Negative Health Effects of Genetically Modified Foods

        The FDA doesn’t even require human safety testing because it claims genetically modified food is identical to conventionally grown food. If the FDA and the biotech company Monsanto, the largest creator of our GM products, deem “there is no need for or value in” safety testing, why is anyone else concerned about safety?

        GM crops’ seeds are genetically designed to either withstand large amounts of herbicides that normally would kill the plant or, in the case of Bt corn, are spliced with DNA to make the plant secrete a poison to kill off pests. (Click here for a description of the DNA splicing of genetically modified foods.) While humanitarian motives–to grow cheaper larger crops to feed the world more cheaply–make many very loyal to the technology to manipulate plant DNA, this infant science is causing the consumers health consequences.

         “The single most common result of genetic engineering is surprise side effects,” said Jeffry M. Smith, of the Institute for Responsible Technology. While the scientists in the pro-GM camp repeat that the foods are safe and carry no side effects, other scientists and medical doctors are convinced otherwise, both from observations of changes in human health and animals studies.

            Those concerned lament that the absence of long-term (or even short-term) human clinical studies also means that proving the development of a condition or a disease as due to GM foods is nearly impossible, because GM foods have been so pervasive in the Western diet that a control group unexposed to them no longer exists.

            Critics point to human health changes and animals studies to illustrate why they are concerned genetically modified foods have not been proven identical to conventionally grown food, let alone risk free.

Drastic changes in public health since GM introduction have been observed.

Allergic reactions to GM Soy and Corn

            Allergies to soy increased by 50% in the UK directly after GM soy introduction. Patients undergoing a skin-prick test reacted to GM soy, though not natural soy; GM varieties boasted seven times the amount of a known soy allergen. While the World Wide Heath organization recommends testing for allergens, GM corn and soy cannot pass-GM corn and soy have properties of both known allergens as well as a minimum of one new allergen not present in natural corn and soy. Now, the allergy to GM corn and soy is showing to later make individuals allergic to even non-GM corn and soy.