http://www.healthsentinel.com/Briefs/GMFood.htm
"The consistent finding from independent research and on-farm surveys
since 1999 is that GM crops have failed to deliver the promised
benefits of significantly increasing yields or reducing herbicide and
pesticide use. GM crops have cost the United States an estimated $12
billion in farm subsidies, lost sales and product recalls due to
transgenic contamination. Massive failures in Bt cotton of up to 100%
were reported in India. Biotech corporations have suffered rapid
decline since 2000, and investment advisors forecast no future for the
agricultural sector. Meanwhile worldwide resistance to GM has reached
a climax when Zambia in 2002 refused GM maize in food aid despite the
threat of famine."
"Triple herbicide-tolerant oilseed rape volunteers that have combined
transgenic and non-transgenic traits are now widespread in Canada.
Similar multiple herbicide-tolerant volunteers and weeds have emerged
in the United States. In the United States, glyphosate-tolerant weeds
are plaguing GM cotton and soya fields, and atrazine, one of the most
toxic herbicides, has had to be used with glufosinate-tolerant GM
maize."
"The glycoprotein gene gp120 of the AIDS virus HIV-1, incorporated
into GM maize as a 'cheap, edible oral vaccine', serves as yet another
biological time-bomb, as it can interfere with the immune system and
recombine with viruses and bacteria to generate new and unpredictable
pathogens."
"Glufosinate ammonium and glyphosate are used with the
herbicide-tolerant transgenic crops that currently account for 75% of
all transgenic crops worldwide. Both are systemic metabolic poisons
expected to have a wide range of harmful effects, and these have been
confirmed. Glufosinate ammonium is linked to neurological,
respiratory, gastrointestinal and haematological toxicities, and birth
defects in humans and mammals. It is toxic to butterflies and a number
of beneficial insects, also to the larvae of clams and oysters,
Daphnia and some freshwater fish, especially the rainbow trout. It
inhibits beneficial soil bacteria and fungi, especially those that fix
nitrogen. Glyphosate is the most frequent cause of complaints and
poisoning in the UK. Disturbances of many body functions have been
reported after exposures at normal use levels. Glyphosate exposure
nearly doubled the risk of late spontaneous abortion, and children
born to users of glyphosate had elevated neurobehavioral defects."
"Roundup caused cell division dysfunction that may be linked to human
cancers. The known effects of both glufosinate and glyphosate are
sufficiently serious for all further uses of the herbicides to be
halted."
"By far the most insidious dangers of genetic engineering are inherent
to the process itself, which greatly enhances the scope and
probability of horizontal gene transfer and recombination, the main
route to creating viruses and bacteria that cause disease epidemics.
This was highlighted, in 2001, by the 'accidental' creation of a
killer mouse virus in the course of an apparently innocent genetic
engineering experiment."
"There is already experimental evidence that transgenic DNA from
plants has been taken up by bacteria in the soil and in the gut of
human volunteers. Antibiotic resistance marker genes can spread from
transgenic food to pathogenic bacteria, making infections very
difficult to treat."
"Transgenic DNA is known to survive digestion in the gut and to jump
into the genome of mammalian cells, raising the possibility for
triggering cancer. The possibility cannot be excluded that feeding GM
products such as maize to animals also carries risks, not just for the
animals but also for human beings consuming the animal products."
"Evidence suggests that transgenic constructs with the CaMV 35S
promoter might be especially unstable and prone to horizontal gene
transfer and recombination, with all the attendant hazards: gene
mutations due to random insertion, cancer, reactivation of dormant
viruses and generation of new viruses. This promoter is present in
most GM crops being grown commercially today."
"There is no longer any doubt that GM crops are not needed to feed the
world, and that hunger is caused by poverty and inequality, and not by
inadequate production of food. According to estimates by the United
Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation, there is enough food
produced to feed everyone using only conventional crops, and that will
remain the case for at least 25 years and probably far into the
future. Furthermore, as Altieri and Rosset have argued, even if hunger
is due to a gap between food production and human population growth,
current GM crops are not designed to increase yields or for poor small
farmers, so they are unlikely to benefit from them. Because the true
root cause of hunger is inequality, any method of boosting food
production that deepens inequality is bound to fail to reduce hunger.
A recent report by ActionAid concludes that, "The widespread adoption
of GM crops seems likely to exacerbate the underlying cause of food
insecurity, leading to more hungry people, not fewer"."
Mae-Wan Ho and Lim Li Ching, "The Case for A GM-Free Sustainable
World", Independent Science Panel, June 15, 2003,
http://www.foodfirst.org/progs/global/ge/isp/ispreport.pdf