Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Oh dear, yet more reasons to eat organic...

Avoid those genetically modified "foods." I got these tidbits from Midwifery Today's latest e-news issue: http://www.midwiferytoday.com/enews/enews1107.asp#qwr

Think About It


2008 was the first year of commercial planting of genetically modified (GM) sugar beets in the US, with that sugar expected to enter the nation's food supply this year. The Monsanto Roundup Ready sugar beet is genetically engineered to be resistant to Monsanto's herbicide glyphosate (marketed as Roundup). The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently agreed to a Monsanto request to increase the allowable levels of glyphosate residue on sugar beet roots by 5000 percent.

A representative of Amalgamated Sugar estimated that 95 percent of the sugar beet crop in Idaho would be of the new GM variety in 2008. Sugar beets account for about half the sugar in processed foods.

Question of the Week

Q: I am writing from Indonesia, the country that got GMO soy first, to share what I am seeing, and to ask if you too are seeing the same. In 2008 Bumi Sehat Bali received 573 babies. We saw an increase in retained placentas. I also am seeing an increase in velamentous cord insertion. In 2008 and so far in 2009 we have seen [far] too many "sticky" placentas; two even had to be transported (we do manual removal on site when absolutely necessary), one for a hysterectomy and one with one liter of blood loss. In the last six weeks of 2008 I had to go after four placentas! It was not pretty, and I do not take it lightly (usually never more than one per year).

Also most shocking is the empirical experience (I have no research to prove it) of an increase of velamentous umbilical cord insertion and short cords. I also am seeing a decrease in Wharton's jelly among all our babies. Cords are also shorter. We don't cut them for a minimum of three hours at Bumi Sehat and many families choose lotus birth. Last week our midwife Ayu had to cut a cord after the birth of the head, as the body would not follow, it was that short a nuchal cord—she had never had to do this before in her life as a midwife.

What are you midwives seeing?

The study I read concerning M16 genetically modified corn showed that when fed to pregnant mice, ALL OF THE OFFSPRING, in one generation, had alterations of ALL the cells in ALL their organs! Can you see why I am worried about our precious placentas? I did not make this connection, until I began to see an increase in abnormalities and pathology due to placenta and cord troubles. The fact that so many Indonesian women depend upon genetically modified soy products (tempeh and tofu) for their day-to-day protein, and the early introduction of GMO soy here got me wondering.

— Ibu Robin Lim
Bali, Indonesia

3 comments:

  1. Oh great, that's just great. Why does this not make bigger headlines?

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  2. Yikes! It's sad to say, we have all this technology, but instead of using it to do things that help us and the environment, we do things like this! And we don't know what it will do to us until after the fact! You think we'd learn. (For some reason the word thalidimide is coming to mind, but I can't for the life of me imagine why :)
    Oh, your car is where? How are you gonna get your car back?

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  3. This is insane. Why can't people just LEAVE OUR FOOD ALONE?

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