Avoiding GMOs and Pesticides, with Prof. Michael Antoniou

Some of the oat products were having more than 1 milligram of glyphosate per kilogram. Now, that may not mean much to the listeners, but for me, that is astronomically high. You don't want to be eating anything with that amount of glyphosate in it. You don't want to be eating anything with a fraction of that in it.

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Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the Feel Freaking Amazing podcast. We have an amazing guest today, so I love him to pieces. Ed's about to fall in love and I'm sure all of you guys are going to be excited too. So today we have Professor Dr. Michael Antonio. He is professor of Molecular genetics and Toxicology, who's also the head of the Gene Expression and Therapy Group, Department of Medical and Molecular Genetics, Faculty of Life Sciences and Medicine, King's College London in the uk. He's an expert in virtually all types of genetic engineering technologies, their biotechnical application, and it all within a medical context. For the last 11 years, he's undertaken research in the field of molecular and cellular toxicology research with a focus on pesticides, leading research in glyphosate toxicology. And that's how we met, because he was kind enough, as an aside, to take time out of his day and explain exactly what's going on with glyphosate. And then I said, I really want you to talk to all the people who listen to our podcast. And he was then gracious enough to come on. So, Michael, welcome. So happy to have you here.

Absolutely delighted to join you today, Wendy. So thank you for the invitation.

Yeah.

How scary is it that not only are we feeding our kids subpar, nutritious food, all the cereals, Cheerios, is loaded with glyphosate, and it's. That's causing all this fatty liver disease and it's just. And it becomes a loop. So that's really scary.

It is indeed. And the reason why American foodstuffs in particular are really loaded, and I'm not going to mince my word here, but certain foodstuffs in the USA are really loaded with glyphosate is because of Two things. One is you grow massive amounts of glyphosate tolerant GMO crops. Soy, corn, sugar beet, alfalfa, these are the ones that come to mind. There are also non food stuffs like cotton as well. But basically the environment, so much of the United States is sprayed with large amounts of glyphosate herbicides every year. And it just spreads in the environment. It's more stable than was previously claimed to be. It can persist in the soil, it gets into waterways, you know, it's in the air, it comes down in the rain and it ends up. And so that's one area. But also glyphosate is used in non GMO cropping systems a great deal as well. That includes perhaps surprisingly in orchards where farmers want to clear the weeds under the trees so it's easier for them to pick the fruits, whatever they may be, and that ends up in the fruit. You get orange juice with glyphosate in it. You get wine and beer with glyphosate in it, for example.

Wine and wine. Dirty little secret dirty wine.

That's right. When and. But it's this terrible habit that farmers have got into in Europe, but especially in the United States where they use Roundup as what's what they call as a. As for burn down. I think this is a terrible term. But what they're doing is they're using it as a desiccant, which means they're spraying it a few days or at most a couple of weeks before they plan to harvest the cereal crops or potatoes even actually or pulses. And the reason why they do it, it is purely for their convenience in that they say, oh, it dries the crop more uniformly and I'm able to harvest it sooner. But the problem with that of course is that there's no time for the Roundup glyphosate and the other elements within Roundup. Because you have to remember Roundup is a mixture of, not just of glyphosate and many other substances which are also highly toxic by the way.

Let's just pile it on like this is compound it and pile it on.

Pile it on. So they spray this and very soon they harvest the grain and it ends up straight into the animal and include and the human food supply. Which is why when think the Environmental Working Group and the the GMO project in the United States, they surveyed foodstuffs in American supermarkets, just pulled them off. And the highest levels were found in oats. Some of the oat products were having more than 1 milligram of glyphosate per kilogram. Now that may not mean much to the listeners, but for me that is astronom clinically high. You don't want to be eating anything with that amount of glyphosate in it. You don't want to be eating anything with a fraction of that in it.

Actually, this is how medications are dosed, right? You know, migs per keg and you figure out how much to give someone. That's a huge amount, Michael. I mean, that's ridiculous.

That's a huge amount. And bear in mind that it's. We're not talking about GMO oats here. There are no GMO oats being cultivate, being grown. All that glyphosate is there because the farmer has sprayed the oats shortly before harvest and so it's still there when it goes onto the supermarket shelves.

Yeah, I mean this, this. Sorry, this kind of. For me, we had Dr. Jeff Bland on the show and he was talking about how important the microbiome is not in the gut but also in the soil and how that affects the nutrition of the foodstuffs we have with glyphosate. And Roundup basically is killing all the microbiome in the soil, so it's depleting the food. Not only is it harmful onto itself, it's also depleting all the food we vitamins, minerals, nutrients, phytonutrients we get. It's just scary.

And it's harmful to bees. It's directly toxic to bees and bugs.

It has huge, what we call terrestrial ecotox, ecotoxicological effects from the area, its impact on the soil. I'm glad you mentioned it, Ed, because it's an underexplored area. But our work suggests that it's having a massive effect in the soil because you may remember that the way that glyphosate kills plants, it'll kill all plants, by the way, except those of course, who have developed resistance. And there's plenty of those out there now thanks to all this GMO cropping and overuse of glyphosate that's taken place in the last 20 years. You know, with all these. For two decades of glyphosate tolerant crop growing, what's happened? The weeds have become resistant as you would. It was totally predictable. Even though Monsanto swore to, oh no, the weeds are not going to become resistant. Oh, come on. Anyone with half a biology brain will tell you they're going to become resistant. So that was just a lie. So. And of course. So now we have, American agricultural fields are absolutely rampant with glyphosate resistant weeds, almost 20 different species of weeds. So what are farmers having to do? They're having to spray not only glyphosate, they're having to mix in other even more toxic herbicides like 2,4D and dicamba. The industry has responded by launching GMO crops that are double herbicide tolerant. Glyphosate and 2,4D and glyphosate and dicamba. What does that mean? It means that the residues of these additional pesticides, these additional herbicides are also going to go up and up and up in the human food chain. And so what we're facing here is not only just heightened exposure to glyphosate, but increasing exposure to glyphosate along, especially along with 2, 4D and dicamba. And my, my group has done a study with this particular, with the USA in mind, where we have fed our animals a mixture of glyphosate, 2, 4D and dicamba. And we fed them at a level that the regular regulatory agencies, both in Europe and the United States say you can consume this day in, day out and not worry about any adverse outcome from it. Well, all I've got to say to the regulators is you tried telling that to our rats because they became very sick animals at this incredibly low dose of exposure. And we'd begun to publish some of that work. And there's more in, in the pipeline. So watch this space.

So gmwatch.org is where people, gm watch.org.

Is where you can find out more. But basically the mechanism by which glyphosate kills plants, that by the biochemistry that it interferes with, it's known as the shikimate pathway. This biochemical pathway is also present in most fungi and in many bacteria, including bacteria in our gut and bacteria and fungi that will be in the soil that are there as part of the soil microbiome, which is so essential, so vital for plant health and also for the plant to produce nutritious food. And we showed in our studies, we published this a couple of years ago. Now, we were the first to demonstrate, it was hypothesized, I should say it was hypothesized that since bacteria have this shikimate pathway, glyphosate should interfere with that too, in bacteria as well as in plants. Something which the industry neglected. You know, when the industry claimed, oh, don't worry, glyphosate works by inhibiting the shikimate pathway, it's only present in plants and so you can eat it without worrying about it. Well, but they forgot to tell us about the fact that bacteria, very beneficial bacteria, could also have this pathway.

We need to. Let's pause for a minute, Michael, and just talk to our audience about why does that pathway matter? It's because when it's interrupted, they can't produce their essential amino acids and they die. So it's, it's really important. Right?

It's sort of this critical pathway, very important pathway.

We should talk about GMOs.

Yeah, we should. It's an important issue right now because of this new generation of GMOs that are about. That are already beginning to hit the market in one or two places in the world, including the United States, but which are for me just as dangerous as the first generation GMOs that relied on introducing foreign genes from unrelated organisms into them. For example, the glyphosate tolerant GMO crops like the soy and the corn had a gene from bacteria put into them that conferred the tolerance to glyphosate so they wouldn't die. So these were these what we call transgenic crops. The transgene is this foreign gene that you put in to your crop. The new generation GMOs are being produced with techniques known as gene editing.

Is that CRISPR technology?

That's a good point, Ed, because gene editing tools have been around for a few decades, different types. But what has really spurred the real manic kind of development in the last five to 10 years is the invention of the CRISPR gene editing tool. Because the CRISPR gene editing tool is very simple and straightforward to piece together. And because it's less complicated and easier to use, people have just gone crazy over it. Okay, we use it in the clinic. I'm involved with research using CRISPR gene editing to develop gene therapies where, you know, I have to say, you know, things are moving forward, I would say, in a very cautious way, because we recognize that this is not as precise and as controllable as. As we would have liked. And therefore we've got to move forward very carefully in treating somebody with a genetic disease. In cur them of one genetic disease, we don't want, of course, replace it with another one. So things are moving forward quite cautiously, I would say. And I'm overall happy with the regulation that's in place to control this technology. In a clinical context. What worries me that even it's exactly the same control, exactly the same technology, with exactly the same problems of imprecision and unpredictability in an agricultural crop development context, it. It's just being deregulated. I mean, this is bizarre. The rules, you know, the system, if there is any regulatory system like we've had here in Europe, it's being dismantled to allow these techniques to be used anyway, in effect, without any kind of regulatory oversight whatsoever. So. And this is very, very, very, very worrying because it's, you know, the evidence is very clear that the CRISPR gene editing system doesn't just bring about what you want it to. It brings about unintended DNA damage. And for me, the people. But the people in the agricultural context, the way that I see it, they are just so somehow they convince themselves that it only does what they want. They never do the right experiments to identify the things that go wrong as well as the thing that they intend to happen.

Can we pause there for Michael for a second? Because I always say to my patients, I actually was working in a grocery store in 1985 when genetically modified foods came onto the shelves. I grew up in Framingham, Massachusetts, and they came on the shelves, and I remember it because we never had tomatoes out of season. And this is all sort of industrialization and globalization. I mean, a lot happened at the same time. But I remember thinking, well, why are we doing that? And when I've started to think it through, you think, okay, genetic modification is not to increase the value of the nutrients and vitamins in it. It's actually to make it grow faster, be drought resistant, be able to be picked earlier to be glyphosate resistant. It's not for you. It's actually for the people growing it. It's not to make it better for you, it's to make it better for the companies.

And especially going all the way back to the developer companies, the GMO developer companies, because these products are patent, which means they have full control over the seeds, and farmers have to pay extra. They have to pay technology fees. They can't save seeds to sow the following season, so they have to keep going back to the company every year. And if the GMO is linked with a pesticide of some sort, like Roundup, they have to buy the company's own pesticide. So they. They are trapped into a package which is very expensive, but which they hope to recoup with, you know, down the line. Whether they do that or not, I don't know. But this is so you're right in that what's driving this is not for the benefit of the environment or people. What's driving this are purely commercial interests that I, when I first became aware of these developments and started to look into it deeply and found and found, discovered very worrying developments in the area of GMO foods. I realized very early on that what was being talked about was really no good to the people. It was of no benefit to the people and certainly no benefit to the environment. In fact, many of the developments were. Were very detrimental to the environment. As we now know, the Roundup ready GMO crops have had devastating effects on the environment, not just in North America, but particularly in South America, where the Amazon is being cleared to grow GMO soy and GMO corn. This is the main driver of the Amazon. The devastation of the Amazon is all to do with the cultivation of GMO soy and to lesser degree, corn.

Vomiting.

I. I think I have to leave this podcast now.

So. Okay, so let's, let's start. We. We need to pause for a minute for the listeners, because if you're in the grocery store and you're buying your food, you. When you touch a fruit, I'll talk about America. So I don't actually know how it is in other countries, but in America, there's a little sticker on your fruit or your vegetable or if it's, if it's a thing of radishes, it's wound up. So if it has a, if it has a four, it's not organic. You can count on that. It's been sprayed. Four is at the beginning, and then there's three or four numbers after it. If it starts with an eight, it is genetically modified. Don't buy it. And if it starts with a 9, it's organic, which means it cannot be organic. Genetically modified. So you want to look for the number nine at the beginning of those little numbers. And look, look, I am a menopausal woman. They're really hard to read. You're going to need to bring your cheaters to the grocery store because it's like, how far away is it that you can get to see it or bring your phone or bring your child labor? Like I do. I'm like, go get the organic version. Look for the nine. Bring your phone. Bring. Bring your cheaters. Bring your child labor.

Like, yeah, I remember you have this rather sophisticated labeling system for GMO foods in the United States, in Europe, it just has to be written on the label.

Yeah, no, it just has an 8. If it has an 8, it's GMO. Don't buy it.

Yeah, yeah. So, but in. But the worrying thing is with these new generation GMOs because they're being completely deregulated. Nobody is going to know. Even the farmer may not know they're growing a GMO with a gene edited product.

Is there any benefit, I mean, is there any way that you can draw a line between GMO and a benefit to climate change or some type of ecology? Is there any way you can draw it?

No, no. This is the way it's being sold. As we need gene editing to alter our crops so that they will be heat resistant, drought tolerant, higher yielding, resistant to diseases and resistant to pests and so on. This, these are just wish lists and anybody who knows about the genetics that can underpin these kinds of characteristics of plants will tell you you're going to fail. You're doomed to fail. Because these are what we call complex genetic traits where you have the whole family of genes working together to bring about higher yield or drought tolerance or saline tolerance. These what if you want crops to be more resistant? If we want a more resilient agricultural system, we have to look at the system as a whole. There's nothing wrong with our crops as Liano it's the way that we grow them which is wrong. We need to switch to agroecological farming practices that preserve soil fertility, preserve soil carbon and hold moisture better. And our crops will perform better as well. But we can and if we want to breed, because as I, as I, as I mentioned, these, all these things that are on the wish list of the gene edit, gene edited crop developers, they are complex genetic traits. How do we bring about the combination, the complex combinations of genes that could bring about that property through normal breeding, normal pollination type breeding. It's the only way. It's really the only way. And before we, some people may be wondering, however, should I be worried? Why should I be worried about these gene edited products apart from the fact that won't be labeled? So again, we've got to look out for that organic, the organic sector doesn't want gene edited products any more than it wanted the transgenic first generation products. So they're going to need to however, work more carefully to make sure that they track things through the system because the labeling is not going to be so, so clear. So, but why should we be worried? Because just like with the first generation transgenic crops, when you produce these gene edited crops, they don't just change the function of one gene, but the function of many genes in an uncontrolled way. Now changing the function of one gene can bring about dramatic changes in the biochemistry of the plant. When you Change the function of many genes, as is inevitable by this procedure, by the way, then the chances are then the biochemistry changes can be really quite profound. And within that, within those biochemical changes, those compositional changes in the plant can be the production of new allergens and toxins. So here is where people who are particularly food sensitive need to be particularly concerned, because these products can be out there, they're not going to be labeled. That's the plan. Even here in Europe now, as I say, they're deconstructing the regulations here. And if things go through the way the industry wants and the way the politicians want are heading, we're going to have these new generation GMOs not even labeled in Europe. So how are we going to avoid them? It's going to be very difficult. And we have to source our organic food particularly carefully because even an organic farmer may buy a seed in good faith and not know necessarily that it's a GMO seed. Although depending on the law, depending on the law, I don't know what it's like in the United States, but here in Europe, at least the law that is being proposed, at least, is that at least the seed will be labeled. I don't know whether that's going to be the case in the usa. I don't know. But look, at the moment, there aren't too many products on the market in the usa. I think in terms of gene edited products, there's, there's a gene edited soybean with an altered oil composition. You don't, you don't want that. You know, you definitely don't want that.

Okay. I didn't warn Ed that today was going to be like a Debbie Downer day.

Horrifying.

It's like, I can join the podcast. I said, great, we're talking to Michael. It's so, it's such a great conversation. And then he's like, okay, so, okay, so I think what we need to make sure people know, because this conversation, I think scratches the surface. It's this entry into how do you protect yourself. So what we need to know for people is how can they learn more about you? How can they follow you? How can they follow your work? What's that access for people?

Well, obviously my work gets published in the scientific journals. They're going to be very technical, so you're unlikely to extract all the full impact of it by going there. But there is one, there is one NGO here in England that I act as a scientific advisor to and writes up reports on our work for the general population. And that's called GM watch. Gmwatch.org if you go to the gmwatch.org website you will find it is a wealth of information about GMOs and their associated pesticides, including of course about glyphosate and Roundup and the like.

So gmwatch.org is where people really need to follow. Okay.

Gmwatch.org is where you can find out more. And in the meantime, yes, just buy the best organic fresh food you can in your locality, support your local organic farmers that way. And, and that way we're doing the best we can for ourselves and our loved ones and spread the message that these are not good, these pesticide residues are not a good thing. And we just, as you say, just scratched the surface because we are typically you'll be exposed to tens of different pesticides every day in your food supply.

Well, normally I like to end on an up note, but I would say in this case we're going to end on a down note. So Michael, for those of you who are listening, this is Professor Dr. Michael Antonio and he is a expert in glyphosate, GMO and the effects that it has on us. And so a for the listeners, thanks for being with us for this time and Michael, thank you for spending the time educating us because this is the goal is to get the word out. So thank you for being here and being on the podcast.

It's my pleasure. And it's. Yes, I have me again, if you, if you feel the it would be valuable, we'd love to continue our chat.

Awesome. Thank you.

Thank you.

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