Right now, you can go into any grocery store and buy genetically modified (GM) food without even realizing it. GM foods were introduced into grocery stores in the mid-1990s and were designed to increase output of crops by allowing foods to grow faster and resist insects, disease and weed killers.

“Basically what happens in genetically modified crops is people have inserted genes into a plant that provides some sort of trait that can’t be achieved naturally,” said Thomas Sims, associate professor and director of graduate studies in the NIU department of biology.

The two most common traits inserted into the genes of plants offer a “natural” insecticide and herbicide, Sims said.

This technology was seen by some as a miracle of science, because foods could now be engineered to resist environmental setbacks while at the same time making food cheaper because farmers were spending less money on chemicals and fuel.

However, others have questioned the ramifications of these “franken-foods.” In 2009, the American Academy of Environmental Medicine (AAEM) stated that, “several animal studies indicate serious health risks associated with GM food consumption including infertility, immune dysregulation, accelerated aging, dysregulation of genes associated with cholesterol synthesis, insulin regulation, cell signaling, and protein formation, and changes in the liver, kidney, spleen and gastrointestinal system.”  

“I think a lot of people would be concerned if they knew about GMO food and a lot of people don’t even realize it’s out there,” said Lisa Brandt, registered dietician at Hy-Vee, 2700 DeKalb Ave. in Sycamore.

There’s no label to identify GM foods and there have been no human clinical trials published on its long-term safety. According to Dr. Mehmet Oz, a surgeon acclaimed for providing health advice on his talk show The Dr. Oz Show, as much as 80 percent of all packaged foods contain GM products.

“Today at least 85 percent of soybeans, corn, sugar beets and canola-foods you probably eat in some form every single day are grown from GMO [genetically modified organisms] seeds,” Oz said. “And a vast majority of those seeds come from just one corporation, Monsanto.”

This is the same corporation that produced Agent Orange, the infamous defoliant sprayed over Vietname which has been known to cause cancer and birth-defects. Today, Monsanto has enormous power over the world’s food supply.

Major corporations seem to benefit the most from these GM seeds.

“A lot of farms are no longer owned by individual farmers; they are owned by corporations and the government pays these corporations subsidies to grow these crops,” said Chris Pedersen, advocacy supervisor at NOW Foods, 395 S. Glen Ellyn Road in Bloomingdale. However, Pedersen said, “organic food is not subsided. That’s why it is more expensive.”

While the question of the safety of these GM foods raises intense debate from both the scientific and health food communitities, the fact that remains is that there are no human, long-term, clinical studies to prove its safety. Even to this day, several European countries have banned GM foods from entering grocery store shelves due to safety concerns and contamination.

Between the U.S. and European countries, which has more instances of food allergies? Which has more instances of asthma or autism? Which has more instances of cancer and heart disease? Yes, I understand many factors play a role in these distinctions. However, I think it would be unwise to ignore the relation between the introduction of GM foods and higher instances of food-related allergies. Do you honestly believe major corporations care more about the health and safety of the public over their ability to make a profit? I would hope so, but I wouldn’t count on it, especially since these corporations have sunk billions of dollars into the “success” of this bio-tech industry. This is why we have regulatory agencies like the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). However, even these agencies have fallen prey to corporate interests. 

According to the Institute for Responsible Technology, “Former FDA biotech coordinator James Maryanski admits on camera that the GMO policy ‘was a political decision,’ not scientific. In fact, FDA political appointee Michael Taylor was in charge of the policy. Taylor was formerly Monsanto’s attorney and later their vice president.”

Whether GM foods are safe for human consumption or not, at the very least label what foods are GM and let the consumer make the decision. If GM foods aren’t harmful, then what does the bio-tech industry have to lose by labeling them?

“Agriculture has been around for millennia and nothing like this has ever happened before,” said Loreen Stravers, assistant manager of Duck Soup Coop, 129 E. Hillcrest Drive. “When you start messing around with the genes in a laboratory you don’t really know what’s going to happen.”