A new German study by the Institute of Bacteriology and Mycology examined the effects of glyphosate, the active agent in Monsanto’s herbicide Roundup, on the gut microbes of poultry. Some birds are heavily exposed to glyphosate when fed genetically engineered feed. The study’s findings are quite alarming. Researchers found that highly pathogenic bacteria resisted glyphosate, whereas beneficial bacteria likely succumbed to it.
The implication for consumers? Poultry fed GE corn or soy could fall victim to dysbiosis, meaning unhealthy changes in their gut flora that threaten not only the health of the birds, but anyone eating them.
The good bacteria in the poultry gut are killed off allowing the pathogenic or disease causing bacteria to flourish. Varieties such as Salmonella and Clostridium are very dangerous pathogens for humans. Clostridia bacteria are some of the deadliest, with strains including C. tetani (tetanus) and C. botulinum (botulism).
A decade-long feeding study proved that GE feed can cause significant changes in the digestive systems, immune systems, and major organs (including liver, kidneys, pancreas, genitals and others) of rats, mice, pigs and salmon. If it’s doing all of that to animals and fish, what’s it doing to you? Clearly, the conventional agribusiness food system has emerged as a major threat to your health. But it may also be contributing to an even greater problem: the destruction of the world’s topsoil.
According to an article in Time World, soil erosion and degradation rates suggest we have only about 60 remaining years of topsoil. Forty percent of the world’s agricultural soil is now classified as either degraded or seriously degraded; meaning that 70 percent of the topsoil is already gone. Our soil is being lost at 10 to 40 times the rate it can be replenished, and our food production systems are to blame, which epitomizes the term “unsustainable.” It takes decades or even centuries to regenerate significant levels of soil.
Agriculture accounts for 70 percent of our fresh water use and when the soil is unfit, water is wasted — it washes right through the soil and past the plant’s root system. We already have a global water shortage that’s projected to worsen over the next 20 to 30 years, so this is the last thing we need to compound it. Soil degradation is projected to cause 30 percent loss in food production over the next 20 to 50 years—while our global food demands are expected to increase by 50 percent over this span of time.
The latest science seems to suggest genetically engineered plant cultivation is seriously disrupting soil ecology by reducing microbial diversity, which decreases soil fertility over time—possibly irreversibly.
As GE plants increasingly take over the major food-producing areas of the world reduced soil fertility could lead to famine on a scale never previously seen. The mechanisms for this are just beginning to be understood, and what was recently only theory has inched closer to reality as science shines more light on the consequences of introducing genetically engineered organisms into the soil. Unlike the claims of Monsanto when it first approved GM crops, Bt genes (Bacillus thuringiensis) are not readily broken down and can accumulate in soil and potentially produce BT Toxins.
Until recently, the transfer of genes between GE plants and soil bacteria was only theoretical. However, this mechanism has now been demonstrated by science, and it’s our soil’s worst nightmare. It should be noted that this same process of gene transfer has been shown to occur in your gastrointestinal tract when you eat GE foods—turning your intestines into a virtual pesticide factory.
Research from the New York University confirms that Bt toxins are not broken down by soil microbes and do indeed accumulate in soil; the toxins maintain their ability to kill insects, potentially creating superbugs that further endanger the ecosystem. GE DNA is able to merge with the DNA of other organisms to create new varieties of soil microorganisms that disrupt the ecological balance. These new organisms, if virulent enough, could spread widely via wind erosion and ground water to compromise soil fertility on a broader scale.
As for me, the GMO debate is over. There is no longer any legitimate, scientific defense of growing GM crops for human consumption. The only people still clinging to the outmoded myth that “GMOs are safe” are scientific mercenaries with financial ties to Monsanto and the biotech industry.
GMOs are an anti-human technology. They threaten the continuation of life on our planet. They are a far worse threat than terrorism, or even the threat of nuclear war.
Research and studies demonstrate that Genetically Modified (GM) foods potentially serve two purposes, neither of which is to feed the starving masses
or increase crop yield on a long-term basis. Instead, the purposes of GM foods appear to be those of a bad science-fiction nightmare.
In earlier times it was easier to control a million people than physically to kill a million people. Today it is infinitely easier to kill a million people then to control a million people. – Zbigniew Brzezinski
