GMO Myths and Truths

3.5 Myth: No one has ever been made ill by a GM food
Truth: There is no scientific evidence to support this claim
GM proponents claim that people have been
eating GM foods in the United States for
16 years without ill effects. But this is an
anecdotal, scientifically untenable assertion, as
no epidemiological studies to look at GM food
effects on the general population have ever been
conducted.
Furthermore, there are signs that all is not
well with the US food supply. Reports show that
food-related illnesses increased two- to ten-fold
in the years between 1994 (just before GM food
was commercialized) and 1999. 66,67 No one knows
if there is a link with GM foods because they are
not labelled in the US and consumers are not
monitored for health effects.
Under the conditions existing in the US, any
health effects from a GM food would have to meet
very specific and unusual conditions before they
would be noticed. They would have to:
● Occur soon after eating a food that was known
to be GM – in spite of its not being labelled –
so that the consumer could establish a causal
correlation between consumption and the
harmful effect. Increases in diseases like cancer,
which has a long latency period, would not be
traceable to a GM food.
● Cause symptoms that are different from
common diseases. If GM foods caused a rise
in common diseases like allergies or cancer,
nobody would know what caused the rise.
● Be dramatic and obvious to the naked eye
or to the consumer of the GMO. No one
examines a person’s body tissues with a
microscope for harm after they eat a GM food.
But just this type of examination is needed to
give early warning of problems such as precancerous
changes.
In addition, health effects would have to be
recorded and reported by a centralized body that
the public knew about and that could collate data
as it came in and identify correlations. Currently,
there is no such monitoring body in place
anywhere.
Moderate or slow-onset health effects of GM
foods could take decades to become apparent
through epidemiological studies, just as it took
decades for the damaging effects of trans fats
(another type of artificial food) to be recognised.
Slow-poison effects from trans fats have caused
millions of premature deaths across the world. 68 To
detect important but subtle effects on health, or
effects that take time to appear (chronic effects),
long-term controlled studies on large populations
would be needed.
3.5.1. Two outbreaks of illness linked
to GM foods
Two high-profile cases have emerged in which
a GM food was suspected of causing illness in
people. In both cases, industry and regulators
denied that genetic engineering was the cause,
but an examination of the evidence gives no such
reassurance.
L-tryptophan
In 1989 in the US, a food supplement,
L-tryptophan, produced using GM bacteria,
was found to be toxic, killing 37 people and
permanently disabling over 1500 others. 69,70,71
The resulting disease was named eosinophilia
myalgia syndrome (EMS). Symptoms included
an overproduction of white blood cells called
eosinophils, severe myalgia (muscle pain), and in
some cases, paralysis.
The L-tryptophan that affected people
was traced back to a single source, a Japanese
company called Showa Denko. In July 1990, a
study published in the Journal of the American
Medical Association mentioned that Showa Denko
had introduced a new genetically engineered
bacterium, called Strain V, in December 1988, a
few months before the main epidemic hit. 71
There is an ongoing debate about whether the
toxin’s presence in the L-tryptophan was due to
genetic engineering or to Showa Denko’s sloppy
manufacturing processes. The company had made
changes to its carbon filtration purification process
before the toxic contaminant was discovered.
GMO Myths and Truths 48