Health

Building blocks

Caring for our children’s health starts before they are born. The more nutritious our diet is when we are pregnant the better chance our kids have of developing to their healthiest.

As our kids grow and develop throughout childhood good food is vital to their physical well-being. If we want flourishing families we need healthy food.

Animal lotto?

In one of very few GE feeding studies worldwide, female rats were fed either GE soy, natural soy or no soy in their diets. The experimental diet began two weeks before the rats conceived and continued through pregnancy and nursing.

36% of the pups from GE fed mothers were stunted compared to about 6% from the other groups.

Then the pups started dying. Within three weeks 25 of the 45 rats from GE fed mothers died (55.6%). Only 3 of the 33 rats from non-GE soy fed mothers died (9%) and 3 of 44 pups from non soy fed mothers died (6.8%).

Rolling the dice on health

GE soy

A mother started feeding her one year old daughter soy milk as she had developed an allergy to cow’s milk. Her daughter immediately developed large cold sores.

She was tested and found not to be allergic to soy. Over the next year the sores got worse “There seemed to be three large weeping sores on her face at any one time.”

On the advice of a geneticist friend, the mother reduced her daughter’s soymilk. “I want the government to look into this because I saw the change in my daughter – as soon as she was taken off the GM (GE) milk, her health dramatically improved”.

The child may have reacted to GE soy but not natural soy and the allergy test may have been only to natural soy. Her problems may have been a food intolerance or sensitivity to GE soy rather than an allergy. The cold sores may have been related to a virus activated by the GE soy.

Very few countries maintain detailed statistics on food allergies. However York Nutritional Laboratory in the UK does. In March 1999 its scientists discovered that soy allergies had jumped 50% over the previous year. Soy was now in the top 10 list of allergens. GE soy had recently entered the food chain for the first time and British scientists, using the allergy report, urged their government to place an immediate ban on GE foods.^[1]

Most tested food in history?

In May 1992 the Food and Drug Association (FDA) in the US decided that most of the foods produced by Genetic Engineering (GE) should be regarded and regulated as if they were foods produced by traditional methods.

Unless there are major changes in nutrient composition or specific proteins know to cause allergic reaction, GE foods in the US do not need a pre-market approval process, public notification or testing.

The GE companies themselves decide when and whether to consult with the FDA. The GE companies conduct safety tests on their own products and only notify the FDA if they suspect a problem.^[2]

When Food Standards Australia and New Zealand (FSANZ) is asked by a GE company to approve a GE food here they look at the data supplied by the company itself. FSANZ does none of its own safety testing.

Jeffery M. Smith, Seeds of Deception, Scribe publications, Melbourne, 2004 p159-161
Luke Anderson, Genetic Engineering, Food and our Environment, Scribe Publications, Melbourne, 2000 p113-4