"Oz" > wrote in message ...
> Buxqi > writes
> >
> >Is this with current or future crops? Most of what I read suggests that GM
> >crops have yet to yield any real benefits.
>
> Oh, that's simply not so. Notill in the states has drastically reduced
> erosion and improved cropping patterns resulting in yield increases
> simply because high yielding crops can be sown more often. Its huge use
> in south america, india and china strongly suggests (virtually proves)
> that the local farmers consider GM to have significant benefits.
>
> >Mind you I live in a country
> >where the vast majority of people, including journalists seem somewhat
> >prejudiced against them.
>
> Indeed. Ignorance is bliss. However in this case the simple
> unavailability of world supplies of NON-GM soya and maize has and will
> cause problems. EU farmers cannot get or use such materials so
> inevitably we will be buying pork and chicken from the countries that
> can feed cheaper and more available maize and soya, that is south
> america and asia. These areas are well known for their high levels of
> animal welfare and hygiene (irony).
>
> >It's a shame because the technology has the
> >potential to be highly beneficial.
>
> It is, its just completely passed the EU by.
>
> --
> Oz
> This post is worth absolutely nothing and is probably fallacious.


'Dangers of Genetically Engineered Foods

(Footnotes refer to pages in the book Seeds of Deception
by Jeffrey M. Smith.)

The following presents some of the dangers of genetically engineered
foods and reasons why avoiding them is an important step to
safeguard our health. The footnotes refer to page references in the
book Seeds of Deception; there you can find meticulously
documented evidence that leaves no doubt that GM food should
never have been approved.

For a more in-depth look at 65 health risks of GM foods, excerpted
from Jeffrey Smith's comprehensive new book Genetic Roulette:
The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Foods,
click here.

For more information, see also these articles:

* Jeffrey Smith's Testimony to the EPA - June 2007
* Genetically Modified Foods Are Inherently Unsafe
* Genetically Engineered Foods Pose Higher Risk for Children
* Case Study on Industry Research: Soy Study by Monsanto
* Inhaled GM Maize Pollen May Cause Disease
* GM Food Promoter Transfers to Rat Cells
* GM Vaccines Recombine into Unpredictable Hybrid Viruses in
Human and Animal Cells
* A Deadly Epidemic and the Attempt to Hide its Link to Genetic
Engineering
* 55.6% Mortality in Rats Whose Mothers Were Fed GM Soy
* Terje Traavik, PhD, responds to criticism about his studies
* Article update linking health problems in the Philippines with Bt corn

The biotech industry claims that the FDA has thoroughly evaluated
GM foods and found them safe. This is untrue. Internal FDA
documents made public from a lawsuit, reveal that agency scientists
warned that GM foods might create toxins, allergies, nutritional problems,
and new diseases that might be difficult to identify.131-140 Although they
urged their superiors to require long-term tests on each GM variety prior
to approval, the political appointees at the agency, including a former
attorney for Monsanto, ignored the scientists. Official policy claims that
the foods are no different130 and do NOT require safety testing. A
manufacturer can introduce a GM food without even informing the
government or consumers.146 A January 2001 report from an expert
panel of the Royal Society of Canada said it was "scientifically
unjustifiable"136 to presume that GM foods are safe. Likewise, a 2002
report by the UK's Royal Society said that genetic modification "could
lead to unpredicted harmful changes in the nutritional state of foods,"
and recommended that potential health effects of GM foods be
rigorously researched before being fed to pregnant or breast-feeding
women, elderly people, those suffering from chronic disease, and
babies.263

How could the government approve dangerous foods? A close
examination reveals that industry manipulation and political collusion -
not sound science-was the driving force.

Government employees who complained were harassed, stripped of
responsibilities, or fired.77-83

Scientists were threatened. Evidence was stolen. Data was omitted or
distorted. Some regulators even claimed they were offered bribes to
approve a GM product.

There are only about two dozen published, peer-reviewed animal
feeding studies on the health effects of GM foods.

One study showed evidence of damage to the immune system and
vital organs, and a potentially pre-cancerous condition.12-13 When
the scientist tried to alert the public about these alarming discoveries,
he lost his job and was silenced with threats of a lawsuit.18-20

Two other studies also showed evidence of a potentially pre-cancerous
condition. The other seven studies, which were superficial in their design,
were not designed to identify these details.37

In an unpublished study, laboratory rats fed a GM crop developed
stomach lesions and seven of the forty died within two weeks. The crop
was approved without further tests.37, 137-140

Many industry studies appear to be rigged to find no problems. In the
case of a genetically engineered bovine growth hormone (rbGH), for
example, researchers injected cows with only one forty-seventh the
normal dosage before reporting hormone residues in milk.91-92 They
heated the milk 120 times longer than standard, to report that
pasteurization destroys the hormone.93-94 They added cows to their
study that were pregnant before treatment, to claim that rbGH didn't
impede fertility.89 Cows that fell sick were dropped from studies
altogether.80-81

With soybeans, serious nutritional differences between GM and
natural soy were omitted from a published paper.35-36 Feeding
studies masked any problems by using mature animals instead of
developing ones and by diluting their GM soy 10 to 1 with non-GM
protein.34

There are no adequate tests to verify that GM food will not create
dangerous allergic reactions. While an international organization
developed testing standards to minimize the possibility of allowing
allergenic GM varieties on the market, GM corn currently sold in the
U.S. has not been subjected to those tests and would most certainly
fail them. One of these tests, for example, uses a test tube simulation
to evaluate how long a potential GM allergen can last inside the
digestive system before being broken down. Compared to the
recommended international standards, however, one biotech company
used a far stronger acid concentration and more than 1,250 times the
recommended amount of a digestive enzyme to make the claim that
their protein degrades too quickly to cause a reaction.179

The only human feeding trial ever conducted confirmed that
genetically engineered genes from soy transferred to the bacteria
inside the digestive tract. (The biotech industry had previously said
that such a transfer was impossible.) The World Health Organization,
the British and American Medical Associations, and several other
groups have expressed concern that if the "antibiotic resistant marker
genes" used in GM foods got transferred to bacteria, it could create
super-diseases that are immune to antibiotics.59-60 More worrisome
is that the "promoter" used inside GM foods could get transferred
to bacteria or internal organs. Promoters act like a light switches,
permanently turning on genes that might otherwise be switched off.
Scientists believe that this might create unpredictable health effects,
including the potentially pre-cancerous cell growth found in the
animal feeding studies mentioned above.37

The biotech industry says that millions have been eating GM foods
without ill effect.This is misleading.

About 100 people died and 5-10,000 to fell seriously ill when they
consumed the food supplement L-tryptophan. Only those who
consumed the variety that was genetically modified became ill. That
brand had minute, but deadly contaminants that would easily pass
through current regulations today. If the disease it created had not
been rare and acute, with crippling and deadly symptoms, the GM
supplement might never have been traced as the cause. Once
discovered, however, industry and government covered up facts
and diverted the blame. Even the FDA testimony before Congress
withheld vital information.107-125

For a summary of the L-tryptophan issue, click here. For an in-depth
presentation of the issue, see Toxic L-tryptophan: Shedding Light on
a Mysterious Epidemic, by William E. Crist.

Milk from rbGH-treated cows contains an increased amount of the
hormone IGF-1, which is one of the highest risk factors associated
with breast and prostate cancer, among others.94-97

Soy allergies skyrocketed by 50% in the UK, coinciding with the
introduction of GM soy imports from the U.S.160-161

According to a March 2001 report, the Center for Disease Control
says that food is responsible for twice the number of illnesses in the
U.S. compared to estimates just seven years earlier. This increase
roughly corresponds to the period when Americans have been eating
GM food. Could that be contributing to the 5,000 deaths, 325,000
hospitalizations, and 76 million illnesses related to food each year?
Might it play in role in our national epidemic of obesity or the rise in
diabetes or lymphatic cancers? We have no way of knowing if there
is a connection because no one has looked for one.

One of the most dangerous aspects of genetic engineering is the
closed thinking and consistent effort to silence those with contrary
evidence or concerns. Just before stepping down from office, former
Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman admitted the following:

"What I saw generically on the pro-biotech side was the attitude that
the technology was good, and that it was almost immoral to say that
it wasn't good, because it was going to solve the problems of the
human race and feed the hungry and clothe the naked... And there
was a lot of money that had been invested in this, and if you're against
it, you're Luddites, you're stupid. That, frankly, was the side our
government was on... You felt like you were almost an alien, disloyal,
by trying to present an open-minded view"152-153

Contrast this with the warning by the editors of Nature Biotechnology:
"The risks in biotechnology are undeniable, and they stem from the
unknowable in science and commerce. It is prudent to recognize
and address those risks, not compound them by overly optimistic or
foolhardy behavior." 137

The biotech industry and the government have been foolhardy indeed.
Blinded, perhaps by the baseless myth that GM foods are needed to
feed the world,250-251 they gamble with our health and support their
safety claims on obsolete or unproven assumptions. Accepting their
vacuous assurances by eating these dangerous foods or serving them
to your customers may likewise be overly optimistic or foolhardy.

Please read the evidence amassed in the book Seeds of Deception
by Jeffrey M. Smith. The meticulously documented facts leave no
doubt about a massive injustice. The topic is too important to put
this off until tomorrow.

http://www.seedsofdeception.com/Publ...oods/index.cfm