Howard you're a farmer you've seen the
change to GMO crops firsthand what are
some of the things that sent up red
flags to you you know during your career
well in 1989 we started using
alternative farming methods on our farm
and because of that I think we developed
an objective in a viewpoint that was
different than most may have had and I
started in the crop nutrition advisory
work in 1992 and farm supply business
and in 1994 Stud started studying GMOs
and some of the promises that were being
made sounded too good to be true so we
looked at it objectively rather than
euphoric Li and there were a number of
things that showed up right away we did
the first side-by-side comparison in
1997 seed company provided the seed for
that side-by-side comparison and when we
put all the numbers together of what it
would have cost if we'd have purchased
it the BT GMO corn lost us money so we
repeated that in 1998 and same result we
lost money we were comparing a good
sound hybrid to the BT version and
probably the thing that maybe got the
most attention after we grew that crop
you know when you lose fifty eight
dollars an acre and you're already
barely breaking even for the way the
grain prices were at that time that gets
your attention but when we when the
livestock showed us that they didn't
care to consume the GMO grain that
really got her attention
and because of the tremendous
opportunity of working with family
farmers and livestock and livestock
operations all over the Midwest we
started seeing a consistent trend in a
lot of ways where they were able to
segregate and have the non GMO in the
GMO version of the grain and the
consistency of the ill effects to the
livestock the pattern was was being
developed it wasn't every single time
but it was a high frequency and we
accumulated that information and data
over a ten plus your period of time and
it was continuing to get worse and worse
and then I was challenged in essence by
one of the PhD scientist friends that I
had and she says well you know what
you've done is fine and good but it's
all anecdotal so take it to the next
step and and put forth the protocol and
do a scientific study to see if you can
prove it and thankfully we've connected
with dr. carmen and we did the pig study
and two of the problems that we were
consistently seeing in livestock prior
to doing a study was issues with
conception and fertility as well as
digestive issues and both of those
things both of those body parts came up
as warning flags in the results of our
study the the increased weight the
abnormal oversized weight of the uterine
of the non-gm fed pigs was one of the
statistical findings of the study the
other one was the increased frequency of
the severe erosions in the stomach or
the inflammation and that was something
that we had seen on an ongoing basis as
we put
the genetically engineered corn and/or
soy in the diet of the animals the the
iliad s of Salmonella the bloody ball we
put it in the problem showed up you take
it away the problem went away and and
that stayed pretty consistent so those
were the two statistical scientific
findings but the other the thing that we
learned that I didn't expect to learn
which to me was equally and more
concerning our protocol was set and you
know once you get started you you don't
change it but the and dr. post I was
actually the one that made this protocol
statement if you will that we had to
weigh these pigs every week and I wasn't
planning on that because that was a lot
of work and he said no you have to do it
this way so we did and it was the best
thing that that he could have told me
because in doing that we saw the
behavior change in those pigs when they
were young it wasn't noticeable but as
they grew older and they went through
the simple routine we had a maze setup
it was the same one they went through it
every week and the ones that were in
this pen and this band the people that
were weighing them they didn't know who
was fed what they just run them through
the the maze and catch the weight and
this pen and this pen it always took
longer to run them through and with many
times much hassle because the pigs could
perform that simple task and they'd
start fighting and biting and picking on
one another well we started seeing
problems in 1997 in livestock the study
was published in 2013 and it's
frustrating how much time it takes
between completion of a study and
publication especially one of this
magnitude
I know if studies that were completed
and I knew the results I mean you had to
keep quiet about it for how many years
in addition to ours and it's that it's a
very frustrating process but my question
is okay that's a 15 year time period
from the time we start to see problems
to the time we had the first solid
scientific evidence to support what we
were seeing on our farm we don't have 15
years to wait and common sense would
tell us that maybe we maybe don't want
to wait that long either but I always
ask the people when I do the the public
presentations let's look at the behavior
of first of all the children the young
adults and the older adults in our
environment today with 75 to 80 percent
of the processed food containing
ingredients from GMOs and let's look at
the use of behavioral drugs and
prescription medication in 1996 before
we had 75 to 80 percent of the processed
food containing ingredients from GMO and
let's look at it today and then let's
ask a question is there something wrong
and I think based on the the response
and the feedback that I received from
countless mothers and Emeco medical
doctors from across the country that I'm
fortunate to correspondent and interact
with as we do the education
presentations in different areas they
take GMOs out of the diet of their
children and our family members and a
hundred percent of the time there's an
improvement health now they maybe don't
necessarily go on from being lame to
walking overnight but there's always an
improvement and you know that's common
sense in my book but that don't register
the way it seems in in some of the
regulatory community
you