Caitlin Shetterly - Modified: GMOs and the Threat to Our Food, Our Land, Our Future

T he blue Nebraska sky stretched above my car like a tight rubber band; the wind held its My ntonia constancy and the sun beat down. All around, as far as the eye could see, were dusty brown fields of dried soybeans and golden fields of dried corn. There were no trees. Just that huge, open expanse of soy and corn crop after soy and corn crop, alternating gold and brown and open to the big blue sky. Tractors glinted in the sunlight like ships at a distance sailing up and down, methodically cutting ribbons out of a sepia ocean while dust billowed like a thick and impenetrable storm behind them. Harvesttime.

T HE DAY BEFORE , I had landed in Denver, Colorado, in the late afternoon. When I deplaned and exited the airport, standing for a moment on the hot, dry concrete sidewalk outside the baggage claim, my rolly suitcase gripped in my right hand and my black L.L. Bean backpack on my shoulder, I was suddenly and immensely thirsty. I looked up and saw the Rocky Mountains rising, snowcapped and gleaming, before me; they seemed so close. I wondered if I could just reach my arm through that horizontal and relentless sun, if Id be able to dip my hand into that snow, bring a handful to my mouth, and cool off. As I turned away from the mountains toward the rental-car lots, the land before me stretched as flat as paper across the Great Plains of eastern Colorado and into Nebraska, where I was headed.

I had come to Denver to start somewhereto start telling a story, a story that Id stumbled upon in that life-becomes-art-and-art-becomes-life kind of way. Two months earlier, Id published an article in Elle magazine about a long and tedious illness that had plagued me for nearly four years, until I met Dr. Paris Mansmann, an allergist and immunologist. Mansmann is based in the suburban town of Yarmouth, Mainea short distance outside Portland, our states biggest city and cultural center, where I lived. Mansmann had asserted that, in his opinion, I had developed sensitivity to the proteins that are created from the DNA inserted into GMO corn to make it herbicide-resistant and, also, to carry its own pesticide; these genetic aberrances, he posited, had caused my immune system to go haywire.

Although his theory seemed unorthodox, perhaps crazyand, it turned out, also majorly controversialI decided to trust in it. I was too desperate not to. Id been sick for so longduring the first year of my marriage and for the entire first two years of my son Marsdens life. And by sick, I dont mean that I was just not feeling great or that I was a little queasy. I mean that I was so sick that I was often unable to get out of bed because arthritic pain radiated throughout my body, making my thighs and ankles weak and causing me to hobble around like a ninety-year-old. (My ankles, Id joke to Dan, my husband, felt like theyd been Kathy Batesed, a reference to the movie Misery.) I was exhaustedyet my body was in such a state that I felt like Id been plugged into an electrical outlet and couldnt relax enough to sleep. I had horrible headaches; a constant head cold; tingling and numbness in my feet, legs, and arms; and rashes splattered like pizza sauce across my face. During this time, I had tried every diagnosisor theorythat came my way, including hormone treatments, vitamin injections, iodine pills, elimination diets, and a long and debilitating course of powerful antibiotics aimed at curing me of chronic Lyme disease. Everything seemed to make me sicker, not better. I felt like Christina in the famous Andrew Wyeth painting; the world was just out of reach. My life was passing me by while we spent thousands and thousands of dollars we really did not have to consult with anyone who would see mefrom Harvard-educated MDs to shamans. All the while, we were just hoping someone would find a key to unlock this puzzle and make me well.

But desperation wasnt the only reason I was game to trust Mansmanns theory. In 2010, long before I was even thinking about genetically modified organisms, known in common parlance as GMOs, and before I had any inkling about what might be wrong with me, Marsden, then one year old, started to have episodes at bedtime when he would cry so hard that he would stop breathing and turn blue. The first time it happened, Dan and I raced to the car and then to the ER where they hooked our baby up to an EKG. The diagnosis: He has a behavioral problem called breath-holding syndrome. We looked blankly at the doctor. Its like a tantrum, she continued. Kids do it to get their way sometimes. You need to be more sure in your parental decisionsif its bedtime, its really bedtime. A nurse piped up then: I knew a kid who had these until she was five! The family would say, Oh here she goes again.... The ER doctor suggested distractions, which might help him forget to hold his breath. In a bizarre twist of this-must-be-dark-theater-not-my-life, I found myself following the ER doctors advice and for the next three nights I was singing If youre happy and you know it, clap your hands! as Marsy screamed inconsolably and turned blue and then white in my arms.