Isbel Diaz Torres
HAVANA TIMES — After having shed some light on some of the controversy that surrounds GMO investigations in the first part of this post, it’s relevant to list some of the risks and real impact that these products have had.
In April 2009, for the very first time, the US Academy of Environmental Medicine warned its members and the general public that GMOs were a danger to human health.
According to the same non-profit medical society, “there is more than a casual association between GM foods and adverse health effects in the areas of strength of association, consistency, specificity, biological gradient, and biological plausibility.”
Among these adverse effects, which have been confirmed through various animal studies carried out in Scotland, France, the US, Austria and other countries, “serious risks” include:
In 2009, the Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition magazine published a summary of every scientific study published on the effects of foods derived from GM crops on human health. The authors of this summary concluded that «the results […] show that they may cause some common toxic effects such as hepatic, pancreatic, renal, or reproductive effects and may alter the hematological, biochemical, and immunologic parameters.»
However, way before this, back in 2002, Newcastle University was already carrying out the first experiments on human-beings, showing that just after one meal; GM material had been absorbed by bacteria in the intestine. Contrary to what corporate and private science says, GM material cannot be eliminated through the human digestive tract.
There have been other public experiments that have revealed the unwanted effects and harm of GM foods on humans:
The unforeseen genetic changes in GMOs are extremely frequent, not only altering their own modified gene sequence, but also other genes found in organisms which ingest them, which can result in deformations, infertility or triggering allergies.
The World Health Organization (WHO) calls for us to be careful with GM foods. In 2005, a report entitled “Modern food biotechnology, human health and development: an evidence-based study” was issued which claimed that:
“The use of GMOs may also involve potential risks for human health and development. Many genes used in GMOs have not been in the food supply before […] in many cases it leads to random insertion in the host genome, and consequently may have unintended developmental or physiological effects […] Introduction of a transgene into a recipient organism is not a precisely controlled process, and can result in a variety of outcomes with regard to integration, expression and stability of the transgene in the host.”
This is why it’s a cause for great concern that Cuba, without any laws that protect its consumers, without a society ready to stand up to these kinds of processes, without transparent financial operations, without independent studies in the public health sector; is not only already willing to feed its people GM foods (something which it has been doing for decades now), but is also willing to produce them and extend their cultivation in the country’s farmlands.
In my third and last post on this subject, I will take a little look at the kind of reactions GM food have provoked the world over, as well as the exact opposite which has happened here in Cuba.
The Alhucema Solidarity Initiatives Association based in Seville, Spain also sends medical supplies to Cuba.
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