Dangers Of Genetically Engineered Foods

Philippines: Experimental gene crops a public risk according to Greenpeace

Experimental gene-modified crops such as Bt eggplant pose serious environmental and health risks, according to Greenpeace. "All citizens have a duty to ensure that open air planting of such are immediately stopped," it said in a statement sent to Malaya Business Insight. "Greenpeace has repeatedly sounded the alarm regarding the dangers of open field trials of Bt eggplant ongoing in some provinces in the country," said Daniel Ocampo, Greenpeace Southeast Asia Sustainable Agriculture Campaigner. "Unfortunately, these field trials commenced despite the lack of proper public consultation, and despite major objections from farmers’ groups, environmental and food safety organizations and civil society," he said. "Bt eggplant has already been proven to be risky, unsafe for human consumption and irreversibly contaminates the conventional eggplant crops of ordinary farmers," Ocampo pointed out.

"What is in contention here is Bt eggplant and why – in the face of such overwhelming evidence – any institution should support a corporate experiment that goes against all that is good and beneficial to the public," he added. According to Greenpeace, its decontamination unit removed genetically-engineered Bt eggplant from a field trial site in Barangay Paciano Rizal in Bay, Laguna, last February 17. "The move was able to prevent any further environmental contamination from the hazardous gene-modified crops," it said. Greenpeace has called on the Department of Agriculture (DA) to halt all Bt eggplant field trials in the Philippines and decontaminate all existing field trial sites immediately. It has asked the DA to implement the Organic Agriculture Act and ban genetic engineering of all food crops in the Philippines and take an active role in supplying sufficient quantity and quality of non-Bt seeds and support organic and ecological agriculture practices. Bt eggplant field trials commenced in 2010 despite massive protests by farmers and consumers, it said.

Of the seven selected trial sites, Da vao City, Baybay in Leyte and Sta. Barbara in Iloilo, have issued municipal and barangay resolutions banning the field trials, Greenpeace said, adding that field trials were also conducted in Davao city last October but the plants were uprooted by the local government to uphold a resolution banning the trials. According to Greenpeace, Bt eggplant is currently not approved in any country including in India where the technology was sourced for use in the Philippines.

Dangers in Genetically Modified Food | United Church of God

Genetically modified foods reflect a much larger problem—greed in the marketplace and the powerful drive for profits. The desire for more and more money can cause producers to overlook the possible adverse effects that these products could have on consumers.

Some smart chickens are telling us that something foul is in our food supply!

A few months ago Strilli Oppenheimer's chickens refused to eat the feed she bought from a large supplier.

It was not big news at the time. But now word of the event is spreading around the world.

Strilli's famous chickens

When Strilli's indigenous African chickens refused the maize, she took a sample to a testing facility at the University of the Free State (in South Africa).

The results confirmed what Strilli had suspected. The maize had been genetically engineered to produce proteins that are toxic to certain weeds and insects.

The Oppenheimer family immediately stopped eating eggs produced by the chickens and changed the feed to organically grown vegetable sources.

If chickens refuse to eat genetically modified (GM) food, is it safe for human consumption? Many researchers have serious concerns.

Research results

One well known scientist, Dr. Arpad Pusztai, demonstrated that rats fed on GM potatoes suffered from a weakened immune system and stunted growth of their internal organs including the liver, kidneys, and brain. Dr. Pusztai was fired by the Rowett Research Institute in the UK in 1998 after his research into the adverse effects of GM foods on humans.

Biowatch director Rose Williams said that there is global concern that GM products have not been adequately tested in terms of their effect on people, animals, and the environment. GM food is now being marketed all over the world despite that fact that very little research has been done to determine what the consequences might be.

In his book Seeds of Deception, Jeffrey Smith provides an in-depth overview of the extent of these modified foods. According to his research you have a 75 percent chance of picking a food with genetically modified ingredients every time you visit a grocery store. In other words, three out of four items on the shelves contain genetically modified ingredients.

Culprits and symptoms

The four main culprits are soy, corn, cottonseed, and canola. Common ingredients that come from these GM sources include maltodextrin, soy lecithin, and high fructose corn syrup. Other GMO products include milk containing rbGH, Rennet, and Aspartame. It is shocking how widespread these ingredients are.