Shocking Corruption and Violation of Ethics in Regulatory Work Concerning GM Crops
While several reputed scientists of great integrity have consistently spoken against GM (genetically modified) crops and a lot of evidence regarding their harmful impacts has accumulated, one argument that has been often used to still promote their spread is that after all GM crops have been spread the most widely in the USA, and so there must have been some case for allowing such wide approval. The reality is that the way in which GM crops have been approved in the USA presents an alarming case of collusion between government authorities and very high levels and big corporate interests. Both of them have seen patented, centralized GM crops as a means of increasing control on world farm and food system. Due to this reason and on the basis of this understanding between both sides a system of collusion and mutual support has evolved, leading to government regulators either neglecting their duty of careful scrutiny and regulation, or else they being removed to make room for other more pliable persons in regulation posts.
In this context it is very interesting and very useful to hear what Robert Kennedy, Jr., nephew of former President John Kennedy, has stated very recently in an interview regarding environment and health regulating authorities in the USA. Robert Kennedy Jr. has for long been a senior environmental lawyer who is widely admired for his uncompromising efforts to protect health and environment from the profit driven agenda of very powerful interests. He has stated (interview with Freddie Sayers, May 2023)-“I have spent 40 years litigating against the agencies, the regulating agencies in the US, so that I can tell you that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is effectively run by the oil industry, the coal industry and the pesticide industry. When I was on the trial team that brought the Monsanto cases, and we ended up with a $13 billion settlement after winning three trials, we uncovered that the head of the pesticide division at the EPA was secretly working for Monsanto and was running that agency to promote the mercantile ambitions of that business rather than the public interest. He was killing studies, he was fixing studies, he was ghost writing studies, and that is true throughout the agencies.”
As people’s consciousness about the hazards of GM crops grew, many GM products from the USA were being refused by its trading partners. This alarmed GM giants, and gave them additional reason to push GM crops in important developing countries so that alternative sources for supply of non-GM products, or products not contaminated by GM crops cannot emerge. The crucial thing to understand is that the US Govt. and the big GMO (genetically modified organisms) companies there have established close links so that there are unwritten directives from the highest levels not to deny clearance to GMOs on environment, health and related grounds. Henry Miller, who was formerly in charge of biotechnology at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA, USA) stated, “In this area, the US government agencies have done exactly what big agribusiness has asked them to do and told them to do.” This support given by the governments further greatly increases the power of MNCs to push their hazardous products and technologies in their quest for dominance.
Corruption also enables MNCs to achieve quick results. People wonder why there has been a rapid spread of GM crops in the USA, even though several scientists (in addition to farmers and activists) have opposed GMOs there as well. An idea of the various forces responsible for this can be had from a complaint the US Securities and Exchange Commission had filed in the US courts stating that a leading GMO company had bribed 140 officials between 1997-2000 to obtain environmental clearances for its products. The company admitted this charge and paid a penalty of US $ 1.5 million.
A report by a major US financial risk assessor Innovest has stated, “It is understandable that the US Government has essentially taken the industry position on GE (Genetic Engineering) safety and labeling… US Government support for GE crops appears to stem from the fact that the crops are mostly US-developed and the GE companies have made substantial financial contributions to US politicians and political parties. This is not said as a criticism of politicians, but rather of the campaign finance-system, which allows politicians to accept money from the firms they are supposed to regulate. Money flowing from GE companies to politicians as well as the frequency with which GE company employees take jobs with US regulatory agencies (and vice versa) creates large bias potential and reduces the ability of investors to rely on safety claims made by the US Government. It also helps to clarify why the US Government has not taken a precautionary approach to GE and continues to suppress GE labeling in the face of overwhelming public support for it.”
Eminent scientist Dr. Pushpa Bhargava has written, “According to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Monsanto bribed at least 140 Indonesian officials or their families to get Bt cotton approved without environmental impact assessment. In 2005, the firm paid $ 1.5 million in fine to to the US justice department for the graft. This is one of the many penalties that Monsanto has paid in its country of origin in spite of its close ties with the US government and its various regulatory agencies.”
In the case of a genetically engineered drug to increase milk production, the FDA approved this drug despite being in possession of highly damaging information of its adverse impact on animal and human health. In 1990 The House Committee of the US investigated the issue and charged that the concerned company and the FDA ‘have chosen to suppress and manipulate animal health test data – in efforts to approve commercial use.”
What is even more important is that when scientists spoke against GM crops, their voice was stifled using several unethical ways. Jeffrey Smith reports in the context of the experiences in the USA, the country where GM crops have spread the most, “The FDA (the Food and Drug Administration of the USA) was fully aware that GM crops were meaningfully different. That, in fact, was the overwhelming consensus among the technical experts in the agency. The scientists agreed that genetic engineering leads to “different risks” than traditional breeding and had repeatedly warned their superiors that GM foods might create unpredictable, hard-to-detect side effects.”
The scientists’ concerns were kept secret in 1992, when FDA policy was put into place. But seven years later, internal records were made public due to a lawsuit and the deception came to light. The agency’s newly released 44,000 pages revealed that government scientists’ “references to the unintended negative effects….were progressively deleted from drafts of the policy statement (over the protests of agency scientists.” They further revealed that “the FDA was under orders from the White House to promote GM crops and that Michael Taylor, Monsanto’s former attorney and later its vice president, was brought into the FDA to oversee policy development. With Taylor in charge, the scientists’ warnings were ignored and denied.”
The story of U.K. is no less shocking, adds Smith. In the mid-1990s, the UK government commissioned scientists to develop an assessment protocol for GM crop approvals that would be used in the UK and eventually by the EU. In 1998, three years into the project, the scientists discovered that potatoes engineered to produce a harmless insecticide caused extensive health damage to rats. The pro-GM government immediately cancelled the project, the lead scientist was fired and the research team dismantled.
It is due to the likely use of unfair means to speed up highly hazardous introduction of GMOs that citizens need to be very vigilant on this issue of the greatest importance for food security, livelihoods and environment.
Turning Healthy Food into Disease Causing Food—The Case of GM Corn
In India maize or corn has been traditionally known as a nutritious and tasty food crop grown predominantly on small family farms. It is relished in the form of mainly home baked rotis. In addition corn on cob heated on simmering fire is also a highly enjoyable food, particularly during rainy season. Similarly maize has been cherished in many cultures and countries for hundreds of years as a food of high nutrition and good taste. So it is sad and tragic to see such a food crop being associated now with several diseases.
In a recent article published in Health Epoch and titled ‘Could You be Reacting to Corn?’ author Melissa Dlane Smith has presented extensive evidence of a host of health problems associated with modern industrial ways of producing and processing maize, particularly in the USA. An important way in which corn has changed in recent times in the USA is that most of the corn here is produced as a GM (genetically modified) crop– modified so that it can tolerate, and therefore be sprayed with, high amounts of chemical herbicides and have its own built-in insecticide.
As this article points out, research on animals points to serious health issues, especially liver and kidney toxicity, from eating GM corn. A study published in Environmental Sciences Europe shared results from the first animal trial examining the long-term effects of exposure to Roundup-tolerant GM corn and the complete Roundup herbicide formulation. The study linked varying levels of both GM corn and Roundup to severe liver and kidney damage in male rats and to mammary tumors in female rats. As per the study results mentioned in this article, female rats showed a twofold to threefold increase in mortality, and deaths were earlier. Increased risk of death and earlier deaths was also evident in the groups of male rats that were fed GM corn.
Apart from presenting such studies, Melissa Smith has presented her own experiences as a health consultant. She writes—“ I had a client who suffered from multi-system symptoms and had been diagnosed with Eosinophilia-Myalgia Syndrome, a systemic immune condition characterized by high levels of eosinophils, a type of white blood cells that are more prone to inflammation. I recommended that she remove GM organisms (GMO) and all corn from her diet, and within just a few months of doing this, her eosinophil counts reached normal levels for the first time in almost 20 years.” She experienced many different health improvements, including remarkable improvements in allergies and asthma.”
In a widely discussed article published in Elle magazine titled “The Bad Seed: The Health Risks of Genetically Modified Corn,” writer Caitlin Shetterly described how she had several weird symptoms, including pain radiating throughout her body, rashes, exhaustion, headaches, nausea, and insomnia. An allergist told her he believed she had developed a reaction to GM corn, because changes in the DNA of GM corn can act as allergenic proteins that provoke the overproduction of eosinophils. On doctor’s recommendation when Shetterly removed all corn from her diet, most of her troubling symptoms went away.
There have been many warnings of dangers of GM corn from reputed scientists. When there was a big controversy over GM food crops in India 17 distinguished scientists from various countries had written to the Prime Minister of India Dr. Manmohan Singh,
“It is not a question of if there are disturbances to gene function and biochemistry but to what degree they will be present within any given GM plant. For example, the levels of more than 40 proteins are altered significantly in the commercialized GM MON810 corn compared to equivalent non-GM corn, which included production of a new allergenic protein.
“Numerous animal feeding studies demonstrate negative health impacts of GM feed on kidney, liver, gut, blood cells, blood biochemistry and the immune system.
“Of greatest concern is that studies show negative health effects with GM crops that have already been approved and which have been grown commercially for 10-13 years. This highlights the inadequacy of the original criteria and set of data on the basis of which marketing approval was and is still being granted.
“Animals fed diets containing Bt corn have shown signs of direct toxicity.
“Independent re-evaluation of Monsanto’s own research on their Bt corn crops shows negative health effects even in short-term (90-day) animal feeding studies.’’
Several scientists studying these issues relating to GM crops met at an international conference in Malaysia on ‘Redefining of Life Sciences’ (organized by the Third World Network) and issued the Penang Statement which is very relevant in the context of the issues being discussed here. This statement stated,
“Persons with allergies may have legitimate concerns that with genetic engineering, once-familiar foods may be made allergenic. Furthermore, they will not be able to protect themselves if the foods are not labeled to state that they have been produced from genetically engineered organisms. Allergenic effects could be carried with the transgene or be stimulated by imbalances in the chemistry of the host plant or organism.
“Another problem is that field workers or neighbors may develop allergies to insecticidal transgenic crops. For example, a spider venom expressed in sugarcane might block a metabolic pathway only in insects and not in humans, but humans can nevertheless develop serious allergies to some venoms.
“With genetic engineering, familiar foods could become dangerous or even toxic. Even if the transgene itself is not dangerous or toxic, it could upset complex biochemical network and create new bioactive compounds or change the concentrations of those normally present. In addition, the properties in proteins may change in a new chemical environment because they may fold in new ways.”
Several eminent scientists representing the Independent Science Panel have also warned against the serious threat of contamination by GM crops – “Extensive transgenic contamination has occurred in maize landraces growing in remote regions in Mexico despite an official moratorium that has been in place since 1998. High levels of contamination have since been found in Canada. In a test of 33 samples of certified canola (oilseed rape) seed stocks, 32 were found contaminated. New research shows that transgenic pollen, wind-blown and deposited elsewhere, or fallen directly to the ground, is a major source of transgenic contamination. Contamination is generally acknowledged to be unavoidable, hence there can be no co-existence of transgenic and non-transgenic crops.”
In these circumstances it is very regrettable that the USA authorities have tried to exert pressure on Mexico to purchase GM corn from USA, and the efforts of Mexico to avoid these high-risk imports should get wide support at the international level. The sovereign right of all countries to protect the health of their citizens by banning GM corn and other GM food/feed/crops as well imports of GM foods should be firmly protected and defended.
(Bharat Dogra is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now. He is a prolific writer, journalist and author. His recent books include ‘India’s Quest for Sustainable Farming and Healthy Food’, ‘Man over Machine’ and ‘A Day in 2071’.)
