01.01.70

Do GMOs cause health problems in people?  The governments of America, Canada and Australia say genetically engineered foods have proven their safety over the 20 years they have been part of the food chain.  According to the USDA, “the risks of genetically engineered (GE) organisms are not fundamentally different from risks posed by non-GE organisms with similar traits.”

Eighty transgenic crops have received regulatory clearance in our country, though only about a dozen are currently marketed for human consumption.  Because these dozen include corn and soy beans, though, 70% of US grocery store foods include GMO ingredients.

American federal agencies agree with highly respected and persuasive scientific institutions here and in Great Britain who maintain there is no evidence GMOs harm people.  These groups characterize GMO opponents as touchy-feely, mushy-headed conspiracy theorists who don’t understand hard science.

On the other side, opponents of GMOs say there is plenty of real evidence that GMO foods are unsafe.  They maintain that most of the entities who claim GMOs harmless have significant vested interest in them, that the vast majority of safety trials have been run by the biotech industry itself, without government oversight, and there is no public access to data produced in private that contradicts safety claims.  They also say there are virtually no long-term trials that would prove safety with more certainty.

Source: WilliametteLive.com

by Gene Modi

A new study published in the journal Archives of Toxicology proves once again that there really is no safe level of exposure to Monsanto’s Roundup (glyphosate) herbicide formula for genetically-modified organisms (GMOs). According to the new findings, Roundup, which is applied by the tens of thousands of tons a year all around the world, is toxic to human DNA even when diluted to a mere 0.02 percent of the dilution amount at which it is currently applied to GM food crops.

Numerous studies have already identified the fact that Roundup causes DNA damage, not to mention endocrine disruption and cancer. But this new study, which originates out of the Medical University of Vienna, is one of the first to illustrate Roundup’s toxicity at such drastically diluted levels, which is a direct contradiction of the agri-giant’s talking points about the supposed safety of Roundup.

Source: GMO Foods Unsafe for Humans | GMO Labeling

by Rod Dreher

Chinese researchers  have found  small pieces of ribonucleic acid (RNA) in the blood and organs of humans who eat rice. The Nanjing University-based team showed that this genetic material will bind to proteins in human liver cells and influence the uptake of cholesterol from the blood.

The type of RNA in question is called  microRNA , due to its small size. MicroRNAs have been studied extensively since their discovery ten years ago, and have been linked to human diseases including cancer, Alzheimer’s, and diabetes. The Chinese research provides the first example of ingested plant microRNA surviving digestion and influencing human cell function.

Should the research survive scientific scrutiny, it could prove a game changer in many fields. It would mean that we’re eating not just vitamins, protein, and fuel, but information as well.

It’s a potential problem if and only if the specific genetic modifications in GM crops alter the microRNAs synthesized by those plants. As the Nature article indicates, microRNAs are derived from expressed DNA sequences with a particular structure, and they’re generally not derived from protein-coding sequence. Since most genetic modifications in crops involve insertion of protein coding genes, they’re not likely to encode scary new microRNAs

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