GM IS POISONOUS AND BAD FOR EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE>

F. William Engdahl
Global Research,
Friday, May 22, 2009

US Doctors’ association calls for Moratorium on GMO Foods

The American Academy of Environmental Medicine (AAEM) has just issued a call for an immediate moratorium on Genetically Manipulated (GMO) Foods.

In a just-released position paper on GMO foods, the AAEM states that ‘GM foods pose a serious health risk’ and calls for a moratorium on GMO foods. Citing several animal studies, the AAEM concludes ‘there is more than a casual association between GMO foods and adverse health effects’ and that ‘GM foods pose a serious health risk in the areas of toxicology, allergy and immune function, reproductive health, and metabolic, physiologic and genetic health.’ The report is a devastating blow to the multibillion dollar international agribusiness industry, most especially to Monsanto Corporation, the world’s leading purveyor of GMO seeds and related herbicides.

In a press release dated May 19, the American Academy of Environmental Medicine, which describes itself as ‘an international association of physicians and other professionals dedicated to addressing the clinical aspects of environmental health,’ called immediately for the following emergency measures to be taken regarding human consumption of GMO foods:

* A moratorium on GMO food; implementation of immediate long term safety testing and labelling of GMO food.

* Physicians to educate their patients, the medical community and the public to avoid GMO foods.

* Physicians to consider the role of GMO foods in their patients’ disease processes.

* More independent long term scientific studies to begin gathering data to investigate the role of GMO foods on human health.

The AAEM chairperson, Dr Amy Dean notes that ‘Multiple animal studies have shown that GM foods cause damage to various organ systems in the body. With this mounting evidence, it is imperative to have a moratorium on GM foods for the safety of our patients’ and the public’s health.’ The President of the AAEM, Dr Jennifer Armstrong stressed that ‘Physicians are probably seeing the effects in their patients, but need to know how to ask the right questions. The most common foods in North America which are consumed that are GMO are corn, soy, canola, and cottonseed oil.’ The AAEM’s position paper on Genetically Modified foods can be found at http:aaemonline.org.

The paper further states that Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) technology ‘abrogates natural reproductive processes, selection occurs at the single cell level, the procedure is highly mutagenic and routinely breeches genera barriers, and the technique has only been used commercially for 10 years.’

The AAEM paper further states, ‘several animal studies indicate serious health risks associated with GM food consumption including infertility, immune dysregulation, accelerated aging, dysregulation of genes associated with cholesterol synthesis, insulin regulation, cell signalling, and protein formation, and changes in the liver, kidney, spleen and gastrointestinal system.’

They add, ‘There is more than a casual association between GM foods and adverse health effects. There is causation as defined by Hill’s Criteria in the areas of strength of association, consistency, specificity, biological gradient, and biological plausibility. The strength of association and consistency between GM foods and disease is confirmed in several animal studies.’

GMO is toxic

The AAEM paper should give grounds for official rethinking of the current quasi laissez faire regulatory stance to GMO in which the solemn word of the GMO seed companies such as Monsanto is regarded as scientifically valid proof of safety. The AAEM study is worth citing in detail in this regard:

‘Specificity of the association of GM foods and specific disease processes is also supported. Multiple animal studies show significant immune dysregulation, including upregulation of cytokines associated with asthma, allergy, and inflammation. Animal studies also show altered structure and function of the liver, including altered lipid and carbohydrate metabolism as well as cellular changes that could lead to accelerated aging and possibly lead to the accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS). Changes in the kidney, pancreas and spleen have also been documented. A recent 2008 study links GM corn with infertility, showing a significant decrease in offspring over time and significantly lower litter weight in mice fed GM corn. This study also found that over 400 genes were found to be expressed differently in the mice fed GM corn. These are genes known to control protein synthesis and modification, cell signalling, cholesterol synthesis, and insulin regulation. Studies also show intestinal damage in animals fed GM foods, including proliferative cell growth and disruption of the intestinal immune system. ‘

It is funny how many turns one subject can do.

It is even funnier how much people opposing GMOs or just against Monsanto deny all information provided by court decisions, or by anyone that tries to defend Monsanto and the biotech business.

I am here to say that I have finished my Co-op at Monsanto and today I work as a Monsanto Contract. I chose to work here because all the 30+ people I know that work there have ever said anything negative about the company. On the contrary, they would only make compliments! I wanted to be part of this family and here I am today! I have only wonderful things to say about the company, and to my knowledge, all we are trying to do is to make sure that 10, 20, 30 years down the line we all (the world) will be able to feed our families despite location, poor weather condition, or economic challenges.

Dan, I hope you can join our family and hope you can contribute to our ultimate goal; to help feeding the world.

Good luck!

This is a topic that has been addressed on pretty much every comment thread and our corporate website up to this point. I will pull from Kate’s response to another commenter on Friday.

If you are interested, here are the 3 court cases about Mr. Schmieser and Monsanto. Contrary to the hollywood versions of this story Monsanto does not sue farmers for trace amounts of our patented trait that are present due to inadvertant means, such as pollen drift, which I believe is one of several explanations that Mr. Schmeiser presented. Interestingly, the court ruled that none of Mr. Schmeiser’s proposed explainations could reasonably explain the large presence of Monsanto’s patented trait in his field, which was around 95-98% of his crop.

Here are the court cases:
2001: http://decisions.fct-cf.gc.ca/en/2001/2001fct256/2001fct256.html

2002: http://decisions.fca-caf.gc.ca/en/2002/2002fca309/2002fca309.html

2004: http://scc.lexum.umontreal.ca/en/2004/2004scc34/2004scc34.html

If you are interested you can find Monsanto’s comments on Mr. Schmeiser’s cases here: http://www.monsanto.com/monsanto_today/for_the_record/percy_schmeiser.asp

Also, if you have any questions regarding this case I would be glad to help. You can email me at fortherecord(at)monsanto.com. If you aren’t comfortable emailing we also have a page about how we handle patent protection of our traits: http://www.monsanto.com/seedpatentprotection/

Thank you for the comment!

Kathleen

It would help if Monsanto didn’t sue people like Percy Schmieser, and that suit does have PR implicaitons for Monsanto. Unfortunately, because of the way the patent laws, and copyright, trademark, laws are written, if you don’t defend your intellectual property rights, you loose them eventually. That’s the point I was making. Holders of patents, and in some cases copyrights, are put in a catch 22. If you prosecute for a violation in some situations you come off as the bad guy, but if you don’t prosecute you may loose your pattent, copyright, etc.

A lot of people settle out of court because they don’t have the money to defend themselves. Some settle because they are actually, willfully in violation of the laws. It’s my understanding that Monsanto, in out of court settlements does obtain a gag order. In the case of Percy, he had patented plants show up on his property, through no action of his own, was prosecuted in the Canadian legal system, and was found guilty of violation of intellectual property laws, although he wasn’t fined, and he wasn’t forced into a gag order.

On the other hand, there was a favorable outcome to the suit against Schmeiser which Monsanto could use to their favor, and perhaps could lead to changes in the intellectual property laws that could reduce the incidents of these types of law suits.

http://www.percyschmeiser.com/

Joanne Rigutto

http://www.thesocialpath.com/2009/05/blog-comment-chaos2.html