Non-Toxic Living
July 18, 2003
Published by Erla Charles
Consumer awareness articles for my customers, guests, friends, and family :-}
In my previous newsletter I promised I would share some more about the Bt potato in this edition.
To fulfill this promise, I have a very informative clipping article to share with you today.
We are already suffering the consequences of too many chemicals that have been released into our modern day environment and products. When these chemicals were introduced, they were taught to be safe. But, today, our increasingly toxic world is taking its toll.
In the same manner, genetically engineered foods are being introduced today. It will take 20 years before we realize how these new products will affect our lives and the lives of our children.
THE CASE OF THE NEW LEAF Bt POTATO
I checked with the FDA to find out exactly what had been done to insure the safety of the Bt [Bacillus Thuringiensis] potato. I was mystified by the fact that the Bt toxin was not being treated as a "food additive" subject to labeling...
At the FDA I was referred to James Maryanski, who oversees biotech food at the agency, I began by asking him why the FDA didn't consider Bt a food additive. "That's easy," Maryanski said. "Bt is a pesticide, so it's exempt" from FDA regulation. That is, even though a Bt potato is plainly a food, for the purposes of federal regulation it is not a food, but a pesticide and therefore falls under the juridiction of the EPA.
Since my Bt potatoes were being regulated as a pesticide by the EPA rather than as a food by the FDA, I wondered if the safety standards are the same. "Not exactly," Maryanski explained. The FDA requires a "reasonable certainty of no harm" in a food additive, a standard most pesticides could not meet. After all, "pesticides are toxic to something," Maryanski pointed out, so the EPA instead establishes human "tolerances" for each chemical and then subjects it to a risk-benefit analysis.
When I called the EPA and asked if the agency had tested my Bt potatoes for safety as a human food, the answer was, "not exactly." It seems the EPA works from the assumption that if the original potato is safe and the Bt protein added to it is safe, then the whole New Leaf package is presumed to be safe. The original Superior potato is safe obviously enough, so that left the Bt toxin, which was fed to mice, and they "did fine, had no side effect," I was told.
I always feel better knowing that my food has been poison-tested by mice, though in this case there was a small catch: the mice weren't actually eating the potatoes, not even an extract from the potatoes, but rather straight Bt produced in a bacterial culture.
Yet I still had a question. Let us assume that my potatoes are a very safe pesticide. Every pesticide in my garden shed, including the Bt sprays, carries a lengthy warning label. So if my New Leaf potatoes contain an EPA registered pesticide, why don't they carry some such label?
Maryanski had the answer. At least for the purpose of labeling, my New Leafs had morphed yet again, back into a food: the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act gives the FDA sole jurisdiction over the labeling of plant foods, and the FDA has ruled that biotech foods need be labeled only if they contain known allergens or have otherwise been "materially changed."
But isn't turning a potato into a pesticide a material change?
It doensn't matter. The Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act specifically bars the FDA from including any information about pesticides on its food labels.
I thought about Maryanski's candid and wondrous explanation the next time I met Phil Angell [Montsanto's director of corporate communication], who again cited the critical role of the FDA in assuring Americans that biotech food is safe. But this time he went even further...
"Monsanto should not have to vouchsafe the safety of biotech foods," he said. "Our interest is in selling as much of it as possible. Assuring its safety is the FDA's job."
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Excerpted from "Playing God in the Garden", cover story.
New York Times Sunday Magazine, October 25, 1998.
Reprinted article clipping in Safe Food News, 2000.
As I mentioned in my previous Non-Toxic Living newsletter, you may be eating GE foods and not even know it. From pizza to chips, soda to infant formula, ice cream to cookies, vitamins to candies, GE organisms are in the foods we feed our kids every day.
In fact, over 60 percent of foods on grocery shelves contain something that's been genetically engineerd. Virtually every grain, legume, vegetable, fruit, nut—indeed, every food you can think of—is in the GE pipeline.
This is definitely not the same world our grandparents grew up in. They ate and used much more chemical-free produce and toxin-free products.
Never before in history has the human body been overexposed to so many toxic elements.
But you DO have options... BUY ORGANIC!! And Detoxify on a regular basis from the toxins in our air, water, and food supplies.
What about Shampoos and Soaps?
Most people probably don't realize that some of the enzymes used to make soaps and detergents contain genetically engineered organisms. One option is Neways, which does not use any GE ingredients in its product formulations.
Try our Safe, Nontoxic Personal Care and Detoxification products - you'll love them!
Be blessed!
~ Erla
Promoting Consumer Awareness
and Preventive Family Health
Sacramento, CA
(916) 424-2448 Ext. 3
Your Consumer Awarenes Information Center...
www.non-toxic-n-natural.com
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Erla Charles is a health & wellness advocate
and is available to do Family Preventive Health Clinics in Sacramento, CA.
Article in Erla's Online Fileroom for Consumer Information and Awareness