Doctors Against GMOs – Hear From Those Who Have Done the Research
The evidence is mounting – GMOs are a danger to health. Long-term studies have revealed organ damage, cancer, and reproductive damage in second and third generation animal studies. There are doctors who are willing to publicly take a stand against genetic engineering. Here are a few of them.
Dr. Mehmet Oz
Dr. Mehmet Oz is a renowned heart surgeon and the host of the popular television show, The Dr. OZ Show.
Whether you support genetically engineered crops or not, the freedom to make an informed choice should belong to consumers. The bill in Congress this month proposing to block states from independently requiring labeling offers a coup to pro-GMO groups.
As a scientist, I am not that concerned about GMOs themselves, but I am worried about why they were created. Highly toxic herbicides would kill crops unless they were genetically modified, but with the genetic upgrade, these plants can be doused with much higher doses, with potential complications to the environment. The WHO believes that glyphosate is “probably a human carcinogen.” Perhaps we are all showing “disdain for science and evidence-based medicine,” but I would argue that unleashing these products creates a real-time experiment on the human species. Sure, we will eventually know if these pesticides are a problem, but at the expense of the pain and suffering and disease in real people. I owe my kids more. And so do you.
Dr. John H. Boyles
Board certified in the American Environmental Medicine and the American board of Otolaryngology, Dr. Boyles currently practices medicine in Centerville Ohio at the Dayton Ear Nose & Throat Surgeons, Inc.
This exchange of DNA between the species is totally against nature. We simply don’t know what it will produce. We don’t know if it is safe, and it has not yet been proven to be safe.
We do not fully understand how gene spicing works within a single species. We certainly can’t predict how it will work when attempting to combine more than one species.
Yes, the means by which to prove safety was developed around the year 2000. No companies performing the gene splicing will use the procedures, because if their product were to be proven unsafe, then they cannot sell that product.
Patients at Dayton Ear, Nose, & Throat Surgeons, Inc. were tested for allergies with organic and genetically modified varieties of foods. Some of the patients tested reacted both to the organic soy and the altered soy. Other patients reacted to the GMO soy, but had no reaction to organic soy. Another group tested positively to the organic, but had no allergic reaction to the GMO soy. And some patients had no allergic reaction to either the GMO soy or the organic soy.
It has come to our attention that by altering genes, scientists are creating a separate allergy to foods that did not exist in patients before. By changing or altering the structure of the plant, GMOs can cause separate reactions from the same food.
You owe it to yourself and your family to make healthier food choices. Any allergic person can benefit from a diet with increased organic foods. Control what you can, and steer clear of GMO foods.
Dr. Emily Lindner
Dr. Emily Lindner is an internist with a dual practice of Internal Medicine and Complementary/Integrative Medicine. She is certified in Functional and Nutritional Medicine.
I tell my patients to avoid genetically modified foods because in my experience, with those foods there is more allergies and asthma. … And what emanates from that is everything. Lots of arthritis problems, autoimmune diseases, anxiety… neurological problems; anything that comes from an inspired immune system response.
When I change people from a GMO diet to a GMO-free diet I see results instantaneously in people who have foggy thinking and people who have gut symptoms like bloating, gas, irritation. In terms of allergies, it might take two to five days. In terms of depression, it starts to lift almost instantaneously. It takes from a day, to certainly within two weeks.
Dr. Robin Bernhoft
Dr. Robin Bernhoft is a surgeon who retrained in environmental medicine after suffering from an environmental illness caused by the toxic skin scrubs used before surgery. He has since regained his health.
“…all physicians should prescribe non-genetically modified food for all patients, and that we should educate all of our patients on the potential health dangers, and known health dangers of GMO food.”
Dr. Mercola
Dr. Mercola is an osteopathic physician and an entrepreneur. He is known for being a strong proponent of alternative medicine.
Monsanto and other biotech companies claim genetically modified (GM) crops have no impact on the environment and are perfectly safe to eat.
Federal departments in charge of food safety in the US and Canada have not conducted tests to affirm this alleged “safety,” but rather have taken the industry-conducted research at face value, allowing millions of acres of GM crops to overtake farmland.
These foods, largely in the form of GM corn and soy (although there are other GM crops, too, like sugar beets, papaya and crookneck squash), can now be found in the majority of processed foods in the US.
In other words, if you eat processed foods, you’re already eating them… and these crops are already being freely planted in the environment. But what if it turns out that Monsanto was wrong, and the GM crops aren’t actually safe?
Monsanto is the world leader in GM crops, and their Web site would have you believe that they are the answer to world hunger. Thanks to their heavy PR campaign, if you’ve been primarily a reader of the mainstream press, you’ve probably been misled into thinking GM crops are, in fact, the greatest thing since sliced bread, that they provide better yields of equal or better quality food, pest and weed resistance, reduced reliance on pesticides, and more… But thankfully, the truth is unfolding and the tide is finally beginning to turn.
Dr. Russell Blaylock
Dr. Blaylock is a board certified neurosurgeon. He practiced medicine for 25 years before pursuing his nutritional studies and research full time. He now owns a nutritional practice, and is a health practitioner, lecturer, and author. He is known for confronting controversial issues in medicine and backing up his arguments with impeccable research. He warns that most of the studies on GMOs are terminated within or at ninety days and test animals are destroyed – with good reason. The following comments are in response to a long-term GMO study published in the journal, “Food and Chemical Toxicology.”
Virtually all of these studies use rats and are terminated at 90 days.This study clearly shows that most of the harmful effects of GMO foods occur after 90 days.
In this study, animals were fed the GMO corn for two years in concentrations commensurate to what people would eat. What they found is beyond shocking.
The animals fed GMO food died two to three times more often than the animals eating a normal diet. Male rats demonstrated liver damage 2.5 to 5.5 times more often than control rats.
Of extreme concern was the finding that the females developed massive breast tumors at a high rate in the GMO-fed animals.
Even more frightening is that almost half of all babies are now being fed soy-based formula. This is not the only study to find problems with GMO foods, but it is the most damning.
In my estimation, all GMO foods should be removed from stores, and GMO crops should be destroyed. The implications of this disaster is almost beyond belief and GMO crops are being heavily promoted all over the world by the IMF, Council on Foreign Relations, and other international organizations.
Dr. Richard Lacey M.D., Ph.D
Dr. Lacey is an expert in food safety issues who served for four years on a U.K. government advisory panel on food as it relates to human and animal health. In 1989-1990, he warned against the practice of feeding cattle rendered meat from sheep and other animals, predicting the “mad cow” epidemic before it occurred. He has written five books on food safety, including one published by Cambridge University Press in 1994 containing a detailed discussion of genetically engineered food. He does not believe GMOs are safe and clearly reminds us that their safety has never been established.
It is my considered judgment that employing the process of recombinant DNA technology (genetic engineering) in producing new plant varieties entails a set of risks to the health of the consumer that are not ordinarily presented by traditional breeding techniques. It is also my considered judgment that food products derived from such genetically engineered organisms are not generally recognized as safe on the basis of scientific procedures within the community of experts qualified to assess their safety.
Recombinant DNA technology is an inherently risky method for producing new foods. Its risks are in large part due to the complexity and interdependency of the parts of a living system, including its DNA. Wedging foreign genetic material in an essentially random manner into an organism’s genome necessarily causes some degree of disruption, and the disruption could be multi-faceted. Further, whether singular or multi-faceted, the disruptive influence could well result in the presence of unexpected toxins or allergens or in the degradation of nutritional value. Further, because of the complexity and interactivity of living systems — and because of the extent to which our understanding of them is still quite deficient — it is impossible to predict what specific problems could result in the case of any particular genetically engineered organism.
…To the best of my judgment, neither genetically engineered foods as a general class nor any genetically engineered food in particular is generally recognized as safe among those experts qualified by training and experience to evaluate their safety…
…In my opinion, the number of scientists who are not convinced about the safety of genetically engineered foods is substantial enough to prevent the existence of a general recognition of safety. Second, there is insufficient evidence to support a belief that genetically engineered foods are safe. I am not aware of any study in the peer-reviewed scientific literature that establishes the safety of even one specific genetically engineered food let alone the safety of these foods as a general class. Few properly designed toxicological feeding studies have even been attempted, and I know of none that was satisfactorily completed. Those who claim that genetically engineered foods are as safe as naturally produced ones are clearly not basing their claims on scientific procedures that demonstrate safety to a reasonable degree of certainty. Rather, they are primarily basing their claims on a set of assumptions that, besides being empirically unsubstantiated, are in several respects at odds with the bulk of the evidence.
The main assumptions are: (a) that producing food through recombinant DNA technology in itself entails no greater risks than producing it through sexual reproduction between members of the same species and (b) that the same safeguards commonly employed by breeders using conventional techniques will suffice for genetically engineered foods.
As far as I can ascertain, the current policy of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is primarily based on these two assumptions. Therefore, although it claims to be “science-based,” this claim has no solid basis in fact. The only way to base the claims about the safety of genetically engineered food in science is to establish each one to be safe through standard scientific procedures, not through assumptions that reflect more wishful thinking than hard fact.
American Academy of Environmental Medicine
This is an official statement from the American Academy of Environmental Medicine.
Genetically Modified Foods
According to the World Health Organization, Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) are “organisms in which the genetic material (DNA) has been altered in such a way that does not occur naturally.” This technology is also referred to as “genetic engineering”, “biotechnology” or “recombinant DNA technology” and consists of randomly inserting genetic fragments of DNA from one organism to another, usually from a different species. For example, an artificial combination of genes that includes a gene to produce the pesticide Cry1Ab protein (commonly known as Bt toxin), originally found in Bacillus thuringiensis, is inserted in to the DNA of corn randomly. Both the location of the transferred gene sequence in the corn DNA and the consequences of the insertion differ with each insertion. The plant cells that have taken up the inserted gene are then grown in a lab using tissue culture and/or nutrient medium that allows them to develop into plants that are used to grow GM food crops.
Natural breeding processes have been safely utilized for the past several thousand years. In contrast, “GE crop technology abrogates natural reproductive processes, selection occurs at the single cell level, the procedure is highly mutagenic and routinely breeches genera barriers, and the technique has only been used commercially for 10 years.”
Despite these differences, safety assessment of GM foods has been based on the idea of “substantial equivalence” such that “if a new food is found to be substantially equivalent in composition and nutritional characteristics to an existing food, it can be regarded as safe as the conventional food.” However, several animal studies indicate serious health risks associated with GM food consumption including infertility, immune dysregulation, accelerated aging, dysregulation of genes associated with cholesterol synthesis, insulin regulation, cell signaling, and protein formation, and changes in the liver, kidney, spleen and gastrointestinal system.
There is more than a casual association between GM foods and adverse health effects. There is causation as defined by Hill’s Criteria in the areas of strength of association, consistency, specificity, biological gradient, and biological plausibility. The strength of association and consistency between GM foods and disease is confirmed in several animal studies.
…Also, because of the mounting data, it is biologically plausible for Genetically Modified Foods to cause adverse health effects in humans.
In spite of this risk, the biotechnology industry claims that GM foods can feed the world through production of higher crop yields. However, a recent report by the Union of Concerned Scientists reviewed 12 academic studies and indicates otherwise: “The several thousand field trials over the last 20 years for genes aimed at increasing operational or intrinsic yield (of crops) indicate a significant undertaking. Yet none of these field trials have resulted in increased yield in commercialized major food/feed crops, with the exception of Bt corn.” However, it was further stated that this increase is largely due to traditional breeding improvements.
Therefore, because GM foods pose a serious health risk in the areas of toxicology, allergy and immune function, reproductive health, and metabolic, physiologic and genetic health and are without benefit, the AAEM believes that it is imperative to adopt the precautionary principle, which is one of the main regulatory tools of the European Union environmental and health policy and serves as a foundation for several international agreements.
…With the precautionary principle in mind, because GM foods have not been properly tested for human consumption, and because there is ample evidence of probable harm, the AAEM asks:
- Physicians to educate their patients, the medical community, and the public to avoid GM foods when possible and provide educational materials concerning GM foods and health risks.
- Physicians to consider the possible role of GM foods in the disease processes of the patients they treat and to document any changes in patient health when changing from GM food to non-GM food.
- Our members, the medical community, and the independent scientific community to gather case studies potentially related to GM food consumption and health effects, begin epidemiological research to investigate the role of GM foods on human health, and conduct safe methods of determining the effect of GM foods on human health.
- For a moratorium on GM food, implementation of immediate long term independent safety testing, and labeling of GM foods, which is necessary for the health and safety of consumers.
(This statement was reviewed and approved by the Executive Committee of the American Academy of Environmental Medicine on May 8, 2009.)
Conclusion
In America, there is a fascination and an appreciation of most new technologies. Before GMOs were widely adopted more medical professionals and scientists marveled at the technological advancements making genetic engineering possible; this awe and wonder was widespread long before the downsides of GMOs became well known. It turns out they are worse than almost anyone thought.
Now that GMOs have been widely adopted in the American diet, more and more doctors are discovering that GMOs are devastating to our health. It is becoming more common for doctors to advise their patients to avoid GMOs. Recently, members of Sermo, an online community of physicians, were surveyed as to whether or not they support GMO labeling. The majority, 68% of them are in favor of requiring food manufacturers to label products containing GMOs.
For years, there has been a tired argument that if you’re against GMOs then you’re against science, but just because we have the technology to do something, it doesn’t necessarily follow that we should. The majority of new technologies are abandoned due to flaws that become painfully apparent after they have become widespread. At present we are feeling that pain.
Be sure to check out Doctors Against Vaccines and Understanding and Detoxifying from GMOs.
from: http://www.organiclifestylemagazine.com/doctors-against-gmos-hear-from-those-who-have-done-the-research/