GMO ‘Banana Test on Unsuspecting Humans’ Report Gets a Bit Mushy

Before I write a post, I do as much research as I can to make sure the information I have is correct. I have a list of reliable sources I go to who help me confirm any information I find. This time my sources and I got it wrong. I will be the first to admit when I made a mistake — and that is what I am doing now.

Over a month ago, I wrote an article about GMO bananas coming to the U.S. and being tested on Americans for six weeks. The biotech industry was tight lipped when it came to giving any information about this experiment. This seems to be their M.O.. This group, along with the processed food manufacturers industry, have a history of keeping the public in the dark when it comes to exactly what they are adding to our food, but you probably already know that.

Today I finally found a tweet from Food Democracy that linked me to an updated article about the GMO bananas. The bananas, whose DNA has been altered with vitamin A, will be tested on volunteers living in Iowa. They will be paid $900 for their participation. This is the first test on humans, with their consent, that I know of.

Since the biotech industry has already tested GMO foods on unsuspecting persons, namely kids living in China, it’s easy to conclude that they have no problem doing the same thing on Americans.

According to NPR online blog “The Salt” :

More than a decade ago, for instance, researchers created a kind of “golden rice” with high levels of beta carotene — and immediately found themselves in the middle of controversy. In the Philippines, anti-biotech activists destroyed a test plot of the genetically engineered grain. When researchers carried out a feeding trial of golden rice in China, using children as subjects, it turned into a national scandal. The researchers were denounced for not disclosing, in all cases, the fact that the new rice was genetically engineered. No government has approved widespread cultivation of golden rice.

Americans have been eating GMO foods, without their knowledge for over ten years now. Yes, these foods were tested — on lab rats but for only 90 days. The average life span for a rat is two years. We humans tend to live longer than that. Therefore, the 90 day testing done on rats is not long enough to find out what health problems come up.

An independent study done in France, tested the effects of eating Monsanto’s Roundup-Ready corn (and any Roundup herbicide traces that may come with it) and how it affected rats’ health. They fed the rats this GMO corn for two years.

An article in Mother Earth News stated:

Researchers say their results show “severe adverse health effects, including mammary tumors and kidney and liver damage, leading to premature death” from Roundup-Ready corn and Roundup herbicide, whether they were consumed separately or together. Almost all of the ill effects manifested after 90 days. By the end of the study, 50 to 80 percent of the females had developed large tumors, compared with 30 percent developing tumors in the control group. In males, liver congestion and necrosis were 2.5 to 5.5 times higher than in the control group, and there were 1.3 to 2.3 times more instances of kidney disease. Overall, among the rats receiving GM corn and/or Roundup, up to 50 percent of males and 70 percent of females died prematurely, compared with only 30 percent and 20 percent in the control group.

I may have gotten it wrong this time — but it doesn’t change the fact that the biotech industry and processed (junk) food industry like operating in the shadows. And why do they? Because they don’t want to do anything that jeopardizes their bottom lines.