93 percent of unborn babies contaminated with GMO toxins, study finds (Bt)

Natural News ^ | 5/25/2011

[Scythian]

A landmark new study out of Canada exposes yet another lie propagated by the biotechnology industry, this time blowing a hole in the false claim that a certain genetic pesticide used in the cultivation of genetically-modified (GM) crops does not end up in the human body upon consumption. Researchers from the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Sherbrooke Hospital Centre in Quebec, Can., have proven that Bt toxin, which is used in GM corn and other crops, definitively makes its way into the blood supply, contrary to what Big Bio claims -- and this toxin was found in the bloodstreams of 93 percent of pregnant women tested.

Published in the journal Reproductive Toxicology, the study explains that Bt toxin enters the body not only through direct consumption of GMOs, but also from consumption of meat, milk and eggs from animals whose feed contains GMOs. Among all women tested, 80 percent of the pregnant group tested positive for Bt toxin in their babies' umbilical cords, and 69 percent of non-pregnant women tested positive for Bt toxin.

[Mr. Lucky]

Even if the Bt traces in human were attributable to GMO crops, the question remaining would be be what the Bt replaced. Mmmmm, I sure miss all that tasty 2,4-Dichlorophenoxyacetic acid residue.

[Scythian]

The real story here is that these companies have stated over and over again that these naturally occuring, though genetically altered bacteria, such as Bt, would never make it into the human body. The way Bt works is as follows:

The Bt toxin dissolve in the high pH insect gut and become active. The toxins then attack the gut cells of the insect, punching holes in the lining. The Bt spores spills out of the gut and germinate in the insect causing death within a couple days.

Now, granted, we are not insects, but we were told, even promised that this study would never make it into our bodies, but these studies (two within the last week from two different sources) have proven that they are indeed in making it into our gut, surving right on into the blood stream.

So, the question now becomes, what are the effects, the answer is we don't know yet.

[Will88]

this time blowing a hole in the false claim that a certain genetic pesticide used in the cultivation of genetically-modified (GM) crops does not end up in the human body upon consumption.

The first question to be asked should be: did the industry make a claim that Bt would not end up in the human body after consumption of GMO foods containing Bt?

2. Then it would be good to know what concern of the regulators caused that question to be asked in the first place?

3. And if the industry did incorrectly claim that Bt would not end up in bodies of those who consumed the food products, then where did their research go wrong, and does this call for further review of all the industry research presented in relation to GMO food crops?

This study comes from a hospital in Quebec, not from some fringe organic food advocate.

[Mase]

This serves as an excellent example of the downside to the incredible advances we've made in analytical chemistry. Being able to detect ever smaller amounts of substances has also given us a dramatic increase in the amount of chemicalphobia in the public. These folks at Natural News are chemicalphobes of the highest order.

You can find just about any toxin you want in our urine or blood if you're able to measure for it in parts per trillion. The average American eats 1 1/2 grams of natural pesticides a day which is about 10,000 times more than the amount of artificial pesticides consumed. Pretty scary, eh? Many natural crops contain more pesticides than the ones treated synthetically. Broccoli, cabbage, celery and apples are examples of produce high in natural pesticides.

Celery purchased in a supermarket will contain, on average, about 800 parts per billion of the natural chemical psoralen. Psoralen is used by celery as a natural means of fending off predators and, in high doses, can damage DNA and tissue in humans. Organic celery, grown without the use of synthetic pesticides, has been shown to contain as much as 6,000 parts per billion of psoralen. Potatoes contain solanine which is a naturally occurring toxin used to protect against blight. In humans, solanine can cause paralysis and death. But....but.....it's natural.....

Unfortunately, the chemicalphobes at Natural News (and chemicalphobes in general) never learned a very basic tenet of toxicology, the dosage makes the poison.

This article is just more silly alarmism from people who understand little about chemistry. They act like it is far worse that people obtain trace amounts of Bt from their food rather than consume a bunch of fumonisins from corn not treated with Bt. This kind of idiocy never solves problems; it only causes them.

[pyx]

Every one of those farmers has the option of growing something else.

IMO, the options you mention sometimes just don't work. For example, a potential scenario;

I grow a crop of Heirloom vegetables across the road from your GM vegetables. Eventually, my Heirloom vegetables are cross pollinated by your GM vegetables. And eventually the seed from my Heirloom vegetables becomes impotent like your GM vegetables. I don't have options other than acquire higher costs to feed my family.

Likewise with rice and soybeans grown in India and China.

[Mr. Lucky]

You started out by claiming seed companies were “criminal” because the progeny of certain patented seeds were sterile and now you’re upset because those sterile seeds will cross pollinate?

[Will88]

Published in the journal Reproductive Toxicology, the study explains that Bt toxin enters the body not only through direct consumption of GMOs, but also from consumption of meat, milk and eggs from animals whose feed contains GMOs.

The study was not performed by Natural News, but by the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Sherbrooke Hospital Centre in Quebec, Can., and then published in Reproductive Toxicology

Wiser heads will ignore any alarmism, or knee-jerk dismissiveness from both extremes that surround this sort of question.

More information and study is needed, but if the industry made claims that such substances in GMO foods would not end up in the bodies of humans, and that has been proven false, then that is a significant finding.

[Carry_Okie]

I grow a crop of Heirloom vegetables across the road from your GM vegetables. Eventually, my Heirloom vegetables are cross pollinated by your GM vegetables. And eventually the seed from my Heirloom vegetables becomes impotent like your GM vegetables. I don't have options other than acquire higher costs to feed my family.

This is merely an argument pointing out the need for spatial offsets. The supplier and users of the GMO would need to purchase said use by contract as part of the cost associated with deriving the benefit; else said benefit simply isn't worth the cost. That way, differences in terrain and local weather patterns, for example, could be taken into account for how far that pollen would travel and what the containment measures might be with regard to the degree of risk those particular genes may pose.

Look, I'm not new to this argument. I wrote about it in my first book dealing with markets in managing environmental risks. If you think having regulators decide these things justly and efficiently is the way to go, we have a fundamental disagreement because political influence over the latter is easily bought. My point is that the types of modifications would be considerably different if those producing and consuming the product had to interlalize the costs of managing the risks they pose.

[pyx]

You started out by claiming seed companies were “criminal” because the progeny of certain patented seeds were sterile and now you’re upset because those sterile seeds will cross pollinate?

Let's try my original post, one more time.

I recall reading that Monsanto and Dupont and others now have the entire third world "dependant" on growing Genetically Modified (GM) rice that DOES NOT produce viable seed stock. I also recall that all seed stock for rice in India and China must now be GM and must be purchased. I recall reading somewhere or another that these same companies have done the exact same thing with soybeans. There is a claim of "higher yields". But there is obviously, much higher costs. These "costs" may well include the extra costs to health of those who eat GM rice, soybeans and other food staples. If this is true, then in my opinion, it borders on criminal.

-=] IF [=- there are higher costs which include health care that result from eating GM crops then I believe its reasonable to assume that the health costs would be a hidden cost. -=] IF [=- there are hidden health costs, then in my opinion, hiding those additional costs is dishonest. Being dishonest is, in my opinion, criminal.

I pointed out an example where options don't seem to work, unless one includes the option of higher costs for seed stock.

[Mr. Lucky]

I see.

[dalereed]

if it isn’t raised with chemical fertalizers and pestasides I won’t eat it!

Organic is nothing more than throwing shit at it and hoping it grows!

[pyx]

If you think having regulators decide these things justly and efficiently is the way to go, we have a fundamental disagreement because political influence over the latter is easily bought.

Let me attempt to be reasonably clear. The VERY LAST people in the world I would want to decide these sorts of things would be regulators.

However, as you yourself have stated, the argument about "spatial offsets" (your term) and the associated cost/benefits as well as who actually pays is, in my opinion, far from settled.

[TXnMA]

"It is not a chemical, nor a substance, it is bacteria, let’s start with real facts and go from there."

~~~~~~~~~~

The principal fault with your bravo sierra scare post is that you have no idea WTH you are babbling about!!!.

The bacterium, Bacillus thuringiensis ("Bt") is no more a "toxin" than the mold, Pennicillium notatum is an "antibiotic".

Go take a basic seventh-grade science course before you start posting such alarmist nonsense!

[Mase]

The study was not performed by Natural News, but by the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Sherbrooke Hospital Centre in Quebec, Can., and then published in Reproductive Toxicology

Yes, that is very clear to anyone who can read. Even so, Natural News is a nest of chemicalphobia, toxic terrorism, scientific illiteracy and needless alarmism.

Wiser heads will ignore any alarmism, or knee-jerk dismissiveness from both extremes that surround this sort of question.

Ahh, I see. Pointing out their alarmism equates to knee-jerk dismissiveness? You think the truth lies somewhere in the squishy middle? How squishy.

More information and study is needed

LOL! Yeah, like what measurement was used. Are they measuring for Bt in the blood in picograms? For some reason, Natural News chooses not to inform us of this important information. Like anyone who passed a class in toxicology will know, the dosage makes the poison. Or, as the old German axiom goes: All things are poison and nothing is without poison, only the dose permits something not to be poisonous.

Do you think Natural News neglected to provide this information because it would hurt their ability to generate as much alarmism as possible, or because they're a bunch of idiots?

but if the industry made claims that such substances in GMO foods would not end up in the bodies of humans, and that has been proven false, then that is a significant finding

Why would it be a significant finding? Did you ever stop to think that at the time they made the claim we didn't have the analytical capabilities to measure for the substance in the amounts found in the blood?

Good grief, you consume benzene in your drinking water in amounts measured in ppb. Benzene is extremely toxic. Yet, there it is in what we consider perfectly safe drinking water. The only reason we don't take it out is because filtering technology doesn't currently exist to do it. Even if it did, that wouldn't stop you from breathing it in from the air every day. This story is most likely a bunch of crap just like all the other chemicalphobia they subject their readers to. People are scared to death of things they don't understand. Does this include you?

Safety, the absence of risk, cannot be “proven” by science. The limit of detection always determines the extent of what we mean by safety, and we cannot prove the absence of something only its presence.

[allmendream]

Bt toxin is a protein produced by a bacterial gene.

The gene is removed from the bacteria and put into a crop like Corn or Cotton. The bacteria is not put there - and the crop doesn't produce bacteria - it produces the bacterial toxin.

[Scythian]

The bacterium, Bacillus thuringiensis ("Bt") is no more a "toxin" than the mold, Pennicillium notatum is an "antibiotic".

Umm, I never called it a toxin? It's a bacteria, I've always known that.

[allmendream]

Yes indeed.

If you plant a crop that produces Bt toxin because of genetic engineering you are growing an evil GM crop that destroys the Earth and makes hippies sick.

If you plant a crop and spray the sh*t out of it with Bt toxin, you are an organic farmer, friend to the planet, and you make hippies happy.

And any Bt toxin that people are exposed to is thus, OBVIOUSLY from GM crops and not never ever from the mass spraying of this “natural” toxin on “organic” crops.

[pyx]

Yet, there it (benzene) is in what we consider perfectly safe drinking water.

I have heard that in many cities tap water, benzene in traceable amounts is present.

I really don't know the answer to the question, Is benzene typically present in drinking water coming from a drilled well ? I ask because, many rural and farm properties around the nation (and in North America for that matter) use drinking water from drilled wells.

[N. Theknow]

First it was dihydrogen monoxide and now this.

[Mase]

There is a claim of "higher yields". But there is obviously, much higher costs.

There is a claim of higher yields? Do you know anything about the history of genetically modified food? Have you ever heard of Norman Borlaug? Here are a few facts:

The initial yields of Borlaug's crops were higher than any ever harvested in South Asia. The countries subsequently committed to importing large quantities of both the Lerma Rojo 64 and Sonora 64 varieties. In 1966, India imported 18,000 tons —the largest purchase and import of any seed in the world at that time. In 1967, Pakistan imported 42,000 tons, and Turkey 21,000 tons. Pakistan's import, planted on 1.5 million acres (6,100 km²), produced enough wheat to seed the entire nation's wheatland the following year.[13] By 1968, when Ehrlich's book was released, William Gaud of the United States Agency for International Development was calling Borlaug's work a "Green Revolution." High yields led to shortages: of labor to harvest the crops; bullock carts to haul it to the threshing floor; jute bags, trucks, rail cars, and grain storage facilities. Some local governments were forced to close school buildings temporarily to use them for grain storage.

In Pakistan, wheat yields nearly doubled, from 4.6 million tons in 1965 to 7.3 million tons in 1970; Pakistan was self-sufficient in wheat production by 1968. Yields were over 21 million tons by 2000. In India, yields increased from 12.3 million tons in 1965 to 20.1 million tons in 1970. By 1974, India was self-sufficient in the production of all cereals. By 2000, India was harvesting a record 76.4 million tons of wheat. Since the 1960s, food production in both nations has increased faster than the rate of population growth. Paul Waggoner, of the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, calculates that India's use of high-yield farming has prevented 100 million acres (400,000 km²) of virgin land from being converted into farmland—an area about the size of California, or 13.6 percent of the total area of India.[15] The use of these wheat varieties has also had a substantial effect on production in six Latin American countries, six countries in the Near and Middle East, and several others in Africa.

Norman Borlaug

A billion people, or more, are alive today because Borlaug didn't listen to the chemicalphobes and other assorted elitists and moved forward with his genetic modifications. Now, tell us all about your understanding of those "obviously, much higher costs."