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Excerpt/summary from: GMO Myths & Truths (2012)
Rebuttal By
Dr. Nancy L. Swanson
Abacus Enterprises
Ban GMOs -- Ask me why!
1. George Gough, who
oversees Monsanto's government affairs division, said the safety and
effectiveness of Roundup Ready crops has been proven by multiple federal
agencies and farmers themselves.
Before
new drugs are approved by the FDA they must go through a series of rigorous
animal testing. If adverse effects are
not found in the animal tests, they must then proceed to a series of rigorous
clinical trials with human beings. The
chemical companies who have developed the GE seeds have made the claim to the
FDA that their products do not qualify as a new drug because they are
essentially identical to non-GMO crops and therefore do not require the same
rigorous testing. The EPA agreed and as
a result, the FDA’s GMO policy is that
Monsanto and others can determine if their own foods are safe. There are no
required safety studies. [See excerpts from the FDA Federal Register at the end of this document.]
A genetically modified plant may or may not
require FDA approval (depending on whether or not the modification can be
considered an “additive.” If it does
require approval, it is up to the producer to perform the tests to insure
safety. The tests that have been
performed for FDA approval have all been performed and/or paid for by the
petitioner and those data are not
published in journals or subjected to peer review. Most
of these studies were done on rats, none were undertaken for more than 90 days
and many were much less; not nearly long enough for adverse effects to
show. There have been no safety studies
done by any federal agencies or farmers, as stated.
There
have, however, been numerous reports of infertility, death and disease as a result
of feeding livestock GMO feed.
“Infertility rates as high as 20% are being seen in cattle and pigs, and
spontaneous abortions are occurring at rates of 45% among cattle. This is still
early in the Roundup Ready era—and it's clearly unsustainable.” [1]
When
sheep grazed on Bt cotton plants after harvest, within a week 1 in 4 died.
Shepherds estimate 10,000 sheep deaths in one region of India.[2] Farmers in
Europe and Asia say that cows, water buffaloes, chickens, and horses died from
eating Bt corn varieties.[3] A pig
farmer in Denmark cured his pigs of chronic diarrhoea, birth defects,
reproductive problems, reduced appetite, bloating, stomach ulcers, weaker and
smaller piglets, and reduced litter sizes by taking them off of GMO feed. [4]
[2]"Mortality in Sheep Flocks after
Grazing on Bt Cotton Fields-Warangal
District, Andhra Pradesh" Report of the Preliminary Assessment, April
2006,
[3] Mae-Wan Ho, "GM
Ban Long Overdue, Dozens Ill & Five Deaths in the Philippines," ISIS Press Release, June 2,
2006; and Mae-Wan Ho and Sam Burcher, "Cows Ate GM Maize & Died,"
ISIS Press Release, January 13, 2004
[4]
http://farmwars.info/?p=8723 [note: original article is in
Danish]
2. He said 16 million farmers around the world
grew 395 million acres of biotech crops in 2011, and producers grow the crops
every year because they increase productivity and decrease input costs.
A study by the Union
of Concerned Scientists showed that GMO
crops actually have less yield than conventional crops. [5]
“There have been widespread reports
of GM crop failures in India.
Of course it's only anecdotal...There is almost no research on the subject.
Monsanto manages to prevent it by refusing to allow their seeds to be used in
studies that might demonstrate the truth.”
[5]
Gurian-Sherman D., “Failure to yield: Evaluating the performance of
genetically engineered crops,” Union of Concerned Scientists, 2009
3. If
you sell them one thing one year that doesn't work, they're not going to come
back and use it again," said Gough, who used corn as an example of how
biotechnology has resulted in significant production gains.
Do they have a choice?
4. While the average corn yield in
this country was 72.4 bushels per acre in 1970, he said, it was 122 bushels per
acre in 2012 and Monsanto officials project it will reach 300 bushels by 2030.
Curious
that he would choose 1970 because much
of the U.S. corn crop was wiped out by Southern Corn Leaf Blight causing a
full-blown crisis in that year. [6] A
lack of biodiversity in the corn varieties was a large part of the problem. [7]
In
fact, a study by Mike Tannura, Scott Irwin, and Darrel Good has shown that the
increase in corn yield from 1996-2007 was the same as the increase from
1960-1995 after adjusting for weather effects. [8] Their study examined data from 1960-2007 for
Iowa, Illinois and Indiana comprising nearly half of the U.S. corn production.
“The
sensitivity of the results was examined by also fixing the breakpoint at 1994, 1995, 1997, and
1998. The magnitude of the estimated
change in trend yields was not sensitive to the alternative breakpoints. In sum, the regression models did not
indicate that a notable increase in trend yields for corn occurred in the
mid-1990s.” Turns out that corn
production is most sensitive to weather.
Increase in corn
yield/acre
|
1960-1995
|
1996-2007
|
Illinois:
|
+1.8 bu./yr.
|
+2.0 bu./yr.
|
Indiana:
|
+1.8 bu./yr.
|
+1.8 bu./yr.
|
Iowa:
|
+1.9 bu./yr.
|
+2.1 bu./yr.
|
[8]
Mike Tannura, Scott Irwin, and Darrel Good, “Are Corn Trend Yields Increasing at
a Faster Rate?”,
February 20, 2008, Marketing and Outlook Briefs, Department of Agriculture and
Consumer Economics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
5.
Gough said similar biotechnology gains among other crops are needed to feed an
increasing global population projected to reach 8.4 billion by 2030.
Besides
the fact that it is far from clear that GE crops increase yield, Round-up Ready
crops result in higher applications of herbicides. In 2009, Dr. Don Huber, Professor Emeritus of
Purdue University noted for his expertise in plant pathology, co-produced a paper
with G.S. Johal, of Purdue's botany and plant pathology department. Entitled,
"Glyphosate effects on diseases of plants" [9], it was published in the European Journal of Agronomy. It has, of
course, been routinely ignored by the USDA.
Note that glyphosate
is the scientific and generic term for Roundup.
The paper stated:
“[The widespread uses of glyphosate] significantly increase
the severity of various plant diseases, impair plant defense to pathogens and
diseases, and immobilize soil and plant nutrients rendering them unavailable
for plant use. “
The authors further warned:
“[I]gnoring potential non-target detrimental side effects
of any chemical, especially used as heavily as glyphosate, may have dire
consequences for agriculture such as rendering soils infertile, crops
non-productive, and plants less nutritious. To do otherwise might well
compromise not only agricultural sustainability, but also the health and
well-being of animals and humans. “
We are to pin our hopes of feeding the world on GE
crops? How is this sustainable?
Roundup Ready seeds were created by Monsanto to leverage
glyphosate. The GMO plants are resistant to it. Therefore, farmers can spray
glyphosate recklessly in huge quantities. The result is, of course, profits
from sales of the seeds, along with hugely inflated profits from sales of
glyphosate. Monsanto makes money coming and going.
[9]
G.S. Johal and D.N. Huber, “Glyphosate effects on diseases of
plants,”
European Journal of Agronomy, Vol. 31, No. 3, Oct. 2009, pp. 144-152
_______________________________________________________________
Excerpts from the
FDA
Federal Register
Volume 57 - 1992
Friday, May 29, 1992
“In
most cases, the substances expected to become components of food as a result of
genetic modification of a plant will be the same as or substantially similar to
substances commonly
found in food,...”
“Finally,
the principles discussed in this notice do not apply to "new drugs"
as defined by section 201 (p) of the act (21 U.S.C. 321(p)), "new animal
drugs" as defined by section 201(w) of the act (21 U.S.C. 321(w)), or to
"pesticide chemicals" as defined by section 201(q) of the act. As
discussed in section IX., EPA is responsible for pesticide chemicals, including
those produced in plants as a result to genetic modification.”
[note “the act” is the Federal Food,
Drug, and Cosmetic Act ]
“Any
genetic modification technique has the potential to alter the composition of
food in a manner relevant to food safety, although, based on experience, the
likelihood of a safety hazard is typically very low. The following
paragraphs describe some potential changes in composition that may require
evaluation to assure food safety.”
“Section
402(a)(1) of the act imposes a legal duty on those who introduce food into the
market place, including food derived from new crop varieties, to ensure that
the food satisfies the applicable safety standard.”
“In
enacting the amendment [food additive amendment, 1958], Congress recognized
that many substances intentionally added to food do not require a formal
premarket review by FDA to assure their safety, either because their safety
had been established by a long history of use in food or because the nature of
the substance and the information generally available to scientists about the
substance are such that the substance simply does not raise a safety concern
worthy of premarket review by FDA. Congress thus adopted a two-step definition
of "food additive." The first step broadly includes any substance the
intended use of which results in its becoming a component of food. The second
step, however, excludes from the definition of food additive substances that
are GRAS [generally recognized as safe]. It is on the basis of the GRAS
exception of the "food additive" definition that many ingredients
derived from natural sources (such as salt, pepper, vinegar, vegetable oil, and
thousands of spices and natural flavors), as well as a host of chemical
additives (including some sweeteners, preservatives, and artificial flavors), are
able to be lawfully marketed today without having been formally reviewed by FDA
and without being the subject of a food additive regulation. The judgment
of Congress was that subjecting every intentional additive to FDA premarket
review was not necessary to protect public health and would impose an
insurmountable burden on FDA and the food industry. It is the responsibility of the producer
of a new food to evaluate the safety of the food and assure that the safety
requirement of section
402(a)(1) of the act is met.”
“With
respect to transferred genetic material (nucleic acids), generally FDA does
not anticipate that transferred genetic material would itself be subject to
food additive regulation. Nucleic acids are present in the cells of every
living organism, including every plant and animal used for food by humans or
animals, and do not raise a safety concern as a component of food. In
regulatory terms, such material is presumed to be GRAS. Although the
guidance provided in section VII. calls for a good understanding of the
identity of the genetic material being transferred through genetic modification
techniques, FDA does not expect that there will be any serious question
about the GRAS status of transferred genetic material.”
“Section VII. of this notice
provides guidance to producers of new foods for conducting safety evaluations. This
guidance is intended to assist producers in evaluating the safety of the food
that they market, regardless of whether the food requires premarket approval by
FDA. This guidance also includes criteria and analytical steps that
producers can follow in determining whether their product is a candidate for
food additive regulation and whether consultation with FDA should be
pursued to determine the regulatory status of the product. Ultimately, it is
the food producer who is responsible for assuring safety.”
_____________________________________________________________________
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