There’s been a lot of back and forth about the adverse health effects of GMO foods between the producers of genetically modified seeds and their counterparts in the organic industry.
According to producers of the scientifically engineered seeds GMO’s are necessary in order to keep the flow of food coming to a demanding American public. To achieve this goal developers have modified the genetics of seeds so that they produce toxins that are poisonous to insects.
One such seed that is used on some 85% of farms in America is a GMO-modified form of maize, which is designed to kill the western corn rootworm (Diabrotica virgifera virgifera). The corn was first approved for use in the United States by the FDA in 2003. It worked well for several years, with crop destruction from the rootworm reaching extremely low levels.
But by 2009 things had changed drastically and as of today it looks like the rootworm has effectively created an almost total resistance to the engineered plant.
So much for advanced 21st century biotechnology getting the better of Mother Nature:
By 2009, farmers had started to see rootworm damage in their GM crops. In 2011, that damage had spread to GM maize containing a second toxin, mCry3A. In lab tests, Gassmann showed that this was a case of cross-resistance — worms that had become resistant to Cry3Bb1 were also resistant to mCry3A, possibly because the toxins share structural similarities and some binding sites in the insect’s gut.
Part of the problem is that rootworms are tough, and the Bt maize does not produce enough toxin to fully control them. The Bt toxins used against pests such as the European corn borer (Ostrinia nubilalis) kill more than 99.99% of their targets, whereas more than 2% of rootworms can survive Bt maize. Resistance in the worms can evolve rapidly in fields where the same kind of maize is grown every year — in Iowa it showed up after an average of 3.6 years.
The question now is whether or not GMO seed producers will take this product off the market as it is no longer resistant to the bugs it was designed to kill.
Given that GMO food producers have used the power of their political connections and heavy handed law suits to push these foods on an unsuspecting American public, chances are that not only will the seeds not be removed from production, but that GMO food producers will come up with new and innovative ways to further poison the food supply by increasing toxicity and bacteria levels.
For now, in order to keep the food cranking, it’s back to pesticides for farmers or else they risk losing their crops.
So, can we BURN DOWN MONSANTO NOW and go back to REAL FOOD?