GM Soya Fed Rats: Stunted, Dead, or Sterile

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GM Soya Fed Rats: Stunted, Dead, or Sterile

Tue, 28 Nov 2006 14:30:25 +0000 (GMT)

 

 

The Institute of Science in Society Science Society

Sustainability http://www.i-sis.org.uk

 

This article can be found on the I-SIS website at

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/

 

 

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ISIS Press Release 28/11/06

 

 

GM Soya Fed Rats: Stunted, Dead, or Sterile

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Dr. Mae-Wan Ho reviews the latest findings on the hazards of

GM food and feed amid a continuing campaign of denial and

misrepresentation by our regulators

 

Alarming findings dismissed by regulators

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Female rats fed genetically modified (GM) soya produced

excessive numbers of severely stunted pups with over half of

the litter dying within three weeks, and the surviving pups

are sterile.

 

These alarming findings came from the laboratory of senior

scientist Dr. Irina Ermakova at the Institute of Higher

Nervous Activity and Neurophysiology of the Russian Academy

of Sciences in Moscow. The experiments began two years ago,

and the initial findings hit the world press when Ermakova

was invited to speak at the 11 th Russian

Gastroenterological Week in Moscow in October 2005.

 

Preliminary results have been published in a Russian journal

[1], in conference proceedings and official reports [2-7], and a

fuller paper containing further results is in press

[8]. Ermakova has also spoken at numerous public meetings

and scientific conferences and in the popular media, both at

home and abroad, but regulators have continued to ignore and

dismiss her findings.

 

UK's Advisory Committee on Novel Foods and Processes (ACNFP)

has been systematically biased in favour of studies that

fail to show significant effects of GM food and feed right

from the beginning. Not surprisingly, it continued to cite

research that's seriously flawed as evidence against

Ermakova's findings [9], and Ermakova has lodged her own

protest [10].

 

One particular study cited by the ACNFP to bolster its GM

bias [11] used a batch of GM soya harvested in a middle of a

certain field in South Dakota, processed by a commercial

company, and fed to mice of indeterminate age and body

weight. These factors alone would make the experiments

invalid and totally unreplicable. Furthermore, the

remarkable similarities in the composition of the GM and non

GM diet - both supposed to contain 21.35 percent soya meal –

is simply beyond belief. There were no standard deviations

to the figures provided; 59 out of 78 of the figures were

identical to 2 - 3 significant figures, and the rest

differed so slightly that they would have been within

standard errors. Could it be that the researchers have been

feeding both groups the same diet? There is no evidence that

the two diets were different, no DNA tests on the food

samples were performed to ascertain that one was GM and the

other non-GM. This contrasts with the investigations carried

out by Ermakova, who has been updating her results on her

website ( http://irina-ermakova.by.ru/eng/ [12], and urging

other scientists to repeat the experiments; all the more

important now, as since publishing the initial results, her

funding has been cut, and she is strongly discouraged from

pursuing this line of research. Suppression and

victimisation of honest, independent scientists has now

become routine while obfuscation and misrepresentation are

perpetrated at the highest levels, most recently by UK Prime

Minister Tony Blair, who once again, blames the controversy

over GM foods, along with MMR vaccine, stem-cells and BSE

(!) on the " anti-science brigade " that " threatens our

progress and our prosperity " [13]. Is Blair implying that

BSE is not a hazard to human health? Ten years ago, the then

UK government was forced to admit BSE was linked to the

variant Creuzfeld Jacob Disease in humans, after having

repeatedly proclaimed BSE-infected beef was safe for human

consumption for 10 years previously [14] ( The Inside Story

of BSE , SiS 32).

 

Read the rest of this article here

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/GM_Soya_Fed_Rats.php

 

 

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