Aw Shucks, Who Needs Such Big Kidneys Anyway?
May 22nd, 2005 at 8:12 pm by Susie
You don’t think they’d suppress bad news about something on which they’ve staked their profits, do you?
Rats fed on a diet rich in genetically modified corn developed abnormalities to internal organs and changes to their blood, raising fears that human health could be affected by eating GM food.The Independent on Sunday can today reveal details of secret research carried out by Monsanto, the GM food giant, which shows that rats fed the modified corn had smaller kidneys and variations in the composition of their blood.
According to the confidential 1,139-page report, these health problems were absent from another batch of rodents fed non-GM food as part of the research project.
The disclosures come as European countries, including Britain, prepare to vote on whether the GM-modified corn should go on sale to the public. A vote last week by the European Union failed to secure agreement over whether the product should be sold here, after Britain and nine other countries voted in favour.
However, the disclosure of the health effects on the Monsanto rats has intensified the row over whether the corn is safe to eat without further research. Doctors said the changes in the blood of the rodents could indicate that the rat’s immune system had been damaged or that a disorder such as a tumour had grown and the system was mobilising to fight it.
Dr Vyvyan Howard, a senior lecturer on human anatomy and cell biology at Liverpool University, called for the publication of the full study, saying the summary gave “prima facie cause for concern”.
Dr Michael Antoniu, an expert in molecular genetics at Guy’s Hospital Medical School, described the findings as “very worrying from a medical point of view”, adding: “I have been amazed at the number of significant differences they found [in the rat experiment].”
That is an amazing result. Depending on *what kind* of genetic modification was involved, it may or may not even make sense.
A large majority of genetic modification, as far as I know, is Monsanto introducing Round-Up resistance into everything (mainly soybean?). This means farmers can just hose on the Round-up to get rid of weeds, but their crop will survive. They get to pay Monsanto for the GM seed and for the zillions of gallons of Round-up. This is a terrible deal for everyone except Monsanto.
However, from a human perspective, the Round-up interferes with a plant hormone, so it’s hard to see how Round-up resistance genes would do anything at all in a person.
Some corn has been modified to have a more complete set of amino acids. Is that the kind of GM they were looking at in this experiment? If so, that really sad, because the intentions there were actually benign!
Take home message–yet again–is not to release stuff into the environment before we know what it does!