This month's article is the second part of a two-part discussion on GMO foods, focusing in particular on the role that genetically engineered (GE) herbicide-resistant crops play in disrupting detoxification mechanisms in humans and increasing the risk of health challenges including cancer. It will also identify laboratory-testing methods available to assess those individuals who are most at risk for experiencing ill health effects associated with the production of herbicide-resistant GMO foods.

Herbicide-Resistant Genetically Engineered Crops
In the past two decades, there has been an exponential rise in the production of toxic synthetic organic and inorganic chemicals in the US.(1) Consequently, there has been an upsurge in the levels of human exposure to these toxic elements, posing significant health risks, including the development of cancer.(2-4)

The widespread use of genetically engineered (GE), herbicide resistant crops among farmers has contributed directly to this increased exposure to toxic chemicals. Herbicide-resistant (also referred to as "herbicide-tolerant") crops are varieties that are unaffected by herbicides used to kill weeds. The most popular among these crops are soybeans, corn, rapeseed (canola) and cotton. Herbicides such as glyophosate (found in Monsanto's Roundup Ready), glufosinate, alachlor and bromoxynil (found in Rhone-Poulec's Buctril) have been linked to everything from birth defects and learning disabilities to liver tumors, lymphomas, spinal and skull defects, and developmental disorders in fetuses.(5)

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Increased Use of Toxic Herbicides and Pesticides Because of GE Crops
Unfortunately, herbicide-resistant crops encourage farmers to become dependent on, and use excessive amounts of these chemicals, while ignoring other more practical and logical means of controlling weeds, such as mulching and intercropping. For example, on soybeans alone last year, farmers sprayed about 33 million pounds of glyphosate.(6)

Farmers that grow these genetically modified herbicide-resistant crops use even more herbicides than they used before. And their choice of herbicides are the super-potent broad spectrum herbicides which incidentally are manufactured and sold by the same companies that dominated the herbicide-resistant seed market-companies like Monsanto, Novartis and DuPont. Their sales and marketing strategy for GE seeds and GE seed-specific herbicides is working, as herbicide-resistant crops account for nearly 70% of all genetically engineered crops planted since 1998. Unfortunately, as these corporate entities improve their financial health, they are doing so at the expense of human health.

Health Challenges Associated with Exposure to Herbicides
Some of the most prevalent health challenges today are associated with exposure to environmental toxins including herbicides and pesticides, and the damage they impart on the human detoxification system. These include:

• Autoimmune Disease(7-9)
• Cancer(9-14)
• Cardiovascular Disorder(15)
• Endocrine Disruption(16)
• Gastrointestinal Disturbance(17)
• Infertility(18)
• Kidney Damage(19, 20)
• Low Birth Weight(21)
• Neurological Disease(22-26)
• Obesity(27)
• Sick Building Syndrome(28-30)
• Spontaneous Abortion(31)

Even when "experts" claim that safe levels of herbicides are used, new data is emerging that elucidates the measurable adverse health effects associated with combined exposure to multiple herbicides and other environmental chemicals at their low, "safe," concentrations. Indeed, a recent study completed by Dr. Silva and colleagues demonstrated that toxic environmental chemicals, such as herbicides, below their safe levels act together in the body to produce significant adverse health effects.(32)

Cancer-inducing Effects of Glyophosate
The increased use of Roundup, Monsanto's top-selling broad-spectrum herbicide that paralleled the increased growth of herbicide-resistant GE foods by US farmers, offers one example of how GE foods increase our exposure to toxic chemicals that cause cancer. Glyophosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto's Roundup Ready has been shown to triple the risk of the increasingly widespread form of cancer, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.(33)

Lab Tests that Measure Susceptibility to Impaired Detoxification Mechanisms and Cancer--Health Challenges Influenced by the Increased Production of Herbicide-Resistant Genetically Engineered Crops

Exposure to herbicides and pesticides, which is a direct result of the increased production of herbicide-resistant GE crops, disrupts the complex network of enzymatic reactions that drive the human detoxification system. This detoxification network involves the Phase I and Phase II enzymatic reactions that take place in nearly all cells in the body, though they are concentrated in the liver cells. Phase I detoxification reactions change nonpolar chemicals that are not water-soluble into relatively polar, water-soluble compounds. During Phase I, reactive chemicals form which are typically more toxic than the original compounds. Phase II detoxification is necessary therefore to add chemical groups to the toxic intermediates to make them water-soluble so that they may easily be excreted via urine and/or faces. Phase I and Phase II detoxification pathways must remain functional for the removal of toxins from the body.

It is important to assess the functioning of the detoxification system with appropriate laboratory tests, as this will help you to know how susceptible you are to the increased exposure to herbicides and pesticides in our environment. One important means of assessing risk to environmental chemicals such as herbicides is with the comprehensive detoxification panel available through Great Smokes Diagnostic Labs. This lab test involves the collection of saliva, urine, and sometimes blood samples to identify defects along the Phase I and/or Phase II detoxification pathways. According to Great Smokies, this laboratory profile:
"...assesses the body's capacity to carry out detoxification through functional challenges--caffeine, acetaminophen, and salicylates--which evaluate specific aspects of the detoxification process and free radical damage. These functional assessments provide a comprehensive profile of the body's detoxification capacity and potential susceptibility to oxidative damage. This test measures the clearance of challenge substances in two salivary specimens; the products of detoxifying reactions are also assessed in an overnight urine specimen. In the Comprehensive version of this profile, the urine specimen is analyzed for levels of lipid peroxides. In addition, various oxidative markets are assessed from fasting blood specimens taken the morning after the challenge. These tests are sensitive indicators of biological detoxification status."(34)

Final Thoughts
Herbicide-resistant crops, genetically modified growth hormone (such as rBGH discussed in last month's column) and the dangers they impose on our health represent only a small portion of the gross number of adverse effects--to our health, our environment, our world--that can be traced back to the biotech industry's imposition on our food chain. I am reminded of an interesting discussion that I had with a prominent researcher at the University of Illinois, whose team of scientists is looking at the effects of broccoli (genetically modified) on liver detoxification enzymes. She is passionate about her work, and the data they are accumulating is intriguing. However, when asked how she felt about the use of GMOs for treating health challenges, when we have research to demonstrate that this same technology damages human health, she responded that at the very least, her genetically engineered broccoli seeds could "help to stop world hunger."

I hear and read about this argument, championed by the biotech industry, frequently--that biotech crops will feed the hungry around the world and will help meet the needs of our growing population. My comment to this is, for the first time ever, our world houses just as many overweight people (1.1 billion) as it does hungry souls. Moreover, hunger experts have demonstrated that countries such as Zambia have pulled themselves out of food crises without the help of GE seeds and crops.(35) Interestingly, the Bush Administration, backed by fervent support from the biotech industry, challenged the World Trade Organization (WTO) on current European policies that limit the import of GE seeds and foods into the European Union, couching their position as a moral crusade, in part to counter hunger in Africa. However, according to Amadou Kanoute, regional director for Consumers International Office for Africa (CI-ROAF) in Zimbabwe, and Dr. Drinah Nyirenda, executive director of the Program Against Malnutrition (PAM) in Zambia, there is no longer a food crisis in Zambia, the only African country that refused GMO food aid. Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch, summarized the underlying motivation behind the US "fight against hunger."(35) The Bush administration has sought to link Europe's food policies with starvation in Africa to justify its WTO case against Europe, which is in fact, really about trying to overcome the growing public antipathy to GMOs worldwide and the related disappointment for US industries who gambled on this technology.

Genetically engineered herbicide-resistant seeds are patented, requiring that farmers either purchase new seeds every year, or pay an annual licensing fee. Such requirements are destructive to the ways in which the majority of African farmers currently maintain their farms. Additionally, we know that the increased use of GE herbicide-resistant crops necessitates an increase in the use of environmental chemicals that harm human health. Not to mention the unknown health effects of ingesting GE crops. Grains such as corn comprise nearly 70% of the average African's daily caloric intake, as compared to less than 5% of the daily caloric intake of the average American,(35) putting the African population at greater risk of realizing the known and unknown health hazards associated with GE crop production and consumption.

Seventy-five percent of the soybean crop planted in this country last year was Roundup Ready, as was 65% of the cotton and 10 percent of the corn.(6) Perhaps the "fight for hunger" position, championed by the biotech industry, has more to do with money--farmers must purchase a patent-protected herbicide (e.g. Monsanto's Roundup Ready) from the same company that sells the GE herbicide-resistant product (Monsanto's GE soy)--and politics, than with the ethical motivation to be socially responsible.

Unfortunately, researchers, most of whom work for the biotech industry, predict that the increased use of herbicides to kill weeds, that is occurring as a result of planting herbicide-resistant crops, will breed highly resistant, super-weeds. This will inevitably require that farmers utilize doubly potent chemicals to maintain their crops, exposing humans to greater degrees of toxic chemical exposure(36) and an unforeseen impact on the incidence and onset of serious health challenges.

© COPYRIGHT 2006 Dr. Gina L. Nick

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