Genetic Roulette: Film Exposes GMO Health Risks

“I’ve been sit­ting on some of this footage for a while, but also gath­er­ing addi­tional data from the indi­vid­u­als them­selves who switched to non-GMO diets and reported dra­matic suc­cesses, as well as from farm­ers and vet­eri­nar­i­ans who took live­stock and pets off of GMOs and saw sim­i­lar dra­matic improve­ments in sim­i­lar categories.

“What we noted was that the same cat­e­gories of dis­eases that the American Academy of Environmental Medicine iden­ti­fied as accom­pa­ny­ing lab­o­ra­tory ani­mals fed GMOs were among the dis­or­ders that were improv­ing in live­stock and humans that switched to non-GMO diets. These were also the same types of dis­or­ders and dis­eases that were on the rise in the US pop­u­la­tion. I felt like we now had suf­fi­cient data points, case stud­ies and intel­li­gence to share a new level of evi­dence of harm from GMOs.”

A Comprehensive View

While Genetic Roulette presents con­sid­er­able new data, it also goes into the his­tory and basic facts of genetic mod­i­fi­ca­tion. The film details its ori­gins and the cover-ups that occurred right at the out­set, the con­sid­er­able lia­bil­i­ties brought to farm­ing, view­points from many experts in med­i­cine and agri­cul­ture, and the cur­rent tip­ping point at which we now find ourselves.

“I think this movie is ded­i­cated pri­mar­ily to those who eat,” Smith said, laugh­ing. “For those who don’t eat it’s not as impor­tant, unless they know some­one who eats.”

The new infor­ma­tion pre­sented in Genetic Roulette deals with human health risks. But the promis­ing news that Smith has uncov­ered is the speed at which peo­ple suf­fer­ing from many dis­or­ders brought about by GMOs can recover, once they are put on non-GMO diets.

Smith gave us some sig­nal exam­ples. “I inter­viewed a num­ber of patients of two doc­tors in Chicago, ask­ing them about the impacts when they switched to non-GMO diets,” he related. “One described how her irri­ta­ble bowel syn­drome dis­ap­peared in four weeks; for another it was gone in a week and a half. A third per­son had been on the diet for 25 days, and within 3 days her Crohn’s dis­ease of 30 years had dis­ap­peared, she had lost 10 pounds, skin prob­lems had started to clear up, and men­tal fog was going away. A 12-year-old had stopped using his asthma inhaler and had no inci­dents of asthma and no inci­dents of migraine headaches, which he had been strug­gling with at a very debil­i­tat­ing level. We had doc­tors telling us that the patients were get­ting rid of aller­gies,
asthma, depres­sion, gas­troin­testi­nal dis­or­ders and more.”

As shown in the doc­u­men­tary, these same sorts of issues also dis­si­pated with ani­mals that had been on GMO feed. “When ani­mals were switched from GM soy and corn to non-GM soy and corn in live­stock sit­u­a­tions, sim­i­lar dis­or­ders cleared up in the ani­mals just as they did with the humans,” Smith added.

Label It

The sim­plest solu­tion to GMOs is, of course, clear label­ing of food that con­tains them. While 19 states have intro­duced bills for label­ing of GMOs, California is the first to actu­ally have it on the bal­lot. As pointed out in Genetic Roulette, the entire world is watch­ing California. Because of this, Smith is cur­rently tra­vers­ing the state in pro­mo­tion of the proposition.

Click any image above to see a larger version.

“Right now we’re over 40 points ahead in the polls for California,” Smith said. “We haven’t yet seen the unveil­ing or unleash­ing of the dis­in­for­ma­tion cam­paign that’s being pre­pared by the biotech indus­try; so one of the ways that the Institute for Responsible Technology is con­tribut­ing to gen­eral con­sumer edu­ca­tion about GMOs—which hope­fully will anti­dote the myths and lies of the biotech industry—is by releas­ing the film in California and encour­ag­ing peo­ple to watch it.

“We have been tour­ing the state, pro­vid­ing accu­rate infor­ma­tion about GMOs and their risks, which not only has gar­nered some media cov­er­age but also has empow­ered the audi­ence mem­bers to be more active. To me what is always appro­pri­ate, impor­tant and urgent in the GMO sit­u­a­tion is accu­rate in-depth edu­ca­tion to as many con­sumers as possible.”

Myths Debunked

The ini­tial pro­mo­tional premise of GMOs—still being pushed today by the biotech industry—was that they would feed the world, improve exports, reduce agri­cul­tural chem­i­cals, and that they were com­pletely safe for human consumption.

“They’ve been absolutely proven wrong,” Smith argued. “The data from the USDA and other sources demon­strate with­out a doubt a dra­matic increase in her­bi­cide use. I’m speak­ing from inde­pen­dent data and analy­ses. GMOs on aver­age reduce yield—that’s well doc­u­mented. Real experts at feed­ing the world were reflected in a report signed on by 58 coun­tries, sup­ported by the UN and writ­ten by over 400 sci­en­tists: they con­cluded that GMOs have noth­ing to offer on feed­ing the hun­gry world, erad­i­cat­ing poverty or estab­lish­ing sus­tain­able agri­cul­ture. And then we’ve done a good job demon­strat­ing that GMOs have never had suf­fi­cient data to be jus­ti­fied for intro­duc­tion into the food chain. There’s more evi­dence than ever that they should be imme­di­ately withdrawn.”

To view Genetic Roulette: The Gamble of Our Lives for a min­i­mum dona­tion of $2.99, please visit www.geneticroulettemovie.com.

For much more on GMOs and cur­rent news, go to www.responsibletechnology.org.