Tag Archives: GM products

Who Knew? Weed Killer Roundup Found in GM Foods

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A highly influential organization of pediatricians is facing blowback over advice it published earlier this year urging parents to avoid foods with ingredients from genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Guidelines from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) are a go-to source for practicing pediatricians and for some parents. But critics say the advice ignores a wide body of evidence supporting GMOs’ safety. They add that AAP is raising unfounded fears that will drive parents to assume they must buy only organic products, which by definition are not genetically engineered—an option that’s financially out of reach for many families…

The guidelines, published in Pediatrics in January in 2024, were accompanied by a parent newsletter that included “tips for limiting GMOs on your family plate” and referred to “news stories [that] may shrug off the dangers of GMOs.” The Pediatrics paper, whose senior author is Boston College pediatrician and epidemiologist Philip Landrigan, cautioned about potential health harms, especially to infants and children, of residues in food from the weed killer glyphosate, which is widely used on genetically engineered crops.

The AAP guidelines had an impact almost immediately; by March 2024, Mexico was citing them in a trade dispute with the United States, which is challenging Mexico’s ban on imports of genetically modified corn grown in the U.S. But the Pediatrics paper did not mention that regulators in the U.S. and Europe have judged glyphosate at the levels currently found in food to be safe….

The AAP report authors focus on glyphosate, sold commercially by Bayer as Roundup, because its use has exploded in recent decades: Ninety percent of the corn and 96% of the soybeans planted in the U.S. this year were genetically modified, much of it to be resistant to destruction by glyphosate, which instead kills all the weeds around the crops. The herbicide is often sprayed on genetically modified canola and sugar beets as well. As a result, glyphosate residues are in foods made with ingredients such as high fructose corn syrup, sugar, and canola oil, among them children’s favorites from hot dogs and chicken nuggets to sweetened cereal and potato chips.

The AAP report notes a 2015 finding from an arm of the World Health Organization that glyphosate is “probably carcinogenic to humans.” It also cites one meta-analysis that found an elevated risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma in people with high exposure to glyphosate from years of applying it to crops.

But the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine found no evidence of adverse health effects in humans from genetically engineered foods or from glyphosate residues in them. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration tests foods for glyphosate residues and has rarely found levels exceeding those determined safe for consumption by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Numerous other agencies worldwide have similar positions.

Excerpts from Meredith Wadman, Pediatrics academy accused of ‘fearmongering’ over GMO ingredients in kids’ diets, Science, Sept. 17, 2024

Genetically Modified Crops May Become the Norm: the case of Golden Rice

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Golden Rice is a genetically modified (GM) crop that could help prevent childhood blindness and deaths in the developing world. Ever since Golden Rice first made headlines nearly 20 years ago, it has been a flashpoint in debates over GM crops. Advocates touted it as an example of their potential benefit to humanity, while opponents of transgenic crops criticized it as a risky and unnecessary approach to improve health in the developing world.

Now, Bangladesh appears about to become the first country to approve Golden Rice for planting..Golden Rice was developed in the late 1990s by German plant scientists Ingo Potrykus and Peter Beyer to combat vitamin A deficiency, the leading cause of childhood blindness. Low levels of vitamin A also contribute to deaths from infectious diseases such as measles. Spinach, sweet potato, and other vegetables supply ample amounts of the vitamin, but in some countries, particularly those where rice is a major part of the diet, vitamin A deficiency is still widespread; in Bangladesh it affects about 21% of children.

To create Golden Rice, Potrykus and Beyer collaborated with agrochemical giant Syngenta to equip the plant with beta-carotene genes from maize. They donated their transgenic plants to public-sector agricultural institutes, paving the way for other researchers to breed the Golden Rice genes into varieties that suit local tastes and growing conditions.

The Golden Rice under review in Bangladesh was created at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in Los Baños, Philippines. Researchers bred the beta-carotene genes into a rice variety named dhan 29…Farmers in Bangladesh quickly adopted an eggplant variety engineered to kill certain insect pests after its 2014 introduction, but that crop offered an immediate benefit: Farmers need fewer insecticides. Golden Rice’s health benefits will emerge more slowly,

Excerpts from Erik Stokstad,  After 20 Years, Golden Rice Nears Approval, Science,  Nov. 22, 2019

US Government Lobbying for Biotechnology Industry

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American diplomats lobbied aggressively overseas to promote genetically modified (GM) food crops such as soy beans, an analysis of official cable traffic revealed on Tuesday.  The review of more than 900 diplomatic cables by the campaign group Food and Water Watch showed a carefully crafted campaign to break down resistance to GM products in Europe and other countries, and so help promote the bottom line of big American agricultural businesses.

The cables, which first surfaced with the Wikileaks disclosures two years ago, described a series of separate public relations strategies, unrolled at dozens of press junkets and biotech conferences, aimed at convincing scientists, media, industry, farmers, elected officials and others of the safety and benefits of GM producs…The public relations effort unrolled by the State Department also ventured into legal terrain, accotrding to the report. US officials stationed overseas opposed GM food labelling laws as well as rules blocking the import of GM foods. The report notes that some of the lobbying effort had direct benefits. About 7% of the cables mentioned specific companies, and 6% mentioned Monsanto. “This corporate diplomacy was nearly twice as common as diplomatic efforts on food aid,” the report said….

In some instances, there was little pretence at hiding that resort to pressure – at least within US government circles. In a 2007 cable, released during the earlier Wikileaks disclosures, Craig Stapleton, a friend and former business partner of George Bush, advised Washington to draw up a target list in Europe in response to a move by France to ban a variety of GM Monsanto corn.  “Country team Paris recommends that we calibrate a target retaliation list that causes some pain across the EU since this is a collective responsibility, but that also focuses in part on the worst culprits,” Stapleton wrote at the time.”The list should be measured rather than vicious and must be sustainable over the long term, since we should not expect an early victory. Moving to retaliation will make clear that the current path has real costs to EU interests and could help strengthen European pro-biotech voices,” he wrote.

Excerpts, Suzanne Goldenberg,Diplomatic cables reveal aggressive GM lobbying by US officials, Guardian, May 15, 2013