The Center for Food Safety - Protecting the Environment and Human Health: GMOs, Organic food, Chemical food, and much more.

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CAMPAIGNS

Genetically Engineered Food

 

Organic and Beyond

 

Food Irradiation

 

Aquaculture

 

rBGH/Hormones

 

Mad Cow Disease

 

Sewage Sludge

 

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FDA Fails to Protect Public from Mad Cow

Disease - Again

 

Tell American Public TV and PBS Member Stations

You Don't Want to Watch Monsanto's Propaganda!

 

Tell FDA to Label and Safety Test Genetically

Engineered Food!

 

Tell FDA to Rescind its Approval for Irradiated

Ground Beef!

 

Stop the Approval of Genetically Engineered

Fish!

 

 

 

 

 

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The Center for Food Safety

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Washington DC 20003

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Genetically Engineered Food

 

 

The genetic engineering of plants and animals is looming

as one of the greatest and most intractable environmental challenges of the 21st

Century. Already, this novel technology has invaded our grocery stores and our

kitchen pantries by fundamentally altering some of our most important staple

food crops.

 

By being able to take the genetic material from one

organism and insert it into the permanent genetic code of another,

biotechnologists have engineered numerous novel creations, such as potatoes with

bacteria genes, " super " pigs with human growth genes, fish with cattle growth

genes, tomatoes with flounder genes, and thousands of other plants, animals and

insects. At an alarming rate, these creations are now being patented and

released into the environment.

 

Currently, up to 45 percent of U.S. corn is genetically

engineered as is 85 percent of soybeans. It has been estimated that 70-75

percent of processed foods on supermarket shelves--from soda to soup, crackers

to condiments--contain genetically engineered ingredients.

 

A number of studies over the past decade have revealed

that genetically engineered foods can pose serious risks to humans, domesticated

animals, wildlife and the environment. Human health effects can include higher

risks of toxicity, allergenicity, antibiotic resistance, immune-suppression and

cancer. As for environmental impacts, the use of genetic engineering in

agriculture could lead to uncontrolled biological pollution, threatening

numerous microbial, plant and animal species with extinction, and the potential

contamination of non-genetically engineered life forms with novel and possibly

hazardous genetic material.

 

Despite these long-term and wide-ranging risks, Congress

has yet to pass a single law intended to manage them responsibly. This despite

the fact that our regulatory agencies have failed to adequately address the

human health or environmental impacts of genetic engineering. On the federal

level, eight agencies attempt to regulate biotechnology using 12 different

statutes or laws that were written long before genetically engineered food,

animals and insects became a reality. The result has been a regulatory tangle,

where any regulation even exists, as existing laws are grossly manipulated to

manage threats they were never intended to regulate. Among many bizarre examples

of these regulatory anomalies is the current attempt by the Food and Drug

Administration (FDA) to regulate genetically engineered fish as " new animal

drugs. "

 

The haphazard and negligent agency regulation of

biotechnology has had serious consequences for consumers and the environment.

Unsuspecting consumers by the tens of millions are being allowed to purchase and

consume unlabeled genetically engineered foods, despite a finding by FDA

scientists that these foods could pose serious risks. And new genetically

engineered crops are being approved by federal agencies despite admissions that

they will contaminate native and conventional plants and pose other significant

new environmental threats. In short, there has been a complete abdication of any

responsible legislative or regulatory oversight of genetically engineered foods.

Clearly, now is a critical time to challenge the government's negligence in

managing the human health and environmental threats from biotechnology.

 

CFS seeks to prevent the approval, commercialization or

release of any new genetically engineered crops until they have been thoroughly

tested and found safe for human health and the environment. CFS maintains that

any foods that already contain genetically engineered ingredients must be

clearly labeled.

 

MORE INFO:

http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/geneticall7.cfm

GMO AND NON-GMO FOOD - The True Food Shopping List:

http://www.truefoodnow.org/shoppersguide/guide_printable.html

 

 

 

What is Genetic Engineering?

 

Genetic Engineering (GE) is a radical new technology

that manipulates the genes and DNA - the building blocks of all living things.

Unlike traditional breeding, genetic engineering creates new life forms that

would never occur in nature, creating new and unpredictable health and

environmental risks. To create GE crops, genes from bacteria, viruses, plants,

animals and even humans have been inserted into plants like soybeans, corn,

canola, and cotton. Multinational chemical companies like Monsanto have taken

our staple crops and altered them in order to patent and profit from them by

increasing their chemical and seed sales and gaining control over farmers and

the food chain itself. The same companies that brought us DDT, PCBs and Agent

Orange now expect us to trust them with our food supply.

 

GE Crops: Giving Pollution a Life of its Own

 

Because they are living organisms, GE crops can

multiply, spread and reproduce indefinitely and at will. Once released,

genetically engineered organisms can never be recalled, so their effects are

irreversible. GE pollen and seeds can contaminate farms and wilderness, creating

uncontrollable " super weeds " and threatening the veriatal purity of our crops.

We have already seen this genetic contamination of corn in Mexico, the center of

diversity for corn varieties.

 

The Genetic Experiment with our food

 

Chances are you have already eaten Genetically

Engineered (GE) ingredients. Without warning or notice you have been included in

a dangerous experiment on our food.

 

Thousands of products on the shelves of your local

supermarket contain GE ingredients ö foods from crops that have not evolved in

any natural environment, from crops that have never before been part of the

human diet.

 

Look at the ingredient list on any of the packaged foods

in the supermarket. You are almost certain to find ingredients made from corn,

soy, canola or cottonseed oil. These ingredients commonly come from plants that

have been genetically altered and are being grown on millions of acres in the

United States. For example, soy ingredients like lecithin, soy oil, and soy

protein are found in 60- to 70 percent of all processed foods.

 

Yet you won't find " genetically engineered " on the label

of any products containing GE ingredients. The supermarkets don't want you to

know that their products are an experiment unique in human history ö an

experiment that doctors and scientists around the world are warning may not be

safe.

 

 

Multiple Risks and Little Testing

 

Unlike traditional crop or animal breeding, genetic

engineering enables scientists to cross genes from bacteria, viruses, and even

humans into plants and animals. Never before have scientists been able to break

the species barrier. Strawberries and flounder could never breed on their own,

but with genetic engineering, fish genes have been spliced into strawberries.

There have been no long-term studies on what impact these crops may have on the

environment, but scientists are already finding signs of trouble:

 

Environmental Risks

 

a.. Biological Pollution: Unlike chemicals that are

released into the environment, genetically engineered organisms are living

things that will reproduce and spread uncontrollably and at will, with little

possibility of containment or clean-up.

 

b.. Increased Pesticide Use: Most GE crops have been

designed to withstand herbicides. Studies show that farmers who grow GE soybeans

use 2-5 times more herbicides than farmers who grow natural soy varieties.

 

c.. Superweeds: Other studies have shown that GE crops

can cross-pollinate with related weeds, resulting in " superweeds " that become

difficult to control. Canadian canola growers have found weeds in their fields

resistant to Round-Up and Liberty herbicides, forcing the growers to use more

potent toxic herbicides.

 

d.. Threatening organic farming: GE insect resistant

crops could create ãsuperbugsä who will build up a tolerance to a fundamental

pest control tool used by organic farmers; the loss of this tool would be

devastating to the safest, most environmentally friendly food production we

have.

 

The Health Risks

 

The genetic engineering industry claims that no one has

been harmed by eating GE foods. But without labeling of GE ingredients, there is

no way to track any harm. Doctors and scientists warn that there is not enough

evidence to insure that these foods are safe in the human diet. Medical experts,

including over 2,000 doctors and health professionals in Germany and the British

Medical Association, have questioned the safety of GE foods. In fact, there is

ample evidence of risk:

 

a.. Allergies: By inserting foreign DNA into common

foods, without adequate safety testing, the biotech industry is introducing

possible new food allergens.

 

b.. Antibiotic Resistance: The rise of diseases that

are resistant to treatment with common antibiotics is already a serious medical

concern. Doctors warn that the current use of antibiotic resistance genes in GE

crops may add to this risk.

 

In short, Genetic Engineering is an unpredictable

technology that, for the sake of corporate profits, puts our environment and

health at risk.

 

MORE INFO: http://www.truefoodnow.org/home_whatis.html

 

 

What is GE Food? Start with the facts

Learn to tell myths from ealities

Investigate the biotech industry

Regulations - U.S. & the World

U.S. opinions on GE food

 

 

 

 

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Organic and Beyond

 

 

An historic struggle is currently raging in this country

over the future of food in the 21st century. A grassroots movement for organic,

ecological and humane food is now challenging the decades-long dominance of

" industrial " corporate-controlled agribusiness. While industrial agriculture

still dominates our crop fields and supermarkets, organic agriculture is now

expanding faster than any other sector in U.S. food production. It is now a $9

billion industry growing at 20 percent per year. Moreover, thousands of farmers

and producers are even pushing beyond organic to establish food production

systems that are locally based, humane, and socially just and that encourage

biodiversity.

 

Despite organic agriculture's positive growth, it has

reached a critical juncture in its struggle for a more sustainable food future.

On October 21, 2002, national organic standards became law. While these

standards are worthy of celebration, they are not the final word in the

protection and promotion of organic food systems.

 

Unfortunately, the future of organic food is in the

hands of an Administration and a regulatory agency--the U.S. Department of

Agriculture (USDA)--that are backed by powerful agribusiness interests, all of

which are openly hostile to the organic and beyond alternative. In less than a

year from passage, the Bush administration has sought to seriously undermine the

national organic standards in a number of significant ways, including creating

numerous potential loopholes that would allow placing unacceptable chemical

materials on a list of substances approved for organic use; a number of

unapproved additives to be used in processing organic foods; eliminating outdoor

access requirements for poultry; eliminating the requirement that livestock feed

be 100 percent organic; and forcing small-scale, farmer-based organic certifiers

out of the program. If the Bush administration's current policies are continued,

the integrity of all organic food could be fatally compromised, and this crucial

alternative to industrial agriculture would be lost.

 

CFS seeks to maintain strong organic standards that live

up to the quality and integrity that consumers expect from organic foods while

evolving the ethic by promoting agriculture that is local, small-scale and

family operated, biologically diverse, humane, and socially just. The ultimate

goal of the Organic & Beyond campaign is to replace the industrial agriculture

model with a new vision of farming with the natural world.

 

MORE INFO:

http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/organic_an.cfm

 

 

 

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Food Irradiation

 

 

Most people naturally understand that food and radiation

should never meet. But irradiated food is already on our supermarket shelves and

may even be in your refrigerator. Most consumers are probably unaware that a

growing portion of their food supply is at risk of exposure to potentially

harmful sources of radiation, or that irradiated meat has been approved for the

National School Lunch Program.

 

Food irradiation uses high-energy gamma rays, electron

beams, or X-rays to break apart bacteria and insects that can hide in meat,

grains, and other foods. Instead of addressing the unsanitary conditions of

factory farms that cause many food-borne illnesses, the food industry sees this

technology as a quick fix for the negative consequences of industrial livestock

production. Moreover, the influence of the food industry on the U.S. Food and

Drug Administration (FDA) has led to the legalization of several irradiated food

items, including spices, produce, and meats.

 

Corporate food processors are eager to expand the use of

food irradiation on a wide variety of ready-to-eat foods such as deli meats, hot

dogs, snacks, packaged salads and baby food, claiming that the process kills

organisms that cause spoilage and human disease. In fact, corporations see the

use of irradiation as a means to increase their market shares in the

international import and export trade and ultimately boost their profits.

Despite the findings of well-respected international scientists that show

irradiated foods may cause health impacts in people who eat them, key regulatory

agencies and some members of Congress support the widespread use of irradiation.

 

New scientific evidence of the potentially harmful human

health impacts of food irradiation has begun to emerge just as the food industry

is pressing the government to expand its use. Internationally recognized

scientists have presented a growing body of evidence indicating that foods

created using this technology may not be safe to eat. Irradiating some types of

foods, including ground beef products, can create potentially dangerous chemical

byproducts and reduce the foods' nutritional value.

 

A thorough, independent scientific test commissioned by

CFS revealed the presence of the chemicals known as 2-alkylcyclobutanones

(2-ACBs) in three types of irradiated ground beef. Earlier research had

discovered the cancer-promoting characteristic of 2-ACBs in the colons of rats.

The ground beef testing was the first to demonstrate the presence of these risky

chemicals in U.S. consumer products. Furthermore, one-third of earlier published

studies that examined mutagenicity link the byproducts of irradiation to DNA

damage.

 

Despite these troubling findings, Congress and the USDA

are allowing school systems under the National School Lunch Program to serve

irradiated food to a potential population of 27 million kids. This effectively

makes school children human guinea pigs in the next round of food irradiation

tests.

 

CFS seeks to force government agencies to take a

precautionary approach to the untested process of irradiating the nation's food

supply. CFS urges FDA to deny the industry's request to irradiate ready-to-eat

foods (like packaged lunch meat, hotdogs and TV dinners) and to revoke its

earlier approval of irradiated meat and other products. CFS is also working to

reverse the government's decision to feed irradiated foods to schoolchildren

through the National School Lunch Program.

 

MORE INFO:

http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/food_irrad.cfm

 

 

 

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Aquaculture

 

 

The farming of fish and seafood, often referred to as

aquaculture, is the fastest growing sector of the world food production

industry--and one of the fastest growing threats to our water environments and

native species. More than 100 fresh and marine water species are farm-raised in

open-water net pens, land-locked ponds and fully enclosed land-based systems.

Rapidly increasing demand for fish and fish products has outpaced our regulatory

agencies' ability to manage emerging environmental and human health threats from

the burgeoning aquaculture industry. The exponential growth in the industry has

created enormous pressure on fresh water and marine environments and native,

non-farmed species. In the absence of minimal state and national regulatory

standards, this country's 4,000 aquaculture facilities are largely left to their

own designs.

 

The environmental problems arising from the industry are

altering the biodiversity of entire ecosystems. Some of the impacts include the

introduction of non-native farmed fish species that diminish or replace

indigenous fish populations; the propagation of deadly fish diseases; and the

over-fishing of vast quantities of non-commercial fish to feed carnivorous

farmed fish, such as salmon. Yet fish are not the only organisms

affected--federally protected marine mammals and birds are continually harmed by

entanglement in net pens and by the concentration of harmful wastes and

industrial drugs and chemicals escaping into open waters.

 

Consumption of aquaculture-bred fish is raising serious

human health and food safety concerns as well (almost all the catfish and trout,

and close to half the salmon and shrimp sold in the U.S. are raised in

aquaculture facilities). Farmed fish often receive large doses of antibiotics to

protect them from disease and are exposed to a variety of pesticides used to

kill parasites and body fungi--all of which accumulate in the fish's tissues.

 

CFS is working to activate and educate federal agencies,

consumers, chefs, grocers, fish retailers and legislators on the need to protect

seafood consumers and our water environments from the dangers posed by existing

aquaculture practices.

 

Visit our genetically engineered fish campaign -

http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/geneticall3.cfm

 

MORE INFO:

http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/aquacultur.cfm

 

 

 

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rBGH / Hormones

 

 

With little regard for the cows or the humans that

eventually eat them, the beef industry pumps growth hormones into upwards of 80

percent of beef cattle raised in the U.S. each year. These hormones are intended

to boost growth rates and increase body mass--think cows on steroids. Although

the U.S. Department of Agriculture does not allow producers to treat chickens or

pigs with hormones, the agency does permit the practice for cattle and sheep.

 

In addition to hormones used to increase milk production

(see rBGH), there are six hormones approved for use in beef cattle. Two of these

hormones, estradiol and zeranol, are likely to have negative human health

effects, including cancer and impacts on child development, when their residues

are present in meat. Concerns about these potential health impacts have left

many scientists doubtful of the safety of hormone use in meat production.

 

The negative environmental impact of hormones entering

waterways from livestock feedlots also is cause for alarm. Researchers have

found that fish can exhibit significant effects from this pollution, e.g.,

females begin to exhibit male characteristics, and vice versa, in areas of high

hormone concentrations.

 

The European Union has criticized the use of hormones in

meat production since the 1980s due to strong concerns about their safety. The

EU prohibited the use of hormones for non-therapeutic purposes in 1985, and

banned the importation of U.S. beef in 1988 to avoid importing hormone-treated

meat. Since then, there has been a heated dispute between the United States and

the EU over the ban, and, in a 1999 ruling, the World Trade Organization (WTO)

decided in favor of the US. However, in April of that year, the EU's Scientific

Committee on Veterinary Measures relating to Public Health (SCVPH) released a

report indicating that the use of the six growth hormones posed a risk to

consumers. The EU ban remains in place.

 

MORE INFO:

http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/rbgh_hormo.cfm

 

 

 

Mad Cow Disease

 

 

For over 30 years, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration

and the Department of Agriculture have been flirting with a mad cow disease

epidemic. The public has largely been kept in the dark about regulatory

decisions leading toward this potential public health catastrophe and even about

the dangers associated with eating contaminated meat and meat products.

Recently, some of the glaring deficiencies in the regulation of the U.S. meat

production system were revealed when a cow with bovine spongiform encephalopathy

(BSE) was discovered in Washington.

 

Mad cow disease, or BSE, belongs to a group of related

brain-wasting diseases known as " transmissible spongiform encephalopathies "

(TSEs). While TSEs are known to occur spontaneously, they also are spread

through cattle herds by feeding infected nervous system tissue to other animals.

Beginning in the 1970s, the meat rendering industry began processing dead,

dying, disabled, and diseased animals for use in livestock feed--and pet

feed--as a way to increase the protein consumption of cattle, pigs, sheep, and

poultry (cattle can get the disease by eating less than one gram of diseased

meat and bone meal fed to them as a protein source). Consequently, these

quasi-cannibalistic feeding practices quickly spread the fatal TSE diseases,

resulting in hundreds of thousands of diseased animals, some of which ended up

in the food supply in Britain and Europe. Over 140 people in Britain have been

infected with vCJD from contaminated beef.

 

Humans who eat contaminated beef products are at risk of

contracting the human version of mad cow disease known as new variant

Creutzfeld-Jakob disease (vCJD). The disease slowly eats holes in the brain over

a matter of years, turning it sponge-like, and invariably results in death.

There is no known cure, treatment, or vaccine for TSE diseases.

 

Tissue from infected cows' central nervous systems

(including brain or spinal cord) is the most infectious part of a cow. Such

tissue may be found in hot dogs, taco fillings, bologna and other products

containing gelatin, and ground or chopped meat. The process of stripping every

last piece of meat from a cow carcass, including connective tissue from bone,

can contaminate this meat with infected nervous system tissue. Transmission of

vCJD between people has also occurred in over two-dozen cases as a result of

transplants or injections of body tissue from infected people.

 

Despite the adoption of additional safeguards following

the discovery of mad cow in the United States, the FDA still allows the risky

practice of recycling animal offal into feed: ruminant animals (cattle, sheep,

goats, deer) are fed to non-ruminants (pigs and poultry), and these

non-ruminants are rendered and fed back to ruminants. Such practices are banned

in Britain and Europe. Also, in spite of the wake-up call the FDA and the USDA

recently received, only a small percentage of slaughtered or soon-to-be

slaughtered cows are tested for BSE in the U.S. By contrast, Britain tests 70

percent of its beef cattle and Japan tests 100 percent.

 

So far, none of the vCJD cases diagnosed in the U.S.

have been linked to domestically-produced beef, but this fact may have little

bearing on the reality of the situation: the disease has a long incubation

period and few dementia-related deaths in the U.S. are investigated.

Creutzfeld-Jakob disease is not yet a reportable disease with the Center for

Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

 

CFS seeks to make CJD a reportable disease so

occurrences can be tracked, and to plug the loopholes that still exist in FDA

and USDA regulations, i.e., require testing of all cattle over 20 months of age

and ban all animal products from feed.

 

 

 

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Sewage Sludge

 

 

Every time you flush your toilet or clean a paintbrush

in your sink, you may be unwittingly contributing fertilizer used to grow the

food in your pantry. Beginning in the early 1990s, millions of tons of

potentially-toxic sewage sludge have been applied to millions of acres of

America's farmland as food crop fertilizer. Selling sewage sludge to farmers for

use on cropland has been a favored government program for disposing of the

unwanted byproducts from municipal wastewater treatment plants. But sewage

sludge is anything but the benign fertilizer the Environmental Protection Agency

says it is.

 

Sewage sludge includes anything that is flushed, poured,

or dumped into our nation's wastewater system--a vast, toxic mix of wastes

collected from countless sources, from homes to chemical industries to

hospitals. The sludge being spread on our crop fields is a dangerous stew of

heavy metals, industrial compounds, viruses, bacteria, drug residues, and

radioactive material. In fact, hundreds of people have fallen ill after being

exposed to sewage sludge fertilizer--suffering such symptoms as respiratory

distress, headaches, nausea, rashes, reproductive complications, cysts, and

tumors.

 

The compounds added and formed during the sewage

treatment process create an unknown and unpredictable product, one that should

fall under the category of hazardous waste. Monitoring and regulating the

content of these dangerous combinations has fallen terrifyingly short of

protecting public health and the environment. Currently, no records are kept on

the date or location of these lethal land applications, allowing these toxins to

enter the soil of our nation's cropland untraced.

 

Despite the apparent danger of using sludge in food

production, federal regulations are woefully lax. The EPA monitors only nine of

the thousands of pathogens commonly found in sludge; the agency rarely performs

site inspections of sewage treatment plants; and it almost never inspects the

farms that use sludge fertilizer. Regulations governing the use and disposal of

sewage sludge have been criticized by both the Centers for Disease Control and

Prevention and the National Research Council, as well as numerous medical

professionals, engineers, and activists.

 

CFS seeks to end the use of sewage sludge as an

agricultural fertilizer--first through an immediate moratorium on its

application to croplands. CFS strongly suggests that the government launch an

independent investigation into all specific claims that sludge has caused harm

to people, animals, and the environment.

 

MORE INFO:

http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/sewage_slu.cfm