The Impact of
GM Microbes
on Nature
by Jeffrey Smith
Executive Director, Institute for Responsible Technology (IRT)
Actually, it’s part of an incredibly intelligent system that evolved over millennia. Specialized sugars in mother’s milk are specifically designed not to be digested in the stomach or small intestine. They’re not meant to feed the baby at all. Rather, they are food for bacteria living inside the child’s large intestine (Zivkovic, 2011; Musilova, 2014; De Leoz, 2015; Pacheco, 2015; Yong, 2016; Bridgman, 2017; Ayechu-Muruzabal, 2018; Elsen, 2019).
The gut microbes are so important for the baby’s long-term health (Stanislawski, 2018; Vatanen, 2018), there’s a complex system in place for their installation and maintenance. This includes inoculation by healthy bacteria in the birth canal, by microbes in breast milk, and even by bacteria transferred from the mom’s skin around her nipple (Pannaraj, 2017; Science Daily, 2017; Mandavilli, 2019).
But it doesn’t stop there. Research suggests that microbes from the mouth of the nursing baby convey information to the mom about the baby’s health needs (Fernandez, 2013).
These are just a few of the breathtaking feats performed by the microbiome—the bacteria, viruses, yeasts, etc., that live in and on us. In fact, some experts estimate that humans have outsourced up to 90 percent of their day-to-day metabolic functions to these unseen kingdoms (Krishnan, n.d).
We are not the only creatures that co-evolved with these little critters. They are everywhere in the environment. And we are just now learning how critical they are for the balance and health of all ecosystems and their inhabitants (Merten, 2020).