In GMO plants, epigenetic changes become dangerously unstable and unpredictable.
In a related article in today’s newsletter, we told you about the amazing new science of epigenetics. This science teaches us that the way genes are expressed are affected by a variety of factors. In human populations, our genes can even be affected by what our grandparents ate!
Plants are even more sensitive to epigenetic changes than animals. This could have serious implications when it comes to genetically modified organisms (GMOs).
GMO foods and crops can be genetically engineered via insertional mutagenesis, the process of inserting foreign genetic materials into normal genes. An example of this is the tomato that was injected with antifreeze genes from Arctic fish (this particular GMO never made it to market). The supposed “safety” of this technique is based on the notion that a gene taken from one organism will play the same role in another (for instance, an antifreeze gene in a fish will make the tomato freeze-proof).
Epigenetics questions the wisdom of this, suggesting that genes can express themselves differently based on their environment. This means no matter how well-tested Big Biotech claims GMO crops are (and these are tests paid for by the biotech company, with the outcomes revealed only if they are favorable), there are simply too many biological and environmental factors at play to know what a foreign gene will do in a different organism.
According to Marcello Buiatti, professor of genetics at the University of Florence, there is evidence that genes resulting from insertional mutagenesis may be less stable than normal genes, and that the current ways in which Big Biotech and regulatory bodies assess the safety of GMO is, in his words, “far below the level of sufficiency to be able to predict any toxicity or any unintended effect of a plant.”
Let’s apply this concept to GMO crops, which are tested in limited, homogenous environmental conditions. Epigenetics implies that a gene that expresses itself safely in a test field in Washington State might have dangerous effects when planted in Illinois.
What is known about GMOs is very little compared to what is unknown. GMO producers have so far not only blocked independent research on their product; they have blocked labeling of GMO foods. Imagine: they are so proud of their product, they do not even want you to know you are buying it! But labeling is coming, whether they want it or not, and you can help.
Action Alerts! Despite reassurances by Big Biotech and Big Farma, we still don’t fully understand the long-term risks or potential outcomes of GMO foods. What we do know is alarming. If you are a resident of any of the following states, please write to your legislators immediately and ask them to support GMO labeling—there is legislation in your state right now that is critical for making sure these dangerous substances get labeled. We have a right to know what’s in the food we eat—our families’ health is at stake!
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i and many of my friends will not use gmo foods. stop this!!!!!! we do not want them!!!!!!!! charay malas
At the very least we will be getting new gmo built products with poorer flavor. This tends to happen any time plant breeding goes for yield, profit/acre but when the whole emphasis goes to “inserting” a gene that never would occur naturally into a food crop you know the result will be less palatable in addition to being potentially harmful. And there is a big tendency to not wait for the results of long term use of the modified product. They wants their 4 now!
It is no small wonder that a host of food allergies and medical issues are multiplying faster than we can keep track. Wheat allergies, corn, asthma in children and adults. Diabetics in ever increasing amounts. There a host of diseases that didn’t even exist 50 years ago. Why the government allows
companies like Monsanto and other contaminate our food supply water supply and earth is all tied to
a bunch of greedy people that want to make a quick buck and not worry about the long term consequences. Unfortunately most Americans are ignorant about what is being done and willing to
go along with whatever they are told.
WAKE UP AMERICA BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE
I think greed has gone to everyones head. Have they gone completely insane? How can they play with our lives like that? Money won’t bring you happiness when your family starts dying off for strange reasons. Wake up you people, you are killing us. No GMO’s. We require and deserve only natural, God given, wholesome foods if we are to survive.
Labelling needs to be compulsory in all countries not just the few especially as many products are imported and exported to other coubtries. It is a world problem where by we are all dictated to by the power Monsanto and it’s henchmen.
I have so many food allergies that I have studied food safety thoroughly. For big chemical corporations to blatently produce numerous GMO’s in this country and other countries from which we import food is NOT RIGHT! We innocent consumers must be able to tell what is in the food we give our families to eat. For large corporations to force small organic farmers out of business by buying out large plots located next to their farms and planting hostile, non organic, crops is also NOT RIGHT and must not be allowed.
Please consider the ramifications of a society that does not question it’s government when it’s government allows corporations to adulterate its food supply. Consider ramifications of a global genocide. The very people you pay to stand up for you against these bio tech corporations are the ones giving the green light to Monsanto to compromise our well being without ever marking the poison with a skull and crossbones. That is criminal.
The whole purpose of GMO’s is to allow Monsanto and Dupont, etc to sell more herbicide. GMO plants (80-90% of corn, soy and canola) sold on the planet are now GMO and these plants have been sprayed with an average of 4 times the herbicide that non-GMO plants are sprayed with (to make harvest easier-no need for weeding). These herbicide residues are deemed “safe” but they are not even tested for . They dont really break down in the food. Glyphosate, glufosinate, and 24D are actually potent broad spectrum antibiotics (that’s how they kill weeds). These poisons wreck our soil bacterial balance and then do the same thing to us (our biomass is about 2 kg of beneficial bacteria that we absolutely need for our survival). The bas even used a “vancomycin-resistance” gene as an indicator to test whether their genetic modification made it into the plant. This is the real reason why we have had an epidemic of “gluten intolerance” since the 1990’s and we’re seeing resistant clostridium difficile colitis and vancomycin resistant germs in major cities. All these things have been programmed into our food and we have lost proper bacterial decomposition in our collective gut. These crops have also been spliced with a promotor sequence from the cauliflower mosaic virus. Any naked promotor that passes through the gut can be taken up by gut lining cells, and potentially integrated into these cells inappropriately to form bowel cancer. The brief, 3 month feeding studies that were done on BT corn induced mammary tumors in rats at alarming rates. These foods are absolutely carcinogenic and pure poison. There is no reason for them whatsoever except for the economic gain of multinationals and control of the world’s food supply. News flash: Bill Gates is not saving seeds for you and me, so dont rely on him. Please write your congressmen today and urge them to oppose the trans pacific partnership if for no other reason than it eliminates labelling of these vile GMO products, and keeps you from suing them. Motto for the year: “Grow your own food, save your seeds, love your weeds, get to know and love your neighbor, and vote the bs out”. “Bs” are anyone who would cause us to lose sovereignty over our food, our water, our air, our guns, or our country. In short, everyone in government who is making the world suck for human beings and our kids needs to be kicked out.
Elizabeth, Well said! I hope you have sent your post to your legislators. I wonder what is wrong with our legislators today. Is there no courage among any of them to stand up for what is right and moral! Our food is not safe to consume. Medications and supplements are spiked with GMOs; and perhaps the most dangerous of all are the vaccines! Vaccines are dangerous enough; but we now have the GMO Gardisil and the GMO flu vaccine. We can still choose not to eat GMOs when we find out about them: but vaccines are being mandated across this country, destroying not only health, but actually destroying our rights under the US Constitution. And it doesn’t even stop there! And now we are finding out that we are even having GMOs dumped on us from the chemtrails in the name of Geo-engineering. Morgellons? Has anyone heard of that disease? Now if all these things are not to sicken and kill the population. what other real purpose can there be? It appears that the majority of Americans would rather just turn their heads and pretend nothing is happening. Anyone care about the kids?
I am truly wondering what in the world the world will come to when they (Monsanto, Bilderburg, Elite groups like them, and non-pulse under informed will do without us. It will be awful. They can’t see past their nose unless it has something to do with building wealth and money won’t matter when they are all dead too. God save the planet.