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Chapter 6: Rolling the Dice With Allergies
An infant girl in England broke out in cold sores from drinking soymilk, but was tested as "not allergic" to normal soy. Was she allergic to something in GM soy instead? Perhaps it was the increased amount of the allergen-trypsin inhibitor-found in Monsanto's Roundup Ready soybeans? Could this also explain why soy allergies in the UK jumped by 50 percent after Roundup Ready soy was introduced? It's difficult to say, because although scientists have confirmed that deadly allergies can be transferred into foods via genetic engineering, there are no robust allergy tests done on GM foods. This was brought to the public's attention only after StarLink had been blamed for severe, potentially fatal allergic reactions. It took the FDA nearly a year to develop a test to see if StarLink was allergenic. The test was so poorly designed and unreliable, even the EPA rejected the results. New evidence suggests that other varieties of GM corn might also be allergenic.
Excerpt
At a business lunch with co-workers, 35-year-old Grace Booth dined on three chicken enchiladas, which she later recalled were very good. Within about fifteen minutes, however, something went wrong. She felt hot, itchy. Her lips swelled; she lost her voice and developed severe diarrhea. "I felt my chest getting tight, it was hard to breathe," recalled Booth. "She didn't know but she was going into shock," reported CBS news. "I thought, oh my God, what is happening to me? I felt like I was going to die." Her co-workers called an ambulance. Booth didn't know what had caused her nearly deadly allergic reaction. But this was September 2000 and within a few days she heard the news. A genetically modified corn product called StarLink, a potential allergen not approved for human consumption, was discovered in tacos, tortillas, and other corn products. More than 300 items were eventually recalled from the grocery store shelves in what was to become one of the world's biggest GM food debacles.
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