Editor’s note: This commentary is by Jeffrey Reel, a writer/lecturer living in Lyndon Center, and general manager of Natural Provisions, in St. Johnsbury. He was previously sustainability manager at the Omega Center for Holistic Studies in Rhinebeck, New York.
[V]TDigger reported on a recently released University of Vermont study that concludes that a majority of Vermonters don’t pay attention to GMO labeling on food products. (“UVM study: Consumers are not ‘scared away’ by GMO products”). The article states: “People are just as likely to purchase foods with GMO labels as they are to purchase non-GMO products, according to the study, debunking a theory that warning labels would deter consumers from buying foods with ingredients with genetically modified organisms.”
I fail to see how this debunks the theory. All national polls show overwhelming support for labeling of such foods (and not the watered-down labels cited in the UVM study, the very purpose of which was to lull the consumer to sleep). A study on Vermont residents does not a national study make. I would have to conclude that Vermont, as a “case study,” is the exception and not the rule.
An Associated Press-GfK poll (December 2015) showed that 66 percent of Americans favor requiring food manufacturers to put labels on products that contain genetically modified ingredients. Only 7 percent were opposed to the labeling. The Mellman Group Inc. study of November 2015 showed that 89 percent favored mandatory labels on “foods which have been genetically engineered or containing genetically engineered ingredients be labeled to indicate that.”
The author of the UVM study seems to show some bias in her assessment of the results. She believes consumers won’t be “scared away” from foods containing genetically modified ingredients, as if that was the purpose behind this push for labeling. It’s not about being scared away: It’s about being informed so I and others can make intelligent food choices for ourselves, our friends and our loved ones. Perhaps, as one researcher among many thousands, she feels above those who advocate for strong labeling.
Those industries profiting from the sale of genetically modified foods say that we shouldn’t be concerned about genetically modified foods because it has been shown (to their satisfaction) that these foods are not harmful to human health. But I believe that we cannot gauge the safety of genetically modified foods in the same way we determine the safety of, say, prescription drugs.
I have, for the past 35 years, been watching the scientific and medical communities – without exception – initially underestimate the effects of diet upon our health. Over those years, study after study underestimated the causal relationships between what we consume, and cancer and other degenerative diseases. It required overwhelming anecdotal evidence to push back against those studies – and it always came at the expense of consumers’ health. Today, of course, we acknowledge the intimate connection between diet and many lifestyle illnesses, from Type 2 diabetes, to Crohn’s disease, heart disease, colon cancer, stroke and host of other illnesses.
So, what occurred in those intervening years? The nature of disease hadn’t changed: the nature of the inquiry did.
And so it must again today.
The unintended side effects of FDA-approved drugs become evident after only days, weeks – at most, months – of a drug’s approval. The anecdotal evidence mounts as millions of Americans consume the product and present symptoms, forcing the FDA to reconsider, then eventually remove these products from the shelf. But many of the effects of GMOs in our food supply will become known only after years of consuming them, and will become evident with the irreversible genetic and health complications in newborns going forward. And, unlike other drugs, this will not be a “product” that we will be able to recall.
How common is it for products approved and marketed to be recalled? Pharmaceutical Online is a website. It is not in the business of selling anything; it does not stand to profit from the sale of genetically modified foods. It is the sourcing site for the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry. On its website, it acknowledges the following: “Biological products [and that is exactly what a bioengineered food is] have definite risks, as they are often only partially understood at the time of approval.” So, the industry acknowledges the inherent risks that remain in products, even after they’ve been approved and marketed. Trial and error continues after approval, but this is a risk we cannot afford when it comes to the consumption of bioengineered foods.
A case in point
Over the past few years, it has been discovered that epigenetic mechanisms – or external modifications to our DNA – can be induced by the environment and lead to long-term changes in gene expression. But we are only just now beginning to understand exactly what those environmental influences are. A recent study in the peer-reviewed Frontiers In Genetics suggests that even maternal nutrition induces these modifications, sometimes permanently.
In layman’s terms: The placenta is not the impenetrable barrier we once believed it to be, and our genes are not the immutable building blocks we once believed them to be. The dietary choices of the mother has been found to actually alter gene expression in the fetus, which in turn leads to physical and biologic changes in the fetus … for life … and going forward as that offspring, in turn, reproduces future generations.
So – at the very least – we need to proceed with an abundance of caution. This is new and unexplored territory. We have to raise the bar on evaluating the safety of bioengineered foods because, unlike all other products previously evaluated by the FDA, these products carry the potential of causing irreversible genetic damage to our offspring and future generations.
Allowing unfettered use of genetically modified ingredients in our foods would be unprecedented, and could have irreversible consequences. We need, at the very least, the choice to avoid consuming these foods, and we can only do that by knowing which foods have been altered in this way.
A 2013 poll by The New York Times showed that 93 percent of Americans favored labeling of genetically modified foods. These national polls consistently show a super-majority of Americans favor labeling: virtually everyone. With that kind of a public mandate, whose interests are being represented and protected with a study of this nature?
