Remember a researcher named Gilles-Eric Seralini, his 2012 GMO study, and the controversy that swirled around it?
He fed rats GMOs, in the form of Monsanto’s Roundup Ready corn, and they developed tumors. Some died. The study was published in the journal, Food and Chemical Toxicology (wikipedia). Pictures of the rats were published.
A wave of biotech-industry criticism ensued. Pressure built. “Experts” said the study was grossly unscientific, its methods were unprofessional, and Seralini was biased against GMOs from the get-go. Monsanto didn’t like Seralini at all.
The journal which published the Seralini study caved in and retracted it.
Why? Not because Seralini did anything unethical, not because he plagiarized material, not because he was dishonest in any way, but because:
He used rats which (supposedly) had an inherent tendency to develop tumors (the Sprague-Dawley strain), and because he used too few rats (10). That’s it. Those were Seralini’s errors.
Well, guess what? Eight years prior to Seralini, Monsanto also did a rat-tumor-GMO study and published it in the very same journal. Monsanto’s study showed there were no tumor problems in the rats. But here’s the explosive kicker. Monsanto used the same strain of rats that Seralini did and same number of rats (10). And nobody complained about it.
Michael Hansen, senior scientist at Consumer’s Union, explains in an interview with Steve Curwood at loe.org (click here for the full article):
“Well, basically what Dr. Séralini did was he did the same feeding study that Monsanto did and published in the same journal eight years prior, and in that study, they [Monsanto] used the same number of rats, and the same strain of rats, and came to a conclusion there was no [tumor] problem. So all of a sudden, eight years later, when somebody [Seralini] does that same experiment, only runs it for two years rather than just 90 days, and their data suggests there are problems, [then] all of a sudden the number of rats is too small? Well, if it’s too small to show that there’s a [tumor] problem, wouldn’t it be too small to show there’s no problem? They already said there should be a larger study, and it turns out the European Commission is spending 3 million Euros to actually do that Séralini study again, run it for two years, use 50 or more rats and look at the carcinogenicity. So they’re actually going to do the full-blown cancer study, which suggests that Séralini’s work was important, because you wouldn’t follow it up with a 3 million Euro study if it was a completely worthless study.”
Boom.
I can just hear Monsanto felons gibbering: “Well, we the biotech industry people published our study. We used 10 rats and we used the Sprague-Dawley strain. And that was fine. It was especially fine because our study showed GMOs were safe. But then this guy Seralini comes along and does the same study with the same kind of rat and same number of rats, and he discovers tumors. That’s not fine. That’s very bad. He…he…used the wrong rats…yeah…and he didn’t use enough rats. He’s a faker. Well, I mean, we used the same kind of rat and same number of rats, but when we did the experiment, we were Good, and Seralini was Bad. Do you see?”
Yes, the mists are clearing and things are coming into focus.
Any comments, Monsanto? I’d be happy to pass them along to Michael Hansen.
Jon Rappoport
Pic: from http://farmwars.info/
The author of two explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED and EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world.
In this long battle its worth drawing attention to the case around 1999/2000 when Monsanto tried to get their Chardon-LL GMO seed onto the market in the UK, the first of its kind. Friends of the Earth and many other organisations (including the GMO Campaign which I was involved with at the time) took them to court – the hearings being held over three days in a London hotel with the intention to continue at a hotel in Manchester for a further three days following this. The evidence and letters of protest against them from farmers, individuals and organisations filled an entire room. Various speakers took part on behalf of the GMO Campaign: the organic farmer Julian Rose, scientist Angela Ryan, Dr Mae Wan Ho and the Biochemist Dr Arpad Pusztai. Dr Pusztai famously was the only person in the world at that time chosen to do tests on GMO-fed rats by the Blair Government, who suddenly stopped his experimental work when his results were found to be detrimental to the livers of the rats. His shocking and irrefutable evidence during the second dramatic day of the trial caused Monsanto to drop the case and it proceeded no further.
But theyre still at it, hoping to get vitamin-enriched GMO plants into the UK in the coming months. Many of the deficiencies this new wonder product claims to overcome may not occur in the first place if nature was allowed to provide in abundance, untampered with, as it has done for millennia. Natural organic farming, going with the flow of nature will provide all our vitamins for our every health need, plus the prevention and cure of illness: not a laboratory inventing strange hybrids to supplement crops and soil battered and poisoned by chemicals, and a system of unnatural and cruel meat over-production and consumption, all of which are unsustainable. All Monsanto are doing is providing a self-serving, profitable solution to unnecessary problems created by multi-nationals in the first place.
Comment by Claire on 25 January, 2014 at 3:42 am