As long as genetically engineered foods remain largely unregulated and products unlabeled the causes and effects of abnormalities will remain unknown and we the public will remain the new “lab rats.”

In the mid 90s genetically engineered foods were quietly introduced into America’s marketplace. These gene-manipulated foods include soy, corn, potatoes, tomatoes, dairy and animal products. Up to 70 percent of all processed food contains genetically modified ingredients.

Last year the Sierra Club biotech activists asked Kraft, a subsidiary of Phillip Morris and the largest packaged-food company in the USA, to remove all genetically engineered ingredients from its 7,000 food products—including Post Raison Bran Cereal, Oreo cookies and wheat thin crackers. Their request was denied.

Genetic engineering is the process of artificially modifying the genes of a species. DNA is cut and spliced from one species (“a transgene”) that carries the desired trait into another species. For example, chicken genes have been put in apples and fish genes in strawberries. Genetically engineered corn contains a pesticide produced by the bacterium “Bacillus thuringiensis.” Barbara Keeler, an environmental health writer, said in her article titled “ A Nation of Lab Rats” (Sierra, August 2001) “Food regulations in the United States don’t require segregation or labeling of genetically engineered products. But Health Canada, the UN Food Safety Agency, and the United Kingdom’s Ministry of Agriculture have all questioned the safety of certain genetically engineered foods, especially dairy products from cows treated with recombinant bovine growth hormone, or rBGH.

Last year, the European Union declined to approve Monsanto’s Roundup Ready corn for human consumption because of concern about potential allergic reactions. Roundup Ready corn and soybeans are ubiquitous in the U.S. food supply, despite Monsanto’s own study for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) which revealed large differences in nutrients and allergens between its modified and unmodified soybeans.”

A study by Europe’s leading specialists on food sensitivity found health complaints caused by soya (an ingredient associated with genetically modified food) had increased by 50% in 1998. Charles Benbrook, an agricultural consultant in Sandpoint, Idaho said engineering a pesticide on a massive scale into crops like corn is the moral equivalent of loading everyone’s toothpaste with antibiotics. The antibiotic would yield an immediate “benefit” of reduced diseases. However, the disease microbes would quickly develop resistance and provide a toxic boot camp for the development of super pests that reduce the useful lifetime of the pesticide. Instead of burning up the current generation of herbicides in three to five decades we’ll burn them up in five to fifteen years.

Continual replacement of crops and fungicides is possible but only at considerable cost to the farmer, consumer and environment.There are other good reasons not to transfer a DNA gene between species. The transgene does not travel alone. It generally rides in a “truck” of bacterial DNA with unsuspected stowaways. Incorporation into the host DNA is shooting in the dark and can result in unexpected outcomes. Also, we are still learning how things are interconnected and what nature has to teach us. It’s a shame to re-engineer the teacher before we have learned what she knows. Tampering with genes outside of the checks and balances of genetic variability (a rule of God’s laboratory) could result in a catastrophe where a countries entire crop is wiped out. Genetic diversity is nature’s sole insurance policy.

Today a few large agricultural corporations control most of the US crops with a few variety of seeds (most seeds have a limited shelf life), extremely uniform crops and a shallow gene bank. When a crop strain succumbs to drought or disease researchers must return to the more diverse strains for help.

Amazingly, we are about to cancel nature’s sole insurance policy. Genetic engineering is by definition the antithesis of variability—monocultures are being erected upon single, genetically engineered traits.

Joan Dye Gussow, a writer about global food production, said that pollen from genetically engineered corn is so rapidly contaminating all other corn that we may soon have no naturally bred corn in the USA “This is a fist in the eye of God.” While agricultural companies have purchased, stored and patented certain genetic material from old crops they cannot engineer a crop that is resilient under a wide variety of conditions.

Although most industrialized countries require labeling or refuse to import genetically engineered foods or seeds from the U.S. and the World Trade Organizations few of the third world countries have the clout to resist the reconstruction of their food supply.

Monsanto’s transgenic cotton causes the plants to kill their own embryos so no viable seeds will survive for a farmer to replant in the next generation. This means they will forever have to buy new seeds and chemicals from Monsanto. A thousand Indian farmers lay down on their soil to prevent it being seeded by genetically altered cotton. They feared Monsanto would tie them to buying their seed, thereby stealing their history and future. When the farmers persisted in burning down trial crops of transgenic cotton the government banned Monsanto’s “terminator technology.”

If corporate research laboratories are allowed to release a continuing stream of alien genes the fundamental blueprint of the natural world will be changed forever. Chemical spills can be cleaned up, but there is no recalling the replicating genes we have released in the natural world.

Researchers recently discovered that the BT toxin released by corn and other crops into the soil particles is highly resistant to biodegradation and kills 90 percent of the beneficial soil organisms.The most compelling argument against genetically altered food is that there are no long term studies of the human and environmental impact. Without segregation of genetically engineered products and post-market monitoring, the long-term impacts on human health are impossible to monitor. The FDA has already warned of genetic engineering’s potential impact on antibiotics resistance, naturally occurring allergens, and healthy human cells. The FDA warns of decreased effectiveness of antibiotic-resistant marker genes incorporated into genetically modified organisms and their enzyme products. Concerning allergens the FDA said, “many plants naturally produce a variety of compounds that are toxic to humans or alter food quality. Combining plant and animal species in genetic engineering may produce new and higher levels of toxins.” The FDA also said that genetic engineering could transfer new and unidentified proteins from one food into another, triggering allergic reactions. In spite of these warnings the FDA and other government agencies have largely abdicated their oversight responsibilities and let biotech companies police themselves.

Corporate money funds most of the research and education of genetically altered food. The biotech scientists are for the most part forbidden to disclose their test results because of secrecy clauses in their contracts. Arpad Pusztai, a research scientist at the Rowett Research Institute in Scotland for 36 years, lost his job when he publicly expressed concern about insuffienct food safety testing for all genetically engineered crops. He admitted to an interviewer that he would not eat his own genetically engineered potatoes and that he didn’t think it was fair to use people as guinea pigs for an untested new technology. Pusztai’s remarks helped galvanize a growing consumer revolt in Europe that cost the biotech industry dearly.

In response, a well-funded and organized biotech hype machine has emerged to promote biotech food as the solution to world hunger and squelch concerns about its safety. Groups like the U.S. –based Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), the industry’s main trade and lobby group, are trying to prevent a similar consumer revolt from happening in the United States.

Through sponsorship of scientific research in the nation’s universities as well as high-powered lobbying on Capitol Hill, the biotech promoters are doing their best to neutralize critics. Their academic sponsorships channel research away from biotech’s potential negative effects, while their closed-door meetings in Washington ensure that consumers don’t get adequate food testing or labeling, and organic farmers won’t get the regulations they need to keep their crops free from genetic contamination.

Few academics are willing to openly criticize biotechnology for fear of retribution.Many scientists worldwide are opposed to genetically altered crops as it intensifies corporate monopoly, exacerbates inequality and prevents sustainable agriculture. They are calling for a ban on patents of life-forms and living processes that sanction biopiracy of indigenous knowledge and genetic resources. A survey by ABC News conducted in June 2001 found that 93 percent of the public believes that genetically modified food should be labeled.

As long as genetically engineered foods remain largely unregulated and products unlabeled the causes and effects of abnormalities will remain unknown and we the public will remain the new “lab rats.”