January 13, 2010

The Rats Have Their Say... and It's Not Good

Something to consider from the International Journal of Biological Sciences, from a study in which rats were regularly fed 3 different kinds of genetically modified corn products:

Our analysis clearly reveals for the 3 GMOs new side effects linked with GM maize consumption, which were sex- and often dose-dependent. Effects were mostly associated with the kidney and liver, the dietary detoxifying organs, although different between the 3 GMOs. Other effects were also noticed in the heart, adrenal glands, spleen and haematopoietic system. We conclude that these data highlight signs of hepatorenal toxicity, possibly due to the new pesticides specific to each GM corn. In addition, unintended direct or indirect metabolic consequences of the genetic modification cannot be excluded.

So the authors hang the toxic side effects seen in these rats on the pesticides used on the corn, not the foreign gene that's been inserted into it. And a comment that followed an article on this study sums it all up quite nicely.

It may not be the corn, but for all purposes, it is the corn. Even if it's just the pesticide on the corn, it's the corn.

Logically, this corn has only 1 gene difference from other corn, and that gene is a resistance to pesticides. That means the corn itself is probably no better or worse than other corn for us. To repeat, this GM food has no benefit over and above what regular corn has, and probably no detriment. The only benefit it has is that you can saturate it in poison and the corn won't die (and won't be eaten by pests)

Lets just think about it this way: We are taking good food, dipping it in a bucket of toxicity so that NO pests can eat it without getting sick and dying, and then expecting that this toxic corn is suitable for us to consume.

Sure, maybe it's not the genes of the corn that's making the mammals sick. It's not the DNA of the corn or any of the proteins that it creates. But it's the shit tons of pesticides that are on top of it. And the corn wouldn't have shit tons of pesticides unless we were pouring tons onto it... and we wouldn't be pouring that much pesticides onto it if they weren't resistant to it.

Creating food that can be saturated in more and more poison so that we can later eat it just doesn't seem very smart to me. In fact it seems straight up dumb.

1 comment:

Keri said...

Wow. This post will keep me up tonight, hungry. Very frustrating, indeed. Just stopping back by to say hello. Keri (a.k.a. Sam)