Ep. 194 – The Toxic Truth About GMOs

I am excited to have Jeffrey Smith joining me on the show today! Jeffrey is a bestselling author and filmmaker. He is also the founder of the Institute for Responsible Technology. He has spoken in 45 countries as a consumer advocate for healthier non-GMO options. For the last twenty years, his research has been bringing to light how biotech companies mislead policymakers and the public and jeopardize the health of our society and the environment.

Hardly any regulations exist anywhere in the world today to stop anyone from creating and introducing a GMO microbe with inexpensive and easily-available gene editing. Yet the microbiome is critical and central to life. That motivated Jeffrey to start the Protect Nature Now campaign to protect the microbiome.

The process of genetic engineering creates collateral damage to the DNA. That could lead to allergins, toxins, carcinogens, and nutritional problems. In this episode, Jeffrey shares some vital information about GMOs that everyone needs to know. He dives into problems that could result from eating GMO crops, the consumer protection failure of the FDA, and how Monsanto rigged its research. He talks about why no GMO in the world has ever been tested properly and the time-bombs that exist in our food supply. He also discusses how glyphosate impacts our bodies, the impact glyphosate will have on future generations, and how to support healthy life with organic food alternatives.

I hope you enjoy our eye-opening conversation! Stay tuned for more!

“No GMO in the world has been properly tested.”

– Jeffrey Smith

IN THIS EPISODE YOU WILL LEARN:

• Jeffrey explains what GMOs are and how they have changed over the years.
• Why do genetically engineered crops not die when sprayed with herbicide?
• Problems that could result from consuming genetically engineered crops.
• Jeffrey discusses the devastating levels of toxicity in glyphosate and Roundup.
• The role the FDA, the EPA, and other governmental regulatory agencies have played in failing to protect consumers.
• How and why Monsanto rigged its research.
• Why has no GMO in the world been properly tested?
• The health issues that independent studies on GMOs revealed.
• The correlation between glyphosate and GMOs, and autism and disorders.
• Jeffrey talks about his award-winning documentary, Secret Ingredients.
• How does glyphosate cause mineral deficiency?
• The connection between glyphosate and infertility and birth defects.
• You can find a list of healthy organic and non-GMO foods at responsibletechnology.org.
• How you can support a healthy life affordably with organic foods.
• Jeffrey created the Protect Nature Now campaign to protect the microbiome.

Connect with Cynthia Thurlow

• Follow on Twitter, Instagram & LinkedIn
• Check out Cynthia’s website

Connect with Jeffrey Smith

• Jeffrey’s documentary Your Milk on Drugs- Just Say No
• Institute for Responsible Technology
• Protect Nature Now
• Live Healthy Be Well Podcast

Transcript:

Presenter: This is Everyday Wellness, a podcast dedicated to helping you achieve your health, and wellness goals, and provide practical strategies that you can use in your real life. And now, here’s your host, Nurse Practitioner Cynthia Thurlow.

Cynthia: Between Zoom calls without a microphone, Zoom calls with a microphone going back and forth. How are you today?

Jeffrey: Very good. How about you?

Cynthia: I’m doing really well. I really enjoyed preparing for this podcast. I think that on so many levels, there’s this real lack of awareness I think, most of my platform is women north of 35, and so, I think for so many people, they want to do better, they want better information, and it’s just sometimes conflicting, because there’s so little transparency. So, thank you for all the amazing work that you do and help educating us. I had to laugh. I was taking a walk and listening to your podcast with Ben Azadi. He and I are very good friends. Literally, I normally don’t do this, as I was on my walk with my dogs, I texted him and said, “I have to get connected to Jeffrey, I have to bring him on the podcast. This information is so, so important.”

Jeffrey: Very nice. Excellent. That’s really great. It happened to me, the handoff when I first published my book Seeds of Deception in 2003. I was just launching it in DC at a National Press Club event, and I was interviewed like the day it launched by some guy for an hour, who was into conspiracy theories and whatnot. I got a call two days later from the producer of Coast to Coast AM radio with George Noory and they had gotten at that time maybe 10 million listeners and said my husband just said, “You got to hear this guy. You should have him on your show.” So, [unintelligible [00:01:45]. “I got to get in touch with him.” She tracked me down and 13 days after I published my book, I was speaking to 10 million people. It was amazing.

Cynthia: That’s incredible. I think the universe really intervenes on the timetable it’s meant to happen on and on so many levels, I’m an allopathic trained Nurse Practitioner and after having a child with terrific food allergies that really changed the trajectory of everything I did and I only got to a point I had to leave clinical medicine almost six years ago and started this entrepreneurial journey not realizing I would then be on this platform really speaking on behalf of women, who in many ways feel they don’t have a voice that they become invisible. I think podcasting is probably one of my favorite things that I do within my business, because I get to meet such amazing individuals. But I would really love to start the conversation very organically. What got you so passionate about GMOs, genetically modified foods, because you seem to really be the biggest voice in this face. So, I’m so grateful for the work that you’re doing and being able to have the opportunity to share this with my community.

Jeffrey: Can I recommend that before we talk about how I got in to justify to all your listeners to continue to listen, because everyone may go, “Oh, yeah, I know about GMOs. Oh, yeah, I avoid GMOs, whatever.” I will make the argument and it’ll be a good argument. [laughs] Eating organic is the number one step to leading a healthy life and it seems while everyone has their hammer and everything is a nail to that, but I have heard from thousands and thousands of people. We surveyed 3,256 people as to what conditions they got better from when they switched to a non-GMO and largely organic diet. I’ve asked audiences at 150 lectures including medical conferences, so the medical doctors were talking about their thousands of patients. What was the impact of putting your patients or yourself on a non-GMO and organic diet? I have just heard more than almost anyone in the world about the answer to that question. Nearly all of the diseases that are arising in these days, arising in parallel with the use of GMOs and Roundup, which is in our diet in the non-organic foods and I can explain how these damages the foundation of our health, and why switching to organic even as a test and how to do it most effectively could be one of the most important things someone does for their health. Now, that I’ve gotten people’s attention. [laughs] 

Cynthia: [laughs] Well, anyone that listens to me knows that my belief is it all starts with food. The choices that we make have such a critical net impact on our health and it’s more about the quality of foods that we’re eating than anything else. There was a research article that I pulled last night that was looking at people that were eating a predominantly Mediterranean diet, and is as good as that all is, because if you eat a traditional Mediterranean diet, you’re going to be exposed to more foods in a natural state. But the one thing that they did mention was the caveat was it needed to be organic, otherwise we are exposed to increasing levels of pesticides and insecticides. I know we will definitely unpack all of this. My kids were laughing at me last night, because I type notes. I had so much that I thought we could have the potential for talking about that would be of interest to listeners in particular. So, let’s start the conversation there really talking about what are genetically modified foods and how long have they been a part of our ‘the processed food industry’?

Jeffrey: GMOs, genetically modified organisms, it used to be that I could say that they were organisms where DNA from one species was forced into the genome of another species. Now, there’s gene editing, which doesn’t require transfer. It can include transfer but it doesn’t have to. The process creates sequences that are not natural, but also creates massive collateral damage in the DNA leading to all sorts of unpredicted side effects. The most common genetically engineered crops are those that are engineered not to die when sprayed with herbicide. The herbicide would normally kill the crops because they have genes from bacteria in there like Roundup Ready soy, corn, cotton, canola, sugar beets, and alfalfa. They can be sprayed with Roundup herbicide right over the top of the crops and not die. You have the damage from the genetic engineering process in the DNA, which can lead to allergens, and toxins, and carcinogens, and nutritional problems. Then you have the Roundup sprayed on the crops and it gets absorbed into the crops and deposited into the food portion in large measure.

Then there’re some crops, cotton, corn, soybeans in South America, they produce an insecticide, which kills insects by breaking open holes in their guts. Now, on top of the damage from the GMO and the damage of Roundup, you also have a whole poking toxin in corn, for example, that we could consume in large concentrations in laboratory conditions. It does show it pokes the same holes in human cells, but it also elicits an immune and allergic response. When you put it all together, there’s a whole long list of things that these three things do. Even if we just looked at Roundup alone and that’s important, because Roundup is not just sprayed of GMOs. It’s also sprayed as a desiccant to dry down the crop just before harvest. It essentially kills the crop, but it dries it down, it forces fast ripening, and it kills all the weeds for next year. So, it’s used by the grain and bean industry. Our oats are just filled with Roundup, our wheat, our mung beans, our chickpeas, our lentils, these are things that should never be eaten as they are, they need to be avoiding the Roundup portion. So, the organics is the easiest way to do that. 

Sometimes people will hear Roundup and sometimes they’ll hear glyphosate. Glyphosate is the chief poison in Roundup, but there are other poisons. So, Roundup is as much as 125 times more toxic than glyphosate alone. But a lot of the research has been on glyphosate alone and even alone it is devastating to health.

Cynthia: Well, it’s really interesting, because when I dove down this rabbit hole after listening to you on another podcast, I think the initial impetus for these genetically modified organisms, at least the justification had a lot to do with, “Oh, we’ll be able to feed more people, the yields, the profits, it’ll really be beneficial.” What I found really concerning was that the safeguards that should be in place to protect consumers have really failed us. I think that there’s value in at least addressing what role did the FDA play in this, the EPA? These are the things that people will come up with and they’ll say, “Well, we don’t have safeguards that are in place to protect us as consumers,” and this is definitely one of those regulatory issues, where big business can override safety concerns that are expressed. By scientists, anything that you have been involved in, you’re bringing in leading scientists and individuals, microbiologist, veterinarians, physicians that are sounding the alarm, echoing what you’re saying, what role does the FDA, and EPA, and other governmental regulatory agencies, what if they played in this to protect or not protect consumers?

Jeffrey: It’s a great question. I’ll say that this ‘feed the world’ issue was an afterthought as a way of defending the rejection by Europe of GMOs and they just made up, “Okay, it’s needed to feed the world.” It wasn’t designed to feed the world. If feeding the world was the design, it wouldn’t have been Roundup Ready crops or Bt toxin crops, it wouldn’t have been the particular types of crops they have chosen and that’s just a ruse. It actually doesn’t increase yield on average and it doesn’t work for small farmers in the developing nations. The FDA was told by the White House under the first Bush administration to promote GMOs. And they created a new position, the deputy commissioner of policy for Michael Taylor, it was created for Monsanto’s former attorney, and the position that Michael Taylor took was to be in charge of creating policy for the FDA. At the very same time, the FDA was creating policy for GMOs in food and genetically engineered bovine growth hormone and drug for cows to increase milk supply. Both Monsanto was the producers of them. They are the massive producers of the GMOs. They’re not purchased by Bayer, the aspirin maker, but Monsanto still exist wearing a Bayer uniform. 

During the time that the policy for GMOs was being created, the FDA assigned it to 17 scientists to come up with recommendations. We have their memos and recommendations and they were all ignored. They were all just kicked out. Every time the policy paper went to upstairs, Michael Taylor came back and all of the science and concerns were systematically removed with various complaints. There was anger among the scientists. What’s become of this document? It doesn’t address the side effects, it is basically a pro industry document, it doesn’t address consumer concerns. At the end of the day, the FDA’s policy claimed in print, “the agency is not aware of any information showing that foods created by these new methods differ from other foods in any meaningful or uniform way.” Now, that was a lie. No one knew it was a lie, because that came out as part of the policy in 1992 and that was the excuse for saying “no safety testing is necessary. No labeling is necessary. Companies like Monsanto can introduce their GMOs to the food supply without even telling the FDA.” All that was based on that one sentence, and that one sentence was a lie. 

In fact, summarizing the scientists’ concerns, Linda called the compliance officer at the agency said it’s the opinion of the technical experts of the agency that the process of genetic engineering is different than traditional breeding and leads to different risks by trying to force a conclusion that there’s no difference is trying to force a square peg into a round hole. They elaborated toxins and allergens, and new diseases, and nutritional problems, and insisted that even human toxicological tests were needed. It was all overruled by this political decision. The FDA policy that was been touted as pro industry by Michael Taylor, was handed up to the White House and the White House said, “No, no, it’s still not good enough. It needs to insist that there’s no difference. The GMOs are even more precise. These 12 pages about the dangers to environment, get rid of them, too much concern, your purpose is to promote GMOs.” This mandate to promote GMOs is not hidden. It’s explicit. 

When a deputy commissioner gave a talk a different one to the dairy industry 20 years ago, he said, “These are the two goals of the FDA. The first was about food and drugs, second was to promote biotechnology.” They’re the ones that are also supposed to test it and require testing, etc. There’s a voluntary FDA consultation process. That’s a meaningless exercise that doesn’t have any requirements, no standardization, no requirement to actually give the FDA any details that they can use to determine whether the food is safe. There’s only been one company, a very first that gave actual animal feeding raw data to the FDA to evaluate. The FDA said, “It doesn’t meet our standards, because there’s these deaths and there’s these lesions and whatnot.” It didn’t pass. So, no one else submitted the details.

Cynthia: Horrifying. When you think about the fact that the exact organizations in our government that are designed to protect consumers are more concerned about supporting big industry than they are about the safety and the needs of their citizens. Now, for the benefit of listeners, who may not be familiar with Monsanto and what they are, what they do, what their research has demonstrated, their role in all of this, it’s important to discuss this to have an appreciation for how biased their researches. Certainly, the word ‘rigged’ has been utilized quite a bit. The fact that ultimately there have been multiple lawsuits against them demonstrating this association with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma as well as express safety concerns.

Jeffrey: Yeah, so, Monsanto has been voted as the most evil company on the planet over and over again, but they really live up to their award. It’s amazing what came out during the non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma trials a couple of years ago, I was very involved. In fact, my name was mentioned in some of the Monsanto documents- [crosstalk].

Cynthia: [laughs] 

Jeffrey: -subject line was ‘whack them all.’ They want to just hit me down every time I come up with something and that was used to demonstrate what they do to scientific arguments. But to give an example of the rigged research and disregard for human health, and there were so many violations of ethics that the juries were furious at Monsanto. The punitive damages were as much as $2 billion voted by the juries. It got reduced by the judges, but they were very angry with Monsanto for their actions. Here’s one of my favorite examples of a rigged research, because I’ve been documenting the rigged research for 20 years, and I love catching them red handed. But I did not know about this until the trial, and I was like, “Oh, good. Another to add to my collection.” Roundup is very, very dangerous. Glyphosate, the chief toxin is amazingly dangerous for health. They had rigged research and fought against the carcinogen, and classification, and they participated in fraudulent studies with a company that three of the laboratory executives went to jail including some of that in the loan for Monsanto for their fraud. They had hired a scientist, who was world’s expert to try and disprove a relationship between glyphosate and cancer and he said, “No, no, there’s a pretty clear connection.” So, they cancelled his contract and ghostwrote a study with the exact opposite conclusions and that was used as the basis for approvals around the world. It goes on and on. 

But my favorite rigged research was, in order to determine how much Roundup is absorbed into the human skin, they take cadaver skin, and expose it, and it was about 10%, which was more than three times the allowable level. If they had simply submitted that data, they would not have been allowed to be used. But they did. They hid that data illegally and then they rigged the research. This is Monsanto science that we all have to pay attention to. They took human cadaver skin, and they baked it in an oven, and we know what happens when meat is baked. They baked it for a long time in the oven and then they froze it. Baking it alone wasn’t enough, they had to then freeze it. They probably even tried this after just baking it. But no, they baked it, then they froze it, then they applied the Roundup and hardly any got absorbed, and they gave those numbers to the EPA never telling them it was based on baked and frozen human skin.

Cynthia: I’m truly at a loss for words on every level. The scientific method is designed to lead to objective, quantifiable information, and certainly, it sounds they’ve done their very best to control the narrative, to control the information that comes out of studies and whatnot.

Jeffrey: It goes into a level of manipulation of regulators and authorities. They had their lapdogs at the EPA, Jess Rowland, who was in charge of the cancer committee for chemicals, he was a Monsanto lapdog, and he said, “There’s no cancer lake here. We analyze, or others have analyzed, or how did he come to that conclusion?” Using almost entirely Monsanto studies that were not good enough to be published in the peer-reviewed literature, whereas before that the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer determine that glyphosate was a probable human carcinogen using peer-reviewed studies. We uncovered a letter by Marion Copeland, who is a former toxicologist for 30 years at the EPA to Jess Rowland. She had to leave because she had cancer. She said, “I have to do my duty here and tell you that glyphosate is definitely a probable human carcinogen.” This is before the World Health Organization. Here’re 14 reasons why and what you’ve been doing, you’re not qualified to make this choice with your Master’s degree from 40 years ago or 30 years ago. 

In fact, you’ve been constantly changing reports to benefit the companies were supposed to regulate. You and this other person and in fact, this other person is so illogical. If anyone is taking bribes at the agency, it’s her. For once, do something good in your life. She was not holding back. She was dying and she needed to make her case. He ignored her and told Monsanto Reps, because we have the documents from the Reps, from the executives, they were told by Jess Rowland that he was going to work on their behalf to try and stop the Health and Human Services Division from doing more research on glyphosate and cancer because they might find it. He said, “If I can stop this, I should get a medal.” Then he leaked documents from the EPA onto the website before it was ready telling Monsanto they copied it all, and then it disappears quietly 10 days later, and then he retired soon after. And Monsanto said, “He’s retired, we could use him.” He’s just one of them. He’s just one of the people at the EPA. The EPA was captured, the FDA was captured, the USDA is captured, the current and previous administration leaders of the USDA or the biotech Governors of the year for their states. 

Even this pro biotech FDA still wasn’t good enough for the biotech industry, because they got Congress to pass a law that it was the USDA that should determine the labeling scheme for GMOs, which supposedly is enforceable this year and it’s entirely a facade. Hardly any GMOs need to be labeled and the labeling can be completely impossible to detect. It could be a QR code, it could be 800 number, it could be bioengineered, which no one knows what it means. It was basically a Monsanto written law. The US government and many governments, I’ve spoken in 45 countries and I’ve spoken even to the minority members of the approval committees in Brazil, and in India, and other places, who want to tear their hair out because they say, “A majority, which was put in there by industry do not look at any adverse findings.” These guys can create massive dossiers about the dangers of organ damage, and immune system problems, and early death, and cancer, and all that. It’s ignored and the approvals are rubber stamped. 

I remember talking to one of the world’s greatest scientists, PM Bhargava in India, who was assigned by the Supreme Court to sit on the approval committee to give the recommendation to see if these petitioners were correct that it was a rubber stamp. In nine months, he sent a letter to this Supreme Court, the health minister and the prime minister saying, “It’s all a façade. There’s no, let’s say, of the 25 or 30 different areas, or GMOs need to be tested less than 10% actually are. They’re done by an industry themselves. They’re worthless.” No GMO in the world has been properly tested. When you look at the actual independent studies that have been done and there’s not a lot, you see early death, organ damage, multiple massive tumors, potentially precancerous cell growth, all these different things. When you look at Roundup, there’s more research on Roundup, so we can speak with more granular authority creating leaky gut, damaging the mitochondria, damaging the microbiome, causing inability to absorb minerals, damaging the production of neurotransmitters like serotonin, melatonin, dopamine, the hormonal imbalances, birth defects, cancer, all these things, it’s clear in the literature. Combine that with the GMO information, combine that with the Bt toxin produced in corn, and you have little time bombs in your food supply. But they’re going off, because you can look at more than 30 charts of the incidence of diseases in the United States rising in parallel with the increased use of GMOs and Roundup. It’s stunning like autism. Cases of autism at six years old compared to glyphosate exposure. The correlation coefficient is 0.9975. A perfect correlation is one. It’s nearly a perfect line. 

Now, correlation doesn’t prove causation, but we can look at what Roundup does and identify it one to one with what happens in autism. I’m not the one that did that research. It was an MIT Senior Researcher, Stephanie Seneff, who had been looking to try and find what the cause of autism was. She’s an expert at big data analysis and pattern recognition. She pulled every single study on the physiology of autistic children or people. She understood why the physiological changes caused their particular symptoms and behavior, and then systematically started looking at all the different chemical inputs that had been added to show the rise and increase autism. She had never heard of glyphosate and none of the chemicals that she was testing fit until she went to a lecture by a friend of mine, Dr. Don Huber, on glyphosate, she said she was on the edge of her seat and found it, and then went into studying glyphosate, and found it hand in glove with autism, and gluten sensitivity, and celiac, and all these other diseases. She wrote a book about it. You take something like insomnia going up something that seems less of a concern to the general person unless you have it. 

Well, insomnia is often governed by melatonin, melatonin is created by serotonin, serotonin is created by L-tryptophan, L-tryptophan is created largely by the gut bacteria in our guts using a pathway called the shikimate pathway, which is shut down by glyphosate. So, you can draw the lines, you can connect the dots, not enough tryptophan, not enough melatonin, sleep disorders including insomnia arising in parallel with the increased use of Roundup in our food supply. Irritable bowel, cancer, diabetes, overweight, senile dementia, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, infertility, high blood pressure, all of these have dots to connect to the nature of what’s happening with GMOs and Roundup. I say to people, “Don’t bother reading the studies, just do your own study. Switch to organic for a few weeks and take notes.” You may be switching to organic because you heard one of those words that I just said that related to your experience like obesity, or insomnia, or skin conditions, or IBD, or whatever. Don’t just look there, because you have no idea that your energy may shoot up and you may not realize it’s because of your food. The number two most common result of benefit according to our 3,256-person survey was overcoming fatigue. The number one was digestive disorders, 85.2% said, “An improved digestive disorders by a significant amount,” at least significant.

We’re having a situation where when people switch to organic, they actually notice something changes in their bodies. I have a documentary with Amy Hart called Secret Ingredients, where we document families that have this transformation. One of the cool parts of the film are the doctors talking about when the people cheat after they’ve changed their diet, after they feel better, and they go away on vacation, or they go to weddings, or they go out to eat, or they just get dietary fatigue, then they see their symptoms come back, then it’s absolute proof to them what the link is, and they don’t want their autoimmune disease, or their pain, or their whatever according the doctors, I’m just quoting them from the film. So, write down all the symptoms, one to 10, your energy level, your mood, and the percentage of organic you eat that day. Every day on a spreadsheet, check it out and do the experiments yourself. Don’t bother diving into the experimental literature. It’s a waste of time, because you might come up with a Monsanto rigged research that tells you everything’s okay.

Cynthia: Well, on so many levels, the information that you’re sharing today is so, so important. It’s one of those things I believe in taking inspired action. As I’ve said to you and said earlier in the podcast, when I heard you, I literally stopped in my tracks on a trail with my dogs and texted Ben Azadi, who’s a good friend and said, “I have to be connected with Jeffrey, because this information is needed by everyone.” I think that there’s this misconception that trying to eat organic is somehow elite and I have to remind people that we have to keep things so simple. When I’m working with predominantly women, and we do just a broad-based elimination diet, just cut out gluten and grains, and within a couple of days, their sleep is better, their mood is better, their eczema is improving. All of a sudden, their cycles become more regular. It has that wonderful trickledown effect. I would love to talk a little bit more about glyphosate, because I dove down the rabbit hole the other day really looking at what does it do in the body beyond wrecking the gut. What I found really interesting is that, it actually interferes with the synthesis of specific amino acids. For those listening, protein is broken down into amino acids, which can then be absorbed by the body, but worse than that it actually grabs on to and chelates minerals. Not only are you consuming something that your body can’t properly break down, but it’s binding to key minerals, micro nutrients that your body then cannot use. Even worse than that is the fact that it destroys beneficial bacteria in the gut microbiome and allows this proliferation of non-beneficial bacteria. Even dysbiosis, which I affectionately refer to as weeds in the garden. But I’d love to speak more about that, because it really has this domino effect and it sounds benign when we talk about it, but when you understand the physiology of actually what’s changing in the body, it explains the symptomatology that comes along with that and then beyond that, the pathophysiology, the diseases and disorders that we’re seeing in relation to consumption of this toxin.

Jeffrey: It’s a great question. Let’s drill down together.

Cynthia: [laughs] 

Jeffrey: It tells me that your audience likes this. Good, I’ve written a couple of books on this. Let me talk. The story that people might remember from this conversation is that glyphosate was originally patented to descale industrial boilers and pipes. Because it is a chelator, means it hugs minerals and doesn’t let go. It hugs nearly all of them, it grabs the mineral deposits along the walls of the pipes and boilers, and brings them out, and gets spread on the ground somewhere, and then they discover, “Oh, when it’s spread in the ground it’s killing all the plants, let’s make it an herbicide.” Now, as a chelator, by grabbing the minerals, what’s interesting is and there’s something to unpack here. Eat your vitamins, eat your minerals. What really does a mineral do? A mineral is like some people call it the key to ignition, ignition of a pathway. I like to call it the boss. There’re all these workers hanging around in the body waiting to undertake certain actions, hundreds of thousands and billions of different actions, but they can’t, they just sit around on strike or just waiting until the boss comes and says, “Okay, we’re here. Let’s start.” If the mineral doesn’t show up, they’re all on strike. All of these metabolic pathways do not function. It is absolute requirement for these metabolic pathways to have these minerals in place. 

Now, when you spray Roundup on crops, the crops become mineral deficient. If we eat the crops that have been sprayed with Roundup, we get mineral-deficient crops, there’s less minerals. But we also have Roundup residues in those foods. The minerals that are circulating can be chelated and become less available. We have a mineral-deficient diet and a mineral-deficient mechanism. Most of the livestock in the United States are fed Roundup Ready crops. Soy, corn, cottonseed, canola meal, sugar beet pulp, alfalfa, those are the six GMO Roundup Ready crops. All of those crops are already mineral deficient. Huge amounts of Roundup are consumed by the animals. That means the animals are even more mineral deficient. There’s epidemics among the livestock now of problems associated with mineral deficiency. We eat the mineral-deficient animals as well and the Roundup residues in their bodies. That alone, if we have nothing else to go on, that could create a list of diseases that are far more than what we have the time to discuss with the charts available. Then, we have the gut bacteria, which everyone knows these days, who’s listening to your podcast. It’s the thing, it’s the bomb. Gut bacteria is everything. One of the world’s experts is Kiran Krishnan, who told me that 80% of diseases find their source in an imbalance in the gut bacteria, and that humans off load or assign about 90% of the tasks daily to the microbiome, and that’s way we can get by with 23,000 genes, because we use the intelligence in the 3.5 million genes of the microbiome. But he tested Roundup on a human model of a gut microbiome and found it was devastating. I went through the 28 different conditions that people said they got better from on the survey and said, “Okay, for digestive disorders, can you tell me if the changes in the gut bacteria could lead to that?” He told us exactly how fatigue, weight problems, allergies, and mood problems are basically the whole list, total 28. So, if we just did microbiome, we didn’t have to go anywhere else and we have a longer list of diseases. 

Then, we have leaky gut. Alessio Fasano, a Harvard superstar came up with an article a few years ago saying, “All disease begins in the leaky gut.” Long list of diseases. We can find that long list of diseases also and the damage to the mitochondria, the power centers of each cell and each system. You can see in the microscope how glyphosate damages the mitochondria. Zach Bush has seen it and shared that information with me. In fact, he showed me the pictures of glyphosate entering a Petri dish with human cells causing gaps between the human cells, the tight junctions were gone. That’s the leaky gut. These are some of the very specific things that it does. It also has cytotoxicity and genotoxicity. You’ve talked about the amino acids. That’s what we talked about the tryptophan. It blocks the ability of our gut bacteria to synthesize tryptophan. 90% of the serotonin is produced in our gut from tryptophan, but that’s where the gut bacteria is shut down. Shikimate pathways is the one that Monsanto bragged about saying plants have a shikimate pathway, humans don’t. Glyphosate blocks the shikimate pathway to kill plants, but we can drink it, because it’s safe. Well, they got sued and had to settle for $39.5 million for lying to the general public about the fact that shikimate pathway does not involve in human health because it is. 

We can go down even further, but we can go into some of the other fact that you can inject glyphosate or Roundup into a pregnant mouse, and pregnant mouse will survive and do fine, the offspring will do okay, the grandchildren are going to be messed up, the great grandchildren are the way the worst. They didn’t check the great, great grandchildren. But 90% of the great grandchildren had serious problems. Obesity, kidney problems, prostate problems, death during childbirth– because it’s not childbirth, it is birthing process, pup birth. [laughs] 

Cynthia: Are you familiar with the term Pottenger’s Cats? 

Jeffrey: Yeah. 

Cynthia: It’s along those lines that this nutritional deficiency, which then affects subsequent generations and ironically, the two things I wanted to talk about were birth defects and infertility. In the United States, I’ve been a clinician for over 20 years, but the amount of individuals that have to see reproductive endocrinologist to get pregnant, or precocious puberty, or even the aromatization of estrogen. In men, seeing so many men that are becoming very feminized looking not by choice, but because of it’s a byproduct of exposure to glyphosate and other toxins, and this has profound impact. If you go into any grocery store touching back on your prior point, how many reflux medications, how many sleep aids are available. It’s really a testament to how much our health has changed over the last 30 years and really to our detriment, and not to our benefit, but I think it’s really interesting to me how important it is to be aware of the net impact not just to us, but our subsequent and future offspring. We talked about epigenetics and how you can have specific genes that get turned on in our offspring just from their exposures in the environment. The gene is primed and if you get the right ignition key, it’ll express the gene. That’s profoundly troubling. Obviously, I’m a parent, most people that are listening are probably parents or they have individuals that they care for, love a great deal. So, this is significant. We have a population that’s increasingly very metabolically inflexible and unhealthy. We’re in the midst of a year or two of a global pandemic and I can’t think of a better time for us to really be closely examining choices that we’re making and trying our best to try to limit the things we’re exposed to, which can be so profoundly detrimental.

Jeffrey: I agree completely. I want to talk about infertility, and birth defects, and problems with offspring. There’s a lot to go into. When you look at the cord blood, when you look at what’s actually passing through into the fetus, it includes the Bt toxin, which is the insecticide produced in the corn and also Roundup or glyphosate. There’s no blood-brain barrier developed in the fetus. Now, you have a whole poking toxin, Bt toxin, and you have the Roundup or glyphosate potentially in the brains. The gut bacteria is so important that as we co-evolved with our microbiome, they come up with such elegant and elaborate ways to feed and maintain the microbiome, which sets up proper health for one life, but also future lives. In the second trimester, milk digesting bacteria move into the birth canal to inoculate the baby to digest the milk. But it turns out the milk from the mother, a lot of it isn’t for the baby, it’s for the gut bacteria. It’s specifically designed, these illegal saccharides, specifically designed not to be digestible, but to survive till it gets to the bowel to feed the microbes. Part of the milk also has microbes, part of the skin and the nipple has more microbes. Then the state of the health of the baby is reflected on the microbiome and their saliva, which is fed back to the mother through the nursing, which changes the formula. It’s so important. 

With glyphosate, it damages the bacteria of the mother and of the child creating a devastating start to life. But when it comes to and you’ve mentioned aromatase in estrogen, one of the hormones that glyphosate damages or changes the function of is aromatase, which sets the balance between estrogen and testosterone, not something you don’t want to mess with. I was at a medical conference, a chiropractic conference years ago giving a talk, and I was there with Amy Hart, and she brought her camera. She’s a filmmaker. I said, we have a filmmaker here and we’re going to ask questions to anyone who get testimonies from anyone that wants to share information about themselves or their patients about GMOs around them, and come, and find, and get your time assigned, and meet us in our hotel room. First comes Kathleen DiChiara. The story was so profound and so shocking. We decided to do an entire documentary focused on her, and go to her house, and talk about what happened to the five kids and the 28 chronic conditions when she switched first to gluten free, and soy free, and this thing, and then finally went organic. We could see the shift and her son is no longer autistic, etc. 

The next person that came in also got in the film. Chiropractor, Dr. Marcia Schaefer. She said that she treats people by putting them all on organic diet along with her chiropractic. She’s been getting all of these infertile couples. In addition to the chiropractic, she does an organic diet, and they’re all getting kids. I think at the time there was 52 that either had kids or were now pregnant and didn’t have pregnancy options before. I said, “Okay, how many who did your protocol aren’t successful?” She said, “None.” By the time we did the film, and went to her place, and interviewed her, it was 75. The time we finished the film after years and post, it was 92. Last time I talked to her was 123 couples, no failures. In the film, she says, “Years ago, there were 40 infertility clinics. Now, there’s 440.” As you mentioned, it’s a big business. People like Stephanie said, “Well, the MIT researcher, who’s a biochemical genius say, “It’s right there. The numbers, it’s right there. You can see what it’s doing. You can see how it damages.” There’re little things you can know like, “Oh, manganese is needed for sperm motility.” If you chelate that and it’s not available, that’s just one thing. It goes on. 

Mice that were fed Roundup Ready soybeans had damaged their testicles including the young sperm cells. There’re so many ways in on this. So many different data points that point to GMOs in the roundup. In Russia, they fed Roundup Ready soy to rats, and this actually fed it to pregnant rats starting three weeks before they got pregnant. Then the death rate was huge. It was more than 50% of the death rate compared to natural soy. They’re also couldn’t reproduce afterwards, the ones that were fed GMOs. When they tried to mate with each other, they couldn’t. When they mated with someone that wasn’t also fed, there was an occasional success, no problem in the controls. Then they repeated a similar study with hamsters over three generations. Again, most were unable to have kids. They had insufficient growth and birth defects, etc., etc. This is stuff that doesn’t get out. I’ve been running a nonprofit at the Institute for Responsible Technology for a long time trying to get this word out but it’s enough, so that now 51% of Americans believe GMO foods are unsafe. So, we’ve done a lot.

Cynthia: No, absolutely, and I’m sitting in here as I’m thinking about a conversation. When I went to the store earlier, there was a new mom, and she was commenting that she didn’t produce enough breast milk, so she had started formula. I literally, I’m listening to this conversation and she was saying, “Oh, my daughter had a reaction to the formula.” In the back of my mind, because I knew of our conversation, I started thinking about the identified brands that had more exposure to GMO ingredients. She had the daughter on formula, she got a rash, and so they put her on another GMO formula. Perhaps, one of the areas that we can definitely touch on is talking about baby formula. There’s no judgement, because I know there are people who aren’t able to breastfeed for a variety of reasons, and they assume that the conventional baby formula is going to be a healthy alternative. 

But something that I found really surprising when I was doing a little bit of research is that a lot of the over-the-counter baby formula is full of bovine growth hormone, corn derivatives, as well as GMO soy. Along these lines, are we setting our children up for a lifetime of health issues? If that’s the only thing that’s available to them, I’m sure there’s probably things that are outside, may not be economically feasible for every single individual. But in your experience, when you have been doing the research and looking at it, or there at least options that are out there that are healthier than others?

Jeffrey: Definitely. In the film Genetic Roulette, which I released in 2012, we tested baby formula for GMOs. Since then, we’ve tested a lot of foods for Roundup or glyphosate residues and also compiled all of the other tests from other nonprofits. If you go to responsibletechnology.org, it’s a sortable, searchable list of all these foods, including baby formulas. Yeah, a lot of the baby formulas are very dangerous in my opinion, because of the GMOs and the Roundup, and there are organic alternatives. I think that that’s worth the money when you think about what it’s going to do for setting up health. You’ve talked about organic possibly being elite. There’re two things I want to say. One is combining the health budget and your mind with your food budget. You’ll see the outcomes in terms of health are real and powerful, and they actually will save money for many, many people. Combine the health budget with your food budget, and your philanthropy budget moving in there, too, because you get to support a healthier life. We can talk a little bit about the existential threat from GMOs before we go, why it’s really necessary to do that now. 

Then the second is, through adjusting your diet, and how you eat, and how you buy, organics don’t have to be even more expensive depending if you get the right coaching, the right tips from the people that are way up on the learning curve. In the film Secret Ingredients, Kathleen says, “She can feed a family of five an all organic meal for under 20 bucks in a 90-day lifestyle upgrade program.” I interview a guy that has drop points all over the country, for 3,000 drop points for lower cost organic food. He said, “He can feed his family $1.63 per person all organic when he checked it out and he told us how.” There’re ways to do it and it’s worth it. Cooking is one way to help. If you’ve been eating processed conventional foods, you go to processed organic foods, that’s going to increase your budget. But if you switch to cooking and you buy ingredients rather than final processed foods, you may actually go down in your daily expense and your life can change. One of the outcomes that people talk about is clear thinking, lower brain fog. The number two reported improvement in the 150 lectures was increased energy and reduced brain fog. Put that together. Even if you’re not suffering from one of those diseases, that is worth a lot. 

Cynthia: Oh, I couldn’t agree with you more. I do have one more question for you before we wind up the conversation. I am dairy free in my house, but I have a family of teenage boys and a very active spouse. Dairy is a big focus of what they enjoy consuming. What do you think is the issues with recombinant DNA derived bovine, so the Posilac and I may be mispronouncing that? So, if Posilac still an issue for our food supply or have most of the higher quality manufacturers remedied having this?

Jeffrey: It’s hidden in stuff. You’re certainly not an organic. If you look at your particular dairy, it should say one of these things. No artificial hormones, no rBGH, no rBST, and those things should be on there. If it’s not, then be concerned, make a change. But that’s not necessarily going to be seen when dairy is used as an ingredient in the processed food or cheese, etc. It’s in some cheeses, it’s sure, but if it’s not there, then it may be used. Now, they don’t allow rBGH to be used in Europe or in Canada. If your cheese or dairy come from there, you’re okay. I have a film called Your Milk on Drugs – Just Say No. You can go to yourmilkondrugs.com and watch some of the information. It turns out Monsanto former scientist told me that three of his colleagues were testing milk from cows treated with this bovine growth hormone and found so much cancer promoting hormone in the milk. The three Monsanto scientists refused to drink milk after that unless it was organic and one bought his own cow. So, it’s pretty serious, pretty serious. Now, you said this was your last question. I have something I’d like to add.

Cynthia: Oh, sure. No, the reason why I was predominantly asking and my teenagers were saying, “Well, please ask about dairy,” because I don’t drink dairy, because I don’t do well with dairy. I try to explain to them why it’s so important to do organic. If they’re going to have ice cream or if they’re going to have milk, and cheese, and things like that, I think my concerns stem from the passive exposure of antibiotics, and then having cows with mastitis, and then thinking about IGF-1 exposure, and the role of cancer. It’s kind of like my head goes in a bunch of different directions. So, that was the initial concern was the passive exposure over time, because it proliferates in the processed food industry, is that setting people up? Is that another layer of concern that–? [crosstalk] 

Jeffrey: Oh, yeah, absolutely. In fact, the Director of the FDA Center for Veterinary Medicine Journal, Guest, in 1991 wrote that the milk and meat from animals fed GMOs has unique risks. Of course, we know that bioaccumulation can occur. One bite from an animal may have a certain amount of Roundup, but it can bioaccumulate into the tissues, and bones, and whatnot of the animal and also be secreted in part of the milk, etc. We know that human breast milk in some studies have had glyphosate found in there. We know that the structure and nature of the cow’s milk changes when the animals eat GMOs versus non-GMOs. I’m not familiar whether Roundup is found in the milk or not. It’s in our list. I haven’t been paying attention because I don’t drink it. Sorry for not knowing the answer about the amount of Roundup, but certainly the nutritional structure of the milk, the amount of long chain fatty acids, etc., all that can be shifted.

Cynthia: Now, that completely makes sense. Then, I know you had a question for me, but as we wrap things up, you’ve said some really important things that are takeaways for listeners. The value of purchasing organic, learning to cook. I was raised by an Italian mother. You better believe my brother and I know how to cook as well as my husband really looking thoughtfully at non-GMO labeling, and you could probably speak better to that. If there’s one or two other things that you generally recommend when people are trying to make better choices, things that don’t necessarily involve having to dive down a rabbit hole of information, but just broad-based recommendations that might be helpful?

Jeffrey: It’s really very simple. I want to make it as simple as possible. Organic does not allow the use of GMOs around it. My focus is those two culprits. You can find other culprits, and you want to go Fairtrade or you want to go this or whatever, but mine are GMOs and Roundup and I feel pretty confident that they’re A+ concerns. If you can’t eat organic, at least eat non-GMO. You can go to responsibletechnology.org to get a list of what the 12 GMO crops are and their derivatives. Then you want to avoid also the non-organic grains and beans that would have high levels of Roundup. Oats, wheat, most of the beans and lentils, hummus because of their chickpeas. It’s found in wine, and in orange juice, and all these other things, because of how it’s used in agriculture. But you can see, you look at the kind of foods you like, see how high it is compared to the others and you’ll get a sense of whether you want to– I used to have oatmeal when traveling around. I was on the road for 13 years, nearly all 13 years, like, six to nine months a year. Oatmeal was a thing I could have in the morning for breakfast, but not anymore. I have to travel with my own oatmeal organic. Those are the things basically to avoid GMOs and Roundup, organic, non-GMO, and then get to that list. 

The other thing is this and this is really important. Roundup is in the air, it’s in our water supply, some of our water supply. It’s not possible to go zero. If you end up with Roundup or with GMOs, maybe you’re in a situation where you can’t control your food. Don’t worry about it, because worrying is toxic, GMOs are toxic, and now, you’ve just increased your toxic exposure. It’s a level of discipline that requires a mastery to really be healthy. If you’re really committing to change your diet to be healthy, then commit to not worry about when you can’t do it 100%. Commit to it. Make it like, “Yeah, I’m not going to worry about it.” Just you budgeted for it. I budgeted for a certain amount of exposure.

Cynthia: Well, I think that’s really important. I abide by the Good, Better, Best. You do the best you can with your circumstances. Now, I know you mentioned you had a question for me. I want to be respectful of your time.

Jeffrey: Gene editing is the newest way of making a GMO and it’s very inexpensive. You can buy a ‘Do It Yourself’ kit on Amazon for $169. The price is going to go down, the power is going to go up. protectnaturenow.com, there’s a 16-minute film called Don’t Let the Gene out of the Bottle. We talk about the existential threat from genetically engineered microbes. To be clear, there’s hardly any regulations in the world to stop anyone from introducing a GMO microbe from their basement lab, from their high school lab, from their college workspace, from their company. There could be a million new GMO microbes released in this generation, and they travel, and they mutate, and they swap genes with other microbes. Microbiome, as we talked about is mission central, it is life central. It’s critical. We are in a situation as you’ll see in the film, where a single GMO microbe could take us down. One microbe that was planned to be released for farmers could have ended terrestrial plant life on the planet, potentially. Another one could have altered weather patterns, another one could have created a pandemic. That was better than 50% death rate. 

Our ‘Protect Nature Now’ campaign is working on everyone’s behalf, where microbiome whispers trying to protect the microbiome and its new access to it. It’s new to human civilization and it is an existential threat that needs global attention. When you go to protectnaturenow.com, watch the film for 16 minutes, go to the advocacy platform, we load up with a different campaign each month or two, which sends stuff to all of your elected officials, and all of your local media, and then go to the donation tab please, and make a recurring donation, so we can know each month how much is coming, so we can open the office in Brussels, and in Beijing, and whatnot. We need to do this globally, we need to do it quick because this is way beyond individual choice. We can handle individual choice. We discussed it for an hour. But this is something that your choices in your supermarket will not stop the release of a genetically engineered microbe that we all may be cursed by future generations for allowing to happen, because it’s an irreversible change in the gene pool. That’s one of the most serious aspects of GMOs. You can’t recall them once you release them.

Cynthia: Oh, thank you for your advocacy and your work. I’ve watched that movie and the documentary is absolutely excellent. Please go and donate. What is the easiest way to connect with you? Obviously, we will create all the links and put them underneath the podcast episode. But what’s the easiest way to connect with you to make the donations as you mentioned? I encourage everyone to do so.

Jeffrey: protectnaturenow.com, responsibletechnology.org, and I have a third site which is about personal health, called livehealthybewell.com, which has the movie secret ingredients, the 90-day lifestyle upgrade, the healing from GMOs and Roundup series. So, those are the three things. There’s petsandgmos.com, there’s rounduprisks.com, there’s all these other things, but those three will do it. 

Cynthia: Thank you so much for your time today. It’s really been a pleasure and an honor.

Jeffrey: Thank you, Cynthia. My pleasure.

Presenter: Thanks for listening to Everyday Wellness. If you loved this episode, please leave us a rating, and review, subscribe, and remember, tell a friend. And if you want to connect with us online, visit the link in the show notes.