Non-GMO Food is more Beneficial to Society than GMO Food

GMO's are Unhealthy There have been many studies by individual scientists and organizations that have found negative effects on animals. In an individual experiment conducted on rats in 1999, world renowned scientist Arpad Pusztai from the University of Aberdeen found negative effects on the rat’s stomach tissue when the rats were fed GMO corn.[1] The American Academy of Environmental Medicine found negative effects on animal’s gastrointestinal, immune and reproductive system, through their studies as well.[2] From this evidence, we can conclude that GMO's aren't proven to be healthier than non-gmo foods and have not had long-term studies. According to FDA's Louis J. Pribyl, Ph.D., a scientist in the FDA’s Microbiology Group, “several aspects of gene insertion may be more hazardous than traditional plant crossbreeding.”[2] E.J. Matthews, Ph.D., of the FDA’s Toxicology group, warned in an October 1991 memo, “genetically modified plants could also contain unexpected high concentrations of plant toxicants.” According to Steven M. Druker, J.D., executive director of the Alliance for Bio-Integrity, “Numerous agency experts protested that drafts of the statement of policy were ignoring the recognized potential for genetic engineering to produce unexpected toxins and allergens. But the policy was put into effect despite their scientific judgment that no GM foods can be presumed safe.”[2] According to the World Health Organization, "some strains of GMO crops are developed specifically for animal feed and not for human consumption. The WHO confirms that there is a real risk that plants in the wild may cross-breed and the genetic modifications meant for animal feed may get into crops for human food supply."[3] We can see that the WHO and even the FDA's own scientists have questioned the safety on GMO foods. From the numerous experiments by the AAEM, they concluded that GMO's negatively affected animals as seen in the first paragraph. Crops without GMO's are proven to be safe, since, we've used them for thousands of years. GMO's are highly unstable. We are going against mother nature by needlessly extracting characteristics from an animal and implementing the gene into a plant. Why not stick to natural plants without ruining the integrity of a vegetable or fruit or our society's health. Furthermore, this has resulted in countries establishing gmo restrictions and even banning them. GMO's Negatively Imapct Farmers Farmers Commiting SuicideBt cotton, a GMO crop was one of the main factors of suicides amongst Indian cotton farmers. The reason why they committed suicide was because of the overwhelming debt. They got into this debt because of BT cotton costing double the amount of a regular cotton crop. Since it's patented, they have to replant it every year which costs even more money. The crops also require a higher amount of water which is hard in places where water is scarce. In some cases, the yield didn't even increase. [4] We can see that GMO's negatively impact farmers in Indian society, but how to they impact North America. Well, Monsanto actually sues farmers to "protect their patent rights." If a patented Monsanto seed flew into a farmer's field, that wasn't growing GMO's, Monsanto has the right to sue. In its report, called Seed Giants vs US Farmers, the CFS said it had tracked numerous law suits that Monsanto had brought against farmers and found some 142 patent infringement suits against 410 farmers and 56 small businesses in more than 27 states. In total the firm has won more than $23m from its targets, the report said.[5] We can see that gmo's are negatively impacting our society, therefore non-GMO's are more beneficial since they are healthier and aid society more than GMO's.Sources:http://en.wikipedia.org...http://www.aaemonline.org...http://www.ehow.com...;http://www.chrgj.org...http://www.huffingtonpost.com...;