EXTRACTS: A meta-analysis on 19 studies confirms kidney and liver toxicity in rats and mice fed on GM soybean and maize, representing more than 80 percent of all commercially available GM food; it also exposes gross inadequacies of current risk assessment.
"From the regulatory tests performed today, it is unacceptable to submit 500 million Europeans and several billions of consumers worldwide to the new pesticide GM-derived foods or feed, this being done without more controls (if any) than the only 3-month-long toxicological tests and using only one mammalian species, especially since there is growing evidence of concern."
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Forty-three percent of significant abnormalities were found in the kidneys of males. The liver was more affected in females and the kidney was more affected in males.
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While studies carried out by independent scientists all reported significant effects due to GM-feeding, those carried out by Monsanto on MON863, MON810 (both Bt maize lines), and NK603 (glyphosate-tolerant soybean line) reported no evidence of toxicity. The results were kept confidential by Monsanto and the EFSA, until Séralini and his colleagues gained access to the raw data through court action, and found the experiments deeply flawed at every stage, from experimental design to data analysis and interpretation.
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Current risk-assessment studies are inadequate in detecting and acknowledging the toxicity of GMO food consumption. Previous independent studies have clearly indicated the hazards of GMO crops to human health, with widespread pathologies including birth defects and spontaneous abortions; (see for example [9] EU regulators Regulators and Monstanto Exposed for Hiding Glyphosate Toxicity, SiS 51) infertility, stunting and sudden deaths (see [10] GMO Soya Fed Rats: Stunted, Dead, or Sterile, SiS 33); immune reactions and allergenicity, (see [11] More Illnesses Linked to Bt Crops, SiS 30), and as highlighted here, kidney and liver toxicity. This review provides clear improvements to current study designs that need to be upheld by industry as well as the EU government.
