Each year, more and more evidence supports the conclusion that the quality of our health is intimately tied to the quality of our food. This has raised widespread concerns about pesticide residues, food additives and the absurd notion of treating food with radiation to preserve freshness. But in the past two years the technology of genetic engineering has raised a whole new set of questions about the safety of our food supply. Genetic engineering allows scientists to move fragments of DNA, responsible for specific genetic traits, between plants, animals and bacteria, completely evading the natural processes of genetic regulation.
Last year, fifty million acres of genetically engineered (GE) crops were grown in the United States and nearly 70 million acres worldwide, including over 40 percent of the U.S. soybean harvest, 25 percent of the field corn, and a third of Canada's canola. These crops are rapidly finding their way into everything from processed foods to animal feed, with largely unknown consequences. Most of the GE crops currently in commercial use are of two types: either they are engineered to tolerate herbicides, particularly Monsanto's Roundup, or they contain genes for a toxin from Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) bacteria that allows them to resist pests.
The consequences of herbicide-tolerant crops are relatively easy to predict: commercial growers are encouraged to treat their fields with higher and higher doses of herbicides. While Monsanto claims that such crops will reduce herbicide use, the evidence (not to mention common sense) suggests just the opposite. What is less predictable is that residues of excess herbicide become permanently bound to food; this may be responsible for a recent finding in Britain that soy allergies have increased by 50% in the past few years. Virtually all of the genetically engineered soy currently being grown commercially carries an herbicide tolerance gene, along with genes for antibiotic resistance.
The problems with Bt crops are more subtle; after all our organic growers have been using natural Bt bacterial sprays for almost 20 years. But while Bt bacteria are relatively short-lived, can be sprayed only when needed, and carry an inactivated form of the toxin that is transformed only in those creatures that have alkaline digestive systems, genetically engineered Bt plants secrete the active toxin at much higher doses, in every part of the plant, throughout their life cycle. Bt crops are known to damage beneficial insects, such as ladybugs, lacewings and even honeybees; a recent Cornell University study showed that only half of the monarch butterfly larvae exposed to pollen from Bt corn were able to survive. Pollen from GE crops can spread several miles, cross-pollinating related crops or their wild relatives. If genetically engineered crops are being grown in any locality, even organic farmers growing the same crop are threatened with genetic contamination.
A British scientist, Dr. Arpad Pusztai, released a report earlier this year that confirms what biotech opponents have been saying for ten years: that genetically engineered foods can be harmful to health. He fed laboratory rats potatoes that had been engineered for pest resistance (using a lectin protein from snowdrop flowers), and found that these potatoes had 20% less protein, were higher in toxic byproducts, and that many of the rats' vital organs were significantly decreased in size. This revelation, along with the story of Pusztai's firing last August after his first attempt to publicly release his findings, has created a political firestorm in Britain, with the Labor government struggling to justify its long standing support of genetic engineering. (Here in the U.S., both Clinton and Gore are long-time advocates for the biotech industry.)
Given the widespread use of corn, soy and canola oil in processed foods, it has become difficult for conscious eaters to avoid these foods entirely, unless one avoids all processed foods that are not certified organic. Other GE foods that have been approved for commercial use include varieties of potatoes, tomatoes, yellow summer squash and radicchio. But as people in Holland discovered when a brand of organic corn chips was found to be contaminated with bacterial genes, even our organic foods are not entirely safe. What can we do about this?
First, we can buy our food from more local sources and press for better access to affordable organic foods. All non-organic soy and canola products likely contain some genetically engineered material unless proven otherwise, and only a few national brands are currently labeled as GE-free. This gives us one more reason to get as much of our food as possible from local sources and from organic producers whose integrity we can trust.
Second, we need to increase pressure on all food suppliers and processors to avoid GE products. The introduction of genetically engineered Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH) for dairy cows in 1994 encouraged the more widespread availability of organic milk; today we can urge suppliers of processed foods to pledge to seek out organic, GE-free ingredients. Talk to the managers of your local supermarkets and let them know that you intend to avoid GE foods and want them to take meaningful action against the spread of genetic engineering of foods.
Finally, conscious consumers across the U.S. need to challenge the biotechnology industry and its increasing control over our food sources. In Britain this year, public outrage has successfully pressed all of the leading supermarket chains to refuse or label genetically engineered foods, and Europe's two largest food companies, Nestle and Unilever, have agreed to stop accepting genetically engineered ingredients. Here in the U.S., an international gathering of biotechnology opponents in St. Louis last summer sparked the development of a new activist network. This past May, over 100 outraged citizens protested at the annual convention of the Biotechnology Industry Organization in Seattle. Local networks of biotech opponents are appearing all across the country. Now is the time to get involved in helping to prevent this latest threat to the integrity of our food, our health and the environment.
Brian Tokar is the author of Earth for Sale (1997), and teaches at the Institute for Social Ecology and Goddard College in Vermont. For more information, contact Northeast Resistance Against Genetic Engineering, c/o I.S.E., 1118 Maple Hill Rd., Plainfield, VT 05667.
|
If you have come to this page from an outside location click here to get back to mindfully.org |