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20.08.2015 | permalink
The time has come to revisit the United States' reluctance to label GM foods
Perspective: GMOs, Herbicides, and Public Health
Philip J. Landrigan, M.D., and Charles Benbrook, Ph.D.
Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are not high on most physicians' worry lists. If we think at all about biotechnology, most of us probably focus on direct threats to human health, such as prospects for converting pathogens to biologic weapons or the implications of new technologies for editing the human germline. But while those debates simmer, the application of biotechnology to agriculture has been rapid and aggressive. The vast majority of the corn and soybeans grown in the United States are now genetically engineered. Foods produced from GM crops have become ubiquitous. And unlike regulatory bodies in 64 other countries, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) does not require labeling of GM foods.
Two recent developments are dramatically changing the GMO landscape. First, there have been sharp increases in the amounts and numbers of chemical herbicides applied to GM crops, and still further increases — the largest in a generation — are scheduled to occur in the next few years. Second, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has classified glyphosate, the herbicide most widely used on GM crops, as a “probable human carcinogen” and classified a second herbicide, 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D), as a “possible human carcinogen.”
- New England Journal of Medicine: GMOs, Herbicides, and Public Health
- Reuters: Scientists call for new review of herbicide, cite 'flawed' U.S. regulations
- PLOS ONE: Glyphosate Use Predicts ADHD Hospital Discharges in the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project Net (HCUPnet): A Two-Way Fixed-Effects Analysis
- Toxicology Reports, Volume 2, 2015: Analysis of endocrine disruption effect of Roundup in adrenal gland of male rats