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“She actually said that?” I marvel,
when a gossip magazine at the grocery checkout counter reveals a star’s latest
faux pas. Then I gather my bags and continue my day, forgetting the
insignificant indiscretion. But the headlines I read recently were different.
They weren’t in a gossip magazine,
and they weren’t uttered by a
publicity-seeking celeb. They were in a financial journal, ostensibly more
fact-oriented than a tabloid. The authors—recounting huge financial rewards from
a company’s genetically engineered seeds—declared, “genetically engineered crops
are now viewed as essential, if not crucial.”
Crucial? To whom? By Whom?
I’m a
mom of two adorable boys, and I happen to have a masters degree in public
policy, so I come to the idea of “crucial” from a different street.
“Crucial” from this mama’s perspective would include a lot more research
on the safety of genetically altered food relative to our children. (I’ve seen
NO independent studies stating genetically modified—GM—food is perfectly safe
for our kids…though I have read reports showing
that GM-fed rats are smaller and die much sooner than non-GM-eating rats.)
It seems more than coincident that, since the introduction of GM bovine
growth hormone in 1993, and GM soy three years later, there’s been a crazy
epidemic in autoimmune problems among kids. A 400% increase in asthma; 300%
increase in ADHD; and a whopping 1,500 to 6,000% increase (depending on the
source and definition) in autism. And we haven’t even gotten to the B’s!
Then there’s the explosion of increased food allergies. Today in the
US , about one in fifteen kids under
three has a food allergy. Who had food issues when we were little? Something’s
changed. OK, a lot of things have
changed, but probably the biggest change in terms of foods and our evolutionary
history is the inclusion of GM foods in our diets (our grandparents certainly
weren’t dining on it).
Only here in the US , we don’t actually know which foods are GM,
like folks in many other countries do (even Paraguay
mandated the labeling of genetically modified foods). This is where I put on my
public policy glasses, and see that keeping consumers in the dark may be linked
to the “crucial” impact of GM foods on some company’s balance sheet. Around the
time my second-grader was born, stock in that firm sold for just under twelve
bucks a share. Today you’d have to fork out $120 for a piece of the Purveyor of
All Things Genetically Modified.
And I’ve noted that they spend at least
some of that money paying folks in our government. A surprising number of top
guns at the Defense Department, the Department of Agriculture, the EPA, and even
the Supreme Court have received salaries or donations from that firm or a
subsidiary. It’s not unpredictable then, that many of those government officials
think it’s fine to forego long-term health-impact studies. They don’t seem that
crucial, I guess.
But, as a mom who reads the stats, and watches the
increasing GM acreage coincide with increased sick kids, I know what is crucial
to me. “Crucial” means keeping my kids away
from foods that have been altered genetically. My greatest treasures
are not Guinea Pigs.
Please share this with every woman you know. Women
spend about 94% of the food dollars. We can make changes for our children,
grandchildren, nieces and nephews…Start saying NO to genetically modified
organisms!
If not us, who?
Gratefully, Kelly Corbet
www.SmartFoodsHealthyKids.com
What the UN says
about GMOs.
What the World
Wildlife Fund says about GMOs.
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