Deepak Chopra wants you to know about this health issue

Author and doctor Deepak Chopra has advocated for many things, particularly when it comes to alternative medicine, but the 21-time best-selling author has a new message for the public, and this time it has to do with the dangers of genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

GMOs have been in the mainstream news for the last couple of years, with global anti-GMo movements popping up as the research against these products mounts. The company at the heart of the controversy is Monsanto, a bioengineering corporation that genetically alters plant DNA to make crops naturally resistant to disease and pathogens, reducing the need for fertilizers and pesticides. The issue is that these alterations also change how certain products are metabolized in the body.

SEE ALSO: Monsanto Corn: What you need to know about the health risks

GMO crops have been linked in recent studies to  organ damage, tumor growth, liver disease and death, along with an ability to “silence” certain genes within the body. While GMO corn is the most notorious of products, GMO wheat and soy also have made the news frequently as the debate continues on.

“We cannot allow ourselves to be highjacked just by people who make a lot of money,” Chopra says in his latest video. “Today I’m asking everyone in the world to be really concerned about what’s happening to our planet and what we can do about it, this is a call to action. GMO foods are becoming a predominant supply of our food, interfering with hundreds of millions of years of biological evolution on our planet. GMO foods are multinational corporations claiming ownership of all of life, (but) life belongs to all of our and all of us, our children and our grandchildren.”

He goes on to speak highly of GMO Free movement activist Vandana Shiva, an Indian activist who has been vocal about her distrust and disgust regarding GMOs and how they have affected traditional farming. In India, hundreds of thousands of farmers have committed suicide due to failed GMO crops and the economic repercussions resulting.

“There are two trends,” Shiva told a crowd gathered in Piazza Santissima Annunziata, in Florence, for the seed fair. “One: a trend of diversity, democracy, freedom, joy, culture—people celebrating their lives. And the other: monocultures, deadness. Everyone depressed. Everyone on Prozac. More and more young people unemployed. We don’t want that world of death. We would have no hunger in the world if the seed was in the hands of the farmers and gardeners and the land was in the hands of the farmers,” she said. “They want to take that away.”

SEE ALSO: Monsanto prepares to release first ever GMO wheat

Her words hit home for many people, including Deepak Chopra, who concludes in his video, “It’s very important to support Vandana Shiva’s crusade to bring sanity to our planet, to restore our ecosystem and bring life to our planet.”

GMOs make up approximately 90 percent of the soy, cotton, canola, corn and sugar beets sold in the United States, according to Live Science, but a number of countries have now banned GMO sales in light of concerning studies suggesting serious health consequences in laboratory animals.