Genetically engineered foods, or genetically modified organisms (GMOs), have been approved as safe in the United States since the early 1990s, but more than 20 years later, many doctors are questioning that stance.
One such physician is Dr. Robin Bernhoft. A former liver and pancreatic surgeon, the Harvard-trained doctor is now director of the Bernhoft Center for Advanced Medicine in Ojai, Calif. Over the past few years, he has found that patient health improves when GMOs are removed from their diet.
The claim is controversial—the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) insists that GMO foods are no different than those found in nature, but Dr. Bernhoft’s observations are not uncommon.
According to author, filmmaker, and fierce biotech industry critic Jeffrey Smith, thousands of doctors across the country have drawn similar conclusions.
“It is a force that cannot be properly stopped by the biotech industry because the people who avoid GMOs are getting better,” Smith said. “The stories are getting out, and the experience and the viral capacity of this information is enormous.”
Dr. Bernhoft described a wide range of diseases that have shown improvement after implementing non-GMO diets. He said that the symptoms he sees in his patients mirror those observed in animal studies.
“In all of the animal studies that I’ve read, there’s always damage to gut integrity,” Dr. Bernhoft said. “Is the same thing happening in humans? I don’t know, but asthma, food allergies, autoimmunity—all of those things have gone up logarithmically since GMOs have been introduced.”
Dr. Michelle Perro, pediatrician at the Institute for Health and Healing in San Francisco, said that she has also observed many cases of sick children getting better when they stop eating GMOs.
“In my opinion, it’s an epidemic,” Dr. Perro said. “We are a living science experiment.”
Dr. Perro has been treating children for over 30 years, but she said that recently something has changed. Over the last decade, she has witnessed a marked increase in the number of children with chronic disease—digestive issues, profound food allergies, increased immunological disorders, inflammatory bowel disease, and more.
Both Dr. Perro and Dr. Bernhoft admit that there are a variety of environmental and dietary factors contributing to modern illness, but they also point to an alarming trend that correlates closely to the rise in GMO consumption.
For example, Dr. Bernhoft referred to allergy rates in Great Britain in 1997—the same year that GMO soy was introduced there. Back then, soy ranked number 37 on the list of most common food allergies. The following year it jumped to number 9, and the year after that it ranked as the nation’s third most common food allergy.
“Can I say definitively that GMOs have caused this? Of course I can’t. I don’t have the studies,” said Dr. Perro. “Can I say I’m extremely suspicious? Yes. And because I practice the precautionary principle, I think this has to be halted until it is looked at. We have to protect our children—not give it to them and see what happens.”
Scientific Studies and GMOs
Cautious doctors received support for their suspicions in a recently published study from France. Led by biologist Gilles-Eric Séralini, the two-year trial observed a startling outcome: rats who ate GMO corn saw four times the number of deaths and an 80 percent increase in cancer compared to those that were fed a diet of conventional corn.
The study made big headlines in Europe, and it has led to bigger changes in policy. After the Séralini study was released, Russia banned GMO foods, and other countries have also discussed backing away.
In the United States, however, the research received little press, other than statements to discredit the study and shame those who point to it as proof.
