[R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] A Moratorium on Genetically Manipulated (GMO) Foods

[Bill Totten]

by F William Engdahl

Global Research (May 22 2009)


US Association of Physicians calls for Moratorium on GMO Foods

The American Academy of Environmental Medicine (AAEM) has just issued a
call for an immediate moratorium on Genetically Manipulated (GMO) Foods.

In a just-released position paper on GMO foods, the AAEM states that 'GM
foods pose a serious health risk' and calls for a moratorium on GMO
foods. Citing several animal studies, the AAEM concludes 'there is more
than a casual association between GMO foods and adverse health effects'
and that 'GM foods pose a serious health risk in the areas of
toxicology, allergy and immune function, reproductive health, and
metabolic, physiologic and genetic health'. The report is a devastating
blow to the multibillion dollar international agribusiness industry,
most especially to Monsanto Corporation, the world's leading purveyor of
GMO seeds and related herbicides.

In a press release dated May 19, the American Academy of Environmental
Medicine, which describes itself as 'an international association of
physicians and other professionals dedicated to addressing the clinical
aspects of environmental health', called immediately for the following
emergency measures to be taken regarding human consumption of GMO foods:

* A moratorium on GMO food; implementation of immediate long term safety
testing and labelling of GMO food.

* Physicians to educate their patients, the medical community and the
public to avoid GMO foods.

* Physicians to consider the role of GMO foods in their patients'
disease processes.

* More independent long term scientific studies to begin gathering data
to investigate the role of GMO foods on human health.


The AAEM chairperson, Dr Amy Dean notes that 'Multiple animal studies
have shown that GM foods cause damage to various organ systems in the
body. With this mounting evidence, it is imperative to have a moratorium
on GM foods for the safety of our patients' and the public's health.'
The President of the AAEM, Dr Jennifer Armstrong stressed that
'Physicians are probably seeing the effects in their patients, but need
to know how to ask the right questions. The most common foods in North
America which are consumed that are GMO are corn, soy, canola, and
cottonseed oil.' The AAEM's position paper on Genetically Modified foods
can be found at http:aaemonline.org.

The paper further states that Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO)
technology 'abrogates natural reproductive processes, selection occurs
at the single cell level, the procedure is highly mutagenic and
routinely breeches genera barriers, and the technique has only been used
commercially for ten years'.

The AAEM paper further states, 'several animal studies indicate serious
health risks associated with GM food consumption including infertility,
immune dysregulation, accelerated aging, dysregulation of genes
associated with cholesterol synthesis, insulin regulation, cell
signalling, and protein formation, and changes in the liver, kidney,
spleen and gastrointestinal system'.

They add, 'There is more than a casual association between GM foods and
adverse health effects. There is causation as defined by Hill's Criteria
in the areas of strength of association, consistency, specificity,
biological gradient, and biological plausibility. The strength of
association and consistency between GM foods and disease is confirmed in
several animal studies.'

GMO is toxic

The AAEM paper should give grounds for official rethinking of the
current quasi laissez faire regulatory stance to GMO in which the solemn
word of the GMO seed companies such as Monsanto is regarded as
scientifically valid proof of safety. The AAEM study is worth citing in
detail in this regard:

'Specificity of the association of GM foods and specific disease
processes is also supported. Multiple animal studies show significant
immune dysregulation, including upregulation of cytokines associated
with asthma, allergy, and inflammation. Animal studies also show altered
structure and function of the liver, including altered lipid and
carbohydrate metabolism as well as cellular changes that could lead to
accelerated aging and possibly lead to the accumulation of reactive
oxygen species (ROS). Changes in the kidney, pancreas and spleen have
also been documented. A recent 2008 study links GM corn with
infertility, showing a significant decrease in offspring over time and
significantly lower litter weight in mice fed GM corn. This study also
found that over 400 genes were found to be expressed differently in the
mice fed GM corn. These are genes known to control protein synthesis and
modification, cell signalling, cholesterol synthesis, and insulin
regulation. Studies also show intestinal damage in animals fed GM foods,
including proliferative cell growth and disruption of the intestinal
immune system.'

The AAEM study also reviewed the biotechnology industry claims that GMO
foods can feed the world through production of higher crop yields. It
cited contrary evidence that the opposite appeared to be true, namely
that over time GMO harvest yields were lower than conventional yields
and required over time, more not less, highly toxic herbicidal chemicals
such as glyphosate. The report noted, 'The several thousand field trials
over the last twenty years for genes aimed at increasing operational or
intrinsic yield (of crops) indicate a significant undertaking. Yet none
of these field trials have resulted in increased yield in commercialized
major food/feed crops, with the exception of Bt corn.' However, the
slight yield gain for Bt corn they report was 'largely due to
traditional breeding improvements', and not to GMO.

They conclude that because GMO foods 'pose a serious health risk in the
areas of toxicology, allergy and immune function, reproductive health,
and metabolic, physiologic and genetic health and are without benefit,
the AAEM believes that it is imperative to adopt the precautionary
principle, which is one of the main regulatory tools of the European
Union environmental and health policy and serves as a foundation for
several international agreements. The most commonly used definition is
from the 1992 Rio Declaration that states: 'In order to protect the
environment, the precautionary approach shall be widely applied by
States according to their capabilities. Where there are threats of
serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall
not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to
prevent environmental degradation.'

Under intense public pressure, the German Minister of Agriculture
recently issued a prohibition of planting for Monsanto MON810 GMO corn.
Unfortunately, two weeks later she permitted planting of GMO potato
seeds. Amflora, a genetically modified potato manufactured by chemicals
giant BASF (a joint venture GMO partner of Monsanto), was declared by
the German Ministry as posing 'no danger for human health or the
environment', The Ministry cited 'in-depth examination' and talks with
scientific and economic experts as basis for the reckless decision.

The publication of the sensational critique of GMO by the American
Academy of Environmental Medicine has been greeted with stone silence by
most major US media and international press.

GMO politics

As I describe in great detail in my book, Seeds of Destruction: The
Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation (2007), GMO was released on the
general public in the early 1990's in the USA under an executive
decision by then President George Herbert Walker Bush, reportedly
following closed door meetings with leading Monsanto executives.
President Bush mandated that there should be no special health and
safety tests done by any US Government agency before releasing GMO for
food consumption. It came to be known as the Doctrine of Substantial
Equivalence.

The US Government, on urging of Monsanto and the GMO lobby, further
decided that labelling of a food product as 'GMO free' should be
prohibited, using the vaguely formulated and entirely unscientific
'doctrine' proclaimed by President Bush in 1992, namely that GMO plants
and non-GMO or ordinary plants were 'substantially equivalent' and hence
needed no special testing before being released to the public.

That Substantial Equivalence Doctrine, despite the fact that it directly
contradicts the demand of the GMO companies for exclusive patent rights
to their GMO seeds as being 'unique' and different from ordinary seeds,
enabled Monsanto, Dow Chemicals, DuPont and other GMO patent holders to
proliferate their products with no control. Most Americans naively
believe that the Government Food and Drug Administration and US
Department of Agriculture are there to make certain industrial food
products are confirmed fully safe for human and for animal consumption
before licensing.

That de facto prohibition on labelling GMO foods has meant that most
Americans have no idea how much of their daily diet from store-bought
Corn Flakes to soybeans to corn and additives in every food on the
supermarket shelf contained GMO contamination.

Coincident with the mass introduction of GMO into the human and animal
diet in the United States beginning the end of the 1990, there have been
reported epidemic levels of allergic outbreaks in humans, strange
diseases and numerous other health issues. The fact it is forbidden by
Federal law to label GMO products means most health professionals are
not even aware there might be any connection to a GMO diet for millions
of Americans. The US population, since the 1992 ruling of President Bush
- a ruling reaffirmed by presidents Clinton, George W Bush and now by
Barack Obama and his pro-GMO Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack - has
been in effect treated as human guinea pigs in mass experimentation for
substances never independently proven in long-term (ten years or longer)
studies to be safe.

It remains to be seen if the scientific critique of the AAEM is given
the attention it warrants.

_____

F William Engdahl is author of Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda
of Genetic Manipulation (http://www.globalresearch.ca/). He also
authored A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World
Order (Pluto Press, 2004). His newest book, Full Spectrum Dominance:
Totalitarian Democracy in the New World Order (Third Millennium Press,
2009) is now in print and will be available by mid-June. He may be
contacted over his website, http://www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net/.

Seeds of Destruction
The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation
by F William Engdahl

Global Research, 2007 ISBN 978-0-937147-2-2

To order click here: http://globalresearch.ca/books/SoD.html

This skillfully researched book focuses on how a small socio-political
American elite seeks to establish control over the very basis of human
survival: the provision of our daily bread. "Control the food and you
control the people".

This is no ordinary book about the perils of GMO. Engdahl takes the
reader inside the corridors of power, into the backrooms of the science
labs, behind closed doors in the corporate boardrooms.

The author cogently reveals a diabolical World of profit-driven
political intrigue, government corruption and coercion, where genetic
manipulation and the patenting of life forms are used to gain worldwide
control over food production. If the book often reads as a crime story,
that should come as no surprise. For that is what it is.

Engdahl's carefully argued critique goes far beyond the familiar
controversies surrounding the practice of genetic modification as a
scientific technique. The book is an eye-opener, a must-read for all
those committed to the causes of social justice and World peace.

What is so frightening about Engdahl's vision of the world is that it is
so real. Although our civilization has been built on humanistic ideals,
in this new age of "free markets", everything - science, commerce,
agriculture and even seeds - have become weapons in the hands of a few
global corporation barons and their political fellow travelers. To
achieve world domination, they no longer rely on bayonet-wielding
soldiers. All they need is to control food production. (Dr Arpad
Pusztai, biochemist, formerly of the Rowett Research Institute
Institute, Scotland)

If you want to learn about the socio-political agenda - why biotech
corporations insist on spreading GMO seeds around the World - you should
read this carefully researched book. You will learn how these
corporations want to achieve control over all mankind, and why we must
resist ... (Marijan Jost, Professor of Genetics, Krizevci, Croatia)

The book reads like a murder mystery of an incredible dimension, in
which four giant Anglo-American agribusiness conglomerates have no
hesitation to use GMO to gain control over our very means of subsistence
... (Anton Moser, Professor of Biotechnology, Graz, Austria).

To order Seeds of Destruction click here:
http://globalresearch.ca/books/SoD.html

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(c) Copyright F. William Engdahl, Global Research, 2009

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