The Effects of Genetically Modified Foods on Animal Health
by Rady
Ananda
In what is being described as the first ever and most
comprehensive study of the effects of genetically modified foods on mammalian
health, researchers have linked organ damage with consumption of Monsanto’s GM
maize.
All three varieties of GM corn, Mon 810, Mon 863 and NK 603, were
approved for consumption by US, European and several other national food safety
authorities. Made public by European authorities in 2005, Monsanto’s
confidential raw data of its 2002 feeding trials on rats that these researchers
analyzed is the same data, ironically, that was used to approve them in
different parts of the world.
The Committee of Research and Information
on Genetic
Engineering (CRIIGEN) and Universities of Caen
and Rouen studied Monsanto’s 90-day feeding trials data of insecticide producing
Mon 810, Mon 863 and Roundup® herbicide absorbing NK 603 varieties of GM
maize.
The data “clearly underlines adverse impacts on kidneys and liver,
the dietary detoxifying organs, as well as different levels of damages to heart,
adrenal glands, spleen and haematopoietic system,” reported Gilles-Eric
Séralini, a molecular
biologist at the University of
Caen.
Although different levels of adverse impact on vital organs were
noticed between the three GMOs, the 2009 research shows specific effects
associated with consumption of each GMO, differentiated by sex and
dose.
Their December 2009 study appears in the International Journal of
Biological Sciences(IJBS). This latest study conforms with a 2007 analysis by
CRIIGEN on Mon 863, published inEnvironmental Contamination and Toxicology,
using the same data.
Monsanto rejected the 2007 conclusions,
stating:
“The analyses conducted by these authors are not consistent with
what has been traditionally accepted for use by regulatory toxicologists for
analysis of rat toxicology data.”
[Also see Doull J, Gaylor D, Greim HA,
et al. “Report of an expert panel on the reanalysis by Séralini et al. (2007) of
a 90-day study conducted by Monsanto in support of the safety of a genetically
modified corn variety (MON 863).” Food Chem Toxicol. 2007;
45:2073-2085.]
Séralini explained that their study goes beyond Monsanto’s
analysis by exploring the sex-differentiated health effects on mammals, which
Doull, et al. ignored:
“Our study contradicts Monsanto conclusions
because Monsanto systematically neglects significant health effects in mammals
that are different in males and females eating GMOs, or not proportional to the
dose. This is a very serious mistake, dramatic for public health. This is the
major conclusion revealed by our work, the only careful reanalysis of Monsanto
crude statistical data.” [communication to author]
Other problems with
Monsanto’s conclusions
When testing for drug or pesticide safety, the
standard protocol is to use three mammalian species. The subject studies only
used rats, yet won GMO approval in more than a dozen nations.
Chronic
problems are rarely discovered in 90 days; most often such tests run for up to
two years. Tests “lasting longer than three months give more chances to reveal
metabolic, nervous, immune, hormonal or cancer diseases,” wrote Seralini, et al.
in their Doull rebuttal. [See “How Subchronic and Chronic Health Effects can be
Neglected for GMOs, Pesticides or Chemicals.” IJBS; 2009;
5(5):438-443.]
Further, Monsanto’s analysis compared unrelated feeding
groups, muddying the results. The June 2009 rebuttal explains, “In order to
isolate the effect of the GM transformation process from other variables, it is
only valid to compare the GMO … with its isogenic non-GM equivalent.”
The
researchers conclude that the raw data from all three GMO studies reveal novel
pesticide residues will be present in food and feed and may pose grave health
risks to those consuming them.
They have called for “an immediate ban on
the import and cultivation of these GMOs and strongly recommend additional
long-term (up to two years) and multi-generational animal feeding studies on at
least three species to provide true scientifically valid data on the acute and
chronic toxic effects of GM crops, feed and foods.”
Human health, of
course, is of primary import to us, but ecological effects are also in play.
Ninety-nine percent of GMO crops either tolerate or produce insecticide. This
may be the reason we seebee colony collapse disorder and massive butterfly
deaths. If GMOs are wiping out Earth’s pollinators, they are far more disastrous
than the threat they pose to humans and other mammals.
Rady Ananda
began blogging in 2004. Her work has appeared in several online and print
publications, including three books on election fraud. Most of her career was
spent working for lawyers in research, investigations and as a paralegal. She
spent seven years as an editor, two of them as a web editor for a site with
20,000 members. In December 2003, she graduated from The Ohio State University’s
School of Agriculture with a B.S. in Natural Resources.If you don't
take the time to fully understand the various methods used in Autogenocide, all
directly related to your long term health and total life span you may not be
here long enough to make a difference in your world, our world. Autogenocide is
killing almost all of us, slowly, very slowly.
Submitted by Vince Guarisco