Lies, Damn Lies, and GM foods?
GMOs and Health Statistics
"There
is no doubt that there is potential for harm, both in terms of
human safety and in the diversity of our environment, from GM
foods and crops"
Tony Blair, UK Prime
Minister, Independent on Sunday, 27 February 2000
22 April 2002
Below is an interesting item from the Independent. Whilst there is no suggestion in the article that there is any connection between UK birth defects and the introduction of genetically engineered food in the diet, the consumption of soya is identified as being a possible cause of one of the birth defects - Hypospadias - which is increasing in numbers.
The report refers more generally to a 'huge' increase in birth defects in the last five years.
In the case of incidents of Hypospadias the article does not state to what extent soya consumption in the UK has changed during that period.
However, what we do know is that this five year period does coincide with the introduction of a new type of soya into the food chain - the genetically engineered type.
There may be no correlation at all between these two phenomena, particularly if the proportion of GE beans amongst the overall amount of soya consumed is small in the UK. But who has researched it?
As it happens general food related illnesses in the US (where GM consumption is far greater due particularly to lack of crop segregation and labelling) have sky rocketed over a similar period but the cause(s) is not known ( http://www.i-sis.org.uk/FoodborneIllnesses.php ). Despite the importance of the subject there does not appear to have been any research carried out to see if there is a correlation with GM food consumption.
When any 'scientist' says there is no evidence of adverse health effects from GMOs after several years use in the food chain ask them which epidemiological studies they are referring to when reaching that conclusion. If there are any such studies we have yet to see them. What we do know, at the very least, is that the arrival of GE foods has coincided in the US with a massive increase in reported food related illness.
Of course in the first five years after they were introduced there was no scientific evidence that cigarettes had any long term damaging health effects either. But then who wanted to find out? Certainly not the manufacturers. We now know better only decades later despite constant denials by the manufacturers in the intervening period. Why should GM companies be any different? Meanwhile what is causing the current massive increase in these birth defects and food illnesses that have arisen over the last few years in the UK and the US? Amongst other things the report below suggests diet as a possible cause in the case of the UK. However, it's pretty clear nobody knows.
The other suspects referred to are pollution and drug use, but has exposure to these really changed in the same way as in relation to GE food over this period? Few independent scientists are likely to want to touch this area in case they get the Pusztai treatment, and in any case who would give them the money to do it?
The Pusztai affair demonstrated that the Government is reluctant to fund research whose results may turn out to be damaging to the GM industry (in Pusztai's case they refused to fund the redoing of his trial even though this was called for by the Royal Society, despite the fact that the Government had funded the original work in the first place).
Having explicitly acknowledged that there are risks as far back as February 2000, the British Prime Minister has called for a scientific debate about the impact of GM foods on health. But as the additional quotation from Time Magazine below reveals, when it comes to modern science's understanding of the relationship between food and health a large chunk is left to guess work.
NATURAL
LAW PARTY WESSEX
nlpwessex@bigfoot.com
www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex
"Recently, however, the
scientists seem to have gone mad. Hardly a week goes by without
some expert somewhere issuing a new report declaring that a
particular food or vitamin or activity or condition will either
restore your cardiovascular health or ruin it--and as often as not, the new advice seems
to contradict the old.....[ for
example] Margarine can be just as harmful as butter, if not
worse..... 'The impression being given,' admits Dr. Irwin
Rosenberg, dean of nutrition sciences at Tufts University School
of Nutrition, Science and Policy, 'is that nutrition science
doesn't know what it's doing.'... ".
'Forget what you know about eggs,
margarine and salt.
The conventional wisdom has been overturned--repeatedly--by
surprising new research'
Time
Magazine
JULY 19, 1999 VOL. 154 NO. 3
Question: How much
do you scientists really know about food and health? Ans: We get
it wrong all the time.
Conclusion: Then
please don't mess with the fundamentals of food on our behalf -
you don't have the competence. Thank you.
"The basic
rhetoric is dangerous. When we say things about genetic
engineering being no different from traditional breeding, it
makes the public and the scientific community doubt that the
people who are dealing with it know how to deal with it. It's
really clear to me, as a university scientist, when I talk with
genetic engineers, when I talk with molecular biologists, they
cannot talk knowledgeably about the risks. That's not part of
their training. Their textbooks tell them how to build
these things; but they don't have chapters about safety that are
meaningful. They're very, very thin. So there's nothing in their
training, there's nothing in their public comments, and there's
nothing in their conversation that suggests that there's a
community of people being built out there who are well prepared
to deal with these risks. And, so, it's part of their culture, I
suppose you might say, to try to minimize an impression that
there are risks, and they've talked themselves into that."
Dr Philip Regal, Professor of
Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior at the
University of Minnesota
The number of babies born with certain types of abnormalities has increased by up to 50 per cent in five years, research by a medical charity has found.
The Birth Defects Foundation (BDF) calculates that 45,000 babies are born each year with defects ranging from spina bifida – an abnormality of the spine – to prominent birthmarks or minor malformations of the hands or feet.
The total is six times higher than the Government's own figures for neonatal abnormalities and amounts to one in 16 of all births. However, the Office of National Statistics admits its own figures do not reflect the scale of the problem.
No clear explanation for the phenomenon has emerged but the use of recreational drugs by young mothers and an increase in oestrogen-like substances in the diet are possible factors.
While some types of abnormalities are declining, the charity's figures reveal a sharp rise in three specific defects – cleft lip or palate, gastroschisis (abnormality of the abdominal wall) and hypospadias (abnormality of the genitals).
The BDF will launch a campaign today to alert mothers to a five-point plan to increase the chances of having a healthy baby by taking account of their family medical history, taking folic acid supplements, reducing alcohol, stopping smoking and eating a balanced diet.
Sheila Brown, chief executive of the BDF, said: "The first question asked by any new mother is: 'Is my baby OK?' If the answer is no it is a dreadful shock. A defect does not just affect the baby – it is for life."
Professor Michael Patton, BDF medical director and head of medical genetics at St George's Hospital, Tooting, said the figure of one in 16 babies born with a defect was "frequently used in genetic circles". Research for the BDF showed the incidence of cleft lip or palate, requiring several operations to repair, had risen from 5.9 cases per 10,000 births in 1995 to 9.2 cases in 1999.
Hypospadias, a condition affecting boys in which the opening of the penis is situated on the underside of the shaft, had risen from 7.5 to 8.5 cases. In severe cases, the opening is situated so far back there is doubt about the gender of the child.
Professor Patton said: "Some substances in the diet, such as soya, contain phyto- oestrogens which it has been suggested could have a feminising effect on males."
The feminising effect of environmental pollutants was further highlighted yesterday in the Independent on Sunday, which reported on how fish in British rivers are developing female characteristics.
Gastroschisis, a weakness in the abdominal wall that leaves the baby with its intestines protruding at birth, had risen from 1.3 to 1.9 cases. The condition has been rising in both the US and the UK and is five times more common in teenage mothers than other age groups.
Professor Patton said: "One idea has been that perhaps it is the use of recreational drugs by teenage mothers that is behind this rise.
"I believe that the majority of malformations are not caused by the environment but are dependent on genetic factors. Where we see fluctuations there may be an environmental factor."
He said the "great success story" had been with spina bifida. By noting the trends and relating them to diet, the link with folic acid had been discovered, which was now given to all pregnant women. The incidence of the condition has been reduced by 60 per cent.
Figures collected by the Office for National Statistics show there were 7,284 children born in 2000 notified to the National Congenital Anomaly System. Planning for schools, hospitals and other services was based on official figures but these "seriously underestimated the true position," the BDF said.
The system was set up in the wake of the thalidomide scandal in the 1960s to serve as an early-warning system for environmental causes of birth defects. Thalidomide, an anti-nausea drug for pregnant women, was prescribed to thousands of mothers-to-be before it was identified as a cause of limb defects.
Ms Brown, of the BDF, said the Office for National Statistics relied on voluntary reporting by doctors and midwives of defects recognised at birth.
Many defects were not reported and others did not become apparent until the child was older. "Doctors are dealing every day with these conditions, yet the way they are counting them is irrevocably flawed," she said.
A spokesman for the statistics office said: "It has long been recognised that there is under-reporting. Efforts are being made to improve the system."
"Ben Miflin, former
director of the Institute of Arable Crops at Rothamsted, near
London, who is a proponent of the potential benefits of genetic
modification of crops.... argues that, under current monitoring
conditions, any unanticipated health impact of such foods would
need to be a 'monumental disaster' to be detectable."
Nature, Volume 398:651, April 22, 1999
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