Harmful or healthy? The jury's still out on GMOs

The clock is ticking, but no decision seems immediately forthcoming.

 

Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) offer some of the most promising immediate solutions to the world's burgeoning food problems, but some experts point at tantalizing evidence in favor of slowing—if not completely putting the brakes on—GMO consumption.

 

“It makes sense that before we deploy the products of an infant science into the food supply and into the environment where it can never be recalled, the greatest cautions should have been applied,” says Jeffrey Smith, consumer activist and executive director of the US-based Institute for Responsible Technology.

 

Together with the local organizations involved in the Network Opposing GMOs (No GMOs!), he urged the Philippines to pass laws requiring companies to label all GMOs and their derivatives in the market.

 

Mounting evidence

 

He said that the current generation of GMOs have “unpredicted side effects,” posing health risks to both humans and animals—and he claims to have proof to back his claims.

 

He points to pictures and cases of experiments done on animals fed with GMO products, from GMO corncobs completely untouched by mice to buffaloes in India dying after only three days of eating GM cotton plants.

 

The American Academy of Environmental Medicine, in their GMO studies, discovered that animals fed with GMOs were afflicted with gastrointestinal problems, immune system problems, reproductive disorders, accelerated aging, and organ damage. 

 

Smith said that the same diseases have been rising in the US population since the introduction of GMOs to the US market.

 

He also said that hundreds of doctors and patients who report to the Institute for Responsible Technology of health improvements after applying a GMO-free diet.

 

“There is no justification today to put it in the food or release them outdoors. It is better to put it back in the laboratory until the science has done its job.” said Smith. 

 

GMOs in the Philippines

 

One of the most common GMO in the Philippines is Bt corn. It is infused with Bacillus thuringiensis, a type of insecticide soil bacteria that kills bugs by “poking holes in their stomach walls”.

 

Smith said that the reason Bt corn was approved for public consumption was because the US Environmental Protection Agency promised that the toxin would only have adverse effects on insects.

 

However, according to Smith, there's new information showing that “Bt toxin pokes holes in human cells, causes damage in mice's red blood cells, [and] causes immune system responses in mice and humans and enters the blood of humans.”

 

Another common GMO in the country is Vitamin A-enhanced Golden Rice that aims to prevent blindness, especially among children.

 

According to Smith, Golden Rice is the wrong solution to the Vitamin-A deficiency problem because of its unpredictable side effects.

 

The beta-carotene in Golden Rice also requires fat in the diet in order to be absorbed by the person ingesting it. This makes it an unlikely solution to malnutrition, according to Smith, because kids who suffer from Vitamin A deficiency usually do not have fat in their diet to begin with.

 

Local toss-up

 

In May, the Court of Appeals ordered the end of field testing of the Bt talong as precautionary measure in the absence of “full scientific certainty” that they are safe to humans and the environment.

 

The petitioners who pushed to stop the field testing said, "Bt talong is a classic environmental case where scientific evidence as to the health and environemntal safety and socio-economic impact is insufficent, inconclusive or uncertain."

 

But in June, the Philippine Food and Drug Administration released a statement reiterating that all GM food products in the market have passed food safety assessments based on the recommended criteria of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). 

 

Smith said he told the FDA that this is incorrect, adding that soy, corn, and papaya in the market actually failed those criteria.

 

 

'Failure to Yield'

 

Smith states that the promise of GMOs to increase yield and boost agricultural productivity remains unfulfilled.

 

The report by US-based Union of Concerned Scientists called "Failure to Yield" concluded that genetically engineered herbicide-tolerant corn and soybeans did not increase yields. Only an insect-resistant corn increased yield by 0.3 percent in the United States.

 

Smith cited a comprehensive report on agriculture and food production called the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) Report of the World Bank, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and other international health institutions.

 

He says that according to the report, the current generation of GMOs has “nothing to offer in their goals of feeding the world, eradicating poverty, or creating a stable agriculture”

 

A summary of the report states that a focus on a “short-term technical fix” like GMO does not address the “root causes of poverty and hunger.”

 

'Maybe in the future'?

 

“There is no clear scientific consensus whether these technologies affect population health. Significant knowledge gaps limit the assessment of the human health risks of GMOs,” a synthesis report of the IAASTD states.

 

Reports of people getting better from sicknesses by avoiding GMOs are limited to case studies, anecdotal evidence, and clinical experience.

 

For Smith, the current generation of GMOs is not safe.

 

“Maybe sometime in the future, we predictably and safely manipulate the DNA for safe release in the environment and consumption. But we are nowhere near that day today,” he said. — TJD, GMA News