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Monsanto GMOs: My Questions about Monsanto’s GMOs and Autism

Posted Jun 16 2008 6:11pm
Watching The World According to Monsanto, I was struck by the section of the film about Árpád Pusztai’s research that showed that rats fed GMO potatoes developed gut problems and an immune response. The section is as follows:

Árpád Pusztai, world renowned scientist lost his job when he warned about GE (genetically engineered or genetically modified) foods.

1998 Aberdeen, Scotland

Árpád Pusztai worked for the Rowett Institute in Scotland. At the Ministry of Agriculture’s request, he lead a study on genetically modified potatoes with a budget of over two million Euros and a staff of 30 researchers, to prepare the arrival of GMOs in Great Britain.

"We were all enthusiastic about it… I was enthusiastic about it… The ministry thought that if we did this study, looking at all aspects, then it would be an endorsement of GM and when they introduce it, they will say that the foremost laboratory in Europe… nutritional laboratory… had looked at them and found them all right."

Árpád Pusztai specializes in lectins, these proteins function as an insecticide protecting plants against aphids. Rowett scientists had created potatoes that were resistant to aphids, and into which they introduced a snowdrop gene which produces the lectin in question. Beforehand they verified that in their naturally occurring state, lectins themselves do not pose a health risk.

The genetically modified potatoes were tested on rats.

"It had a twofold effect. First it started to increase a proliferative response in the gut… and that you don’t like… because this is possibly… I am not saying it is cancerous… but what it does… it can have anadjuvant effecton any chemical… any chemically induced tumor.

The other thing is that the immune system was certainly… got into high gear. And that was… we don’t know whether that is good or bad. But it certainly did recognize the GM potatoes as alien. And we were convinced that this insertion is causing the problem and not the trans gene. As I said, the trans gene when we did it in isolation, even at 800 fold concentration, didn’t do any harm.

It was a very important point because the American FDA is going on by mutual Technology. And what we did say and what we did publish actually corroborated and confirmed that it was not the trans gene that was the problem, but it was the technology."

When Pusztai was interviewed by the BBC, with permission from his bosses, he stated:

"As a scientist actively working on the field, I find that it is very, very unfair to use our fellow citizens as guinea pigs."

The day after the statement was broadcast, Pusztai was fired and the team was dismantled.

While watching this, I put together a few things:

1. Dr. Pusztai’s finding, that GM potatoes triggered gut problems and an immune response.

2. The additional section of the documentary which discussed the migration of trans genes (genes that have been genetically modified and inserted into cells that then become a part of the DNA) from GM corn sold in the US to native corn grown in rural southern Mexico.

3. A comment that David Kirby made in his column that reported on theMarch 11th CDC conference callthat discussed the Hanna Poling mitochondrial disorder and its link to autism.

Kirby wrote:


The answer, they hypothesize, is corn.


In an email conversation with Mr. Kirby while he was researching that conference call, he wrote to me that:

"One of the top scientists I spoke with today said the increase in autism in America was due to consumption of corn"

His comments in the article about the theoretical corn/inflammation link to autism were straight from a high level scientist involved with the CDC and on that conference call.

Putting all these together, my questions are these:

||Could not just over exposure to corn be the problem, but exposure to genetically modified corn, presumably that used the same problematic technology as Dr. Pusztai’s believed was to blame for the gut inflammation and immune response in his rats that were eating genetically modified potatoes?||

||And what exactly does the CDC believe to be the relationship between the American diet, overconsumption of corn products, inflammation and autism?||

||And if they believe, or even suspect, that inflammation is at play in the bodies of children with autism, why have they not stated this publicly and encouraged research and treatment along these lines?||

||And if they believe there might be a link, then why are they not investigating and promoting the Specific Carbohydrate Diet that removes corn products?||

Most vaccine induced regressions happen after a child's first birthday, around 18 months to age two, after they have begun eating processed foods; and we have no way of knowing if those were GMO foods unless we only bought foods that were labeled organic.

||Was there an inflammatory/autoimmune response already going on in our children, due to the gm foods they were consuming, that set them up for vaccine injuries because they had taken in one adjuvant too many?||

Remember Dr. Pusztai's words, "it can have anadjuvant effecton any chemical"

The standard contraindication for vaccination is the illness of the child because their immune system is not properly regulated to safely accept the vaccine. Parents are taught not to vaccinate when their child has a cold or the flu or any other viral illness. But if our kids had dis regulated immune systems at the time of vaccination due to GM food derived immune system over stimulation, we would have no way of knowing, and would be presumably be putting our kids at risk for further immune system damage by vaccinating at a time of immune activation.

Corn is a problem for many of our kids. Because genetically modified food products are not labeled, we have no way of figuring out if our kids are having problems with corn, or GM corn. Or if one causes a bigger problem than the other. In fact we have no way of knowing at all what GM foods might be doing to our children.

Chandler drank milk by the truck load before he regressed, it was probably Bovine Growth Hormone milk, which is found to have inflammatory effects on the cows and because of the illness of the cows puss is in the milk, as well as the antibiotics that were given to the cows to counter the infections. To say nothing of the hormone itself which also may be in the milk.

||So is the very good response that my own son had to the GFCF/SCD Diet, which removes grains, dairy and processed foods, and encourages eating only organic foods, due in part to the fact that he is no longer eating pro-inflammatory genetically modified foods?||

The way most of the interventions that help our kids are discovered are by happy accidents, we find something that helps them, then spend 5 years trying to figure out exactly why it works for them.

||What if the SCD diet worked not just because it was removing complex carbohydrates that feed yeast, but also because it was removing foods that were having an adjuvant effect on him?||

His belly went from puffy (suggesting gut inflammation) to flat in about three weeks.

There has not been any discussion that I know of surrounding the potential role of GM foods and autism in our community. I am assuming because, like me, none of us knew our kids were eating them. It is certainly an important discussion to be had as many of our kids on GFCF diets will continue to eat processed foods with genetically modified ingredients. The most immediate treatment question that jumps to mind is:

||Are poor responders to the GFCF diet still getting so many processed GM foods that gut inflammation and autoimmune responses remains high and negates much of the good the diet may do them?||

But bottom line for me, the biggest question I have is:




These plants are being engineered so that they can be doused in Roundup herbicide and so that they produce their own pesticides, and we already have evidence that bug and weed killers are implicated inautismandmitochondrialdisorders, which HHS and Julie Gerberding herself say are at play in vaccine injuries that produce autism 'symptoms'.

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