Why GMO's are a real concern for your child's health

Ed Begley Jr., Actor & Environmentalist, shares advice for parents on why you should be concerned about GMO's effects on your child's health
Why GMOs Are A Real Concern For Children's Health
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Why GMO's are a real concern for your child's health

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I’m very concerned about GMO’s, and I’ll tell you why. It’s taken many, many millions of years for these wonderful plant species that we rely upon to give us the wonderful food that we enjoy. And if you start tinkering with the basic building blocks of life, things can go wrong. Never underestimate the power of thing going very wrong. And there are allergies, I think, that are possible with genetically modified organism, there’s possibility of things escaping out into the greater environment that you didn't want to get out there. The way genes work is a beautiful mechanism, the way DNA replicates and all that, for over millions and millions of years, it’s a wonderful process. But now we have a new process of combining different genes. Let’s say, a fish that can survive in the Arctic cold, and combining some of that gene with a tomato so the tomato can survive the cold better. And then what you do, you attach it to a virus, insert it into the nucleus of a cell, and then hope that it takes, and then you have a tomato that’s going to survive frost better. There’s great danger in that. You look at some of the danger we have from natural organisms like hydaruler, Kudzo or Zebra mussels getting into parts of the world where they didn't normally exist. And there’s no natural predator for them and they've really messed up the works, these different species that are natural. Now you’re talking about unnatural species that we don’t know how the human system is going to react. We have some preliminary information from studies that show that mammals react very poorly to some of these things. So, I would steer clear of GMOs, I seek out products that do not contain genetically modified organisms. And I think any prudent parent should as well.

Ed Begley Jr., Actor & Environmentalist, shares advice for parents on why you should be concerned about GMO's effects on your child's health

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Ed Begley, Jr.

Actor & Environmentalist

Inspired by the works of his Academy Award-winning father, Ed Begley Jr. became an actor. He first came to audiences’ attention for his portrayal of Dr. Victor Ehrlich on the long-running hit television series St. Elsewhere, for which he received six Emmy nominations. Since then, Ed has moved easily among feature, television and theatre projects.

Ed co-starred in the Woody Allen movie Whatever Works with Larry David, as well as the Seth Rogan/Judd Apatow film Pineapple Express, and a number of Christopher Guest films, including A Mighty WindBest In Show and For Your Consideration.

Other feature film credits include Batman ForeverThe Accidental Tourist and The In-Laws.

On television, Ed just completed Muhammad Ali’s Greatest Fight, an HBO movie with Christopher Plummer, Danny Glover and Frank Langella. He also starred in the HBO movie Recount with Kevin Spacey, Tom Wilkinson and Laura Dern, and appeared in recurring roles on Six Feet UnderArrested Development and Boston Legal.

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