Unapproved Monsanto GMO Wheat Caught Tainting an Oregon Field

While GMO wheat is not currently on the U.S. market, that does not mean it isn’t being grown here.

Even though Monsanto’s genetically modified (GM) wheat is not, and has never been, approved for sale on the U.S. consumer market, just last month a farmer in Oregon found it randomly growing in his field.

Testing on Monsanto’s GM wheat stopped in 2005, but as far back as 1999, GM wheat was showing up in places it shouldn’t, such as Thailand where farmers complained that shipments of wheat tainted with a transgenic variety had arrived from the Pacific Northwest. Monsanto’s representative for wheat research partner relationships admitted the company was growing 50 acres of transgenic wheat at test sites across the U.S. and 30 to 40 acres in Canada back in 2003.

Monsanto officially stopped growing the wheat after ten of the biggest wheat importers rejected it. Monsanto’s official response to this most recent incident claims, “This is the first report of the Roundup Ready trait being found out of place since Monsanto’s commercial development program was discontinued nine years ago.”

Monsanto also stressed, “the glyphosate-tolerance gene used in Roundup Ready wheat has a long history of safe use.”

So don’t worry; Monsanto says it’s GMO wheat, which has never been approved for sale in the U.S. and which shouldn’t even be growing anywhere in the country even though it is growing here, is totally ‘safe’.

In other news, wheat allergies in the form of gluten sensitivity are skyrocketing in America, with studies showing that in the last 50 years, the incidences of Celiac Disease, an autoimmune disorder that damages the small intestinal lining in response to gluten proteins in wheat have gone from one in 5,000 American sufferers to a whopping one in 133 in the last decade…

(Author’s Note: Gluten makes me and a lot of people I know really sick and it did NOT used to be this way. As pervasive as this issue has become, and as many people as are being hurt by it on a daily basis, the government cannot continue to act like SOMETHING isn’t up with our food. ~Mel M.)