argues that the rather complicated world of GMOs can effectively be bypassed by simply visiting a farmers’ market. The Future of Food certainly makes no apologies for its attacks on corporations forwarding GMO technology and it is quite obvious that the film forwards a specific viewpoint. However, The Future of Food effectively brings attention to a pertinent, but often overlooked issue of our time and does so in an easy to understand, and interesting method." Click the title to read the article.

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Reclaiming Commons – Old And New

September 15, 2005
by John Hepburn
ZNet

"...Research teams of some of the world’s largest corporations are scouring the surface of the earth for potentially valuable genetic property and taking patents on anything from cell lines from indigenous people in Papua New Guinea, to seeds of staple food crops.

"Food is an interesting example. Most people don’t really think of food as a common. To be truthful, most people in our culture don’t really think about where their food comes from at all. But most of the basic foods that we eat today have been developed over thousands of years by peasant farmers in different parts of the world. It’s true to say that food grows on trees, but most foods didn’t just develop by accident – they were actively bred. The genetic diversity of our foods is really a common. It has been managed through reciprocal relationships between farmers for millennia – growing, developing and sharing seeds.

"The combination of plant breeder rights and patents on life has enabled food to be at least partially enclosed and privatized. The development of genetically engineered foods and in particular, ‘terminator technology’ (breeding sterile seeds) is the extreme example.

"But the process of enclosure and commodification of food is also strongly supported, and in some ways even led by a process of enclosing our imagination – of shifting our desires and the way that we think about food.

"Wholefoods are part of our common heritage – they are difficult to enclose (notwithstanding the aggressive attempts to do so) because they grow freely on trees and in the earth. However, if corporations can create a demand, indeed an addiction, for processed, synthesized foods that cannot be replicated easily by everyday people – they can be trademarked or have some other form of monopoly protection. So the process of enclosure of our food commons proceeds not only through the increasing monopoly control over seeds – but also through the social control of how we think about food and the kinds of food that we want to eat – by limiting our collective imagination.

"For example, many people are no longer willing to eat fruit with blemishes, or vegetables with worms. Indeed fruit and vegetables themselves are off the menu for an increasing number of people whose sustenance derives almost exclusively from highly processed industrial foods. A similar shift is also evident in countries such as India where the majority of people currently exist outside of the formal food economy (ie they grow their own food, and trade within their community) but where corporate marketing is being used effectively to encourage people to abandon traditional food systems and adopt much more passive roles as consumers of industrial food.

"Our current industrial food system represents an unprecedented human experiment, whereby virtually an entire generation will grow up with only a cursory understanding of where their food comes from, and will be largely unable to produce their own food. As time progresses, the limiting of our imagination will be reinforced by the limiting of our lived experience and our skills, ensuring the effective privatization of food – through either legalized monopolies or through, as Vandana Shiva would say, ‘monocultures of the mind’." Click the title to read the article.

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Monsanto Wins EU Backing for Genetically Modified Rapeseed

Bloomberg.com

"Aug. 31 (Bloomberg) -- Monsanto Co., the world's largest developer of genetically engineered crops, won European Union backing for import of a modified rapeseed as the 25-nation bloc seeks to prove its approvals system is functioning.

"The European Commission today granted 10-year permission for the plant, known as GT73, to be imported into the 25-nation bloc for animal feed. St. Louis-based Monsanto developed the rapeseed to resist a herbicide produced by the company.

"The World Trade Organization is set to rule in October on a complaint by the biggest growers of gene-altered crops that the European system for approving the plants is unnecessarily slow. Today's approval, the second in a month, was delayed from January as the new commission debated its stance.

"'During the past four years, the EU has put in place a clear, transparent and stringent system to regulate genetically modified food, feed and crops,' the commission, the EU's executive arm, said in a statement. The rapeseed 'has been scientifically assessed by the European Food Safety Authority as being as safe as any conventional oilseed rape.'

"...Monsanto's rapeseed was originally promised import permission in January, before the approval was accidentally published, then retracted, on June 24. Environmental groups including Friends of the Earth say rapeseeds are particularly unsuited to genetic modification after a U.K. government study suggested properties conferred on the crops could be transferred to neighboring weeds.

"After Japanese authorities found that Monsanto's rapeseed entered the wild from cargo, the EU published special measures to reduce the environmental impact of another leak, according to today's press release." Click the title to read the article.

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