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Uh Oh; The Bugs Are
Eating Those "Pest Killing" Crops
Two research teams in
England and Venezuela have discovered something alarming about the
new genetically modified crops filled with insecticide. The insects
not only eat them, they seem to thrive on
them.
Scientists at Imperial
College in London and the Universidad Simon Rodrigues in Caracas
found that the insects that the chemical additive was supposed to
kill were not only feeding on the
poison,
but the stuff seems to help them thrive.
That the biotech
companies added genes from a naturally occurring poison, Bacillus
thuringiensis (Bt), which is widely used as a pesticide by organic
farmers, means that the mutation by insects to survive the poison is
a potential threat to the organic farming
industry.
Environmentalists
believe the resistance developed quickly because the insects are
constantly exposed to the chemical in the plants, instead of being
subjected to occasional spraying.
This is bad news for
not only the struggling agricultural industry but for over 6 billion
world food consumers as well. With the world population exploding
and the instability of weather because of global warming, world
agriculture is in danger of falling short of producing enough food
for everybody.
The GMO
experimentation with Bt fell under fierce criticism by growers
world-wide who warned that the excessive use of the chemical would
eventually generate stronger chemical-resistant pests. Not even the
strongest critics dreamed that the insects would be feeding and
thriving on the plants engineered with Bts.
But there is more bad
news about those modified crops. Lots of it.
Prominent scientists
from seven countries recently produced an Independent
Report on GM agricultural practices during a public
conference in London. The report, titled The Case for a GM-free
Sustainable World, called for a ban on GM
crops.
The
conclusions:
--GM crops failed to
deliver the promised benefits. There have been shown no increase in
yields or a significant reduction in herbicide and pesticide use. In
fact the United States lost an estimated $12 billion over GM crops
because of worldwide rejection of them.
--The GM crops are
posing escalating problems on the farm. The group found that
transgenic lines are unstable. Triple herbicide-tolerant volunteers
and weeds have now emerged in North America, creating severe
problems for farmers who suddenly have no inexpensive solution to
weed and pest control. The fear is that superweeds and bt-resistant
pests have been created.
--Further extensive
transgenic contamination, especially for corn, seems to be
unavoidable. It has been found in maize even in the remote regions
of Mexico. Tests showed that 32 out of 33 commercial seed stocks in
Canada, where GM corn is prohibited, were contaminated anyway. Corn
pollen remains airborne for hours and can be carried by the winds
for miles. Thus there can be no co-existence of GM and non-GM
crops.
--GM crops are not
proven safe. In fact, its regulation was fatally flawed from the
start. The principle of "substantial equivalence," a vague and
ill-defined rule, gave companies like Monsanto complete license in
claiming GM products equal and as safe as
non-GM.
--Dangerous gene
products are incorporated into the food crops. For example, Bt
proteins, added to 25 percent of all GM crops, are harmful to many
non-target insects, and some are potent allergens for humans and
other mammals.
--GM foods are
increasingly used to produce pharmaceuticals and drugs. These
include cytokines, known to suppress the immune system and are
linked to dementia, neurotoxicity and mood swings; vaccines and
viral sequences like as the 'spike' protein gene of the pig
coronavirus, in the same family as the SARS virus; and glycoprotein
gene gp120 of the AIDS virus that could interfere with the immune
system. The fear is that this last gene could recombine with viruses
and bacteria to generate new and unpredictable
pathogens.
--Crops engineered
with suicide genes for male sterility, promoted as a means of
preventing the spread of transgenes, actually spread both male
sterility and herbicide tolerance traits via
pollen.
--Broad-spectrum
herbicides are found to be highly toxic to humans and other species
of animals. Glufosinate ammonium and glyphosate, used with herbicide
tolerant GM crops that currently account for 75% of all GM crops
worldwide, are both systemic metabolic poisons. Glufosinate ammonium
is linked to neurological, respiratory, gastrointestinal and
haematological toxicities, and birth defects in humans and mammals;
also toxic to butterflies and a number of beneficial insects.
Glyphosate is the most frequent cause of complaints and poisoning in
the UK. Its exposure nearly doubled the risk of late spontaneous
abortion. Children born to users of glyphosate had elevated
neurobehavioral defects. It caused cell division dysfunction that
may be linked to human cancers.
The report warns that
genetic tampering with foods may be inadvertently creating
super-viruses and bacteria that could spark unstoppable world-wide
plagues. "Newer techniques, such as DNA shuffling, allow geneticists
to create in a matter of minutes in the laboratory millions of
recombinant viruses that have never existed in billions of years of
evolution," the report warns.
The report
concludes: "sufficient evidence has emerged to raise serious safety
concerns, that if ignored could result in irreversible damage to
health and the environment."
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