ARTICLE: GMO Foods: Are They Really Bad For Us?

The following is an excerpt of a blog post by Emiliano Tatar, M.D., Pediatrician at Einstein Healthcare Network Roxborough Plaza, posted to the Philly.com website. 

The real question is whether modified foods have been shown to cause harm in adults and children. Two months ago, a major force in science, the prestigious National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine released a 408 page report on Genetically Modified foods. Over 900 peer-reviewed studies were considered and the panel concluded that GM foods are safe to be eaten by humans.

Jon Entine, author and founder of the Genetic Literacy Project has written:  “every major international science body in the world has reviewed multiple independent studies—in some cases numbering in the hundreds—in coming to the consensus conclusion that GMO crops are as safe or safer than conventional or organic foods.” He points out a review by an Italian team which looked at 1,783 studies on GM foods (A huge number!) and “couldn’t find a single credible example demonstrating that GM foods pose any harm to humans or animals.”

In fact, after almost 30 years of widespread use (such as corn and soy beans), GM foods have never, even once, been linked to disease or any harm in humans.

The question remains why anti-GMO activists are so adamant that modified foods are harmful to humans. We must remember that essentially our entire food supply has been modified by humans over millennia. The bananas and carrots we eat today, never existed naturally until humans began to mix their genes up by selectively breeding them. There is no evidence at all to suggest that eating a fruit whose genes have been modified to be say, more drought tolerant, is in any way more harmful to children than more traditional varietals.

To read the entire article, please visit the Philly.com website.