So Are GMOs Gonna Kill Me or What?
You know what really peeves my pets?
It seems like there’s a new thing to be scared of everyday. All it takes is five minutes alone with the news and suddenly you’re not washing your clothes anymore because laundry detergent gives lab rats cancer.
Baby bottles have BPA. Deodorant slowly poisons you with aluminum. Microwaved popcorn turns you into a werewolf if you eat it under a full moon. (Or something like that.)
And GMOs? Depending on your sources, they might be the savior of the planet or the thing that dooms us all.
Just in case you’re not sure what a GMO is, let’s lay a bit of groundwork.
GMO stands for “Genetically Modified Organism” and it’s defined as “any organism whose genetic material has been altered using genetic technology.”
It’s basically an umbrella term for all the cutting and splicing of genes that scientists do in their sciency labs, thus creating genetic combinations that don’t occur in nature or from regular crossbreeding.
And of course, when we’re talking about GMOs, we’re almost certainly discussing genetically modified food.
But with all the hyperbole and misinformation that gets swirled around, how can we know the truth? How can we know whether these newfangled things called GMOs are healthy or not?
I’ll save you some reading: you can’t. Not really. Most of us are not super-smart scientists. We aren’t performing our own makeshift experiments in our basements. And therefore we must choose to take other people’s word on the matter.
But if you’re ready to dive deep into the muck of conflicting data, one thing becomes clear: GMOs may not be the knight-in-shining-genetics that their creators tout them to be.
So let’s shove off, me hearties, and sail the turbulent seas of the big GMO question mark by checking out the more uncomfortable sides of the matter.
Batten down the hatches, because here are a few reasons you may want to proceed with caution the next time you’re at the market.
#1 — GMOs are A-OK? Scientists Say “Not today”
So if GMO’s are all over the market, you’d think all those super-smart scientist people have signed off on their safety, right? Well, um… actually no.
Quite the opposite.
While this is a really convenient myth for their manufacturers to propagate, and they’ve done a pretty good job of circulating it, the fact is it isn’t true.
In fact, since 2001, hundreds of scientists have added their names to formal statements, basically saying that GM foods have not been thoroughly tested enough for them to consider them safe.
And in case people didn’t hear them before, in 2013, almost 300 respected experts signed a statement that said there was no consensus between scientists that GMOs were safe.
What did that mean? Well, they were pretty much admitting they had reasonable doubt whether GMOs’ impact on humans, animals, or the environment was beneficial.
So if nothing else, scientists agree that they just don’t know. And they’re not pretending to.
But that hasn’t stopped Monsanto from saying the opposite.
And since Monsanto holds the patent — and they pay for much of the research — there are tons of hoops to jump through for third-party testing of GMOs to receive approval. (Which Monsanto has to give them before they start.)
This even includes what findings researchers are able to share, and how they share it.
Effectively, this means Monsanto is able to muzzle any studies they don’t like.
For a company that used to market their product Roundup — a weedkiller with known links to cancer — -as “safer than table salt,” their having the ability to conveniently shush new findings is a bit unnerving.
#2 — The FDA Hasn’t Exactly Tested Them
Now, you may be thinking to yourself, How the heck is that possible?
Well, the answer is slightly sticky. The issue here is of a passing buck. (And I don’t mean a deer crossing.)
Basically (depressingly) FDA laws are pretty lax on this particular point. In fact, they make it clear that they believe it’s on the company to test GMO safety.
You’re probably wondering then — since the FDA hasn’t properly tested it and teams of scientists haven’t properly tested it, at least that the manufacturer — the guys making this stuff and shipping it off to the public — they’re testing it… right?
Uh, yes and no?
While Monsanto does conduct tests of their products, the FDA doesn’t require an in-depth analysis of health effects. So they skip that.
For something like GMOs, which have only been on the market for about 20 years, we don’t have any way to get information on the long-term ramifications of consuming GMOs.
Yet somehow they purport that they already know it’s safe.
Riddle me this: if McDonald’s had funded a study that said Big Macs were healthy, would you trust it? Probably not.
Why? Because they’d have so much to gain from those findings it would put their motives in question.
Now, the studies about Monsanto, funded by Monsanto, have all concluded Monsanto’s GMOs are safe. But no one else really has.
I mean, whose job is it to check out GMOs? Apparently, no one can agree on that. Don’t believe me? Check out these conflicting quotes from the guys in charge:
“Monsanto should not have to vouchsafe the safety of biotech food. Our interest is in selling as much of it as possible. Assuring its safety is the FDA’s job.”
– Philip Angell, Monsanto’s director of corporate communications
“Ultimately, it is the food producer who is responsible for assuring safety.” — US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
I mean, Great Orville Wright’s Flying Machine! If neither entity is taking responsibility for the food they give the public, who is?
#3 — One of These Experiments is Not Like the Other
So for a scientific comparison to be legit, all the factors affecting the experiment need to be identical, right? More identical than Mary-Kate and Ashley. More identical than those creepy twins in The Shining.
But Monsanto didn’t do that. Instead, to make GMOs appear to have the same nutritional content, they had to get creative.
So rather than pull comparisons from seeds that were planted at the same time in the same place, they went bobbing for data.
In some cases, they used data from as far back as WWII to make comparisons to non-GMO counterparts.
And since different researchers, different time periods, and different methods of testing can all have a huge effect on the outcome of the research, these comparisons consequently just aren’t fair. Or accurate.
However, even with that cheater-cheater-pumpkin-eater method of producing comparable data, GMOs still show big differences in composition from produce grown without genetic modification.
GMOs are often barely — or not even — -inside the dataset ranges of non-GMO produce, even when they’re tweaking the comparisons.
#4 — More GMOs Does Not Mean Less Herbicides
Despite claims that the opposite would happen, the use of Roundup — that weedkiller I mentioned earlier — has actually increased 15-fold since the introduction of Roundup-resistant GMOs.
Unfortunately, Roundup makes no distinction between crop and weed, and just goes about its business killing everything.
That’s why they engineered crops to withstand the chemical shower and still, you know, not die. Good plan… except for it’s not.
“Roundup ready” crops include soy, corn, canola, and more — and the problem is when we spray the heck out of these plants, the herbicide doesn’t just go away afterward.
High levels of glyphosate (Roundup’s poisonous main ingredient) have been found in all kinds of processed foods that are currently on the shelves, including Cheerios, Nature Valley granola bars, and a long (long!) list of others.
Glyphosate has been known to cause cancer. And kidney disease. And sterility. And you know what’s not a party? All those things.
Not just that, but dousing everything in weedkiller has not stopped the weeds. Ever heard of the Hydra in Greek mythology? When you’d chop off its head, two more would grow back.
That’s basically what’s happening with these mythic weeds, except they’re coming back immune to the weedkiller.
Which in turn means we’re now dealing with super-weeds, which are impervious to regular weedkiller. Hence, we are using more and more Roundup in our effort to get ’em gone.
Monsanto’s answer? Create stronger forms of poison to pour on them.
But it’s our food that’s getting caught in the crosshairs.
#5 — The Hole Story
Roundup-resistant GMOs are meant to deal with the weed issue, but that isn’t the only issue facing farmers. What about bugs?
That’s where Bt crops come in. These guys have been formulated to kill the little creepy crawlers that nibble on them. How? They perforate their intestines with teeny holes.
Bt stands for Bacillus thuringiensis. It’s a bacterium that kills off bugs by turning their insides into Swiss cheese. Gross.
However, Monsanto’s Bt crops have found a way to integrate the gene of that bacterium into the DNA of the plant. When an insect chomps down on a Bt crop — boom, his intestines become a Quentin Tarantino movie.
And hooray, we’ve found a way to stop bugs from eating our crops! Except…
It may do the same thing to humans.
When a study was performed where mice were fed Bt potatoes, their guts turned into Hiroshima. While some cells were obliterated; others grew at an unstoppable pace.
When Bt corn was fed to pigs in a different case, they ate more but could not convert it into energy or gain weight.
At the end of the thirty-one day study, their intestines had the same issues as the mice, which is why they couldn’t properly receive nutrition from the food they were eating.
Based on these findings, it’s unsettling that we don’t have more information on how these same Bt crops are affecting human intestines.
The Takeaway
Not that GMOs will never be a safe option, but evidence doesn’t suggest that we should run headlong into them just yet.
GMOs are a pretty new kid on the block, and with that comes the need for practical caution. Science has so many wonderful promises of how tomorrow can be changed for the better.
It could be that, with improvement, GMOs will be able to do everything their creators say they can.
But before we rejoice in our own godlike powers to produce new, improved crops, let’s make sure we’ve tested.
And retested.
And third-party tested.
That way, today’s exciting discovery doesn’t become yesterday’s mistake.
(But Sockbeard and I will be going organic until it’s all figured out.)
