"Pesticides associated to genetically modified foods (PAGMF), are engineered to tolerate herbicides such as glyphosate (GLYP) and gluphosinate (GLUF) or insecticides such as the bacterial toxin bacillus thuringiensis (Bt). The aim of this study was to evaluate the correlation between maternal and fetal exposure, and to determine exposure levels of GLYP and its metabolite aminomethyl phosphoric acid (AMPA), GLUF and its metabolite 3-methylphosphinicopropionic acid (3-MPPA) and Cry1Ab protein (a Bt toxin) in Eastern Townships of Quebec, Canada. Blood of thirty pregnant women (PW) and thirty-nine nonpregnant women (NPW) were studied. Serum GLYP and GLUF were detected in NPW and not detected in PW. Serum 3-MPPA and CryAb1 toxin were detected in PW, their fetuses and NPW. This is the first study to reveal the presence of circulating PAGMF in women with and without pregnancy, paving the way for a new field in reproductive toxicology including nutrition and utero-placental toxicities."
Looks like cooking and digestion might not be the remediation we thought they were.
Looks like cooking and digestion might not be the remediation we thought they were.
Just because they were detected, that means what, exactly?
You can detect all kinds of chemicals. With current technologies that can detect to parts per billion (or maybe even smaller amounts), the relevance of being able to detect something becomes questionable. You eat Bacillus thurigensis whenever you eat certain vegetables; it is a normal component of the environment, which waits around in soil until a suitable host comes along. It's very difficult for me to become concerned that Cry1Ab, a Bt protein, can be detected in blood, since it is such an unavoidable component of our diet. You can detect beef proteins in blood after eating beef, too. I'm sure all kinds of other food-specific proteins are detectable after eating, as well.
I should also point out that our bodies have evolved quite extensive mechanisms for removing toxins, which exist in virtually all foods of plant origin (and, to a lesser extent, foods of animal origin). While I wouldn't deliberately overload the toxin removal system by taking massive herbal or vitamin supplements, I also wouldn't worry about the levels of toxins that we normally consume in food every day.
I'm also not going to try to differentiate between "natural" and "GMO" foods, since humans have been altering the food supply for millenia. The only difference is in methodology. Instead of breeding and cross-breeding, and altering who knows how many genes, we can target one specific gene and leave the rest of the genome intact. In other words, GMO plants have been modified far less than plants developed through hybrid breeding methods.