Scientific Studies of GMO

Scientific Studies of Seralini Proving GMO Can Be Harmful To Human Health?

Ten things you need to know about the Seralini study

1. Most criticisms of Séralini’s study wrongly assume it was a badly designed cancer study. It wasn’t. It was a chronic toxicity study – and a well-designed and well-conducted one.
2. Séralini’s study is the only long-term study on the commercialized GM maize NK603 and the pesticide (Roundup) it is designed to be grown with. See here: Why is this study important?
3. Séralini used the same strain of rat (Sprague-Dawley, SD) that Monsanto used in its 90-day studies on GM foods and its long-term studies on glyphosate, the chemical ingredient of Roundup, conducted for regulatory approval.
4. The SD rat is about as prone to tumours as humans are. As with humans, the SD rat’s tendency to cancer increases with age.
5. Compared with industry tests on GM foods, Séralini’s study analyzed the same number of rats but over a longer period (two years instead of 90 days), measured more effects more often, and was uniquely able to distinguish the effects of the GM food from the pesticide it is grown with.
6. If we argue that Séralini’s study does not prove that the GM food tested is dangerous, then we must also accept that industry studies on GM foods cannot prove they are safe.
7. Séralini’s study showed that 90-day tests commonly done on GM foods are not long enough to see long-term effects like cancer, organ damage, and premature death. The first tumours only appeared 4-7 months into the study.
8. Séralini’s study showed that industry and regulators are wrong to dismiss toxic effects seen in 90-day studies on GM foods as “not biologically meaningful”. Signs of toxicity found in Monsanto’s 90-day studies were found to develop into organ damage, cancer, and premature death in Séralini’s two-year study.
9. Long-term tests on GM foods are not required by regulators anywhere in the world.
10. GM foods have been found to have toxic effects on laboratory and farm animals in a number of studies.

SCIENCE

Monsanto’s Roundup And Roundup-Resistant Corn Found To Be Toxic In Rats

Original: The first animal feeding trial studying the lifetime effects of exposure to Monsanto Roundup weedkiller and Monsanto’s NK603 Roundup-resistant genetically modified corn found that exposure levels currently considered safe can cause tumors, multiple organ damage and premature death in rats.

The study, published Sept 19 in the journal Food and Chemical Toxicity, raises serious concerns not just about the pesticide Roundup, but about the Roundup-ready corn, which comprises 70 percent of the corn grown in the U.S.

“The rat has long been used as a surrogate for human toxicity. All new pharmaceutical, agricultural and household substances are, prior to their approval, tested on rats. This is as good an indicator as we can expect that the consumption of [NK603] GM maize and the herbicide Roundup, impacts seriously on human health,” Dr. Antoniou, molecular biologist at King’s College in London, said in a press release.

Monsanto maintains that its Roundup-resistant corn “is as safe as conventional (non-GM-derived) food” and that its 90-day trial prove that, but other studies have challenged the 90-day feeding trials.

Three months is the equivalent of late adolescence in rats, which can live for about two years.

The new research fed 10 groups of 10 rats a diet containing either NK603 Roundup-resistant GM corn or water containing Roundup at levels permitted in drinking water over a two-year period.

The researchers found that the treated rats died significantly earlier than rats fed on a standard diet.

Specifically, up to 50 percent of males and 70 percent of females died prematurely, compared with only 30 percent and 20 percent in the control group, and treated rats developed 2 to 3 times more large cancers than the control group.

This type of rat is cancer-prone, so all of the animals developed tumors. This is one of the reasons that the study has been controversial. But it is being taken seriously.

“This is the most thorough research ever published into the health effects of GM food crops and the herbicide Roundup on rats,” Antoniou said. “It shows an extraordinary number of tumors developing earlier and more aggressively — particularly in female animals. I am shocked by the extreme negative health impacts.”

Roundup is the world’s best-selling weedkiller. Monsanto introduced this genetically modified corn in 1998.

https://www.businessinsider.com/monsantos-roundup-and-resistant-corn-found-to-be-toxic-2012-9?IR=T

890