Are Biotech Foods Safe?

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Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) have been linked to thousands of toxic or allergic-type reactions in thousands of sick, sterile, and dead livestock, and damage to virtually every organ and system studied in lab animals.  Nearly every independent animal feeding safety study shows adverse or unexplained effects.

The very first crop submitted to the FDA was the FlavrSavr tomato. In that study the rats refused to eat the tomato, so in order to complete it, the rats were force-fed. Out of 20 female rats fed the GM tomato, 7 developed stomach lesions. The director of FDA’s Office of Special Research Skills wrote that the tomatoes did not demonstrate a “reasonable certainty of no harm,” which is their normal standard of safety. The Additives Evaluation Branch of the FDA agreed that, “unresolved questions still remain.” Arpad Pusztai, one of the world’s leading experts in GM food safety assessments pointed out that the type of stomach lesions linked to the tomatoes “could lead to life-endangering hemorrhage, particularly in the elderly who use aspirin to prevent blood clots”. But the political appointees at the FDA did not require that the lesion-associated tomato be withdrawn. 

The state of the liver (a main detoxifier for the body) in lab animals fed GMOs is an important indicator of toxins. Rats fed GM potatoes had smaller, partially atrophied livers. Rats fed GM corn engineered to produce Bt-toxin had liver lesions and other indications of toxicity. The livers of rats fed GM canola were 12-16% heavier, possibly due to liver disease or inflammation. GM soy altered mouse liver cells in ways that suggest a toxic insult. These changes reversed after their diet switched to non-GM soy.

In feeding studies of GM soy, more than half the offspring of mother rats fed GM soy while pregnant died within three weeks. Male rats and mice fed GM soy showed changes in their testicles; the mice had altered young sperm cells.  The DNA of mouse embryos whose parents ate GM soy functioned differently than those whose parents ate non-GM soy.

Genetically modified Bt crops have been linked to sterility and death in animals. When sheep grazed on Bt cotton plants after harvest, within a week 1 in 4 died with shepherds in India estimating 10,000 deaths in one region. Farmers in Europe and Asia reported that cows, water buffaloes, chickens, and horses died from eating Bt corn varieties. About two-dozen US farmers reported that Bt corn varieties caused widespread sterility in pigs or cows.