Stephen Lendman

Activist Post

It doesn’t surprise. Times policy is irresponsible. It’s unprincipled. It’s reprehensible. It’s longstanding. It supports wealth, power and privilege.

It endorses what demands condemnation. It ignores GMO dangers. Doing so betrays its readers. More on that below.

GMO foods and ingredients are toxic. They’re unsafe to eat. They harm human health. Independent scientific research proves it. Coverup and denial suppress what’s vital to know.

Agribusiness giants want all animal and vegetable life forms patented. They want worldwide food control. They want it genetically engineered. They prioritize profits over human health.

GMOs saturate today’s foods. The Center for Food Safety (CFS) “challeng(es) harmful food production technologies and promot(es) sustainable alternatives.”

It calls genetically engineered plants and animals “one of the greatest and most intractable environmental challenges of the 21 century.”

In America, up to 85% of corn, 94% of soybeans, 93% of canola, and 88% of cotton are genetically engineered. Over 80% of processed foods contain GMO ingredients.

They include dairy and animal products, vegetable oils, soft drinks, ice cream, margarine, peanut butter, tomato sauce, salad dressings, soups, crackers, and much more.

Studies prove these foods pose grave human health dangers. They include high toxicity risks, allergenicity, antibiotic resistance, immune-suppression, cancer, and numerous other diseases.

They’re less nutritious. They’re harmful ecologically. They cause uncontrolled biological pollution. They threaten microbial, plant and animal species with extinction.

They potentially contaminate all non-GMO life forms. Despite risks too great to ignore, Congress and regulatory agencies ignore them. They abdicate their authority doing so. They give agribusiness free reign. They let food giants poison us.

Consumers are part of an uncontrolled, unregulated mass human experiment. Doing so risks human health. Once GMO seeds infest an area, nothing known to science can reverse contamination.

Reliable scientific evidence is suppressed. People are uninformed in the dark. Rats fed GM potatoes have smaller livers, hearts, testicles and brains. Liver atrophy appears.

Their immune systems show damage. Their white blood cells are structurally changed. They’re more vulnerable to infection and disease.

Their thymus and spleens are damaged. Enlarged tissues appear. Their pancreases and intestines show disturbing changes. Potential risk for cancer and other diseases increase.

GHW Bush’s 1992 Executive Order called GMOs “substantially equivalent” to ordinary seeds and crops. It said no government regulation is necessary.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is an industry front group. Food and drug officials cycle in and out.

They notoriously approve unsafe products. They suppress scientific evidence proving it. Doing so harms human health.

FDA officials lied. They claim they’re “not aware of any information showing that foods derived by these new methods differ from other foods in any meaningful or uniform way.”

Safety studies aren’t needed, they say. “Ultimately, it is the food producer” that bears responsibility “for assuring safety.”

Jeffrey Smith heads the Institute for Responsible Technology. He’s a leading consumer advocate. He promotes healthy non-GMO foods and ingredients. He does so for good reason.

Genetically modified life forms harm human health. FDA approval opened the floodgates. Doing so “set the stage for the rapid deployment of the new technology,” said Smith.

Agribusiness took full advantage. Millions of acres were planted. Hundreds of millions eat toxic foods and ingredients.

Consumer objections are ignored. Responsible legislation and regulations are avoided. Agribusiness giants do what they please.

Industry studies are substandard. They’re bad science. Researchers cook the books. They publish false findings.

US regulatory agencies don’t “investigate the impacts of GM food on gut function, liver function, kidney function, the immune system, endocrine system, blood composition, allergic response, effects on the unborn, the potential to cause cancer, or impacts on gut bacteria,” says Smith.

Independent studies are different. They show GMOs produce disturbing DNA changes. Their natural functioning is impaired.

“Native genes can be mutated, deleted, permanently turned off or on,” says Smith.

Inserted genes “can become truncated, fragmented, mixed with other genes, inverted or multiplied, and the GM protein it produces may have unintended (harmful) characteristics.”

When transgenes function in cells, they produce unnatural proteins. Independent scientific testing proves it.

GMO corn produces Bt-toxin. Companies claim it’s safe. Ingesting it risks allergic-type symptoms. Mice showed disturbing immune responses. Abnormal, excessive cell growth appeared.

Increasing numbers of human and livestock illnesses are linked to Bt crops. They harm gut bacteria. Intestinal flora become pesticide factories.

Independent studies are damning. They show:

stunted growth

impaired immune systems

bleeding stomachs

abnormal/potentially precancerous intestinal cell growth

impaired blood cell development

misshaped liver cell structures, pancreas and testicles

altered gene expression and cell metabolism

liver and kidney lesions

partially atrophied livers

inflamed kidneys

less developed organs

reduced digestive enzymes

higher blood sugar

inflamed lung tissue

increased death rates

higher offspring mortality

Farmers report pigs and cows fed GM corn become sterile. Shepherds say one-fourth or more of sheep fed Bt cotton plants died.

Other evidence showed similar effects on cows, chickens, water buffaloes, and horses.

After GM soy was introduced in Britain, allergies skyrocketed 50%. Earlier in America, a GM food supplement killed dozens. It left thousands of others sick or disabled.

Monsanto’s the world’s largest seed producer. It controls much of the world’s food supply. Its history reflects irresponsible behavior.

It includes pressuring and bribing federal officials, highjacking regulatory agencies, suppressing negative product information, threatening scientists and journalists daring to report them, and requiring buyers not to use its seeds for independent research.

Other seed producers operate the same way. They do so recklessly and lawlessly. They want total control. They get away with it because no one stops them.

Genetic manipulation is fraught with dangers. It’s done by inserting a single gene from a species’ DNA to another unnaturally. According to Smith:

A pig can mate with a pig, and a tomato can mate with a tomato. But there is no way that a pig can mate with a tomato and vice versa.

Doing so transfers genes across natural barriers. They separated species over millions of evolutionary years. They did so successfully.

Agribusiness officials want people to believe they can do nature one better. They claim genetic engineering replicates or involves a superior alternative to natural breeding.

Saying so is unproved, indefensible, and irresponsible. It’s pseudoscience. It’s smokescreen deception.

Genetic engineering involves combining genes that never before existed together. Doing so defies natural breeding. It proved safe for millennia.

Challenging nature irresponsibly risks enormous human health consequences.

Problems like harmful L-Tryptophan occur. It’s a natural amino acid. Many companies produce it. It’s used to induce sleep.

Japan’s Showa Denko genetically engineered it. It did so in the late 1980s. Many dozens died. Over 1,500 were crippled. Up to 10,000 got Eosinophilia Myalgia Syndrome (EMS). It’s an incurable blood disorder.

It causes permanent nerve and muscle tissue scarring, as well as fibrosis, inflammation, and permanent immune system change.

Agribusiness officials ignore public safety. They want GMO foods and ingredients unlabeled. They want consumers unaware of what they’re ingesting.

They oppose laws regulating or banning GMO products. They call doing so “unfair trade practices.” They’ve got governments on their side. They let these products be grown internally or imported.

World Trade Organization (WTO) Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) patent rules back Agribusiness. What food and seed giants want they get.

Profits matter more than human health. It’s threatened because federal officials and regulatory agencies do nothing to protect it.

New York Times editors are dismissive. On March 14, they headlined “Why Label Genetically Engineered Food?”

Whole Foods Market “caused a stir,” they said. On March 8, company officials said all GMO products in its North American stores must be labeled. Producers have until 2018 to comply. Why that long wasn’t explained.

Times editors expressed concern, saying:

Any private company has the right to require its suppliers to meet labeling standards it chooses to set, and consumers have a right to know what’s in the food they are buying.

But there is no reliable evidence that genetically modified foods now on the market pose any risk to consumers.

The Food and Drug Administration says it has no basis for concluding that foods developed by bioengineering techniques present different or greater safety concerns than foods developed by traditional plant breeding.

Independent scientific research proves otherwise. Times editors ignored it. It’s standard NYT policy. It marches in lockstep with business. Doing so betrays its readers.

It claims no compelling reason to mandate compulsory labeling. It wants consumers unaware of what they’re eating.

They can choose organic alternatives if they wish. Saying so ignores common practice. Most people believe food products are safe.

They think markets selling them wouldn’t do so otherwise. They’re uninformed and mistaken. Ignorance leaves them vulnerable.

It gravely compromises their health and welfare. Don’t expect Times editors to explain.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at [email protected] His new book is titled How Wall Street Fleeces America: Privatized Banking, Government Collusion and Class War. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening. http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/