GMO Myths and Truths

poor and hungry in the Global South and focus on
one or two nutrients, such as Vitamin A or iron.
Even if we assume that GM can produce more
crops with high levels of one or two nutrients,
some important topics need to be addressed before
concluding that biofortifying crops by whatever
means is a sensible approach to malnutrition:
Malnourished people are hungry not because of
a lack of biofortified crops, but because they lack
money to buy food and, increasingly, access to land
on which to grow it. This type of poverty is often
due to political conflicts in the country. Another
cause is ill-advised “development” programmes that,
in return for foreign loans and investment, have
forced countries to convert farmland from growing
food for people to eat into growing cash crops for
export. These are political and economic problems
that cannot be solved by offering a biofortified crop,
for which the grower will need to be paid. People
who have no money to buy basic food will certainly
be unable to buy a biofortified food that has taken
millions in investment funds to develop.
Malnourished people are not usually deficient
in just one or two nutrients, but in many. Focusing
on a crop that can deliver one or two nutrients is
unhelpful because a balance of nutrients is needed
for proper absorption. For example, in order to
Conclusion to Section 3
Contrary to frequent claims that there is no
evidence of dangers to health from GM foods and
crops, peer-reviewed studies have found harmful
effects on the health of laboratory and livestock
animals fed GMOs. Effects include toxic and
allergenic effects and altered nutritional value.
Most animal feeding studies on GMOs have
only been medium-term in length (30–90 days).
While GM proponents claim that the observed
harmful effects on health are not “biologically
relevant” or “adverse”, such claims are scientifically
unjustifiable; these terms have not even been
properly defined.
What is needed are long-term and multigenerational
studies on GMOs to see if the changes
found in medium-term studies, which are suggestive
of harmful health effects, will develop into serious
absorb vitamin A, people need to have enough
fat in their diet. This problem would need to be
addressed before they could benefit from vitamin
A-enriched food.
Manipulating nutrients in food is controversial
because it can be viewed as medicating food.
Dosage is difficult to control and certain nutrients
may be needed by one person, yet be excessive
and potentially dangerous for the next. Also,
nutritional theory is a fast-moving discipline, with
today’s desirable nutrient becoming tomorrow’s
undesirable contaminant. 138
3.9.4. Non-GM biofortified crops are
already available
If we assume that biofortified foods are a desirable
approach to malnutrition, plenty of non-GM crop
varieties are available now that do not present the
risks and uncertainties of genetic engineering (see
Section 7).
In addition, there are ways of adding
nutrients to people’s diets that do not involve
the considerable expense of crop breeding. These
include a rice fortified with iron and vitamins,
which has been reported in a preliminary study to
have caused dramatic falls in anaemia and vitamin
B1 deficiency in children. 139
disease, premature death, or reproductive or
developmental effects. Today, such studies are not
required by regulators anywhere in the world.
Moreover, the system for assessing the
allergenic potential of GM foods in place in the EU
today – although it is probably the most rigorous
of any assessment system anywhere in the world
– is inadequate and unlikely to identify new
allergens.
While GM proponents claim that GM can
provide nutritionally enhanced (biofortified)
foods, no such GM foods are available on the
market.
The most widely publicised example of a GM
nutritionally enhanced food, Golden Rice, has
used up millions of dollars’ worth of research and
development money. Yet it has not undergone
GMO Myths and Truths 59