MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT
A site that specializes in natural health, Mercola.com, contends that Monsanto may be poisoning us with each ear of corn we eat.
According to the charges,
A new generation of insect larvae is eating the roots of genetically engineered corn intended to be resistant to such pests. The failure of Monsanto's genetically modified Bt corn could be the most serious threat ever to a genetically modified crop in the US.
The flaws of Monsanto's multi-billion dollar Round-up pesticide, which resulted in the natural development of new round-up resistant weeds has been known for some time, but now the development of destructive insects resistant to an array of Monsanto GMO crops is a rapidly developing story.
NPR, at the end of last year, ran a long story on how the failure of the Monsanto strategy with GMO corn and pesticides (except for the billions of dollars in profits for Monsanto) is leading to a race to create new pesticides and GMO seeds which might likely lead to the development of more resistant crop killing insects and weeds.
One of the insect killing genes built into a strain of Monsanto GMO corn is Bt. The commentary on Mercola.com claims:
Last year, doctors at Sherbrooke University Hospital in Quebec found Bt-toxin in the blood of:
93 percent of pregnant women tested
80 percent of umbilical blood in their babies, and
67 percent of non-pregnant women
The study authors speculate that the Bt toxin was likely consumed in the normal diet of the Canadian middle class—which makes sense when you consider that genetically engineered corn is present in the vast majority of all processed foods and drinks in the form of high fructose corn syrup. They also suggest that the toxin may have come from eating meat from animals fed Bt corn, which most livestock raised in confined animal feeding operations (CAFO, or so-called "factory farms") are.
These shocking results raise the frightening possibility that eating Bt corn might actually turn your intestinal flora into a sort of "living pesticide factory"… essentially manufacturing Bt-toxin from within your digestive system on a continuing basis.
If this hypothesis is correct, is it then also possible that the Bt-toxin might damage the integrity of your digestive tract in the same way it damages insects? Remember, the toxin actually ruptures the stomach of insects, causing them to die.
Monsanto, of course, denies that any GMO seed or pesticide results in toxic harm to consumers. But when eating an ear of Monsanto GMO corn, it is worth asking, "Am I consuming carcinogens and other genetically inserted chemicals that can seriously harm my health?"
According to Mercola.com, Monsanto Bt GMO corn accounts for 65% of the crop grown in the US.