A Special Interview with Jeffrey Smith By Dr.

Mercola

JS: Jeffery Smith DM: Dr. Joseph Mercola, DO INTRO: Hello everyone. Today, were delighted to have with us, Jeffrey Smith who is the executive director for the Institute for Responsible Technology. Hes written a number of books of which he will expand on but I think its leading characteristic and attribute is that he is probably the single leading individual and force in the United States responsible for helping limit the spread and actually eliminate the spread of GMO (Genetically Modified Organisms) crops in the United States. As hell get into, Im sure, it has been successfully done in Europe and hes leading the charge in the United States to make sure that happens in this country and were behind him and supporting him in his endeavor. So, Im really excited to have him today because he is going to really open probably many of your eyes to some areas you may not have been aware of. So, thank you and welcome for joining us Jeffrey. JS: Thank you so much. Great to be here. DM: Maybe you can mention to our listeners some of your books so that they can know what youve written. JS: I wrote the book Seeds of Deception and also Genetic Roulette and have the videos Hidden Dangers in Kids Meals and Your Milk on Drugs, Just Say No. DM: Okay, great. So, obviously those are available for more information but I think this interview will give us a reallysome good tidbits. So lets start with some interesting factoids. Now you write about GM corn chips and how they might transform our gut bacteria into living pesticides factories. Thats pretty interesting because corn chips, tortilla chips, they are pervasive. You know, most of us see at parties and bars. We crunch on them. So what are risking when we actually consume these. JS: Of all the things that I talk about, the fact that we might convert our intestinal bacteria into living pesticide factories maybe the highest in the yuck factor. I mean, when I speak, I show pictures of testicles that changed color from pink to blue and rats that ate genetically modified soy. I show a five-fold increase in infant mortality among babies of mothers that were fed GM soy and smaller babies and thousands of sick, sterile and dead livestock. But of all the things that I talk about, the question that I get the most on is, well, how do I know if my intestinal bacteria is a living pesticide factory.

So, heres the back story. The only human feeding study ever published on genetically modified foods show that genes that were inserted into soy beans. Now, soy beans are genetically engineered not to die when sprayed with roundup herbicides where they are called roundup, ready soybeans and they have a gene from bacteria inserted into the DNA of the soy which allows them to survive otherwise deadly doses of roundup herbicide. So, they took seven volunteers and three of the seven volunteers, turns out, they looked inside the gut bacteria and they had the gene that was inserted into the soy that some time in some previous meal, had transferred into the DNA of the bacteria living inside their intestines and continued to function even long after they stopped eating genetically modified soy. Now, there are some serious medical implications and well talk about that but this was a government funded study in the UK and the UK is very pro-GM and as soon as they found this, they never funded the follow up to see if the genes from corn which are genetically engineered to produce an insecticide called BT toxin. They never checked to see if those two also transfer and continue to pump out this insecticide or toxin inside our intestines. DM: Before we go further, I just would like to give a perspective because I mentioned genetically modified corn chips and we basically have two primary crops; corn and soy. And about 13, 14 years ago prior to the introduction of the GM crops, about the time maybe 2% of those total crops were genetically modified. Im wondering as were ending the first quarter of 2010, if you could let our listeners know what the percentages of corn and soy that is now genetically modified because I think thats a constantly moving target and there is probably no one better qualified for you to answer that. JS: Well, its about 85% of the corn in the United States is genetically engineered either to produce an insecticide or survive applications of herbicide and about 91% to 93% of the soybean crop is genetically engineered not to die when sprayed with round up herbicides. So essentially if you buy a corn or soy derivative something that is like soy oil or soy flour or soy lecithin, high fructose corn syrup, it comes from mixing in a lot of corn from the harvest and so unless it says organic or non-GMO, it is most definitely largely genetically engineered. DM: And from you experience is it fairly accurate to say that if it has the green USDAs organic certification or non-GMO that thats a pretty strong insurance that its not going to contain this?

JS: Well, we can say that efforts have been made to eliminate or minimize the contamination. We cant say its a hundred percent free of contamination because the pollen doesnt read the science as its flowing through the air. Fortunately, there is a new third party verified system that requires testing and has a low acceptable threshold and thats called the non-GMO project. Well, youll be seeing more and more seals saying non-GMO project verified on products this year but right now, the best we can do is organic and non-GMO labels. DM: Alright, well get to back to the insecticide thing because thats huge as you mentioned but I just want to continue with this thread for a bit more with respect to I guess the government restrictions on GMO labeling. I just kind of _ at me and our listeners too, what is the current status? Is there a restriction? Is the government preventing food manufacturers from putting this label on their food? Do they have put disclaimers on if its non-GMO? JS: Well, its a good question. In 1992, the person in charge of policy at the FDA was going to decide whether GMOs had to be labeled or whether they had to be tested. The person turned out to be Monsantos former attorney. Later Monsantos vice president and now hes the U.S. food safety czar. He claimed that the agency was not aware of any information showing that the foods created by genetic engineering were significantly different and therefore no testing and no labeling were required. Now, documents made public from a lawsuit showed that it was a lie that the policy was clearly fictitious. In fact, the overwhelming consensus among the FDAs own scientists were that genetically modified foods were inherently dangerous and could create allergies, toxins, new diseases, and nutritional problems and of course they should be labeled because they are a food additive and food additives that are new and like that should have been labeled. Now, what happened was the FDA was told by the White House. This was the first George Bush White House to promote the biotechnology industry. And they knew if they labeled it, that most Americans would say they wouldnt eat it. So, they ignored the desire of nine out of ten Americans in order to support the economic interests of five biotech companies. Now, they dont actually say you cant label something as non-GMO but if you use the word GMO-free, the FDA may jump in because thats saying that its a hundred percent guaranteed with no GM and isnt just (inaudible 8:01) DM: So thats the loophole and from your perspective, have there been manufacturers or producers of food that have been actively prosecuted for putting GMO free on their labels?

JS: Not prosecuted but they received a letter then they get all nervous and sometimes they talk to me. Sometimes the letter is just saber rattling and sometimes the letter is stronger but I dont know of any lawsuits. But there is another aspect and that is there is milk from cows injected with genetically engineered bovine growth hormone. Michael Taylor, Monsantos former attorney, it was a Monsanto product at the time, he wrote a white paper when he was in charge of policy at the FDA suggesting that if any dairy puts a rBGH free claim on their label that they should also put a disclaimer saying that according to the FDA there is no difference in milk from cows supplemented with rBGH compared to those are not. Because of this, this was just a suggestion it wasnt a requirement but as soon as some companies started to put an rBGH free label on their product, Monsanto did file lawsuits. More recently, some States are now requiring companies that if they use an rBGH free claim, they must put this disclaimer and theyre completely mistaken thinking that its an FDA requirement even though it was just a suggestion by Monsantos guy in the FDA. So thats the thing were fighting and Ill be sure to alert your readers about an issue that were going to be doing with the Ohio governor who has the most difficult claim. In fact its so difficult for dairies to achieve that many dairies are planning to just eliminate their rBGH free claim altogether rather than putting a really large font size on the same side of the package, all these requirements that the Ohio governor, for some reason, is requiring any dairy that sells products in his State to abide by it. DM: What a perversion of justice. Thats a perversion. Michael Taylor the person you referenced to, wrote this, doesnt he have a current positionI thought he was maybe the acting chief of the FDA or I forgot what his position is. JS: Well, hes the deputy commissioner in charge of food safety and so he is the U.S. food safety czar. Now, I say it as a joke but its actually probably true, he is the individual who is responsible for probably more food related illnesses and deaths than anyone in human history by fast tracking GMOs and hes in charge of the U.S. food safety. DM: What ultimate paradox. You know and another one somewhat related to Monsanto I just learned about by watching Food, Inc. and Im sure youve known but perhaps you can enlighten our listeners that Clarence Thomas who was an attorney for Monsanto prior to his being appointed and selected to the Supreme Court. My understanding is that his positioning and reasoning was instrumental at allowing Monsanto to make one of the most grievous or grant Monsanto one of the most

grievous patents ever in the history of the U.S. which was to patent life and seeds which could devastate the future of our culture. JS: Yeah, I got an email about five minutes ago. There is an organization that wants to create an email campaign, letter writing campaign to the Chief Justice asking him to force Clarence Thomas to recuse himself in the April Supreme Court consideration of genetically modified alfalfa. Monsanto is going to court to try and get their genetically modified alfalfa okayed for distribution and were hoping that Clarence Thomas recluses himself because of that relationship. And yeah, I mean, we had other experiences. There was another judge that turned down a request for a class action on the price fixing. It turns out, he used to work for Monsanto and never mentioned that and did not recluse himself. That was not the Supreme Court but another judge. DM: Its just shocking. These organizations are large, theyre powerful, they have a large number of resources and multibillion dollar corporations but they are still relatively few. I think the exciting thing and we dont want to just be shouting alarm bells and scaring people but the exciting component is that when we have educated researchers that can document this and we have tools and outlets like our website and others that we can spread the information. We can share it and if we are able to inform and educate a tipping point of consumers and I dont know what that is, 10, 15, 25 percent of the nation starts to understand this, there is no way theyre going to get away with this. There is just no way. So, I think we need to be reminded that even though this travesty has occurred and had occurred and continue to occur, that as more of us become educated and educate others, we can prevent and actually reverse some of this. Thats really the purpose of this interview in our efforts to inform people. JS: And the good news is its already happening. We mentioned bovine growth hormone. Well, there is a change in the milk thats possibly an increased cancer risk. I think its very possibly an increased cancer risk. Its been condemned by the American Public Health Association, the American Nurses Association, and banned in almost every other country and when we point out that the milk has this higher hormone that is linked to cancer as well as more positive antibiotics and bovine growth hormone right in the milk that we drink, that causes a tremendous concern especially among parents and so theyve been looking for milk without bovine growth hormone and the market has responded.

Were seeing a tipping point under way. Wal-Mart kicked it out; _ and Starbucks. So, were very excited about that. And the GMO issue, they saw a tipping point back 10, 11 years ago. April 1999 when they hit the tipping point of consumer rejection within a single week virtually every major food company committed to stop using GM ingredients. So thats what Im about. Our campaign for healthier eating in America is about creating a tipping point here. DM: Well my intention is to put you out of business as soon possible. JS: Please do doctor. DM: If they are around and there is no need for you and you can go on some other campaign but in the meantime, this is a major massive threat to the health of everyone listening to this and everyone you know and love so, I cant encourage you strongly enough to get behind this and do what it takes and really be a campaigner not just listen to this and understand it but educate others. Thats the mission. That is the purpose. We need to understand this. If there is anything more you want to say in this but at some point, we can go back to those shifting of the living pesticide factories that are being produced (no audio 15:58) challenges from introducing these perversion of food into our food supply. JS: Right, I mean, there is a lot we can talk about and I think, you know, one of the issues is that unlike global warming and other things, you dont have to require policy changes to kick GMOs out, but also the good thing about GMO is if you talk about turning your intestinal flora into living pesticide factories or some of the other horrific results which we will go into now, people dont want to eat it. Its not an altruistic thing. Its not like doing it for some union organizer or for some abstract environmental purpose. You look at the food differently and realize it maybe poisonous. It maybe allergenic, it may hurt you seriously whether youre of child bearing age, whether youre a child and a whole range and so lets go through what can go wrong and then in the context of turning our intestinal flora into living pesticide factories. DM: Good, so go for it. Entertain us. JS: The process of genetic engineering, I mean, lets say you want to turn an ear of corn into a registered pesticide and you go to the soil and you take a bacterium out of the soil called BT which stands for Bacillus thuringiensis and its used even by organic farmers now in its natural state as a spray that kills insects. It breaks open their stomach and kills them. Now, what the genetic engineers do is they take the gene that produces the toxin and they make some changes so its far more toxic and then they make millions of copies of this gene and shoot the gene. (inaudible 16:37)

So, in order to understand the risks associated with GMOs, Im going to back up and talk about the process of creating a genetically modified organism because if we understand that, then a whole host of other things, a whole host of things that can go wrong all of a sudden become clear because the biotech industry gives you this impression thats it a very clean, we just take a gene from species and carefully splice it into another and the only thing thats different is its producing some new beneficial protein to produces some trait. This thing is completely far from the truth. What they do, lets say you want to create a corn plant that produces a pesticide. So you go to the soil bacterium called BT, for Bacillus thuringiensis and you change it so its more toxic and you make millions of copies of the gene, you actually put a piece of a virus there with it which turns its on, its called the promoter, its the on switch that turns this gene on, 24/7, around the clock. You make millions of copies and you put it in a gun and you shoot that gun into a plate of millions of cells hoping that some of the genes make it into the DNA of some of those cells. Then you clone those cells into plants, now the process of insertion and cloning causes massive collateral damage in the DNA that could have higher levels and do have higher levels of allergens and toxins and antinutrients of soybeans that are genetically engineered have as much as seven times higher the amount of a known allergen cold trypsin inhibitor when compared to non-GM soy in their cooked state. There is a new allergen in genetically modified corn. There is a new anti-nutrient in the soy which blocks the absorption of nutrients. They dont look for these things. These are found after theyre on the market by some few of the independent researchers that are doing their work. Getting back to the process, now, once you put in this BT gene, it now is like a little spray bottle that sprays BT toxin in every cell of every corn plant and millions and millions of acres. Now, you can actually buy the natural BT spray and use it in your garden. Farmers use it because thats just the natural bacterium thats sprayed on plants. And because of that, the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) and the biotech companies claim that BT is safe for human consumption because it has a history of safe use. They claim that humans and mammals dont react to it at all but this is clearly false. Based on peer reviewed published studies, animals like mice that were fed BT had damaged tissues and immune responses as powerful as if theyve been fed cholera

toxin and then they became multiply chemically sensitive where they started to react to formally harmless compounds. Now, in the Pacific Northwest when they sprayed BT by airplane to kill gypsy moths about 500 people complained of allergic reactions or flu-like symptoms, some had to go to the hospital. Now, with the BT in the corn, its thousands of times more concentrated than the spray version. Its designed to be more toxic. It has properties of a known allergen and its wreaking havoc. For example, thousands of farm workers who are harvesting cotton in India thats engineered to produce this BT toxin are complaining of rashes all over their bodies and the same allergic and flu like symptoms as those in the Pacific Northwest that were sprayed with BT. They allow animals to graze on BT cotton plants after harvest and thousands of sheep, buffalo, goats, and cows have died. I visited one village in Andhra, Pradesh where they allowed their buffalo for eight years to safely graze on natural cotton plants after harvest but they allowed their buffalo, sheep, and goats to graze on the BT, the BT toxin producing plants after they were harvested and within a single day, all the 13 buffalo had died, 26 sheep and goat died, and this is not just an isolated incident. There are shepherds that say thousands of their sheep had died and also some of the buffalos eating cotton seed in northern India are getting reproductive problems and the calves are dying and the adults are dying. DM: This is a strong indication that this is probably not healthy in living things but on the other hand this is relatively a large exposure and obviously a significantly acute reaction to the best of my knowledge humans arent dropping like flies as a result of doing this so I think, I guess if they ate large enough quantities they might but the more significant concern and Id like you to address is what are the long term consequences of doing this, of raising generations of these bacteria that are altered and then having these toxins circulate through our system because I think thats where the dangers and many acute exposures like tobacco, cigarette smoking for example, you have to exposed to this for 10, 15, 20 years before you even significantly increase your risk for disease and the same thing with exposure to electromagnetic radiation. It doesnt happen from one small exposure. So, Im wondering if you can address that. JS: Excellent. Well, if you look at some of the research of rats and mice that were fed the BT toxin, the corn and these were like probably 11% of their diet or 33% of their diets. So its actually a reasonable amount of exposure especially if you compared to Mexicans or people in Southern Africa where they have lots of corn.

There were evidences of toxicity especially the liver and kidneys. There were immune reactions. The Italian government did a great study where they exposed mice to one of Monsantos popular BT corn varieties, a huge variety of immune responses which if you look at them and I gave a talk to the American Academy of Environmental Medicine exposing the relationship between GMOs, autoimmune disease, and inflammation, we went deeply into the kind of diseases that humans have associated with the kind of problems that these mice were having. And then in terms of long term studies DM: Why dont list a few of those. I mean, it sounds like theyre mostly autoimmune diseases? JS: Well, yeah. In fact, Ill pull it up on my computer because it was a rather obscure list. I mean, I went deeply into the thing. Well Ill pull it up as were talking. DM: Are these like thyroiditis, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, diabetes? JS: Alright, Ive got it here in front of me. First of all, people who were exposed to the BT in its natural spray; farm workers had all sorts of reactions, they had a skin prick test that showed that they were reacting, they remained sensitive for months afterwards, they had respiratory eye and skin symptoms. The implications were that exposure may lead to allergic sensitization and expert advisors to the EPA said that mouse and farm worker studies suggest that BT proteins which the EPA commends are completely safe, could act as antigenic and allergenic sources and yet the EPA completely ignored that. We also see in rats an inflammation, mononuclear cells infiltrating into the liver. DM: I mean, I dont want to bore our listeners with the specific histological and biochemical aberrations. Im more interested in what are the risks? What are the diseases that they might get? JS: Rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease, osteoporosis, atherosclerosis, various types of cancers, allergies, Lou Gehrigs disease. These are all associated with some of the interleukin changes that occur in mice as a result of introducing DM: Okay, and thats what I thought coz the biggest ones are rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis and inflammatory bowel disease. So, there is suggestion from the animal research that thats going to increase your risk and that doesnt mean youre going to get it just like smoking cigarettes doesnt mean youre going to come down with lung cancer but youre clearly increasing your risk for this disease. JS: Absolutely, now, in addition to that, the Austrian government did one of the very, very few long term feeding studies. They gave mice genetically modified corn which was a combination of BT and roundup ready and the more corn they fed to the mice the fewer the babies were born to those mice and the smaller those babies were. This raises the whole issue of reproductive problems which were seeing a lot on the roundup ready soy side. In fact, I know this one senior researcher at the Russian

National Academy of Sciences who fed genetically modified soy flour to female rats and more than half of the babies died within three weeks compared to only a 10% death rate among the controls that ate natural soy and the offspring of the GM fed group were smaller and could not reproduce. She also fed GM soy to male rats and the testicles changed from pink to blue and in Italy some Italian researchers fed male mice genetically modified soy and there were changes and damages to their testicles including damage to the young sperm cells. Then they looked at the embryos of offspring of parents that were fed genetically modified soy and the DNA functioned differently in the embryos compared to when the parents were fed regular soy. So this raises a huge specter of potential problems for the infant mortality and morbidity. In fact, as happens and has always happens when a scientist discovers adverse findings, they tend to be attacked and this Russian scientist, she was attacked and she was vilified and she told she couldnt do any more GM research. One of her colleagues tried to comfort her by saying well maybe the GM soy will solve the overpopulation problem on earth. She wasnt impressed. DM: Yes, indeed. So its clearly a challenge and especially in light of the fact that the United States specifically has such abysmal birthing record with 32% of the births going through cesarean section and all those complications. We already got challenges. I had an interesting question that is a slight intangent but I think an important one because it relates to how likely is this BT toxin and thats the primary one that were talking about going to be in a genetically modified food. I mean is there some type of processing that can eliminate it or filtering, in a way that kind of removes it from the end product and is it related to what the end product is. And my specific question relates to a recent interest which is dextrose which is primarily madeor glucose but commercially primarily manufactured from corn. It is part of the sucrose molecule. Sucrose is cane sugar which is a disaccharide composed of glucose and fructose and were beginning to understand that fructose is just a major significant problem in contributing to the obesity epidemic. Its unrelated to the fact that its genetically modified. It should be giving people pure large doses of inexpensive fructose as serious _ pathology. But it seems like the glucose is metabolized differently and maybe an acceptable sweetener even though its not as sweet but its going to have much severe less metabolic pathology certainly not as good as stevia or some other natural sweeteners but at least it might be an option.

Im wondering is there any way to refine that commercially or is there any sort of commercially available dextrose or glucose that is essentially going to be assumed to be taken from corn is going to be contaminated with the BT toxin. JS: Excellent question. Its my understanding that when you put corn through a wet mill process which takes three days, that processing essentially kills or destroys the protein that is BT toxin. So I am guessing and Im not a food chemist but Im guessing that dextrose, maltodextrin, high fructose corn syrup are all derivatives of corn that would no longer have intact BT protein. DM: Very important distinction. Thank you for making that. JS: But it doesnt let you off the hook completely. Some people say, well, there is no DNA and there is no protein so it must not be a problem if its genetically engineered. Thats not true because we already discussed that the process of genetically engineering a crop causes massive collateral damage. For example DM: Sure. JS: And so it could create some DM: From an environmental ecological perspective, its just not wise. JS: But even from a food perspective because you could end up with some toxin thats increased in the corn plant that survives the process DM: Interesting. Any speculation what those toxins are, what they look like? Are they viruses? Are they DNA molecules? JS: Well, you know, it could be anything because when you insert it, there is a recent study or study that surprised a lot of scientists, they found that when the presence of a single inserted foreign gene as much as 5% of the active genes in the cell changed their levels of protein output which means hundreds or thousands of genes, natural genes in the plant might change their levels of expression causing changes higher levels of allergens or toxins or carcinogens that we dont check for before the crop goes on the market. Now, sometimes they find out accidentally like accidentally the GM soy and corn both have more lignin which is that woody compound in trees but it turns out that the metabolic pathway that produces lignin also produces a plant pesticide that is linked to Parkinsons disease. So we maybe creating more Parkinsons disease as a result of this completely side effect that came as the result of genetic engineering.

Now, in terms of genes transferring to your gut bacteria and causing them to produce the pesticide, you only get that where the DNA is intact. So that would be not only corn on the cob but also corn chips, corn tortillas, corn flour, the DNA is still intact there. DM: Im a bit confused and in fact some of our listeners would be alsoand the distinction betweenobviously corn on the cob is not an issue that is a whole food but what type of processing occurs to make a corn chip that is different from making high fructose corn syrup or dextrose? JS: Well there is a wet milling process thats so intense and they put all sorts of enzymes in there and break out the corn. Its not just where they take the corn and cook it. DM: So thats what occurs when youre making corn chips, they just take the whole corn and cook it and texture it to create these corn chips? JS: Exactly. DM: Wet mill process, okay. JS: Right, and you will find some BT toxin in there depending on how long its cooked. Of course when the companies are asked by the EPA occasionally to tell them how much protein survives we found that they overcook their corn chips by as much as six fold. Theyve got bad science down to a science to hide the evidence of harm. DM: Well that would be from the perspective of BT toxin. That would be good if we were cooking it because thats going to denature the toxin. JS: Right, exactly. But it doesnt mean, I mean, there were some studies that show that cooking allergens do not necessarily denature to the point where its not an allergen. In some cases, its actually enhanced. DM: (inaudible 32:52) JS: Right, yeah, they found that there were some peas that were engineered to kill the pea weevil with an inserted insecticide from kidney beans and these peas were about to be introduced all over the world, they were being developed in Australia and these guys, peas have passed all of the tests normally done before a GM crop gets on the market but these guys decided to do one more test. It was an advanced test, immunological test on mice that no other GM food crop developer has done before since and it was only because of that test that they decided not to introduce the peas because for some reason this harmless protein when it was put into a pea, had become potentially deadly and might have created deadly anaphylactic shock and they found that there was just some subtle change in the ways

that the sugar chain molecules had added themselves to the protein something that could easily be happening in all of the other genetically modified crops. They also found that when they cooked the insecticide it did not decrease the impact on the mice. So for years people have been saying, well the protein thats produced in the corn its cooked and so it must not be active. Well finally when they check a genetically modified crop they find out that their assumption is false. DM: It seems to me that the summary here ofIm sure is lots of other data to support this is that we probably only know a tip of the tip of the iceberg of the potential complications of this perversion of the food system and the wisest approach would be to exercise the precautionary principle and not integrate it and make the entire species a massive experiment. Im wondering if you could update us too on the status of Europe in what they have done with this, the genetically modified crops and if they actually exercise this precautionary principle and eliminate it from their food supplies. JS: Excellent. To summarize and to cap off the health dangers, I think Id like to quote the American Academy of Environmental Medicine. Now, this organization is like real detective work. They look at the cutting edge of whats going on and they were the first to identify Gulf War syndrome and food allergies and chemical sensitivity and a host of other issues and they came out in May of 2009 stating the all doctors should prescribe non-GMO diets to all patients. They said animal feeding studies have causally linked GMOs to things like infertility, immune system problems, accelerated aging, vital organ damage, gastrointestinal problems and disregulation of cholesterol and insulin. So, Im suggesting that people take their advice. I know many, many doctors that prescribe non-GMO diets. They give out our non-GMO shopping guide which is a little pocket brochure or they suggest people to get our iPhone version which is called Shop no GMO. DM: Well have a reference for those on these article too so listeners can pick that up. JS: So, in terms of Europe, it turns out that the European food safety authority which is like their FDA is chockfull of pro-GM scientists who have links to the biotech industry. Some of whom are even on associations designed to promote biotech in Europe. So they are a rubber stamp organization. The European Commission, the unelected bureaucrats that have given a green light to GMOs, theyre also pro-GM. But there are many countries that are against genetically modified crops. So its a mixed bag on the political level but most of the countries say they refuse to allow it to be planted. Now, whats kept GMOs out of Europe is the top of the food chain consumers. Back in 1999 there was a scientist who was ungagged. He had been working for the UK government grant to determine how to test for the safety of GM foods and he took supposedly harmless genetically modified potatoes and fed them to rats and within 10 days, massive damage to the rats. Potentially, pre cancerous cell growth, smaller brains, livers and testicles, partial atrophy of the liver, damaged immune system. He

went public with his concerns, was a hero for about two days at his prestigious institute and then two phone calls were allegedly placed from the Prime Ministers office, forwarded through the receptionist to the director of his institute and the next day he was fired after 35 years and silenced with threats of a lawsuit. They never implemented his protocol. Instead, they embarked on a campaign to destroy his reputation. But because of an act of Parliament in February of 1999, his gag order was lifted and 750 articles were written within a month and the specter of concern of GMOs as a food safety issue had spread throughout Europe and thats why Europeans dont eat GMOs because the tipping point was achieved and Nestles and Unilever and McDonalds and Burger King, everyone that serves GMOs here, no longer serves GMOs over there because there people know about them. Here, most people dont even think theyve ever eaten a GM food in their life. DM: Thats what were going to and we mentioned earlier is that we can make a difference and we have a presence. Europeans have, as you mentioned, eliminated it. Now is it most of Europe that do not sell genetically modified foods or is there are certain sections? JS: Well, you see they require labeling. If any single ingredient is genetically modified or above 0.9% then the entire package has to be labeled as GM food. So the entire European Union has almost no GM crops that are put into food intentionally. They do have animal feed because thats a loophole in their labeling. So the bulk of the milk and meat from animals that have been fed GMOs dont have to be labeled but many retailers commit to their consumers that they dont use (inaudible 39:24) DM: So there is a little loophole that needs to be fixed up but it sounds like a really powerful testimony to the effect but its a relatively simple intervention which is requiring honest labeling thats not perverted by some FDA mandate to have some disclaimer on it that essentially nullifies the effect of warning and informing and educating consumers that this food is altered and not natural in the way it was designed to be. JS: You know, its interesting Americans 53% of Americans, the majority say they would avoid GMOs if labeled and Supermarket News in December said that because of our non-GMO shopping guide website and because of the new labeling scheme thats nonGMO labeling, they predicted that 2010 would see an upsurge, an unprecedented upsurge of consumer awareness and concern about GMOs which is exactly what we are predicting and working towards. In addition, the Nielsen survey said that the fastest growing claim amongst store brands in 2009 was GMO free or non-GMO. So were seeing the data points, the indications that our campaign to create a tipping point is starting to take hold. DM: Great and youve created a very powerful resource to assist consumers and educate them as to how do this and its your non-GMO shopping guide. Maybe you can talk a bit about that.

JS: Right, we have in www.nonGMOshoppingGuide.com, 22 categories of food, you know, baked goods, dairy, alternative dairy things like that. And we list the brands that tell us that theyre not genetically engineered, that they design their products so that they exclude those and then we list samples of those that probably do contain GMOs. We say may contain but we know they actually do. And, on our iPhone app, for example, you can pick your favorites and create a little shopping list to bring with you in the store, we distribute the shopping guide, a pocket guide through health food stores and through doctors offices and we tend to put it side by side with a little health risk brochure. The health risk brochure tells you why to avoid GMOs and the non-GMO shopping guide tells you how. Now, I think that the way to create a tipping point has three components, one is the health risks which we put in books format, DVDs, podcasts, PowerPoints, articles, etcetera because we package the information for distribution to the masses. The second is the shopping guide so people can better choose non-GMO healthier choices and the third is knowledge of the tipping point, because that gives people hope and gives people an empowered viral marketing energy. So we think only 5%, 15 million Americans avoiding GM ingredients would be sufficient to create a tipping point and there is already 28 million Americans that buy organic regularly, 87 million that think GMOs are unsafe and 159 million that say they wont eat it if they were labeled or they had a choice. So we actually have the numbers on our side and what youre doing Dr. Mercola is magnificent because you reach such a large percentage of people who have committed to making healthier choices in their diet and so the people listening today, it is the perfect group in the country or in the world to affect the change. DM: Only two-thirds of our listeners are in the United States, clearly one-third is internationals. JS: Yeah, so were talking about a huge impact and I would recommend not only for people to change their own diet but to take our podcast and look at our online free videos and get the materials to adopt 10 people or a hundred people or your network for your Facebook or your organization because its really going to take all of us getting the word out and when I do, when I get the word out, it turns out people are so grateful. There is no resistance. Most Americans have this instinctive understanding that its not a good idea to take genes from one species, put it in a gene gun shoot it into another one where its never actually co-evolved for all these years, creating completely new impacts that weve

never tested and putting it on the market without any required safety studies or labeling. Its just ludicrous especially now that we find it most of the assumptions that were used as the basis of safety claims years ago, turned out to be false. We understood DNA falsely. We understood the process of genetic engineering falsely and the entire technology is based on those false assumptions and what we know now, is that it is extremely dangerous and that implications are that it may be responsible for example, contributing to the jump in multiple chronic illnesses. There were 7% of Americans in 1996 had three or more chronic illnesses, thats when GMOs were introduced, nine years later, it was 13%. Food allergies doubled in less time. Food related illnesses doubled in less time. So, were seeing an increase in autism, an increase in gastrointestinal problems, leaking gut. Each of these things, have a theoretical capacity to be created and produced or promoted through the problems of genetic engineering and there is no one thats looking at it. So we shouldnt have to wait until the research is done to opt out of this experiment. DM: Alright, so I think that they strategy then is to, as you mentioned earlier, continue to hammer home is to become educated about this and to not only yourself but your family and friends and inform them and I think from a strategic perspective, as were recording this its a week after the National Food Expo which is the largest expositions of _ in the world. There are over 50,000 people that were there and I know you were there. This year my schedule didnt allow me to attend but next year, I think we should become very strategic in like probably a few months maybe target a large number of these organizations and get this to the CDOs and let them know about this. I think if we make a small target, a small segment of that target group, I think it would even exponentially multiply the effect of having everyone listening to this become informed because we can go to these CDOs. We can tell them. We can show them nobody listening because they know that there is a conscious, that there are tens of millions of people out there who do not want to have GMO in their food. JS: Absolutely, I think your idea is excellent and there is some good news I picked up from the Expo that there is the entire natural food industry has determined that October is non-GMO month and that October 10th which is 10/10/10 is non-GMO day. So, we now have a whole year to prepare, to create a powerful influence for this tipping point and so I encourage especially the healthcare professionals listening to distribute educational materials those with networks of people and organizations, we have, and you have all these documented evidence that can be spread to very large numbers. DM: This is very exciting. So you got lots of otherwell definitely have you back again but I think is a good chunk for people to digest and of course well link to your other

resources. I mean, there is just, youve written all these books and we got lots of other audios that we _ become informed and educated on this but there isand this is real folks. This is absolutely real. It can have a huge dramatic impact. I mean, were not reinventing the wheel here; its already been done in Europe. Most of Europe PMs do not have genetically modified foods in their grocery stores. We do. We know that we can change its just a matter of doing it. So, at some point, we got to bite the bullet and put a little extra effort and energy in. I know weve got a lot of challenges in our plate but this is a big one. Youre doing it not only for yourselves but future generations. It has significant enormous impact. So keep on spreading the word. JS: Thank you Dr. Mercola. Youre a great missionary of health. Your influence is magnificent. DM: Thank you very much and well definitely have you on again. JS: Thank you.