Just Label It! So We Know When It’s GMO

There aren’t a whole lot of comprehensive studies out there on GMOs and the health impact they have on humans because scientists have to ask permission to do them, and because GMOs are patented by two major corporations, Monsanto and Syngenta. These patents make it extremely difficult to gain access to the information needed to study how GMOs affect human health. That said, here’s a sampling of what has been published about GMOs:

So far, there’s only been one published study on how GMO ingredients affect us when we eat them. It was in the journal Nature Biotechnology, and it found that after we eat GMO soy, some of the GMO genes are transferred to the microflora of our intestines and those GMO genes are still active.

Another study, published in Reproductive Toxicology, found Bt-toxin (used in genetically modified Bt corn) in the blood of 93 percent of the pregnant women studied and their babies. The study authors suggest that aside from eating products made from GMO crops, eating meat from animals fed GMO crops may lead to a “a high risk of exposure.”

Finally, an Italian study published in The Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry found that in young and older mice fed Bt corn, there were changes to their immune systems that corresponded with allergic and inflammatory responses. In humans these same inflammatory changes are associated with arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease, allergies, and autoimmune diseases.

So here are three studies: One reports that GMOs survive in our bodies—they aren’t killed in the stomach, as some have suggested, but travel to the intestine where they remain active in the body. Another study reports that we are exposed to these GMOs, not only from the GMO foods themselves, but also from eating animals that eat GMO foods. And finally, animal studies reveal that these GMOs may be linked to disease.

So I say, Just Label It!