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Genetically Modified Soy

 

GM: New study shows unborn babies could be harmed

Mortality rate for new-born rats six times higher when mother was fed on a diet of modified soya

By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor

The Independent on Sunday, 08 January 2006
http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article337253.ece

Women who eat GM foods while pregnant risk endangering their unborn
babies, startling new research suggests.

The study - carried out by a leading scientist at the Russian Academy
of Sciences - found that more than half of the offspring of rats fed
on modified soya died in the first three weeks of life, six times as
many as those born to mothers with normal diets. Six times as many
were also severely underweight.

The research - which is being prepared for publication - is just one
of a clutch of recent studies that are reviving fears that GM food
damages human health. Italian research has found that modified soya
affected the liver and pancreas of mice. Australia had to abandon a
decade-long attempt to develop modified peas when an official study
found they caused lung damage.

And last May this newspaper revealed a secret report by the biotech
giant Monsanto, which showed that rats fed a diet rich in GM corn had
smaller kidneys and higher blood cell counts, suggesting possible
damage to their immune systems, than those that ate a similar conventional one.

The United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organisation held a workshop
on the safety of genetically modified foods at its Rome headquarters
late last year. The workshop was addressed by scientists whose
research had raised concerns about health dangers. But the World Trade
Organisation is expected next month to support a bid by the Bush
administration to force European countries to accept GM foods.

The Russian research threatens to have an explosive effect on already
hostile public opinion. Carried out by Dr Irina Ermakova at the
Institute of Higher Nervous Activity and Neurophysiology of the
Russian Academy of Sciences, it is believed to be the first to look at
the effects of GM food on the unborn.

The scientist added flour from a GM soya bean - produced by Monsanto
to be resistant to its pesticide, Roundup - to the food of female
rats, starting two weeks before they conceived, continuing through
pregnancy, birth and nursing. Others were given non-GM soyaand a third
group was given no soya at all.

She found that 36 per cent of the young of the rats fed the modified
soya were severely underweight, compared to 6 per cent of the
offspring of the other groups. More alarmingly, a staggering 55.6 per
cent of those born to mothers on the GM diet perished within three
weeks of birth, compared to 9 per cent of the offspring of those fed
normal soya, and 6.8 per cent of the young of those given no soya at
all.

"The morphology and biochemical structures of rats are very similar to
those of humans, and this makes the results very disturbing" said Dr
Ermakova.
"They point to a risk for mothers and their babies."

Environmentalists say that - while the results are preliminary - they
are potentially so serious that they must be followed up. The American
Academy of Environmental Medicine has asked the US National Institute
of Health to sponsor an immediate, independent follow-up.

The Monsanto soya is widely eaten by Americans. There is little of it,
or any GM crop, in British foods though it is imported to feed animals
farmed for meat.

Tony Coombes, director of corporate affairs for Monsanto UK, said:
"The overwhelming weight of evidence from published, peer-reviewed,
independently conducted scientific studies demonstrates that Roundup
Ready soy can be safely consumed by rats, as well as all other animal
species studied."

What the experiment found

Russian scientists added flour made from a GM soya to the diet of
female rats two weeks before mating them, and continued feeding it to
them during pregnancy, birth and nursing. Others were give non-GM soya or none at all.
Six times as many of the offspring of those fed the modified soya were
severely underweight compared to those born to the rats given normal
diets.
Within three weeks, 55.6 per cent of the young of the mothers given
the modified soya died, against 9 per cent of the offspring of those
fed the conventional soya.

Can GM Soy be Deadly?

An experiment to see whether genetically modified (GM) soy might affect the offspring of rats yielded disturbing results.

Rats were divided into several groups, one of which was given a diet to which 5-7 grams of Monsanto's "Roundup Ready" GM soy flour had been added; the others were fed similar diets containing no GM soy. The diets began two weeks before the rats became pregnant, and continued throughout pregnancy and nursing.

Low Birth Weight

A number of offspring from the GM-fed mothers were born unusually small, and after two weeks, 36 percent of them weighed less than 20 grams, compared to about 6 percent from the other groups.

More Than Half the Rats Died

Within three weeks, more than half of the rats from the GM soy group died, compared to less than 10 percent from the other groups.

Roundup Ready GM soy's DNA contains bacterial genes that allow the soy plant to survive treatment with Monsanto's "Roundup" brand herbicide. Some 85 percent of the soy gown in the United States is Roundup Ready. Soy is present in the majority of processed foods sold in the United States, so most Americans eat Roundup Ready soy in some form every day.

No Safety Tests Required

The FDA does not require any safety tests on genetically modified foods. There have been less than 20 published, peer-reviewed animal feeding safety studies and no human clinical trials.

More information on this experiment can be found here.

Read Dr. Mercola's Comments on this experiment here

All soy baby milk genetically modified
- Dominion Post 05 September 2003

By LEAH HAINES

Every infant soy milk formula sold in New Zealand contains genetically modified soy, the Government says. But acting food safety minister Damien O'Connor would still not name the brands yesterday. Green MP Sue Kedgley has been demanding the names of the affected formulas since a survey revealed four were contaminated.

 

Mothers Against Genetic Engineering in Food and the Environment has called for a boycott on all soy formulas till the brands are disclosed. Officials have refused to shed light on the brands because the contamination is not high enough to break GM labelling laws. The Food Safety Authority said it had sampled all four formulas available in New Zealand and all four contained GM. Yesterday in Parliament Mr O'Connor came close to revealing the names, confirming that all soy formulas had been tested for GM and "all four were positive".

 

Ms Kedgley then named the four brands listed on the Health Ministry's website - Karicare Soya 1, Karicare starter formula, Infasoy and Infasoy progress. Did it follow, she asked, that they were the contaminated brands?

 

Mr O'Connor replied that he did not know.

 

Asked if there was a moral obligation to tell people what foods had GM in them given that Britain's Royal Society had expressed reservations about the safety of GM infant food, Mr O'Connor said that there had been 20 approved GM organisms in the country since 1998 "and I am not aware of any death or illness from the consumption of those products".

 

Madge spokeswoman Alana Currie said she had fielded calls from dozens of mothers wanting to know which brands were affected and some promising to give soy milk up. "People are really angry," she said. Without long-term testing on the effects of eating GM, it was irresponsible to declare them safe. "I would like them to prove that it is safe to eat, not just say no one has died from it yet," she said.

Government must reveal contaminated baby food

 

Green MP Sue Kedgley is calling on the New Zealand Minister for Food Safety Annette King to release the names of four infant formulas that the Food Safety Authority found to be contaminated with genetically engineered soy.

 

Ms Kedgley, the Green Food Safety spokesperson revealed that the recent NZFSA audit of food manufacturers and importers found that four tested infant formulas contained 0.2 or 0.3 per cent of genetically engineered soy. 

 

"It is vital that the public is informed which are the soy infant formulas that contained GE contamination so that concerned parents can avoid purchasing these formulae," said Ms Kedgley.

 

"It is alarming to discover that some infant formulas contain unlabelled GE soy that has never been tested on humans or undergone proper, independent safety testing.

 

"Many parents would be horrified to learn that they were feeding their infants genetically engineered products.

 

"With the rising rate of allergies to soy products in the USA and UK being linked to GE soy, it is even more critical that parents can make this choice," said Ms Kedgley.

 

Other food products found to contain GE contaminants included six different samples of corn chips, sandwich ham, pork luncheon, and sausage meat.

 

Ms Kedgley is calling on the Government to release the names of all food products that were found to contain GE ingredients in the survey, so that consumers can have the right to make informed purchasing decisions.

 

"The public has a right to know what is in the food they eat. The Government must come clean on what products it has found to have GE contamination, especially for our younger people."

 

Ms Kedgley will be asking questions of the Minister in Parliament today to publicly identify the contaminated products with the full results of the NZFSA report, Assessment of Compliance with Standard 1.5.2.

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Related Links

Dr Mercola and GM Soy