Medical Professionals Endorse the California Right to Know GMO Food Initiative

After hearing all of Monsanto and the big food industry companies’ negative campaign against California’s Prop 37 initiative to mandate labeling food that has genetically modified components, I was thrilled to discover that doctors are supporting and endorsing the passage of Prop 37.

But first let’s clarify what we’re talking about when it comes to genetically modified organisms (food) aka GMO.

Understanding Genetically Modified Food

Let’s review basics about genetically modified food. Monsanto, the company that produces the genetically modified seed, controls the patent on these seeds. If a farmer tries to save his own seed like most farmers did in the past, Monsanto slaps huge law suits on him. Monsanto has big bucks to hire expensive lawyers, but the poor farmer does not. So Monsanto has intimidated most farmers who have essentially lost control in the decision making process of running their own farms.

Most of the soy, corn, canola and cotton seed crops spring up from seeds that have been genetically modified so they can be sprayed with Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide and not be killed. That makes it much easier for the farmer. He can spray everything at one time – your potential food and all of the weeds. The weeds die but the corn does not.

And so when you eat those foods, you get the double whammy of ingesting a genetically modified food and ingesting residues of Roundup.

So you think you don’t eat GM food?

Think again. Corn is the basis of the Standard American Diet (SAD). Production corn turns into over 4,000 different products at the manufacturing plants including high fructose corn syrup, corn starch, baking powder, chewing gum, cereals, food coloring, mannitol, and many others. Then food manufacturers utilize corn or corn products in many, many food-like products including soft drinks, salad dressings, catsup, tomato sauce, soups, spices, snack foods, peanut butter, marshmallows, taco shells, corn chips, antibiotics, and aspirin.

Unless you are eating a very clean diet of meats, fresh veggies and fruit, whole grains and nuts and seeds with nothing processed or packaged, you are eating GM corn hidden in food every day. To review a longer list of products made from corn visit this link:

http://www.kycorn.org/documents/cornuses.pdf

And even your very clean diet may contain residues of GM corn and Roundup from the meat you purchase. After all beef feed lots fatten up the beef by feeding the steers corn. Pigs eat corn. Farmed salmon eat corn. None of these animals eat corn in nature, in their natural settings.

So your exposure to GM corn hides in almost every food you eat on a daily basis.

Therein lies the problem. We don’t know we’re eating it. And apparently Monsanto and the big agri-food businesses don’t want us to know it either. Otherwise they wouldn’t be spending so much money trying to keep us deceived.

That’s why I was so thrilled to see that the doctors who are members of the International College of Integrative medicine (ICIM) have endorsed the passage of Prop 37 on the California ballot to label food that contains genetically modified food. This body of advanced thinking medical doctors have great concerns about the safety of GM food and want their patients and families to be able to choose to avoid eating GM food. That’s impossible without proper labeling of the food that contains genetic modification. Remember, these doctors do not all live in California, but they see California as the starting place for proper food labeling.

Other doctors endorse proper food labeling too and advocate passage of prop 37. Here’s an excerpt from them:

“Medical Professionals Endorse the California Right to Know GMO Food Initiative

https://secure3.convio.net/aahf/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=1129

The California Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act is simple: the initiative would require food sold in retail outlets (though not including restaurants) to be labeled if the food was produced using genetic engineering.

Unlike other consumer products and foods, detailed information about the safety of GE foods is not readily available to the public, researchers, universities or even regulators. Most of the research on GE foods is conducted and owned by biotechnology companies, and what little they share consistently claims this infant science is safe.

Several animal studies indicate serious health risks associated with GE food consumption— including infertility, immune system dysregulation; accelerated aging; dysregulation of genes associated with cholesterol synthesis, insulin regulation, cell signaling, and protein formation; and changes in the liver, kidney, and spleen and the gastrointestinal system. Because of the mounting data, it is biologically plausible for genetically engineered foods to cause adverse health effects in humans.(1)

We believe consumers have a fundamental right to know what’s in the food they eat and feed their children—including whether or not that food contains genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

(1) American Academy of Environmental Medicine. “Genetically Modified Foods” position paper. http://aaemonline.org/gmopost.html”