GMO Cotton Proliferates & New “Sedative” Tomato
February 18, 2021 | by | ResponsibleTechnology.org |
“Hi, this is Jeffrey Smith, and I wanted to give you my take on a couple of stories in the news. The first is about research conducted in Mexico. In Mexico, they are the reservoir of cotton’s genetic diversity. In other words, they’ve had cotton plants growing back for between 2-1.5 million years ago, a tremendous diversity of cotton. But around 25 years ago, genetically engineered cotton started being planted in the northern parts of the country. A research team looked at cotton plants native to the Yucatan Peninsula, and they were about 2,000 kilometers away from the genetically engineered cotton, or about 1,242 miles (that’s 2,000 kilometers so nearly that). They checked 61 plants. Twenty-four of the plants did not have contamination from the transgenic plants. In other words, most of them actually had been cross-pollinated with genetically engineered genes from the GM crops that could have been 2,000 kilometers away…
The second report I want to share is about a CRISPR gene-edited tomato in Japan. In January, Japan granted approval for the first CRISPR tomatoes to be used in food production. This by itself is a tragedy, a disaster. I don’t know if the US imports any tomatoes from Japan, so I don’t know if we are at risk here. I would imagine it would be unlikely to import whole tomatoes, but maybe some tomato in crops or in products. This tomato is engineered to produce a much higher concentration of a plant compound called GABA. If I could think of the highest stupidity of engineering tomatoes, this would be an example of one, because GABA actually affects our physiology. It can cause lower blood pressure. It can diminish the transmission of specific signals in the central nervous system.
The subtitle of this report by Test Biotech was: “Point Mutations Turning Food into a Sedative.” If you happen to not want to be sedated by GABA, you wouldn’t take it, but you might accidentally eat a tomato that’s producing GABA. GABA actually does a lot of things for a plant, and it’s possible that it can affect many aspects of the plant. The concentration of GABA is enhanced in plants attacked by pest organisms. We just heard about the cotton where the secretion of a sugary snack for ants was enhanced when it’s attacked by pests. Now we have GABA that’s being produced at a higher concentration in these tomatoes, and that’s just one of the things we know about GABA and tomatoes.”
Link To Read Full Article and Listen to Jeffrey’s Report @ Source_ ResponsibleTechnology.org
Thank you to S. for sharing this report with Zero-GMO