Some of the world’s most powerful figures tout the benefits of GMOs, writes Stacy Malkan, but what’s the real story? Facts on the ground expose the PR spin, half truths and outright propaganda that has come to dominate a public conversation that is not so much about engineering genes, but engineering truth for the benefit of multinational corporations.<\/p>\n
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The food industry’s fight to stop Vermont from labeling genetically engineered foods is\u00a0heading to the floor\u00a0of the US Senate.\u00a0And the spotlight on labeling is underscoring the need for our country to have a more honest conversation about GMOs.\u00a0Two recent videos illuminate the deep divide between the stories we hear from opponents and proponents of the controversial food technology.<\/p>\n
In the\u00a0first video, the\u00a0Wall Street Journal<\/em>‘s Rebecca Blumenstein interviewed Bill Gates about his views on the topic. Gates explained:<\/p>\n “What are called GMOs are done by changing the genes of the plant, and it’s done in a way where there’s a very thorough safety procedure, and it’s pretty incredible because it reduces the amount of pesticide you need, raises productivity (and) can help with malnutrition by getting vitamin fortification.<\/em><\/p>\n “And so I think, for Africa, this is going to make a huge difference, particularly as they face climate change…”<\/em><\/p>\n Blumenstein asked,\u00a0“Do you think there’s a certain naivet\u00e9 that, without that, it could be done anyway? I mean you’ve seen the results on the ground of conventional (breeding).”<\/em><\/p>\n Gates responded:\u00a0“Well, the Africans it’s up in the air, and Kenya just approved a Bt (genetically engineered) maize. The Europeans have decided they don’t want to use it, most of them, which is fine. They’re not facing malnutrition and starvation. If they want to pay a premium for food of a (certain) kind, it’s not a huge deal.<\/em><\/p>\n “The US, China, Brazil, are using these things and if you want farmers in Africa to improve nutrition and be competitive on the world market, you know, as long as the right safety things are done, that’s really beneficial. It’s kind of a second round of the green revolution. And so the Africans I think will choose to let their people have enough to eat.”<\/em><\/p>\n If Bill Gates is right, that’s great news. That would mean the key to solving world hunger is to lower the barriers for biotechnology companies to get their climate-adaptable, enhanced-nutrient genetically engineered crops to market.<\/p>\n Another perspective<\/strong><\/p>\n The second video, a\u00a0short film\u00a0by the Center for Food Safety, tells a very different story. It describes how the state of Hawaii, which hosts more open-air fields of experimental GMO crops than any other state, has become contaminated with high volumes of toxic pesticides, in large part because Hawaii is the top testing ground for new genetically engineered crops.<\/p>\n The video and\u00a0report\u00a0explain that five multinational agrichemical companies run 97% of GE field tests on Hawaii, and the large majority of the crops are engineered to survive the spraying of herbicides. Many of these crops are also routinely treated with fungicides and insecticides.<\/p>\n According to the video:\u00a0“With so many GE field tests in such a small state, many people in Hawaii live, work and go to school near intensively sprayed test sites. Pesticides often drift so it’s no wonder that children and school and entire communities are getting sick. To make matters even worse, in most cases, these companies are not even required to disclose what they’re spraying.”<\/em><\/p>\n If the Center for Food Safety is right, that’s a big problem. But both these stories can’t be right at the same time, can they?<\/p>\n Facts on the ground<\/strong><\/p>\n Following the thread of the Gates’ narrative, one would expect the agricultural fields of Hawaii – the leading testing grounds for biotechnology crops – to be bustling with low-pesticide, climate-resilient, vitamin-enhanced crops.<\/p>\n Instead, the large majority of GMO crops being grown on Hawaii and\u00a0in the US\u00a0are herbicide-tolerant crops designed to withstand spraying of the herbicide glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup.<\/p>\n Last year, the World Health Organization’s cancer experts\u00a0classified glyphosate\u00a0as“probably carcinogenic to humans”<\/em>. In the 20 years since Monsanto introduced ‘Roundup Ready’ GMO corn and soy, glyphosate use has\u00a0increased 15-fold\u00a0and it is now\u00a0“the most heavily-used agricultural chemical in the history of the world”<\/em>, reported Douglas Main\u00a0inNewsweek<\/em>.<\/p>\n The heavy herbicide use has accelerated\u00a0weed resistance\u00a0on millions of acres of farmland. To deal with this problem, Monsanto is\u00a0rolling out\u00a0new genetically engineered soybeans designed to survive a combination of weed-killing chemicals, glyphosate and dicamba. EPA has\u00a0yet to approve\u00a0the new herbicide mix.<\/p>\n But Dow Chemical just got the green light\u00a0from a federal judge\u00a0for its new weed-killer combo of 2,4D and glyphosate, called Enlist Duo, designed for Dow’s Enlist GMO seeds. EPA tossed aside its own safety data to approve Enlist Duo, reported Patricia Callahan\u00a0in\u00a0Chicago Tribune<\/em>. The agency then reversed course and asked the court to\u00a0vacate its own approval\u00a0– a request the judge denied without giving reason.<\/p>\n All of this raises questions about the claims Bill Gates made in his\u00a0Wall Street Journal<\/em>interview about thorough safety procedures and reduced use of pesticides.<\/p>\n Concerns grow in Hawaii, Argentina, Iowa<\/strong><\/p>\n Instead of bustling with promising new types of resilient adaptive GMO crops, Hawaii is bustling with grassroots efforts to\u00a0protect communities\u00a0from pesticide drift, require chemical companies to\u00a0disclose the pesticides\u00a0they are using, and\u00a0restrict GMO crop-growing\u00a0in areas near schools and nursing homes.<\/p>\n Schools near farms in Kauai have been evacuated due to pesticide drift, and doctors in Hawaii say they are observing increases in birth defects and other illnesses they suspect may be related to pesticides, reported Christopher Pala\u00a0in\u00a0the Guardian<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0The Ecologist<\/em>.<\/p>\n According to the\u00a0American Academy of Pediatrics, prenatal and early-life pesticide exposures are linked to childhood cancers, decreased cognitive function, behavioral problems and adverse birth outcomes, including physical defects.<\/p>\n In Argentina – the world’s third largest producer of GMO crops – doctors are also raising concerns about higher than average rates of cancer and birth defects they suspect are related to pesticides, reported Michael Warren in\u00a0The Associated Press. Warren’s story from 2013 cited evidence of\u00a0“uncontrolled pesticide applications”<\/em>:<\/p>\n “The Associated Press documented dozens of cases around the country where poisons are applied in ways unanticipated by regulatory science or specifically banned by existing law. The spray drifts into schools and homes and settles over water sources; farmworkers mix poisons with no protective gear; villagers store water in pesticide containers that should have been destroyed.”<\/em><\/p>\n In response to the story, Monsanto defended glyphosate as safe and called for more controls to stop the misuse of agricultural chemicals. In\u00a0the follow-up story, Warren reported:<\/p>\n “Argentine doctors interviewed by the AP said their caseloads – not laboratory experiments – show an apparent correlation between the arrival of intensive industrial agriculture and rising rates of cancer and birth defects in rural communities, and they’re calling for broader, longer-term studies to rule out agrochemical exposure as a cause of these and other illnesses.”<\/em><\/p>\n Asked for Monsanto’s position on this, company spokesman Thomas Helscher told the AP in an email of 22nd October 2013 that\u00a0“the absence of reliable data makes it very difficult to establish trends in disease incidence and even more difficult to establish causal relationships. To our knowledge there are no established causal relationships.”<\/em><\/p>\n The absence of reliable data is compounded by the fact that most chemicals are assessed for safety on an individual basis, yet exposures typically involve chemical combinations.<\/p>\n ‘We are breathing, eating, and drinking agrochemicals’<\/strong><\/p>\n A recent\u00a0UCLA study\u00a0found that California regulators are failing to assess the health risks of pesticide mixtures, even though farm communities – including areas near schools, day care centers and parks – are exposed to multiple pesticides, which can have larger-than-anticipated health impacts.<\/p>\n Exposures can also occur by multiple routes. Reporting on health problems and community concerns in Avia Teria, a rural town in Argentina surrounded by soybean fields, Elizabeth Grossman wrote last month\u00a0in\u00a0National Geographic<\/em>:<\/p>\n Because so many pesticides are used in Argentina’s farm towns, the challenges of understanding what may be causing the health problems are considerable, says Nicolas Loyacono, a University of Buenos Aires environmental health scientist and physician.<\/p>\n In these communities, Loyacono says,\u00a0“we are breathing, eating, and drinking agrochemicals.”<\/em><\/p>\n In Iowa, which grows more genetically engineered corn than any other state in the US, water supplies have been polluted by chemical run off from corn and animal farms, reported Richard Manning in the February issue of\u00a0Harper’s<\/em>\u00a0Magazine:<\/p>\n Scientists from the state’s agricultural department and Iowa State University have penciled out and tested a program of such low-tech solutions. If 40% of the cropland claimed by corn were planted with other crops and permanent pasture, the whole litany of problems caused by industrial agriculture – certainly the nitrate pollution of drinking water – would begin to evaporate.<\/p>\n These experiences in three areas that lead the world in GMO crop production are obviously relevant to the question of whether Africa should embrace GMOs as the solution for future food security. So why are they often missing from the conversation?<\/p>\n