Genetically modified crops' results
raise concern.
April 30, 2012, San Francisco Chronicle (San Francisco's leading newspaper)
Biotechnology's promise to feed
the world did not anticipate "Trojan corn," "super weeds"
and the disappearance of monarch butterflies. In the Midwest and South - blanketed
by more than 170 million acres of genetically engineered corn, soybeans and
cotton - an experiment begun in 1996 with approval of the first commercial
genetically modified organisms is producing questionable results. Those results
include vast increases in herbicide use that have created impervious weeds now
infesting millions of acres of cropland, while decimating other plants, such as
milkweeds that sustain the monarch butterflies. More than a million people have
signed a petition to the Food and Drug Administration to require labeling of
genetically engineered food. The stakes on labeling such foods are huge. The
crops are so widespread that an estimated 70 percent of U.S. processed foods
contain engineered genes. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has approved more
than 80 genetically engineered crops while denying none. Genetically
engineered crops ... have spawned an infestation of "super weeds" now
covering at least 13 million acres in 26 states. The crops led to a
400-million-pound net increase in herbicide applications. Dave Mortensen, a
weed ecologist at Pennsylvania State University, said the number of "super
weed" species grew from one in 1996 ... to 22 today. Last month,
scientists definitively tied heavy use of glyphosate to an 81 percent decline
in the monarch butterfly population. It turns out that the herbicide has
obliterated the milkweeds on Midwest corn farms where the monarchs lay their
eggs after migrating from Mexico. Iowa State University ecologist John
Pleasants, one of the study's authors, said the catastrophic decline in
monarchs is a consequence of the genetically engineered crops that no one
foresaw.
Note: Multiple reliable sources
have shown that you may be eating genetically modified food daily which
scientific experiments have repeatedly demonstrated can cause sickness and even
death in lab animals. For key reports from major media sources on hidden facts
on the dangers of genetically modified food, click
here.
S.F. Chronicle article.........
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