50 Harmful Effects of Genetically Modified (Gm) Foods Essay Example for Free

50 Harmful effectuate of Genetic ein truth last(predicate)y Modified (Gm) Foods EssayIntroduction What is called biotech is a vital issue that moves all of us. by and large between 1997 and 1999, geneticalally special (GM) intellectual nourishment ingredients suddenly appe bed in 2/thirds of all US touch on foods. This food alteration was fueled by a superstar Supreme Court ruling. It allowed, for the freshman time, the homelying of carri sequence forms for technicalization. Since then thousands of applications for experimental genetically-modified (GM) organisms, including quite bizarre GMOs, concur been filed with the US Patent Office alone, and me real an(prenominal) much abroad. Further much an economic war broke by to bear equity in firms that legally claimed such(prenominal) manifest rights or the means to control not only when genetically modified organisms unless enormous reaches of human food supplies. This has been the behind-the-scenes and key fact or for some of the largest and rapid agri- chemical firm mergers in chronicle. The merger of Pioneer Hi-Bed and Dupont (1997), Novartis AG and AstraZeneca PLC (2000), addition Dows merger with Rohm and Haas (2001) argon three prominent faces, Few consumers are mindful this has been going on and is ever continuing.Yet if you recently ate sojabeana sauce in a Chinese restaurant, munched popcorn in a movie theatre, or indulged in an occasional reardy forbid youve undoubtedly ingested this new typecast of food. You may have, at the time, chousen exactly how much salt, fat and carbohyd judge were in each of these foods be get under ones skin regulations mandate their labeling for dietary purposes. But you would not distinguish if the bulk of these foods, and literally every booth had been genetically change In just those three neighborly classs, as much as 1/ fourth of all Ameri sens agricultural lands or 70-80 one thousand million acres were quickly converted to raise genetically-modified (GM) food and crops.See more Unemployment problems and solutions essayAnd in the race to development GM crop wareion verses organics, the actor is winning. For details, see our oblige Who is Winning The Race Between GM Global and Organic Crop proceeds? Core Philosophical Issues When Gandhi confronted British rule and Martin Luther King addressed those who disenfranchised Afro-Americans, each brought forth issues of ethics and spirituality. They both challenged former(a)s to live up to the highest principles of humanity. With the issue of GM food technology, we should natively do the identical, and with great jimmy for both sides.It is not enough to discover fifty or more harmful effects but we need to also address moral, spiritual and particularly worldview issues. Here the stakes are incredibly huge. For an front discussion of the philosophical issues involving GMOs, why this technology represents the impregnation of a mechanical worldview, a deat h-centered vision of disposition that is greatlyt accelerating the death of species on earth, see our article GMOs Philosophical Issues of a Thanoptic (Death-Delivering) Technology. FROM HYBRIDIZATION TO GMOs Another challenging phenomenon to g everyplacenance in our modern world is that of hybridization.It seems to have worked so very successfully in some commercial realms, and as a major application of Gregor Mendels revolutionary Gene Theory. Mendel offered a logical extension of the larger mechanical worldview. Just as we create factory assembly lines for manufacturing inanimate products, why cant we also manufacture reenforcement organisms, and using the same or similar principles? Why not take this assembly-line subroutine to the next logical and progressive level? Whats wrong then with the advance of genetic engineering? No doubt, with hybridizations conscious breeding is manipulated.But vivification organisms continue to make some radical genetic decisions amid spe cial selections. We can understand this with an analogy. thither is an immense difference between being a matchmaker and inviting cardinal people to a dinner touch offy, to meet and see if they are compatible. This differs essentially from forcing their meeting and union or a violent date rape. The former act may be divine, and the latter considered criminal. The implication is that biotechnology involves vital moral issues in regard to the whole of purport in nature. With biotechnology, roses are no lasting crossed with just roses.They are mated with pigs, tomatoes with oak trees, fish with asses, butterflies with worms, orchids with snakes. The technology that makes this all possible is called biolistics a gunshot-like violence that pierces the nuclear membrane of cells. This essentially violates not just the core chambers of life (physically intersection nuclear membranes) but the conscious-choice principle that is part of living natures essence. Some also compare it to th e violent ford of territorial borders of countries, subduing inhabitants against their will. What will happen if this technology is allowed to spread?Fifty years ago few predicted that chemical pollution would cause so much vast environmental harm. Now n early on 1/3rd of all species are threatened with extinction (and up to half of all show species and half of all mammals). Few also knew that cancer rates would skyrocket during this same period. Nowadays approximately 41% on average of Americans can expect cancer in their lifetime. ALARM SIGNALS No one has a quartz ball to see future consequences of the overall GMO technology. Nevertheless, there are silent alarm signals like the early death of canaries in a mine shaft.There is, for example, growing express that the wholesale disappearance of bees relates at one time to the appearance of ever more GM pollen. If we understand certain philosophical issues almost the 17th nose candys worldview, the effectiveness harm of GMOs a ctually can potentially far outweigh that of chemical pollution. This is because chemistry deals well-nighly with things altered by fire (and then no longer alive, isolated in laboratories and not infecting living terrains in self-reproducible ways). so a farmer may use a chemical for many decades, and then let the land lie fallow to convert it back to organic farming.This is because the chemicals tend to break d accept into natural substances over time, Genetic pollution, however, can alter the oils life forever Farmers who view their land as their primary financial asset have grounds to heed this warning. They need to be alarmed by leaven that genetically-modified soil bacteria contamination can arise. This is more than just possible, given the numerous (1600 or more) unmistakable microorganisms that can be make in a single teaspoon of soil. If that soil contamination dust permanently, the consequences can be catastrophic.Someday the mankind may blacklist precisely those farms that have once lay GM crops. No one has put up any warning signs on product forwarding for farmers, including those who now own 1/4 of all agricultural tracks in the US. Furthermore, the spreading potential impact on all ecosystems is profound. Writes Jeremy Rifkin, in The Biotech Century, Our way of life is likely to be more fundamentally transform in the next some(prenominal) decades than in the foregoing one thousand years Tens of thousands of invigorated transgenic bacteria, viruses, plants and animals could be released into the Earths ecosystemsSome of those releases, however, could wreak slaughter with the planets biospheres. In short these processes involve unparalleled ventures. Voices from many sides echo this view. Contradicting sanctuary claims, no major insurance company has been willing to limit risks, or insure bio-engineered agricultural products. The reason given is the high level of episodic consequences. Over eight hundred scientists from 84 countri es have sign The World Scientist open letter to all government activitys calling for a ban on the patenting of life-forms and emphasizing the very grave hazards of GMOs, genetically-modified seeds and GM foods.This was submitted to the UN, World Trade Organization and US Congress. The Union of Concerned Scientists (a 1000 plus member organization with many Nobel Laureates) has similarly expressed its scientific reservations. The prestigious medical journal, Lancet, published an article on the research of Arpad Pusztai showing potentially significant harms, and to instill debate. Britains Medical Association (the equivalent of the AMA and with over a 100,000 physicians) called for an outright banning of genetically-modified foods and labeling the same in countries where they still exist.In a gathering of political representatives from over 130 nations, drafting the Cartagena Protocol on Bio gumshoe, approximately 95% insisted on new preventive approaches. The National Academy of S cience report on genetically-modified products urged greater scrutiny and assessments. Prominent FDA scientists have repeatedly expressed profound fears and reservations but their voices were muted not due to cogent scientific reasons but pictorial political pressure from the Bush administration in its efforts to buttress and promote the profit-potentials of a nascent biotech sedulousness.To nullify this, industry-employed scientists have signed a statement in favor of genetically-modified foods. But are any of these scientists naive? Writes the New York Times (Feb 20, 2000) (about a similar crisis involving genetic engineering and medical applications). Academic scientists who lack industry ties have acquire as rare as giant pandas in the wild lawmakers, bioethics experts and plyeral regulators are troubled that so many tecs have a financial stake via stock options or patent participation The fear is that the lure of profit could color scientific integrity, promoting research ers to withhold information about potentially insecure side-effects. Looked at from outside of commercial interests, perils of genetically modified foods and organisms are multi-dimensional. They include the creation of new transgenic life forms organisms that cross unnatural gene lines (such as tomato seed genes crossed with fish genes) and that have unpredictable behavior or replicate themselves out of control in the wild.This can happen, without warning, inside of our bodies creating an unpredictable range reaction. A four-year study at the University of Jena in Germany conducted by Hans-Hinrich Kaatz revealed that bees ingesting pollen from transgenic rapeseed had bacteria in their gut with modified genes. This is called a horizontal gene transfer. Commonly found bacteria and microorganisms in the human gut help bind a healthy intestinal flora. These, however, can be mutated. Mutations may also be able to buy the farm inbredly to other cells, tissue systems and organs t hroughout the human body.Not to be underestimated, the potential domino effect of internal and external genetic pollution can make the substance of science-fiction horror movies become terrible realities in the future. The same is true for the bacteria that maintain the health of our soil and are vitally necessary for all forms of farming in fact for human sustenance and survival. Without factoring in biotechnology, balmyer forms of peremptory nature have gravitated toward restrictive monocropping.In the past 50 years, this underlies the disappearance of approximately 95% of many native grains, beans, nuts, fruits, and ve make believeable varieties in the United States, India, and Argentina among other nations (and on average 75% worldwide). Genetically-modified monoculture, however, can lead to yet greater harm. Monsanto, for example, had set a goal of converting 100% of all US soja bean crops to setup Ready strains by the year 2000. If this plan were effected, it would have threatened the biodiversity and resilience of all future soybean plant farming practices. Monsanto dictated out similar strategies for corn, cotton, wheat and rice.This represents a deepest misunderstanding of how seeds interact, adapt and change with the living world of nature. mavin need only look at agricultural history at the havoc created by the Irish potato blight, the Mediterranean fruit fly epidemic in California, the regional citrus canker attacks in the Southeast, and the 1970s US corn leaf blight. In the latter baptismal font, 15% of US corn production was quickly destroyed. Had weather changes not quickly ensued, most all crops would have been laid waste because a fungus attached their cy clear uplasm universally.The deeper reason this happened was that approximately 80% of US corn had been like (devitalized/mechanized) to help farmers crossbreed and by a method akin to those used in current genetic engineering. The uniformity of plants then allowed a single fung us to spread, and within four months to destroy crops in 581 counties and 28 states in the US. According to J. Browning of Iowa State University Such an extensive, homogeneous acreage of plants is like a tinder-dry prairie waiting for a spark to ignite it. The homogeneity is unnatural, a byproduct again of deadening natures creativity in the adjudicate to mechanize, to grasp absolute control, and of what ultimately yields not control but wholesale disaster. Europeans seem more untoughened than Americans to such approaches, given the analogous metaphor of German eugenics. HISTORICAL SYNOPSIS Overall the biotech revolution that is soon trying to overturn 12,000 years of traditionalistic and sustainable agriculture was launched in the summer of 1980 in the US. This was the resoluteness of a little- cognize US Supreme Court decision Diamond vs.Chakrabarty where the highest court decided that biological life could be legally patentable. Ananda Mohan Chakrabarty, a microbiologist and employee of General Electric (GE), developed at the time a type of bacteria that could ingest oil. GE rushed to apply for a patent in 1971. After several years of review, the US Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) turned down the request under the traditional doctrine that life forms are not patentable. Jeremy Rifkins organization, the Peoples Business Commission, filed the only brief in support of the ruling. GE later sued and won an overturning of the PTO ruling.This gave the go ahead to win bacterial gmo research throughout the 1970s. and then in 1983 the for the first time genetically-modified plant, an anti-biotic resistant tobacco was introduced. Field trials then began in 1985, and the EPA approved the very first release of a GMO crop in 1986. This was a herbicide-resistant tobacco. All of this went forward due to a regulatory green light as in 1985 the PTO also decided the Chakrabarty ruling could be further ext cease to all plants and seeds, or the entire plant kingdom. I t then took another(prenominal) decade forwards the first genetically-altered crop was commercially introduced.This was the famous delayed-ripening Flavr-savr tomato approved by the FDA on May 18, 1994. The tomato was fed in laboratory trials to mice who, formulaly relishing tomatoes, refused to eat these lab-creations and had to be force-fed by tubes. Several developed subscribe lesions and seven of the forty mice died within two weeks. Without further nearty examination the tomato was FDA approved for commercialization. Fortunately, it ended up as a production and commercial failure, and was ultimately abandoned in 1996. This was the same year Calgene, the producer, began to be bought out by Monsanto.During this period also, and scouring the world for valuable genetic materials, W. R. Grace use for and was granted fifty US patents on the neem tree in India. It even patented the endemical knowledge of how to medicinally use the tree f(what has since been called biopiracy). Also by the close of the 20th century, about a dozen of the major US crops including corn, soy, potato, beets, papaya, squash, tomato and cotton were approved for genetic modification. Going a tonus further, on April 12, 1988, PTO issued its first patent on animal life forms (known as oncomice) to Harvard Professor Philip Leder and timothy A.Stewart. This involved the creation of a transgenic mouse containing chicken and human genes. Since 1991 the PTO has controversially granted other patent rights involving human stem cells, and later human genes. A United States company, Biocyte was awarded a European patent on all umbilical cord cells from fetuses and newborn babies. The patent extended exclusive rights to use the cells without the licence of the donors. Finally the European Patent Office (EPO) received applications from Baylor University for the patenting of women who had been genetically altered to produce proteins in their mammary glands.Baylor essentially sought monopoly rig hts over the use of human mammary glands to manufacture pharmaceuticals. Other attempts have been make to patent cells of indigenous peoples in Panama, the Solomon Islands, and Papua New Guinea, among others. Thus the groundbreaking Chakrabarty ruling evolved, and within little more than two decades from the patenting of tiny, almost invisible microbes, to allow the genetic modification of virtually all terrains of life on Earth.Certain biotech companies then quickly, again with lightening speed, moved to utilize such patenting for the control of first and primarily seed stock, including buying up small seed companies and destroying their non-patented seeds. In the past few years, this has led to a near monopoly control of certain genetically modified commodities, especially soy, corn, and cotton (the latter used in processed foods when do cottonseed oil). As a result, between 70-75% of processed grocery products, as estimated by the foodstuff Manufacturers of America, soon showed genetically-modified ingredients.Yet again without labeling, few consumers in the US were aware that any of this was pervasively occurring. sedulousness marketers found out that the more the public knew, the less they wanted to purchase GM foods. Thus a concerted effort was organized to convince regulators (or bribe them with revolving-door employment arrangements) not to require such labeling. close the 50 Harmful Effects of GM Foods This article does more than dispute the industry and certain government officials claims that genetically-modified (GM) foods are the equivalent of ordinary foods not requiring labeling.It offers an informative list of the vast number of alarm signals, at least fifty hazards, problems, and dangers. also interspersed are deeper philosophical discussion of how the good science of biotechnology can turn against us as a thano-technology, grounded in a worldview that most seriously needs to be revisied. When pesticides were first introduced, they also wer e heralded as absolutely safe and as a miracle cure for farmers. plainly decades later the technology revealed its truer lethal implications. Here the potentially lethal implications are much broader.The following list of harms is also divided into several easily referred-to sections, namely on health, environment, farming practices, economic/political/social implications, and issues of freedom of choice. There is a concluding review of means of inner activism philosophical, spiritual, worldview changing. Next there is a list of action-oriented, practical ideas and resources for personal, political and consumer action on this vital issue. Finally, I want the reader to know that this article is a living document, subject to change whenever new and important information becomes available.The reader is thence encouraged to return to this article as a resource, explore other parts of our site, and otherwise have in touch with us and the Websites we link to. Most importantly please s ign up for our newsletter so we can exchange vital information with you. Sign up now for our Newsletter to get invaluable updates and more HEALTH Recombinant DNA technology faces our society with problems unprecedented not only in the history of science, but of life on Earth. It places in human hands the capacity to redesign living organisms, the products of three billion years of evolution.Such intervention must not be confused with previous intrusions upon the natural order of living organisms animal and plant breeding All the earlier procedures worked within single or closely related species Our morality up to now has been to go ahead without restriction to occupy all that we can about nature. Restructuring nature was not part of the bargain this direction may be not only unwise, but dangerous. Potentially, it could breed new animal and plant diseases, new sources of cancer, novel epidemics. Deaths and Near-Deaths 1. preserve Deaths from GM In 1989, dozens of Americans died and several thousands were afflicted and impaired by a genetically modified version of the food supplement L-tryptophan creating a debilitating ailment known as Eosinophilia myalgia syndrome (EMS) . Released without safety tests, there were 37 deaths reported and approximately 1500 more were disabled. A settlement of $2 billion dollars was give by the manufacturer, Showa Denko, Japans third largest chemical company destroyed evidence preventing a further investigation and make a 2 billion dollar settlement.Since the very first commercially sold GM product was lab tested (Flavr Savr) animals used in such tests have prematurely died. 2. Near-deaths and Food Allergy Reactions In 1996, Brazil nut genes were spliced into soybeans to provide the added protein methionine and by a company called Pioneer Hi-Bred. Some individuals, however, are so allergic to this nut, they can go into anaphylactic shock (similar to a severe bee sting reaction) which can cause death. Using genetic engineering, the allergens from one food can thus be transferred to another, notion to be safe to eat, and unknowingly. puppet and human tests confirm the peril and fortunately the product was removed from the market before any fatalities occurred. The animal tests conducted, however, were insufficient by themselves to show this. Had they alone been relied upon, a disaster would have followed. The next case could be less than ideal and the public less fortunate, writes Marion Nestle author of Food Politics and unattackable Food, and head of the Nutrition Department of NYU in an editorial to the New England Journal of Medicine.It has been estimated that 25% of Americans have mild adverse reactions to foods (such as itching and rashes), while at least 4% or 12 million Americans have provably more serious food allergies as objectively shown by blood iImmunoglobulin E or IgE levels. In other words, there is a significant number of highly food- painful individuals in our general population. The per centage of young children who are seriously food-allergenic is yet higher, namely 6-8% of all children under the age of three.In addition, the incidence rates for these children has been decidedly rising. Writes Dr. Jacqueline Pongracic, head of the allergy department at Childrens Memorial infirmary in Chicago, Ive been treating children in the field of allergy immunology for 15 years, and in recent years Ive really seen the rates of food allergy skyrocket. The Center for Disease Control confirmed the spike on a US national level. Given the increased adulteration of our diets, it is no wonder at all that this is happening.Yet the FDA officials who are sacredly entrusted to safeguard the health of the general public, and especially of children, declared in 1992, under intense industry-lobbying pressure, that genetically-modified (GM) foods were essentially equivalent to regular foods. The truth is that genetically modified foods cannot ever be equivalent. They involve the most novel and technologically-violent alterations of our foods, the most uniquely different foods ever introduced in the history of modern agriculture (and in the history of biological evolution).To say otherwise affronts the intelligence of the public and safeguarding public officials. It is a bold, if not criminal lie to but appease greed-motivated corporate parties and at the direct expense and risk of the publics health. The FDA even decided against the advice of its own scientists that there was no need at all for FDA allergy or safety testing of these most novel of all foods. This hands-off climate (as promoted by the Bush Administration and similar to what was done with the mortgage and financial industry) is a recipe for widespread social health disasters.When elements of nature that have never before been present in the human diet are suddenly introduced, and without any public safety testing or labeling notice, such as petunia flower elements in soybeans and fish genes in tomatoes (as developed by DNA Plant Technology Corporation in the 1990s), it obviously risks allergic reactions among the most highly sensitive segments of our general population. It is a well-know fact that fish proteins happen to be among the most hyper-allergenic, while tomatoes are not.Thus not labeling such genetically modified tomatoes, with hidden alien or allergenic ingredients, is completely unconscionable. The same applies to the typical GMO that has novel bacterial and viral DNA artificially inserted. Many research studies have definitively confirmed this kind of overall risk for genetically modified foods CORN- Two research studies independently show evidence of allergenic reactions to GM Bt corn, Farm workers exposed to genetically-modified Bt sprays exhibited extensive allergic reactions.POTATOES A study showed genetically-modified potatoes expressing cod genes were allergenic. PEAS A decade-long study of GM peas was abandoned when it was discovered that they caused allergi c lung damage in mice. SOY In display 1999, researchers at the York Laboratory discovered that reactions to soy had skyrocketed by 50% over the year before, which corresponded with the introduction of genetically-modified soy from the US. It was the first time in 17 years that soy was tested in the lab among the top ten allergenic foods.Cancer and Degenerative Diseases 3. Direct Cancer and Degenerative Disease Links GH is a protein hormone which, when injected into cows stimulates the pituitary gland in a way that the produces more milk, thus reservation milk production more profitable for the large dairy corporations. In 1993, FDA approved Monsantos genetically-modified rBGH, a genetically-altered proceeds hormone that could be then injected into dairy cows to enhance this feature, and even though scientists warned that this resulted in an increase of IGF-1 (from (70%-1000%).IGF-1 is a very potent chemical hormone that has been linked to a 2 1/2 to 4 clock higher risk of huma n colorectal and breast cancer. Prostate cancer risk is considered equally serious in the 2,8. to 4 times range. According to Dr. Samuel Epstein of the University of Chicago and Chairman of the Cancer stripe Coalition, this induces the malignant transformation of human breast epithelial cells. Canadian studies confirmed such a distrustfulness and showed active IGF-1 absorption, thyroid cysts and internal organ damage in rats. Yet the FDA denied the significance of these findings.When two award-winning journalists, Steve Wilson and Jane Akre, tried to expose these deceptions, they were fired by Fox Network under intense pressure from Monsanto. The FDAs own experiments indicated a spleen mass increase of 40-46%- a sign of developing leukemia. The contention by Monsanto that the hormone was killed by pasteurisation or rendered inactive was fallacious. In research conducted by two of Monsantos own scientists, Ted Elasser and Brian McBride, only 19% of the hormone was destroyed despi te boiling milk for 30 minutes when normal pasteurization is 15 seconds.Canada, the European Union, Australia and New Zealand have banned rBGR. The UNs Codex Alimentarius, an international health standards setting body, refused to confess rBGH as safe. Yet Monsanto continued to market this product in the US until 2008 when it finally divested under public pressure. This policy in the FDA was initiated by Margaret Miller, Deputy Director of Human Safety and Consultative Services, New Animal Drug Evaluation Office, Center for Veterinary Medicine and former chemical laboratory supervisor for Monsanto. This is part of a larger revolving door between Monsanto and the Bush Administration.She spearheaded the increase in the amount of antibiotics farmers were allowed to have in their milk and by a factor of 100 or 10,000 percent. Also Michael Taylor, Esq. became the executive assistant to the theater director of the FDA and deputy Commissioner of Policy filling a position created in 1991 to promote the biotech industry and squelch internal dissent. There Taylor drafted a new law to undermine the 1958 enacted Delaney Amendment that so importantly outlawed pesticides and food additives known to cause cancer. In other words carcinogens could now legally be reintroduced into our food chain.Taylor was later chartered as legal counsel to Monsanto, and subsequently became Deputy Commissioner of Policy at the FDA once again. On another front, GM-approved products have been developed with resistance to herbicides that are commonly-known carcinogens. Bromoxynil is used on transgenic bromoxynmil-resistant or BXN cotton. It is known to cause very serious birth defects and brain damage in rats. Glyphosate and POEA, the main ingredients in Roundup, Monsantos lead product are suspected carcinogens. As to other degenerative disease links, according to a study by researcher Dr.Sharyn Martin, a number of autoimmune diseases are enhanced by foreign DNA fragments that are not fully di gested in the human stomach and intestines. DNA fragments are absorbed into the bloodstream, potentially mixing with normal DNA. The genetic consequences are unpredictable and unexpected gene fragments have shown up in GM soy crops. A similar view is echoed by Dr. Joe Cummins, Professor of Genetics at the University of Western Ontario, noting that animal experiments have demonstrated how exposure to such genetic elements may lead to inflammation, arthritis and lymphoma (a malignant blood disease).4. Indirect, Non-traceable Effects on Cancer Rates The twentieth century saw an incremental lowering of infectious disease rates, especially where a single bacteria was overcome by an antibiotic, but a simultaneous rise in systemic, whole body or immune system breakdowns. The epidemic of cancer is a major example and is affected by the overall polluted state of our environment, including in the pollution of the air, water, and food we take in. There are zillions of potential combinations fo r the 100,000 commonly thrust upon our environment.The real impact cannot be revealed by experiments that look at just a few controlled factors or chemicals isolates. Rather all of nature is a testing ground. Scientists a few years ago were startled that combining chemical food additives into chemical cocktails caused many times more toxic effects than the sum of the individual chemicals. More startling was the fact that some chemicals were thought to be harmless by themselves but not in such combinations. For example, two simple chemicals found in soft drinks, ascorbic acid and sodium benzoate, together form benzene, an immensely potent carcinogen.Similarly, there is the potential, with in all new ways of rearranging the natural order with genetic mutations and that similar non-traceable influences can likewise cause cancer. We definitively know X-rays and chemicals cause genetic mutations, and mutagenic changes are behind many higher cancer rates or where cells duplicate out of c ontrol. In the US in the year 1900, cancer affected only about 1 out 11 individuals. It now inflicts 1 out of 2 men and 1 out of 3 women in their lifetime. Cancer mortality rates rose relentlessly throughout the 20th century to more than triple overall.Viral and Bacterial Illness 5. Superviruses Viruses can mix with genes of other viruses and retroviruses such as HIV. This can give rise to more deadly viruses and at rates higher than previously thought. One study showed that gene mixing occurred in viruses in just 8 weeks (Kleiner, 1997). This kind of scenario applies to the cauliflower mosaic virus CaMV, the most common virus used in genetic engineering in Round Up ready soy of Monsanto, Bt-maise of Novaris, and GM cotton and canola.It is a kind of pararetrovirus or what multiplies by making DNA from RNA. It is somewhat similar to Hepatitis B and HIV viruses and can pose immense dangers. In a Canadian study, a plant was infected with a crippled cucumber mosaic virus that lacked a gene needed for movement between plant cells. Within less than two weeks, the crippled plant found what it needed from neighboring genes as evidence of gene mixing or horizontal transfer.