Altered Genes, Twisted Truth: How the Venture to Genetically Engineer Our Food Has Subverted Science

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97. “Generation Rx” - it's all a big mystery. Food allergies affect 1 in 13 children in the US...

http://robynobrien.com/how-kids-are-driving-the-mainstreaming-of-organics/

How Children Are Driving the Mainstreaming of Organics

May 26, 2015
Posted by Robyn O'Brien

Today’s announcement that Similac will offer a GMO-free baby formula exclusively at Target speaks to the changing landscape of the health of our children. Similac announced the change in response to consumer demand.

The landscape of childhood has changed. No longer are our children guaranteed a childhood free from diabetes, obesity or food allergies, and parents are standing on the front line.

Parents are looking for food that is free from artificial ingredients: artificial dyes, artificial growth hormones and the newly patented genetically engineered ingredients, engineered to be “Roundup Read” and resistant to a weed killer that contains glyphosate, an ingredient that the World Health Organization recently declared a “probably carcinogen.”

The escalating rates of childhood cancers, increasing diagnoses for conditions like autism and food allergies, and the rates of obesity and diabetes have earned this generation of children the title of “Generation Rx”. They are the first generation of kids expected to have a shorter lifespan than their parents.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, cancer is the leading cause of death by disease in children under the age of 15. The journal Pediatrics has reported that 15% of American girls are expected to begin puberty by the age of 7 (with the number closer to 25% for African American girls) and a growing number of American children struggle with obesity. On top of that, the rate for having food allergies is 59% higher for obese children, with the Centers for Disease Control reporting a 265% increase in hospitalizations related to food allergic reactions. And while not all of those hospitalizations are for our children, what is becoming increasingly obvious is that the health of our children is under siege.

U.S.-born children have a 34.5 percent chance of developing asthma, hay fever, eczema and food allergies, compared with just 20.3 percent of foreign-born children. In addition, children born outside the U.S. but then moved here were more likely to develop allergies the longer they lived in the country.

When I shared this data with a journalist, she was speechless, and I found myself again wondering: What have our children possibly done to deserve this? And more importantly, what can we do to protect them?

This changing landscape of childhood is changing the face of American families and our economy. We already spend almost 18 cents of every dollar on health care, managing disease. The pharmaceutical companies can’t keep up with demand, and now there are shortages for drugs used to treat cancers and ADHD.

But more often than not, the solution is not found in the medicine cabinet, but in the kitchen, and parents are doing everything they can to protect the health of their children.

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Dr. Michael P. Wilson PhD: What The Public Can Do -> http://www.democraticunderground.com/101691490#post9