Suppressed Report Shows Link to GM Potatoes

[Guest guest]

Yet another indication of how genetically modified food just isn't

safe and the real reason why the powers that be refuse to label

them. Nobody would buy them if they knew that they were genetically

modified. For now, I think the only way to avoid them is to buy

organic.

Best Wishes,

Misty L. Trepke

http://health.

 

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health_medical/article2278044.ece

 

By Colin Brown, Deputy Political Editor

Published: 17 February 2007

Campaigners against genetically modified crops in Britain last are

calling for trials of GM potatoes this spring to be halted after

releasing more evidence of links with cancers in laboratory rats.

 

UK Greenpeace activists said the findings, obtained from Russian

trials after an eight-year court battle with the biotech industry,

vindicated research by Dr Arpad Pusztai, whose work was criticised

by the Royal Society and the Netherlands State Institute for Quality

Control.

 

The disclosure last night of the Russian study on the GM Watch

website led to calls for David Miliband, the Secretary of State for

Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, to withdraw permission for new

trials on GM potatoes to go ahead at secret sites in the UK this

spring. Alan Simpson, a Labour MP and green campaigner, said: " These

trials should be stopped. The research backs up the work of Arpad

Pusztai and it shows that he was the victim of a smear campaign by

the biotech industry. There has been a cover-up over these findings

and the Government should not be a party to that. "

 

Mr Simpson said the findings, which showed that lab rats developed

tumours, were released by anti-GM campaigners in Wales. Dr Pusztai

and a colleague used potatoes that had been genetically modified to

produce a protein, lectin. They found cell damage in the rats'

stomachs, and in parts of their intestines.

 

The research is likely to spark a fresh row about GM crops in

Britain. Graham Thompson, a Greenpeace campaigner, said: " It is

important because it backs up the research by Pusztai, which was

smeared at the time by the industry. "

 

Brian John of GM Free Cymru, who released the findings, said the

research was conducted in 1998 by the Institute of Nutrition of the

Russian Academy of Medical Sciences and has been suppressed for

eight years.

 

It showed that the potatoes did considerable damage to the rats'

organs. Those in the " control groups " that were fed non-GM potatoes

suffered ill-effects, but those fed GM potatoes suffered more

serious organ and tissue damage.

 

The potatoes contained an antibiotic resistance marker gene. The

institute that carried out the studies refused to release all the

information. However, Greenpeace and other consumer groups mounted a

protracted legal battle campaign to obtain the report. In May 2004

the Nikulinski District Court in Russia ruled that information

relating to the safety of GM food should be open to the public.

 

The institute, however, refused to release the report. Greenpeace

and Russian activist groups again took the institute to court, and

won a ruling that the report must be released.

 

Irina Ermakova, a consultant for Greenpeace, said she had conducted

her own animal feeding experiments with GM materials. " The GM

potatoes were the most dangerous of the feeds used in the trials ...

and on the basis of this evidence they cannot be used in the

nourishment of people. "

 

Greenpeace said the Russian trials were also badly flawed. Half of

the rats in the trial died, and results were taken from those that

survived, in breach of normal scientific practice.