What is all the controversy around GMO foods, and what does it mean for us? Thanks to Regine, with help from Peter and Sue, for compiling information from Dr. Don Huber’s
talks on Nov 11 and 12, 2013 in Tallahassee FL. Dr. Huber is professor emeritus of plant pathology at Purdue University.
Régine Maligne - Dec 16,
2013
What you need to read before further reading on GMO.
Content:
Why read
this?
What is the
U.S. crop situation? A convenient herbicide?
How does Roundup/Glyphosate work?
What is a Genetically Modified Organism (GMO)? What is plant genetic engineering about?
In a nutshell
Why is it
time to get educated about Genetically Engineered (GE) crops?
These crops
dominate our modern food supply and may be affecting our health without us
knowing it: not only because they are nutrient-deficient but also because they
are full of herbicides and insecticides.
We now have enough studies showing the damage to our plants and to our
health.
The situation in the U.S.
75% of the
crops approved by the FDA have been genetically engineered, either to survive
being sprayed by an herbicide (called Roundup) or to contain an insecticide Bt
toxin, or both.
In 1995 the
FDA approved GE corn, soy, cotton,
canola, potato, squash and tomato food crops, and the amount of GE crops since
then has steadily been increasing. This means that an increasing amount of
herbicides and insecticides absorbed by these crops gets into our food chain. 135 published peer-reviewed studies show the
detrimental effect those GE crops have on animal health and the environment.
How much of
the food is contaminated? In 2012 USDA estimates of US grown GE crops are as
follows:
- 93% of
all soy (goes in your cooking oil, tofu, soy sauce, lecithin, soy nuts, soy
milk, infant formula, cereal products, flour, soy protein, mayonnaise, salad
dressing),
- 88% of
the corn (goes in cooking oil, corn products, corn, corn syrup)
- 94% of
the cotton (cottonseed oil used for fried foods).
This
dominance of commercially grown crops is why most U.S. residents are consuming
large quantities of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) in their food.
Chances are that your favorite potato or corn chip has been genetically
engineered; and you get a double dose of GMO if it has been fried in canola,
corn, cottonseed, or soy oil.
How did we get there? To simplify agriculture, herbicide manufacturers had the idea of ‘creating’ by genetic engineering crops that can withstand direct applications of Roundup herbicide or contain an insecticide Bt toxin, or both. The use of Roundup has gone up steadily since 1994. Let’s understand how it works to be able to grasp how it threatens our health.
Key
learning Points:
- GE crops
are the majority of what is grown in the US.
- Through
GE crops, herbicides and insecticides have gradually and steadily made their
way onto our plate since 1994.
- No study
longer than 3 months has been carried out that can prove that GE crops have no
adverse effect on health. In fact, 135 published studies show the possibility
of adverse risks.
A convenient herbicide?
Roundup
(used since 1974) has become the
herbicide everyone knows to use for its effectiveness and ease of use: it kills
a plant when it is sprayed on its leaves (unlike other herbicides that are
absorbed by the roots and can drift in the soil and kill your flowers when you
just wanted to kill the weeds in your driveway).
Roundup is
well known to the home owner and is also used extensively in agriculture:
1) At
crop start: Roundup is used to kill the weeds to prepare a field for
sowing (it is called ‘burn down’ in
agricultural jargon). Many people, like
my mother in France, have used it in spring to ‘clean the garden’ since Roundup
was first falsely advertised as biodegradable and not harmful for future crops.
2) During
crop growth: If the crop is RoundupReady
(RR), this means that it is ‘genetically engineered’ to survive being
sprayed: a whole field is sprayed with herbicide and only the weeds die. This
method is considered convenient and labor-saving.
3) At the end of a crop: For non-RR crops, Roundup is also used
to kill the crop at the end of its life to hasten ripening of the seeds
(Roundup is then said to be used as a ripening agent).
The active
ingredient in Roundup is called Glyphosate. How does it work and are there any health
issues associated with it?
Key
learning Points:
- Roundup is heavily used by non-organic
farmers.
- To simplify weed control, some crops
have been ‘designed’ by genetic engineering to survive being sprayed by
Glyphosate. Soy was the first to be adapted.
- This means that Glyphosate accumulates
in the soil and in plant tissue.
How does Roundup/Glyphosate work?
Glyphosate
disables the ability of the plant to get the right nutrients. The plant weakens. It also promotes the
explosion of the soil microscopic organisms (bacteria, fungi, nematodes etc)
that cause plant disease. Double
whammy!
The soil
holds a huge living population of micro-organisms (bacteria, fungi etc., 90% of
which are still unknown): some support plant life and some produce
disease. Glyphosate happens to kill the
microorganisms that promote plant life.
The disease-promoting microorganism population multiplies and becomes
more virulent. As a result, many plant
diseases are now re-emerging, spreading or attacking new crops. New diseases
are appearing.
It is a
scenario similar to the one of humans and antibiotics - antibiotics are
overused in medicine and in animal breeding. Did you know that to stop animals
from getting too sick because of crowded conditions, animals are fed low-level
antibiotics? This abundance of antibiotics causes super organisms to appear
that are resistant to antibiotics.
In the same
way, heavy continuous use of Roundup causes the soil to become toxic with super
microorganisms causing disease... and super weeds.
Key
learning points:
- Glyphosate disables plant resistance to disease by suppressing the plant’s ability to get the right nutrients.
- Glyphosate kills the good
microorganisms in the soil, hence allowing the soil population of
disease-causing microorganisms to explode and become more virulent.
- A sprayed plant, weakened by its
inability to get the right nutrients, dies of disease.
What is a Genetically Modified Organism (GMO) - what is plant
genetic engineering about?
Here is a
little reminder of what you already know even if you think you know nothing
about genetics! Let’s look at ‘normal’ gene combinations: a child gets half of
its genes from its mother and half from its father. This is normal sexual
reproduction. It is the same with plants. Male flowers and female flowers (in
some plants) supply the genes of the future plant and give it different
characteristics. Traditional plant breeding selects parents that give a sweeter
tomato or a resistance to some disease or other desired characteristics.
Genetic
engineering refers to the process of
creating GMOs. It is what occurs when
genes from a totally different species
are inserted into the plant’s genetic material to create a new ‘living form’
(totally different from normal ‘sexual’ reproduction, i.e. when male and female
plants or flowers from the same plant species are involved).
- Genes from a bacteria called BT are
added to a plant’s genes. This GMO plant kills insects that eat it. There is no need to spray the crop - the
plant now has a ‘built in’ weapon against leaf-eating insects.
- Genes are added to plants to allow them
to resist being sprayed with Glyphosate (found in Roundup). They can absorb the herbicide and not get
killed.
The same company makes Glyphosate and
GMO crops.
Are you
still with me? Did you realize what I just told you? The US food system since
1995 has come to be dominated by crops that are full of herbicides and plants
that are also filled with insecticides (which are then passed on to us).
Genetic
Engineering is a very random process. It
is not like surgery where you delicately cut and paste, but more like a war:
you bombard the plant chromosomes with the new genes until the original gene
‘team’ gets altered and gives the wanted outcome (a plant that kills
leaf-eating bugs for instance). The
unknown element here is that we do not fully understand the health effects of
this new life form, as it does not exist in nature. Also, once inserted, we do
not know how to remove the inserted genes; the “UNDO” command does not exist.
Such ‘genetic engineering’ does not happen in nature... so how
does nature do it? How does plant
breeding work to select plants with given characteristics?
The answer
is hybridization (or self pollination): Two plants of the same species
cross-pollinate and create another plant.
Let us take the example of zucchini and yellow crooked neck squash: they
belong to the same squash species. If
both zucchini and yellow squash flower at the same time, the male flowers from
one plant may end up cross-pollinating with the female flowers of the other.
The resulting fruit seeds will contain the mother’s characteristics as well as
the father’s. If you have ever saved the
seeds from a squash plant and then grown them the next year, you may have had
the surprise of getting a fruit that has no resemblance to what you harvested
the seeds from. That’s because the genetic material has been changed. To save
the seeds of your zucchini squash, you have to ensure that your plant grows far
away from any other member of the same species of squash.
Key
learning points:
- RoundupReady GMO crops absorb
herbicides and insert them into our food chain.
- GE crops are different from regular
plants as their genetic material is artificially altered.
- GE is a very different mechanism from
plant hybridization, where two plants of the same species are used to
produce a plant with new characteristics.
- A GMO cannot be ‘undone’ - a GMO corn
will cross pollinate a non GMO corn and the original corn plant is then lost
(hence the term “genetic roulette”?!).
Health impact of GMO and Roundup
Here are
three pointers:
- There is a strong correlation between 33 chronic diseases and the use of GMOs and Glyphosate (They are like
cigarettes: it is not the first one that kills you but continuous exposure)
- No studies have been done showing the health
effects of glyphosate AND what makes glyphosate stick to plants (a very small
amount may be dangerous to anyone spraying the Roundup). This is called synergistic toxicology.
- Glyphosate affects not only plants but the
bacteria in our intestines. How does this affect our digestion?
Well done,
now you are ready for further studies on GMOs! Do not trust what I say,
go and assess the situation yourself.
try this one...
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