NOTE: Jeffrey Smith's got a new DVD, Everything You Have to Know about Dangerous GM Food. Free online http://www.responsibletechnology.org/GMFree/Home/index.cfm
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When every mouthful is a health risk
Latha Jishnu
Business Standard, 24 September 2009
http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/when-every-mouthful-ishealth-risk/371023/
New Delhi -- Jeffrey M Smith, a former consultant to industry, is the director of the Institute for Responsible Technology. The institute works with well-known scientists to educate the public about the dangers of genetically modified organisms (GMO) and is in the forefront of the campaign for healthier eating in America. For over a decade he has been writing extensively about the inherent risks of GM foods and his first book, Seeds of Deception, which became a bestseller, made Smith one of the best-known faces of the global anti-GMO movement.
The powerful agriculture biotech industry is dismissive of Smith's assertions. It portrays Smith as a scaremonger whose claims about the health risks are short on scientific credibility. But this is exactly the point that Smith makes in his even more damning second book, Genetic Roulette: that there is very little science to prove that GM foods are harmless, as the industry claims. On the other, he lists 65 known health risks from GM foods, all of them drawn from well-documented scientific studies and emerging evidence from across the world. He also draws on reports published by leading geneticists, molecular biologists, protein chemists, epidemiologists and every kind of scientist who has worked in this field to present an ominous picture of the true state of affairs. It makes for very scary reading.
Smith's basic contention is that there has been deception from the very start. The US government and its regulatory agencies, in particular, the Food and Drug Administration, colluded with the biotech industry to manufacture the claim that the "food derived by these new methods (genetic engineering)" is no different from other foods. Based on this premise - a throwaway sentence in the FDA's 1992 policy on GM foods - the agency said no safety tests were required. The premise itself was not just flawed; it was manufactured to suit the interests of the industry by gagging scientists.
Internal documents of the FDA made public in the wake of a lawsuit several years later show that the FDA had coolly ignored the caution advised by its own scientists to the "different risks" posed by GM foods and that it had deleted all references to "the unintended negative effects" of genetic engineering. As a result, industry has been allowed to do pretty much as it pleased on safety procedures which, it turns out, is very little indeed. At the beginning of 2007, that is, a decade and a half after GM foods were introduced, just 20 peer-reviewed animal feeding safety studies had been conducted on GM crops and only one human feeding trial. What is shocking is that most of the animal feeding studies showed adverse effects after feeding for just 10-14 days.
Yet, the FDA allows developers, a cartel of five companies who control the bulk of the global seed and pesticides market, to do the safety studies on their own crops, studies that are kept secret under the guise that it is "confidential business information". That's why India hit the headlines when the Supreme Court ordered that test data on the genetically engineered Bt brinjal developed by Mahyco, a partner of the world's largest agbiotech company Monsanto, be made public. It is a rare instance where test data on a GM crop has been released for public scrutiny and where internationally renowned scientists have been able to point out the many flaws in the way the safety tests were conducted.
In his exhaustive compilation of health hazards, Smith puts together 65 health risks of GMOs that are linked to various toxic and allergic reactions and even death in livestock and human beings. It is a well-designed book. While the introduction puts the development of GM crops in perspective, each of the risks gets a two-page spread. Readers who want just the gist can stick to the left hand page which lists the bare-bones details (terrifying in most cases) along with the observation of a noted scientist while the right hand page provides plenty of technical details.
For instance, the second risk is on the effect of GM tomatoes on rats. We learn that 20 rats were fed on GM Flavr Savr tomato for 28 days. Of these, seven developed stomach lesions (bleeding); another seven died within two weeks and were replaced in the study. For more details of how the FDA approved the first GM crop in the US, the right hand page provides the various omissions and commissions of the regulator. It is well worth the reader's time and effort since the author has used an easy-to-comprehend style throughout, although he brings in the top scientific brains to explain some of the concepts.
Read just a paragraph or two from this book and it will keep you sleepless for a long time.