Food policy : GM corn and soy feed cause health problems in hogs, says study - chicagotribune.com
http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/food/stew/chi-food-policy-gm-corn-and-soy-feed-cause-health-problems-in-hogs-s
#Monsanto souhaite que les études indépendantes sur ses #OGM adoptent ses propres critères de jugement principaux,
Monsanto, the dominant manufacturer of genetically modified seeds, questioned why the study focused on uterine size and stomach inflammation rather than “body weight and feed conversion.” Those factors, it said, are “routinely used as endpoints in health assessments” and have “been measured in hundreds of studies where GM crops have been fed to poultry and livestock with no negative effects.”
To that Vlieger responds, “why would you not care what the GM feed does to vital organs and parts of the body?”
Carman added that her findings on weight and feed efficiency largely matched those of Monsanto’s. “But we then went further and looked deeper than their superficial studies,” she said Tuesday, “and that’s when we found significant evidence of harm from eating GM crops.”
Monsanto representative Thomas Helscher said that many of the differences in health outcomes were “within normal range” and “considering the ages of the pigs, the author’s speculation about differing uterine weights might be the result of pigs in estrus (heat).”
Carman responds that uterus weights can’t “be due to differing rates of estrus...as pigs were thoroughly randomized before they began their diet.”
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The Center for Food Safety, a sustainable food advocacy group, has long bemoaned that long-term feeding studies are not required before GE foods enter the food supply. Today it called Carman’s findings “biologically and statistically significant,” mirroring “what many farmers have been reporting anecdotally for years.”
“This study raises serious questions about the long-term health impacts of genetically engineered foods,” said Andrew Kimbrell, the center’s executive director. “It is grossly negligent that neither the companies nor the government have conducted these rigorous types of studies in the 15 years that GE products have been on the market. Until further long-term, independent studies are done, the public are unwittingly participating in the safety testing of these products.”
