You are a guinea pig and you probably don’t even know it. You are being used without your knowledge or consent in the largest scale, unregulated, uncontrolled experiment known to man. More than 80% of processed food (in North America) contains GMO ingredients* brought to market without regulatory governance and labeling. You have no way to identify, thus avoid, it in your diet. The choice and, therefore, your right to choose, has been stolen from you; stripped by your government.
This disturbs me. Being “force” fed experimental stage foods I didn’t agree to eat while biotechnic gene giants watch for long range effects of said food because they are in a hurry to make profit.
What I find most interesting about my research of the health risks of GMO foods is that there has been little to no independent testing of the safety of these products, unless you dig, and there is no transparency to the product as a result of intellectual property laws, but there are no laws demanding appropriate, safe labeling of the food we consume that contain these products in North America and no requirement to disclose their presence at all.
There are many techniques in biotechnology. At the genome level, we are manipulating the outcome of a naturally occurring food source to “improve” its input for us. I’m trying to say, we are tinkering to create more and better food. This sounds great…if it is better for us. But we don’t know yet if it is doing more harm or good but how can foods infused with toxic chemicals be good?
One of the first modified seeds came from Monsanto. The Round Up® Ready soybean seed was designed to resist the effects of Round Up®, their top selling herbicide. Why did they need to make it resistant? Because Round Up® is so toxic it kills everything it touches. And they wanted to spray our food with this product without killing it.
GMO seeds are now commonly blasted/spliced/modified with pesticide and herbicide in order to ensure crops are resistant to bugs and weeds. This is the result of the first biotechnical modifications in order to increase hardiness of crop and currently the most prevalent mutation sold.
Here’s where I’m already asking….what??!! It kills every living thing in its wake and I’m expected to simply accept that there is no health risk to me ingesting toxic chemicals that have become part of the DNA makeup of my food? The same toxic chemicals whose sale has been banned in Canada (except to farms and golf courses)? As a homeowner with a backyard full of dandelions, I cannot purchase Round Up® to kill the weeds in my backyard because it will kill my pets, the local wildlife, the habitat, but I should ignore that and accept it’s safe to blast the seeds from which we grow our FOOD???
Personally, I have developed 14 food allergies in the last 18 years, as well as the development of Asthma and Eczema. I have been guaranteed by my medical support team (allergist, homeopath, GP, etc) that these things are directly linked to my diet.
What do we do, as humans, when they end up discovering that the long range effect of these modifications and ingestion of the pesticides and herbicides that have been blasted into seeds to make them resilient is destructive to our species? Will it be too late to reverse it? Worse, does it have the potential to alter our DNA for future generations? Sterility is at an all time high in the last 15 years…GMO foods came on the market 20 years ago – is there a direct link?
Studies demonstrate strong evidence of a direct link. DNA mutation in subjects, higher degrees of cancerous tumour development, neurotoxicity, sterility/infertility and more. This video provided the best summary I could find.
These finding are astonishing and invite further transparent investigation.
One of the most top-renowned experts on plant lectins’s (GMO tech), Dr. Aprad Pusztai conducted a 2 year study at Scotland Rowett Research Institute of rats with gmo potatoes, and came away so concerned by his findings, he refused to continue supporting GMO food production or using his fellow humans as “guinea pigs”. He has since been vilified and discharged.
However, currently neither Health Canada, nor the FDA do any independent testing of these products at this time. In fact, any testing submitted to “approve” the sale of the commercial product has been conducted by the very companies who will profit from their approval. Approval in either country is simply the green light to sell a product in the respective country. Sadly, both regulatory bodies in both countries work more on a green light till there’s a complaint philosophy.
Increases in food allergies and food intolerance, increase in digestive disorders, increase in cancers, increases in sterility. The increases in reported/diagnosed occurrence of these health issues is phenomenal in the last 18years. The timing coincides too eerily with the commercial launch of GMO foods for us not to stand up and ask questions and demand transparency in labeling from our governments.
Footnote:
* Source: Global research: http://www.globalresearch.ca/potential-health-hazards-of-genetically-engineered-foods/8148
Fingerprints on the Fridge 
I am continually floored that people this GMO is okay. Washington state (US) just voted down an initiative stating there had to be labeling stating an item contains GMO – Monsanto dumped a ton of money into this and won. They won because nobody bothered to educate themselves! It’s very disturbing.. people are going to regret this.
When I started these posts, I only understood the issue from my limited perspective of thinking it was an awesome leap in scientific advancement and a chance to end world hunger, but supported the necessity of labelling from that starting place.
After research, not only am I horrified, I’m a bit terrified! The Washington vote was part of my research and I was so angry it got voted down. Not my state (or country!) but I counted on it to set the precedent.
I think, sadly, that you are definitely right and we will regret this.
A quick PS here! There are tons and tons of studies on this designed to study human health risks. To say there is not, was a bit of a misnomer. What I should have said is there is insufficient LONG TERM studies to determine health risks in humans. At this point, the testing performed by the gene giants spans a maximum of 90 days and, within that 90 day test, no apparent negative effect makes its presence known.
Adequate, long term testing of the health effect of GMO food on our body systems is crucial; 3 Months is certainly not long term, however and we will only get this long term study through independent labs. And it’s a costly proposition to fund a study of this magnitude.
Negative side effects start to appear at the 4 month mark of independent long term studies (e.g. Arpad Pusztai study), conveniently, one month AFTER gene giant studies have ended.
It’s up to each of us to make what up our minds for ourselves. Knowledge is our most powerful ammunition.