I cannot comment about the meeting itself since I did not attend, but Nilson glosses over the important parts and misses entirely the reasons why people are concerned about the safety of engineered food.
There are many promising developments in genetic engineering in agriculture, but none of them comes close to the success of RoundUp-Ready technology. Starting in 1996 with the first two engineered crops, corn and soybean engineered to survive being doused with the herbicide RoundUp, the spread of the technology has been nothing but revolutionary.
This is seen as high-tech agriculture - a gene revolution that makes weed management simpler, safer and most of all cheaper. In 2014, we have a total of 500 million acres of engineered crops, and more than 90 per cent of them are doused liberally with close to two billion pounds of this herbicide. Too much of that finds its way into our food.
Farmers everywhere have been assured complete safety, higher yields and savings of herbicide.
My concern is not so much about genetic pollution as it is about chemical pollution, not that genetic pollution should not be of concern. The technology is essentially about spraying a weed killer on the crops.
Since almost all engineered foods come from crops sprayed with RoundUp, they all contain chemical residues of it. Many crops that are not engineered are also sprayed with this herbicide, but much later in the season, as a dessicant. This is commonly done with beans and pulse crops, grains and potatoes, in Canada, and sugar cane and other crops elsewhere. The crops are sprayed at harvest time to kill and dry the plants and make harvesting easier and cheaper.
Glyphosate, the active ingredient of the RoundUp herbicide was first manufactured and patented in 1964 as a broad spectrum descaling agent - a chemical to remove mineral deposits (scales) in industrial pipes and boilers. A descaling agent is a chelator in biology lingo.
A chelator grabs and holds minerals, which is good for an industrial boiler, but makes those minerals bio-unavailable, which is very bad for life.
Any food ingredient containing even a small residue of this chemical is by definition depleted of mineral nutrients.
Glyphosate was soon discovered to kill weeds and bacteria and was also patented as a broad-spectrum herbicide and a broad-spectrum antibiotic.
This is a powerful chelator that binds a wide spectrum of minerals, many of them essential to basic biochemical pathways of all living cells - bacteria and plants are killed by the chelating function of glyphosate. The molecule binds to manganese ions a lot more strongly than proteins can, and a crucial enzyme is impaired in a pathway that makes amino acids, the building blocks of proteins.
No protein synthesis means cells decline and die promptly. This is an amazingly broad-spectrum chemical that can be toxic to so many life forms, basically any protein enzyme of any living organism can be affected by this chelator.
Let's call it by its real name, glyphosate is a biocide.
Minerals are absolutely essential micronutrients that we must obtain from our food. Every enzyme molecule requires a metal atom in the centre of the protein to function - like hemoglobin requires iron.
Chemistry dictates that one molecule of glyphosate will impair the function of at least one protein enzyme molecule. Science shows that when the metal ions are not available, the protein molecules cannot function, the cells malfunction, the organs slow down and show disease symptoms.
Any food ingredient containing even a small residue of this chemical is by definition depleted of mineral nutrients. Recent studies have shown that glyphosate has become a major pollutant in our food, our water and in our bodies.
Glyphosate kills bacteria like it kills plants. It is patented as a broad-spectrum antibiotic, and I am sure you can imagine that a daily diet of antibiotic in your food is not a good idea. The comparison to industrial cattle and poultry farming is too obvious.
There is considerable anecdotal evidence that our microbiome is damaged by such a diet. Multiple surveys have repeatedly shown that over 90 per cent of people in the U.S. and Canada are concerned about the safety of engineered foods. The rest of the world (64 countries at the last count) bans or regulates them and the herbicide after scientists showed its toxicity to human cells and laboratory animals.
And what about dissent, Ms. Nilson?
Patents are public documents that can be easily accessed, leaving little room for debate about the safety of glyphosate. How we have let this state of affairs happen is the next question. Sometimes I wonder if we are all sleep walking through this, the psychopaths and the sheeple.
The truth shall upset you free.
Dr. Thierry Vrain,
Comment: The author states, "There is considerable anecdotal evidence that our microbiome is damaged by such a diet." Read the following article for more evidence.
Are you inflamed over GMO foods?