Going Bananas With GMOs

Human trials with a new genetically modified banana, are set to begin this fall with no prior animal testing.

Researchers plan to feed these GMO bananas to college students attending Iowa State University. Details outlining how the study will be conducted have been limited. One group may be eating non-GMO bananas and another group GMO bananas.

The Des Moines Register reports that 12 “lucky” female students, out of the 500 who responded to a call for volunteers, will be selected in the next few months to eat the GMO bananas for four days during three separate study periods. Each participant will receive a whopping $900.00 in compensation for her participation and for risking her health and her life. The outcome of eating a GMO banana is entirely unknown, as the GMO banana in question has never before been tested on a living organism, let alone a human being.

This is a project of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the GMO banana is intended for cultivation and use in poor African countries, where vitamin A deficiency is widespread. Like the infamous GM “Golden Rice,” which has failed in every trial thus far conducted, the novel GMO banana is being offered up as the solution to vitamin A deficiency, even though there are plenty of other natural fruits and vegetables, such as mangoes and sweet potatoes, that already contain high levels of beta-carotene.

Besides the controversial nature of the project itself, foods genetically modified to contain added nutrients have repeatedly been shown to harm humans. Many are wondering why animal trials are not being conducted on the new GMO banana? European regulations require that any proposed new GMO first be tested on animals for at least 90 days, but in this case scientists are rushing it straight to humans with three, four day trials, for a total of only 12 days.

When confronted with the fact that beta-carotene-rich bananas already exist in nature, scientists backing the GMO banana project, claim that people living in East Africa probably wouldn’t eat them because “they’re too sweet for their taste”. Thus Bill Gates & Co. swoop in to save the day, with a man-made banana that could end up killing the target population.

Something as simple as inexpensive vitamin A supplements would be more than adequate to address this deficiency in the Third World. Either that, or helping people in these countries to grow foods that are naturally rich in beta-carotene and other carotenoid precursors to vitamin A.

The next step could be bringing this GMO banana to your local supermarket!

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