GMO Lecture Notes

05/16/13 Nature’s Health Shoppe lecture on GMO dangers

“If in GMO doubt–just leave it out”

Information about GMO foods and why they are bad

What are GMO foods? Engineers are manipulating common foods to make them produce their own insecticide or making them resistant to chemical herbicides so farmers can spray herbicides on them to kill other plants. We are unwittingly eating these and other genetically modified foods every day.

Genetic engineering takes genes from bacteria, viruses, animals, humans and other sources and inserts them into other organisms to create a genetically modified organism (GMO) that would never otherwise occur in nature. Despite many warnings of health dangers from the FDA’s own scientists, the FDA decided to allow genetically modified foods on the market without labeling and without safety testing in 1996. According to the USDA, 93% of soybeans, 78% of cotton, and 70% of corn grown in the US in 2010 were GMO. Some GMO foods are even being increasingly “stacked” with yet other modifications. Most Americans, including health food shoppers, are eating GMO foods without knowing it because GMO foods are not labeled. In other countries, GMO foods are either labeled or outright banned.

80% of foods in U.S. grocery stores contain GMO ingredients, compared to only 5% in Europe.

EWG.org recently reported that the average adult in the US eats an average of 193 pounds of GMO corn-based products and salad oils a year. If that’s not bad enough, there are dozens of other GMO products to add into the mix that were not counted in this study. “From these figures, EWG calculated that the average American annually consumes genetically engineered foods in these quantities: 68 pounds of beet sugar, 58 pounds of corn syrup, 38 pounds of soybean oil and 29 pounds of corn-based products, for a total of 193 pounds,” says EWG.

The latest and upcoming GMOs

Coming soon or already on the market for next year: alfalfa, apples, barley, bell peppers, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, cherries, chicory, chili peppers, coffee, cranberries, cucumber, flax, grapefruit, kiwi, lentils, lettuce, melons, mustard, nut trees, oats, olives, onions, papaya, peanuts, pears, peas, persimmons, pineapple, radishes, rice, strawberries, sugar cane, sunflower, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, walnuts, watercress and wood trees.

How about some modified chickens laying modified chicken eggs?
  • GMO Atlantic salmon have two foreign DNA sequences inserted into their genomes. One encodes a growth hormone from Chinook salmon. The other is the antifreeze gene from ocean pout. When put together, this gene tampering makes the salmon produce growth hormone in cold weather when they otherwise wouldn’t. GMO salmon do not grow larger than regular salmon but they do achieve full in about sixteen months rather than three years.
  • “Enviropigs™,” pigs are modified to produce 65 percent less phosphorous in their feces and urine. Pig farms produce three times more excrement than human beings do. The waste is loaded with phosphorus which causes excessive algae growth in lakes and streams.
  • The grapple is a genetic cross between an apple and a grape combining the size of the apple with the texture of grapes and a combo of flavor from both fruits. The grapple was originally designed to provide a much higher vitamin-c dose per fruit for third world aid. Funded by UNICEF.
  • The graisin is a giant raisin that modified to grow to enormous proportions. The graisin was produced Japan due to the Japanese love of large fruit combined with the recent popularity of western food, raisins.
  • Rubber cork trees help the wine industry to appease wine enthusiasts, who have long objected to rubber corks.
  • Tiny Piney is a miniature pine tree which tops in at 2cm when fully grown. Originally developed for a source for pine-tree smell in the fragrance industry, it is now a huge hit as a desert dish in Papua New Guinea.
  • Unrelated to food, flying lizard, dog/lion, lemur cat, fern spider, paper tree that produces writing quality – square leaves.
GMO study facts you need to see

Did You Know… in a first-ever, long-term study of the health effects of genetically modified corn, half of the rats died prematurely? Just last month, a disturbing video of the results of the world’s first study on the long-term effects of GMO foods took the internet by storm, making headlines across Europe. The US news leaders were oddly silent over this story.

Scientists from the University of Caen in France proved that consumption of GMO maize-NK603 or GMO corn exposed to even the minute amounts of Monsanto’s Roundup weed killer caused extreme tumor growth and severe liver and kidney damage.

The University of Caen researchers analyzed the effects of GM corn and water containing permissible amounts of Roundup on rats over a 2-year (lifetime) period. Their startling findings were published in The Food & Chemical Toxicology Journal in September and presented at a news conference in London:
Up to 50% of males and 70% of females died significantly earlier than rats fed a standard diet.

  • Compared to the control group, rats given water with trace amounts of Roundup were up to 3 times more likely to develop tumors.
  • After 4 months for males, and 7 months for females, researchers saw signs of debilitating damage to the liver, kidneys, and other organs.
  • By the last month of the study, up to 80% of female rats given GM corn or tainted water had developed massive tumors-up to 3 per rat.
    As Dr. Michael Antoniou, a member of the independent scientific council CRIIGEN which supported the study, explained: “The rat has long been used as a surrogate for human toxicity…this is as good an indicator as we can expect that the consumption of GM corn and the pesticide Roundup, impacts seriously on human health.”
Warning! Lifelong Diet of GM Corn Caused Tumors, Organ Damage, and Premature Death

Until now, the only tests conducted to determine the safety of GMO foods have been industry-backed, very short 90-day trials with rats. What independent scientists have found is that study rats started to exhibit malevolent problems at the 120 day mark. Do you think Monsanto knew this already? Keep in mind that 60% of all studies never make the light of day because they reflect negative results and the industry hides them. The life span of a rat is about 2 years. This is why we needed a lifetime study of the effects of GMOs to understand the implications to our health.

The American Academy of Environmental Medicine (AAEM) had already reported that “Several animal studies indicate serious health risks associated with GM food.” These risks include a growing list of trouble like: infertility, immune problems, accelerated aging, faulty insulin regulation, changes in major organs and changes in the gastrointestinal system. The AAEM asked physicians to advise patients to avoid GM foods.

Before the FDA decided to allow GMOs into food without labeling, FDA scientists had repeatedly warned that GMO foods can create unpredictable, hard-to-detect side effects, including allergies, toxins, new diseases, and nutritional problems. They urged long-term safety studies, but their concerns were pushed aside for Big Money interests.

Since the original foot-dragging and alibis by the FDA, thousands of sheep, buffalo, and goats in India died after grazing on Bt cotton plants. Later studies show that mice eating GMO corn for the long term had fewer, smaller, babies and over half of the pups of mother rats fed GMO soy died within three weeks, testicle cells of mice and rats on a GMO soy change significantly, by the third generation, most GMO soy-fed hamsters lost the ability to reproduce, rodents fed GMO corn and soy showed immune system responses and signs of toxicity, cooked GMO soy contains up to 7-times the amount of a known soy allergen resulting in soy allergies that skyrocketed by 50% in the UK and the stomach lining of rats fed GM potatoes showed excessive cell growth – a condition that may lead to cancer.

Buried and forgotten is the 1998 story of a renowned British biochemist who exposed the truth about how GMOs cause organ damage, reproductive failure, digestive dysfunction, impaired immunity, and cancer, among many other conditions in a three-year study at Rowett Research Institute. The study was on the built-in BT toxins in GMO potatoes. He was immediately fired and the team dismantled within 24hrs of their findings going public.

But rather than be praised for their honest assessment into this genetically-tampered potato, Pusztai and his colleagues were chastised by industry-backed government authorities, including British Prime Minister Tony Blair, whose office was discovered to have secretly contacted RRI just hours after Pusztai and his team announced the results of their study on television. For speaking the truth, Pusztai was immediately fired from his position, and his team dismissed from their positions at the school.

Research out of Egypt finds similar results – GMOs cause severe, long-term health damage

The Egypt Independent recently reported similar research from Cairo University. There a research team fed nine groups of rats varying combinations of GM soy, corn, wheat, and canola, and consequently observed that these genetic poisons clearly obstructed the normal function of the animals with shrinkage of kidneys, change in the liver and spleen, appearance of malignant parts in the tissues, (and) kidney failure and hemorrhages in the intestine. The team leader also said “The brain functions were touched as well, and the rats’ learning and memory abilities were seriously altered.”

In 2009 in the International Journal of Biological Sciences, the Dr. Joël Spiroux de Vendômois (et al) published that GMO corn was causing organ failure in rats.

Multiple studies have shown organ lesions, altered liver and pancreas cells, changed enzyme levels, and more. There have been no human clinical trials of GMO foods and the only published human feeding experiment revealed that the genetic material inserted into GMO soy transfers into bacteria inside the human intestines and continues to function. Unfortunately, this means that even after we stop eating GMO foods, we still have GMO proteins produced continuously inside us.

By law, farmers in the United States who plant Bt corn must plant non-Bt corn nearby to provide a refuge for pests. This is done to “slow” the evolution of the pests’ resistance to the Bt pesticide. It has been anticipated that resistance to Bt will eventually evolve. But corn harvested from the Bt-free zones and other nearby crops all show traces of Bt toxin. The levels found in the non-Bt corn decreases with distance from the Bt-corn fields,

A 2011 claim published in the journal Reproductive Toxicology, shows that Bt toxin was detected in the bodies of pregnant women stem cells.

The GMO nightmare

What if… the antibiotic gene inserted into GMO crops were to transfer. Be ready for a new class of super diseases, resistant to antibiotics. What if… the Bt-toxin gene in GMO corn were to transfer. Our intestines would turn into living pesticide factories. What if… the growth gene in GMO salmon transferred to our children and the grew to full siz by the age of 8 or 9?

GMOs are Big Grocery, Big Money

Corporate money talks ~ How could the USDA and the FDA could possibly approve GMO crops for widespread use. Long-term studies (like the one in France) should be required before any GMO crop is licensed. But Big Corporations (like Big Pharma) are interested in profits, not public health. Theses greedy corporations employ powerful corporate lobbyists who convince government agencies to make the wrong decisions or even turn a blind eye.

http://www.responsibletechnology.org/gmo-dangers exposes the “No on 37 campaign” which out and out criminally lies about FDA quotes while trying to prevent Californians from knowing whether or not the foods they eat contain GMOs. This group stooped to the lowest of low and fabricated a quote from the FDA in supposed opposition to the labeling law. Using the official agency seal, the group said “The US Food and Drug Administration says a labeling policy like Prop 37 would be ‘inherently misleading.”
Of course, the FDA never actually issued such a statement AND federal law prohibits the FDA from taking an official position on the matter.

According to Right to Know, a certain Dr. Henry I. Miller, who is identified solely as “Founding Director, Office of Biotechnology of the Food & Drug Administration” in the guide, does not actually work for the FDA in any capacity. Thus, his listing in the guide blatantly violates U.S. Criminal Code 912, which prohibits individuals from assuming or pretending to be federal employees.

Food prices are rising everywhere. Global food inflation is on the rise, and 2013 is going to be even worse thanks to the extreme droughts of 2012 that struck croplands across North America. At the same time, grocery stores (and even health food stores) continue to sell unlabeled GMOs hidden in their foods. Even shopping at Whole Foods is often a GMO mine field.

The best thing you can do to protect your own by avoid GMO products. Stay involved with any of many organizations forging ahead with anti-GMO purpose. Contact your lawmakers and demand mandatory labeling of GMO foods.

Avoid GM products as much as possible by choosing organic and avoiding processed foods when possible. Tragically, at this time, food manufacturers are not required to label products that contain GM foods. You can, however, find a number of useful shopping guides online. These guides list both companies that frequently use genetically modified foods as well as companies that prioritize responsible practices.

Hidden sources for GMO foods

Aspartame (also called AminoSweet®, NutraSweet®, Equal Spoonful®, Canderel®, BeneVia®, E951) baking powder, canola oil (rapeseed oil), caramel color, cellulose, citric acid, cobalamin (Vitamin B12), colorose, condensed milk, confectioner’s sugar, corn flour, corn masa, corn meal, corn oil, corn sugar, corn syrup, cornstarch, cottonseed oil, cyclodextrin, cystein, dextrin, dextrose, diacetyl diglyceride, erythritol, Equal, food starch, fructose (any form), glucose, glutamate, glutamic acid, glycerides, glycerin, glycerol, glycerol monooleate, glycine, hemicellulose, high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), hydrogenated starch, hydrolyzed vegetable protein, inositol, inverse syrup, inversol, invert sugar, isoflavones, lactic acid, lecithin, leucine, lysine, malitol, malt, malt syrup, malt extract, maltodextrin, maltose, mannitol, methylcellulose, milk powder, milo starch, modified food starch, modified starch, mono and diglycerides, monosodium glutamate (MSG), Nutrasweet, oleic acid, Phenylalanine, phytic acid, protein isolate, shoyu, sorbitol, soy flour, soy isolates, soy lecithin, soy milk, soy oil, soy protein, soy protein isolate, soy sauce, starch, stearic acid, sugar (unless specified as cane sugar), tamari, tempeh, teriyaki marinades, textured vegetable protein, threonine, tocopherols (vitamin E), tofu, trehalose, triglyceride, vegetable fat, vegetable oil, vitamin B12, vitamin C, vitamin E, whey, whey powder, xanthan gum

Kashi is now selling GMO-free cereals

The answer is Green PolkaDot Box, which has authorized Natural News to announce their “Non-GMO Project Verified” specials, good only while supplies last or through midnight, this coming Monday. During this non-GMO special, you can get a 10% discount off the already-discounted non-GMO foods offered through the Green PolkaDot Box shopping website.

If in GMO doubt – just leave it out

Authored by cancer nutritionist Craig Stellpflug NDC, CNC, Dayspring Cancer Clinic Scottsdale, AZ
Copyright 2012 Craig Stellpflug© Permission is hereby granted to copy and distribute this article but only in its entirety

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