Genetically Modified Crops/Salmon-I'm a guinea pig.

The USDA chart below confirms the extent genetically modified crops now dominate the total plantings of cotton, soybeans, and corn in the United States. Sugar beets are not included in this chart, but GM sugar beets exceed 90% of the total plantings.

So it is safe to assume that pretty much anything with corn, soybeans and beet sugar you buy or eat has a great likelihood of containing GMO. All of these products have been minimally and unsatisfactorily studied for their effects on the environment and human health. No offense to guinea pigs, but I suspect I am being used as a lab animal for the testing of these unnatural crops- and I don't really like it.

Eating organically certified foods certainly is one way to avoid GM crops; but with word that up to 70% of Chinese certified organic crops are mis-labelled or mis-handled this not totally reassuring. Even in the United States, organic certification is based on independent certifiers and the honor system such that we really have no way to know for certain if the products they certify are truly GMO free.

There is evidence that GM soybeans is linked to fertility and infant mortality in hamsters (thank goodness I am a guinea pig!). It is also acknowledged that research on GMO is very limited because the seed companies like Monsanto and DuPont fund so many research programs and that studies critical of GMO may well end a researcher's grant winning career.

In seafood things are heading in the same direction with the FDA considering the approval of GM salmon. This is truly frightening based on the lack of knowledge base on how fish will evolve with genetic modifications and the complete lack of data to show these mutated fish will effect human and animal health.

The bottom line is genetically modified organisms, plant and animals, are terribly understudied from a safety point of view. There is simply no evidence that these genetic modifications will not have unintended consequences both in nature and in our bodies.

I am thus very suspect of this technology and the rush to commercialization. We have safe alternatives to feed the planet (non-GM plants) so why take this risk?

I am also deeply disturbed by the secrecy that GMO are developed and approved. This same secrecy is also carried into the area of labeling- why not label all GMO products as such and let consumers decide if they want them? Transparency should be the benchmark of any food source.

Let's continue genetic research, but let us move slowly in exposing an unknown population to the uncertain risks GMO represent. With many crops it is already too late and we are the guinea pigs. I pray the experiments go well- it means a lot to me and my family.