GM Foods and Fertility
By Hwaa Irfan
Do you eat soy products, corn, canola, cottonseed, (used in some vegetable cooking oils), sugar from sugar beets, Hawaiian papaya, and/or some varieties of zucchini/courgettes?
Do you know under what conditions that food was grown? Genetically modified foods became a part of U.S. agriculture in 1996, and the above produce are genetically modified, GM, if grown in the U.S.
In an interview by Dr. Joseph Mercola with Jeffrey Smith mention was made of a two-year study under the Institute of Ecology and Evolution of the Russian Academy of Sciences was carried out by biologist, Dr Alexey Surov is to be published this summer. The study involved the feeding of hamsters (three generations) on Genetically Modified soy with a focus on the impact on their reproductive system. The soybean plant had a bacteria implanted into it, after it was sprayed with the agricultural giant Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide, which prevents plant death. The treatment of this soybean plant represents 91% of the U.S. soybean crop in terms of treatment.
There were four groups of hamsters:
– Group One was fed with their normal diet, i.e. soybean free
– Group Two was fed with soybean
– Group Three were fed with GM soybean.
– Group Four were fed with higher concentration of GM soybean
Five pairs of hamsters were taken from each group producing a litter of 140 hamsters. The first generation of hamsters were fine, but from the pairs selected from the 2nd generation, their growth rate was slower than their parents, and they took longer to reach sexual maturity. Fertility issues became noticeable between the 2nd and 3rd generations.
From the 2nd generation of hamsters on a diet of GM soy, there were 40 pups of which 25% died, whereas the number was 52 from those hamsters on a normal hamster diet, and 78 from the hamsters on a diet of normal soy. Of Group Four, all the hamsters lost the ability to reproduce with the exception of one female. The female produced 16 pups, of which ⅕th died. Of the 3rd generation hamsters on GM soy (Group three), many of the animals were sterile.
This year in the media (not mainstream), saw a fluke of reports alarmed at the increasing infant mortality occurring in the U.S. counterbalancing this alarm with the hope that it is not on a First/Third World scale, but so far there is no direct correlation. By looking at birth rates the picture looks bright.
However, when look at infant mortality rates the other side of the picture does not look so bright. The U.S. in fact has an unusually high infant mortality rate for a rich country. In 2005, 6.9 per thousand of children die before they reach the age of 1 compared to Sweden which had 2.3 per 1000. In 2010, CDC reports 6.22 deaths per thousand. On the International level, the U.S. stands at 177th place, with Cuba, Taiwan, and Anguilla faring better, and Singapore with the best ratings at 2.31 deaths per thousand.
Once again, no direct correlation can be made between GMO foods and declining rates of fertility in humans, but if waiting means human verification, should we wait?
In a study using hamsters and rats, Russian Dr. Irina Ermakova, carried out experiments in 2005 whereby half the babies from mother rats died from GM soy died within 3 weeks. Whereas in the rats, signs of sterility, and infertility showed within the first generation of rats, signs appears within the second – third generation of hamsters. Ermakova wanted to repeated the studies in order to verify the findings, but no financial support was forthcoming. Ermakova was also told not to do anymore studies concerning GMO foods, and her documents were torn up and destroyed. So instead, Ermakova asked her colleagues who were doing studies on GMO foods at the National Academy of Scientific Laboratory in Moscow, and unwittingly, and found a 55% infant mortality rate with those fed GM soy.
Study after study keeps appearing, but nothing seems to seep through at ground level. A multigenerational study by the Austrian Health Ministry. Professor Jurgen Zentekand his team used an approved GM corn, and found after 20 weeks, that the fertility of mice fed on approved GM corn was impaired the likelihood of which increased with each successive generation.
When countries are facing desertification, and being told to grow GM foods, it is like a slap in the face to future generations. Modern farming techniques have not only made the land barren, but now the powers that be want to de-populate the continent. That, of course is not their intention, but only farmers, not agricultural manufacturers, know the hybrid of plants most suitable to the soil, but today far too many people want to take the easy route. In 2002, when Zambia’s President Levy Mwanawasa acted righteously and blocked the GM food aid for 2.5 million starving people, calling it “poison”, it seemed people would rather poison. And so the time when people’s of Africa once understood and recognized neo-colonialism seems to have gone. For the love of money, GM foods have made the manufacturers wealthier, has given them more political control, and in the process their own people lose their fertility, and the countries of Africa and elsewhere is being sold back into slavery.
Am I being a bit too dramatic, but when possible it is advisable to err on the side of caution. After all what does it matter anyway, as societies become increasingly individualistic, and the idea of the common good becomes a relic of sentimentalism. The fact that humans first made it unsustainable to grow crops annually, then engineered chemicals and modern farming techniques to do the task, which only increased harvests initially, to only develop other chemicals and modern farming techniques, without concern for land and fertility, to find that one day in front your eyes, the land is barren, and humanity is too! Al hamdu Lillah, Allah (SWT) is greater and more merciful…
Sources:
CDC National Vital Statistics Report 57: 12. March 18 2009.
CDC Factsheet: Eliminate Disparities in Infant Mortality
http://www.cdc.gov/omhd/amh/factsheets/infant.htm
Brian, J. New Study Links Genetically Engineered Corn to Infertility
http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_15588.cfm
Grady, D. Premature Births Are Fueling Higher Rates of Infant Mortality in U.S., Report Says
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/04/health/04infant.html
Index Mundi United States Infant mortality rate
http://www.indexmundi.com/united_states/infant_mortality_rate.html
Lallanilla, M. U.S. Babies Die at Higher Rate
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/GlobalHealth/story?id=1266515
Michael, M.T. “Africa Bites the Bullet on Genetically Modified Food Aid”
http://www.worldpress.org/Africa/737.cfm
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