GM food – is it
food?
Maleny
September 2013
What is Genetically Modified (GM)
food?
GM food comes from plants that have been
changed in two main ways so they can:
1. Survive being sprayed with weedkiller
(herbicide tolerant). This greatly increases
the use of weedkillers.
2. Kill certain insects that eat them (Insect
resistant) – the GM toxins produced in the
plant can’t be washed off.
Some GM plants can be sprayed with
weedkiller AND produce toxins to kill insects
What crops may be GM?
•
•
•
•
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Soy
Corn
Canola*
Sugarbeet
Cotton** (we eat cottonseed oil which is often
called vegetable oil)
•
•
* GM canola is less than 10% of Australia’s crop
** GM cotton is more than 90% of Australia’s crop
Am I eating GM?
• Ingredients derived from GM crops (soy, corn,
canola, cotton, sugarbeet) end up in many
processed foods
• Animals may be fed GM feed (soy, corn,
canola)
Isn’t it mandatory to label GM food?
• Australia has GM labelling laws BUT they are
so weak most GM ingredients escape
labelling.
• Australian Food and Grocery Council said if all
GM derived ingredients (including additives)
had to be labelled most food would have a
label
• How many GM labels have you seen?
Exemptions to GM food labelling
• highly refined food ie oil, sugars and starches
• processing aid or food additive, flavours at
less than 1%
• GM unintentionally present at less than 1%
• food sold in restaurants, takeaways , stalls and
from vending machines
• Eggs, milk, meat, cheese, fish, honey from
animals fed GM feed
Cake Mate Soft Frosting
Can I buy GM-free food?
• Australian grown fresh fruit, vegetables and
cereals are GM-free. Australia grows GM
canola (less than 10% of crop) and GM cotton
(over 90% of the crop)
• Ask your supermarkets to stock GM-free food.
Coles and Woolworths say their homebrands
are GM-free
• Buy from trusted shops/farmers/companies
• Buy organic
BUT we’ve been eating GM for
years and we’re all OK, aren’t
we?
How have GM foods been approved?
• The basic assumption is that GM crops are
‘Substantially equivalent’ to non-GM crops.
• SE = key concept to regulators worldwide and is
laid out in CODEX
• Criticized by Royal Society of Canada in Expert
Panel Report as ‘scientifically unjustifiable’
• No regulatory agency requires long term feeding
trials. Most 90 days or less. Reproductive and
multi-generational feeding trials not required
How are GM foods approved in
Australia?
• FSANZ’s says it is “…the responsibility of the
companies that have developed GM foods to
demonstrate the safety of that food..”
• FSANZ does no independent testing of GM food
• FSANZ requires no animal feeding trials.
• FSANZ bases approval of GM on company studies
and has dismissed peer-reviewed science
showing harm from GM
•
http://www.madge.org.au/sites/default/files/articlefiles/FED-UP-WITH-FSANZOCT2012.pdf
Calls for labelling and monitoring
• The Public Health Association of Australia
(PHAA) and the Australian Medical Association
(AMA) want:
– labelling of GM food and
– a monitoring system so that doctors can report if
they think a patient may have had a reaction to a
GM food.
American Academy of Environmental
Medicine
• asked doctors to educate the public to avoid
GM foods due to
• “the serious health risk in the areas of
toxicology, allergy and immune function,
reproductive health, and metabolic,
physiologic and genetic health.”
• http://www.aaemonline.org/gmopost.html
Pigs fed a combined GM soy and
maize diet Carman 2013
• Male pigs 4 times more likely to have severe
stomach inflammation
• Female pigs 25% heavier uterus on average
Response to Carman et al 2013
• Dismissed by FSANZ as not proving
inflammation present and not proving uterine
weight increase due to GM diet. No references
cited
•
http://www.foodstandards.gov.au/consumer/gmfood/Pages/Detailedcommentary-.aspx
• Dr Judy Carman has responded to critics on
the GMO Carman site
http://gmojudycarman.org/category/critics-answered/
Two year study on GM corn NK603 and
associated herbicide Roundup Seralini et
al 2012
• Dr Michael Antoniou , molecular biologist at
King’s College, London:
• “It shows an extraordinary number of tumours
developing earlier and more aggressively (in
the GM/Roundup fed rats) –particularly in
female animals. I am shocked by the extreme
negative health impacts.”
•
http://safefoodfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/SFF-pressrelease-for-website.pdf
Response to Seralini 2012
• FSANZ, EFSA, Health Canada, German Federal Institute for
Risk Assessment reviewed and rejected the study’s findings
• http://www.foodstandards.gov.au/consumer/gmfood/seralini/Pages/defa
ult.aspx
• The EU plans a 2 year carcinogenicity study on NK603 GM
corn. EFSA guidelines validate Seralini
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&
id=14956:eu-plans-2-year-carcinogenicity-study-on-nk603-maize
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&
id=15002:seralini-validated-by-new-efsa-guidelines-on-long-term-gmoexperiments
• Seralini website responds to critics
http://gmoseralini.org/category/critics-answered/
FSANZ’s approval of NK603 GM corn
• Approved in 2002. Not grown here but can be
imported as animal feed or ingredient in
processed food
• 9-day acute toxicity trial. Mice given single dose
of purified GM protein
• Assumed that as GM protein not similar to known
allergens would not be allergenic
• Although GM corn had differences in fatty acids
and amino acids assumed “compositionally
equivalent to unmodified corn varieties.”
Scientific evidence of harm from
glyphosate (Roundup)
• Roundup and birth defects: is the public being
kept in the dark?
• Industry has known from its own studies since the 1980s that glyphosate
causes malformations in experimental animals at high doses
• Industry has known since 1993 that these effects also occur at lower and
mid doses
• The German government has known since at least 1998 that glyphosate
causes malformations
• The EU Commission’s expert scientific review panel knew in 1999 that
glyphosate causes malformations
• The EU Commission has known since 2002 that glyphosate causes
malformations. This was the year it signed off on the current approval of
glyphosate.
•
http://earthopensource.org/index.php/reports/roundup-and-birth-defects-is-the-public-being-kept-in-thedark#sthash.d2PMoMhP.dpuf
GMO Evidence - Roundup
• Prof Andres Carrasco: Glyphosate Causes Birth Defects in
Chickens, Frog
• Dr Cattani: Roundup Causes Infertility in Rats
• Gilles-Eric Seralini: Glyphosate is Toxic to Human Placental
JEG3 Cells
• Gilles-Eric Seralini: Glyphosate is an Endocrine Disruptor in
Human Cells
• Dr Benedetti: Soybean Workers Suffer DNA Damage from
Glyphosate
• Dr. Thongprakaisang: Glyphosate Induces Growth in Human
Breast Cancer Cells
• Dr. Krüger: Roundup Suppresses Growth of Beneficial Gut
Bacteria
• Dr. Hans-Wolfgang Hoppe: Glyphosate Found in Human
Urine Across Europe
• People in 18 countries across Europe have been found to
have traces of the weed killer glyphosate in their urine,
Samsel and Seneff: Glyphosate Enhances Damaging Effects
of Environmental Toxins
• This study shows that glyphosate, the active ingredient of
roundup, enhances the damaging effects of other food
borne chemical residues and environmental toxins.
• Dr. Krüger: Roundup Suppresses Growth of Beneficial Gut
Bacteria
• Michael Pollan – Some of my best friends are
germs http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/19/magazine/say-hello-to-the100-trillion-bacteria-that-make-up-yourmicrobiome.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&
• Tom Laskawy - Gut Punch – How Monsanto
could be destroying your microbiome
http://grist.org/food/gut-punch-monsanto-could-be-destroying-your-microbiome/
People report illnesses improve on
GM-free diet
• Caitlin Shetterly’s headaches, nausea, rashes, and
fatigue diagnosed by allergist as GMO corn
allergy http://www.elle.com/beauty/health-fitness/allergy-to-geneticallymodified-corn
• “Moms Across America” PANDA, allergies,
• Rachel Linden was sick for ten years with asthma,
seasonal allergies, food allergies, infections and
Hashimoto’s thyroiditis. Institute of Responsible
Technonology. Says people reporting allergies,
autism, diabetes, arthritis, colitis Crohn’s disease,
celiac, improve on non-GM diet
•
http://www.madge.org.au/madge-digest-no-133-aprilmay-2013#two
How can we feed the
world?
Failure to Yield 2009
• reviewed two dozen academic studies of corn and
soybeans, the 2 main GM crops
• UCS report concludes GM ht soy and corn has not
increased yields.
• Insect-resistant corn, improved yields only
marginally.
• Increase in yields for both crops over the last 13
years largely due to traditional breeding or
improvements in agricultural practices.
•
http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/our-failing-food-system/geneticengineering/failure-to-yield.html
Sustainability and innovation in staple
crop production in the US Midwest
Heinemann et al 2013
• 50 years of yield data with corn, canola and
cotton from the UN Food and Agriculture
Organisation database. Until 1985 US yields
signif higher than EU. Since then W. Europe
outproducing US in corn. Using less pesticide
too.
• http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/rn/podcast/2013/06/bth_20130624_1146.
mp3
Increase use of pesticide
• "Impacts of Genetically Engineered Crops on
Pesticide Use: The First Thirteen Years”
Benbrook November 2009
• “farmers applied 318 million more pounds of
pesticides over the last 13 years as a result of
planting GE seeds.”
•
http://www.organic-center.org/science.pest.php?action=view&report_id=159
Superweeds
• In 2012 49% of US farmers surveyed had
glyphosate resistant weeds on farm. Up from
37% in 2011 http://www.motherjones.com/tomphilpott/2013/02/report-spread-monsantos-superweeds-speeds-12-0
• GM crops resistant to 2,4-D and dicamba
awaiting approval
Superpests
• Brazil has lost 10 billion Real of crops to
caterpillars. Blamed on expansion of GM
maize. Bt maize kills armyworms that feed on
the caterpillars.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=artic
le&id=14997:brazilian-farmers-lose-10-billion-real-as-caterpillarsdevour-gm-and-other-crops
• Rootworm in corn are developing resistance to
bt toxin in the UShttp://www.motherjones.com/tomphilpott/2012/08/monsanto-superweeds-and-superinsects-compoundingdrought-damage-corn-country
Argentina
• Birth defects in Argentina in Ituzaingó near GM
soy fields. Roundup and Endosulfan sprayed.
Cancer rates 41 times the national average
http://www.goldmanprize.org/recipient/sofiagatica
• Watch “Argentina’s Bad Seeds” on Al Jazeera
• Open letter to the Pope from Argentinian rural
group on the damage caused to people, food and
country by GM monoculture for export
•
https://www.facebook.com/AfricanCentreforBiosafety/posts/553207478055918
India
• 1988 Seed Policy imposed by World Bank,
required deregulation of seed sector.
• Suicides of farmers 250,000+
• Parliamentary committee on Bt crops= damming
report
• Panel of technical experts appointed by the
supreme court has recommended a 10 yr
moratorium on field trials
•
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/03/201332813553729250.html
• SRI and organics transforming lives
http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/agriculture/organic-rice-cultivation-transforminglives-of-damoh-farmers/article2668286.ece
Phillippines
• Consumers International- estimated 270,000
small-hold forced to grow GM corn and ending
up in debt. The cost of seeds has risen 282%
and accounts for 18-21% of a farmer’s total
cost of production. http://www.nongmoreport.com/articles/february2013/the-gmo-seedcartel.php#sthash.HrkbgLrd.dpufUprooting
•
GM rice uprooted by farmers
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php/news/archive/2013/15036-national-ricefarmers-council-raises-alarm-over-golden-rice
Africa
• African groups oppose G8′s, AGRA and Gates
plan to privatise African agriculture.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php/news/archive/2013/14917-african-groupschallenge-g8-and-new-alliance
• ETC report - The New Biomassters
•
http://www.etcgroup.org/content/new-biomassters
• The Kamburu Story - A community-led
response to climate change in Kenya Institute
for Culture and Ecology Kenya http://vimeo.com/7096771
South + Central America
• Mexico protests re possible commercial
growing of GM corn
•
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php/news/archive/2013/14780-mexico-groundzero-in-the-fight-for-the-future-of-maize
• Strike over Free Trade in Colombia. Farmers
defend seed.
•
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php/news/archive/2013/15038-colombiafarmers-uprising-puts-the-spotlight-on-seeds
US and hunger
• Feeding America – network of 200 food banks- report
in 2011 17 million US children food insecure.
• “one in four children in the country is living without
consistent access to enough nutritious food to live a
healthy life, according to the study, “
• The consequences of malnutrition can be severe - it
affects cognitive development among young children,
school, more frequent sickness and higher healthcare
costs.
•
http://abcnews.go.com/US/hunger_at_home/hunger-home-american-childrenmalnourished/story?id=14367230#.T6NKrHmTzKd
TPP and corporate agreements
• TPP and AFTINET
• Negotiated in secret –expect to finalize end of
this year
• Investor State Dispute Settlement
• CSG
• Food standards and labelling
• AFTINET
Cool the climate while feeding us all
• IAASTD – UN report Agriculture at the Crossroads
• Agroecology can double yields in 10 years “while
mitigating climate change and alleviating rural
poverty.” http://www.twnside.org.sg/title2/susagri/2011/susagri150.htm
• La Via Campesina
• Permaculture
• SRI- triples yield http://independentsciencenews.org/un-sustainablefarming/how-millions-of-farmers-are-advancing-agriculture-for-themselves/
Food Movement is rising!
• Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance –
People’s Food Plan
• Farmers Markets
• Shop local
• Get involved!