Attention Crohn’s and IBD Sufferers – Harvard Researchers Discover the Obvious About How Genetically Modified Foods Lead to Inflammatory Bowel Disease, Crohn’s and Ulcerative Colitis

A September 16, 2010 conducted by Cell Host & Microbe, Harvard School of Public Health (“HSPH”) researchers found that “certain bacteria that inhabit the intestines provides the environmental trigger that initiates and perpetuates chronic intestinal inflammation in individuals who are genetically susceptible to inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).”

Crohn’s and IBD are chronic inflammatory disorders that afflict more than 5 million people in the U.S. Approximately 30,000 new cases are diagnosed each year. The principal forms of IBD are Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis. Although intestinal bowel syndrome (IBS) is not mentioned in the study, it is clear that the same issues apply to IBS sufferers.

The various forms of IBD, IBS, Crohn’s and ulcerative are the three highest risk factors for colorectal cancer. For most people with one of these ailments, it is when, not if, for colorectal cancer.

Lead investigator Wendy Garrett, assistant professor of immunology and infectious diseases at Harvard said, "In this study, we identified two microbes that instigate gut inflammation that leads to inflammatory bowel disease ...."

These microbes were identified by Russell L. Blaylock, MD and Daniel C. Dantini, MD more than a decade ago. But their studies and books have been ignored or labeled controversial by the industry because their books identify the causes of these bacteria microbes as coming from genetically modified foods and the dangerous addictive chemicals added to packaged foods by food manufacturers.

The study alleges that an “individual's genetic background influences what bacteria reside within his or her intestine.” Senior author Laurie Glimcher, the Irene Heinz Given Professor of Immunology at HSPH said, “Whether IBD is caused by individual species of bacteria or disruptions of entire microbial communities remains controversial.” It only remains controversial because of the political might of Monsanto to silent or dilute its critics.

To any Crohn’s, ulcerative colitis and IBD sufferer who has been diagnosed with malignant colon cancer, it is neither controversial nor disputed. We all have a genetic predisposition. The question is what activates the genetic disposition in people with family histories of digestive diseases. Growing evidence points to the bacteria remaining in the digestive track after eating genetically modified foods.

Thirteen years of research, reading more than 4,000 books, articles and studies and writing four health books with my co-author, Ashley F. Brooks, led us to a different conclusion. The conclusion is supported by more than 600 studies from independent scientists and researchers.

The genes of genetically modified foods are split with the E. coli bacteria, Bt toxin and other “gene promotors” that leave the bacterium’s residue in your gut that causes IBD, IBS, Crohn’s and ulcerative colitis. It didn’t get there by accident. The statistical increase in digestive diseases and colorectal cancer can be directly traced to the creation of genetically modified foods and the addition of dangerous addictive chemicals in packaged foods.

The effects of genetically modified fruits and vegetables, factory farmed meats and addictive chemical additives, such as MSG, high fructose corn syrup, maltodextrin and others, caused one author to be diagnosed with malignant colon cancer.

Even after surgery, the Crohn’s, IBD and ulcerative colitis continued and actually got worse until one author stopped eating the genetically modified foods and any product containing chemical additives in what the manufacturers described as “healthy” foods.

Factory farmed beef, pork and poultry come from animals kept in confined pens, shot-up with Bovine Growth Hormones (animal steroids), fed on genetically modified corn (not their natural food) and given antibiotics in their food daily. The animals are kept in pens that are knee deep in urine soaked manure that have contributed to so many of the food recalls in the past three years. Cows fed on GMO corn dies in 140 to 160 days unless slaughtered sooner. The bacteria in the GMO corn feed kills them.

In the case of beef, the dangers have reached a level where hamburger producers put ammonia into their hamburger to stop the spread of E.coli. Double cheese ammonia burgers? Well, that is what America is eating at fast food chains.

The fact is that all of the Harvard teaching facilities, researchers and hospitals are so politically and financially attached to Big Food companies that they are unwilling to attach any cause or blame to their largest financial benefactors. For example, Big Food employees sit on boards of several medical schools including Harvard and the Tufts University School of Nutrition. Corporate incest is rampant in the medical schools across the country.

Their compromised objectivity became public in 2008 when Senator Charles E. Grassley exposed conflicts of interest at Harvard Medical School and its teaching facility, Massachusetts General Hospital.

An investigation revealed that psychiatrists Joseph Biederman, Thomas J. Spencer, and Timothy E. Wilens failed to report earning of more than $1.6 million from pharmaceutical companies since 2000. Dr. Biederman was a professor of psychiatry and Chief of Pediatric Psychopharmacology at Massachusetts General at the time.

Meanwhile, Harvard Medical School Dean Jeffrey S. Flier said that he did not want to jeopardize one of the school's major sources of funding.

Drug companies contributed more than $8.6 million in 2008 for basic science research and the $3 million for continuing education classes on campus separate and distinct from their direct payments to the doctors and professors.

Most of the money goes to professors at the Harvard-affiliated teaching hospitals, and the dean's office admitted that it does not keep track of the total. Senate investigative reports later disclosed 149 Harvard-affiliated professors with financial ties to Pfizer and 130 with Merck. This does not include other Big Food, Big Oil and Big Pharma members. Once again, money triumphs over truth.

The food and drug industries’ mantra about blind testing is also a fraud. According to internationally expert in assessing the credibility of medical research, Dr. John Ioannidis, “Up to 90 percent of published medical information directly relied on by doctors to determine treatment is misleading, exaggerated, or quite often flat out wrong.” Even more unsettling, the medical community agrees with his assessment.

His published paper showed “both theoretically and empirically that 80 percent of non-randomized studies (the most common type), 25 percent of the "gold-standard" randomized trials, and nearly 10 percent of the "platinum-standard" large randomized trials were incorrectly executed.”

To highlight the inability to weed out bad research, “they focused on the 49 most highly regarded and cited research papers published in the past 13 years. Of those, 41% had later been disproved when tested, while 24% hadn't even been retested.” Upon further examination, 3 of these studies, which were later firmly disproved, they “found scientists were more likely to cite the original inaccurate study, in one case for at least 12 years after it was discredited”.

One need look no further than Scott S. Reuben, MD, a Harvard researcher who falsified the VIGOR test on Vioxx and Bextra which resulted in more than 100,000 deaths. There were no patients and he forged the names of doctors to research data.

After more than 100,000 deaths, Dr. Reuben was sentenced to only ten years in prison. Since his fraud makes him the largest serial killer in the history of the U.S., the death penalty would have been more appropriate. The drug manufacturer was not indicted nor punished for using his fraudulent tests. Like all big corporations, the manufacturer claimed they didn’t know.

Another example is Dr. Alan F. Schatzberg, Chair of Stanford's Psychiatry Department and President-elect of the American Psychiatric Association. Senator Grassley found that Dr. Schatzberg controlled more than $6 million worth of stock in Corcept Therapeutics, a company he co-founded that is testing mifepristone, the abortion drug otherwise known as RU-486, as a treatment for psychotic depression. One does not have to wonder what the findings in his studies said. Forget about drug safety. It is about money, profits and more money.

Anyone who has Crohn’s, IBD, IBS or ulcerative colitis will tell you that it is the chemicals in their food that makes them ill. One author stopped his suffering by switching to a chemically-free diet of organic foods and taking natural enzyme supplements. Only by giving up the source of the bacteria – genetically modified foods and dangerous chemical additives – can one hope to jettison the bacterium that causes their illness. Live a chemically free life or die a toxic waste dump consisting of Big Food, Big Oil and Big Pharma chemicals found in our foods, drugs and in the air from disasters like the Exxon Valdez or the BP Deep Horizon oil rig.

It doesn’t take an industry funded, self-serving study to tell Crohns’, IBD, IBS and ulcerative colitis sufferers the obvious. Garbage in, garbage out applies to human beings as much, if not more than to computers. But with food, it is garbage in and the garbage stays in you gut, organs, muscles and tissues for ever.

If you are what you eat, then Crohn’s, IBD, IBS and ulcerative colitis sufferers are toxic dump sites for the dangerous bacteria residues left in your gut by eating packed foods, factory farmed meats and genetically modified fruits and vegetables.