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Thanks to Monsanto 's attorney, Michael Taylor, in 1994 our food regulations were rewritten to include the term, "substantial equivalence ". What that means is that many of the genetic modifications foods undergo are ignored, unregulated and untested.Under US food laws, the new genetically modified "food " is treated like a traditional food, if the nutritional measures are close to the same. Close enough is the US policy, but not so for the rest of the world. Beijing will not allows Bt rice into the country. China views the Bt toxicity rendering it unfit for animals to consume, yet it 's certified USDA Organic. What the Bt 's going on?
Rice isn 't the only U.S. crop to contain the Bt modification. We have Bt corn, rice and potatoes growing on hundreds of thousands of acres. Bt crops make up a huge percentage of the total GMO crops. So what exactly is Bt. It 's a pesticide and the scientific name is Bacillus thuringiensis. To transform a plant into a GMO plant, the gene that produces a genetic trait of interest is identified and separated from the rest of the genetic material from a donor organism.
A donor organism may be a bacterium, fungus or even another plant. In the case of Bt corn, the donor organism is a naturally occurring soil bacterium, Bacillus thuringiensis, and the gene of interest produces a protein that kills Lepidoptera larvae, in particular, European corn borer. This protein is called the Bt delta endotoxin. Growers use Bt corn as an alternative to spraying insecticides for control of European and southwestern corn borer. The result is that many bugs won 't eat Bt foods. The bugs who do eat Bt 's die.
According to the agricultural specialists in the field this is how it works. "Within minutes, the protein binds to the gut wall and the insect stops feeding. Within hours, the gut wall breaks down and normal gut bacteria invade the body cavity. The insect dies of septicaemia as bacteria multiply in the blood. " It doesn 't sound very good, does it?
Because the U.S. law treats these Frankenfoods as though they are the same as their organic counterparts, there haven 't been tests to see how humans react. There are no tests for allergic reactions to the novel proteins. There 's no way of knowing what numbers of people have digestive problems like the poor little corn borers the Bt was intended to kill. To make matters worse the labeling laws are being weakened. Soon we won 't have a clue what 's in there by looking at a federally approved product label.
There are ongoing efforts by consumer groups to create their own testing, certification and labeling. The answer is that we couldn 't do worse if we tried and so we will do it ourselves. There are links to labeling campaigns and to lend your support will bring us one voice closer to a health green planet. Isn 't that a wonderful thought?
