Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Autism and GMO Foods, Pesticides, Industrial Foods

Many scientists and experts, and a 2011 medical study, have connected the accusatory dots from the alarming rise of autism in U.S. children to the explosive growth of genetically modified foods, industrial-made foods, and pesticides in U.S. diets and homes.  

Scientific American reported in 2009:
"California's sevenfold increase in autism cannot be explained by changes in doctors' diagnoses and most likely is due to environmental exposures, University of California scientists reported Thursday.
"The scientists who authored the new study advocate a nationwide shift in autism research to focus on potential factors in the environment that babies and fetuses are exposed to, including pesticides, viruses and chemicals in household products..."
Facts and Statements - Autism, Diet and Bt-toxins
  • "The average rate of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) among eight year olds is now 1-in-88, representing a 78 percent increase between 2002 and 2008. Among boys, the rate is nearly five times the prevalence found in girls."  (Source - Center for Disease Control)
  • "It is known that children on the Autistic Spectrum suffer from fragile immune systems, significant digestive and brain inflammation, and the environmental toxin overload. Putting foreign entities such as GMO foods into such a fragile child may indeed cause further deterioration..." (Source - Dr. Janelle Love of the Autism Relief Foundation)
  • "The five main GM foods are soy, corn, cotton, canola, and sugar beets. Their derivatives are found in more than 70 percent of the foods in the supermarket. The primary reason the plants are engineered is to allow them to drink poison... Some GM corn and cotton varieties are also designed to produce poison...called Bt-toxin, in every cell of the plant. " (Source - HuffPost Healthy Living)
  • " A 2011 Canadian study... discovered that 93% of the pregnant women they tested had Bt-toxin from Monsanto’s corn in their blood. And so did 80% of their unborn fetuses."  (Source - Institute for Responsible Technology)

  • "GMOs have been shown to adversely affect the digestive and immune systems of animals in laboratory settings. Lyme and autism, on the rise in the US, are also associated with digestive and immune system dysfunction. Therefore, patients with Lyme and autism should avoid GM foods." (Source - Dr. Amy Dean of The American Academy of Environmental Medicine)

In a well-researched 2012 article, The Center for Responsible Technology reported:

"What is it that is damaging the health and well-being of so many of our children? Don Huber, PhD, professor emeritus from Purdue University, has an idea.
"In October 2011, Dr. Huber gave a talk in Germany about the physiological, neurological, and behavioral symptoms of pigs, cows, and rats fed genetically modified feed. After his lecture, a physician and autism specialist approached him and said, “The symptoms you describe are exactly what we are finding in our autistic children.”
"The animals in those studies were fed the same GM soy and corn eaten by children and adults in the US. Both crops are outfitted with bacterial genes that allow them to survive being sprayed with herbicide, which kills plants. As a result, higher residues of toxic weed killer end up inside our food...
Although the biotech seed companies like Monsanto claim that their genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are harmless, that’s not what the independent scientists are finding."
A peer-reviewed medical study, released in April 2012, clearly linked the "autism epidemic" with industrial food-product ingredients, especially high fructose corn syrup. Such ingredients were found to exert toxic influences on developing brains in unborn and young children.  

(Read study results HERE at the National Institutes of Health website, and a detailed explanation HERE at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy.

Blaming Parents and Genetics, Ignoring Environmental Factors


Dr. Irva Hertz-Picciotto, a University of California, Davis epidemiology professor, agrees with millions of parents of autistic children that federal officials and industrial food corporations over-blame genetics and parenting, while virtually ignoring environmental forces as contributing factors to the astonishing spread of autism in U.S. children.


"There's genetics and there's environment. And genetics don't change in such short periods of time," commented Dr. Hertz-Picciotto to the press.


Dr. Arden Andersen, physician as well as author, soil scientist,  and former farmer, states it more bluntly:  "It appears there is a direct correlation between GMOs and autism." 



Why?
  • Why does the U.S., via the USDA, condone, protect, and support GMO crops and foods?
  • Why has the US not joined more than 50 other countries in mandating that GMO foods be clearly labeled for consumers?
  • Why does the U.S. Congress provide tens of billions in annual cash payments mainly to farmers who grow five GMO crops that comprise the basic ingredients of U.S. industrial foods?  (Read What Are U.S. Farm Subsidies?)
Why is the U.S. government not actively investigating links between the alarming rise of autism in U.S. children and the explosive growth of genetically modified foods, industrial-made foods, and pesticides in U.S. diets and homes?

Why is our elected government protecting industrial food corporations over public health? Over the very health of our children?    

America's ailing children desperately need solutions, and answers to these terrible questions.


1 comment:

  1. i would add the why are we still using so many pesticides? There is a link between them and poor immune systems which may be genrational

    ReplyDelete