Saturday, 21 November 2015

Terrifying Facts about Monsanto


Have you already heard the name Gilles - Eric Seralini, his 2012 studies on GMOs and the controversy around it? Namely, Seralini is a French scientist who researched the behavior of rats fed with Monsanto's Roundup Ready GMO corn. The results were horrifying. The study found clear evidence of cancer development in rats fed on GM maize hence showing the link between pesticide-treated, GMO foods and severe health consequences as a result. Some of the tested rats later died.

The study was firstly published in the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology. Immediately after publishing it was followed by a wave of criticism of the biotech industry. Biotech "experts" have told that the study was extremely unscientific, with unprofessional methods being used, simultaneously highlighting that Seralini was biased from the beginning of his research. The magazine, which published Seralini’s study, changed its mind and withdrew the study.

Why? Allegedly, Seralini used rats with (supposedly) inherent tendency to develop tumors (Sprague - Dawley deformation) and he was also accused of not using enough number of rats per tested group (instead, Seralini examined 20 groups of 10 rats per group, 200 rats in total). That's it. These were Seralini’s “capital” mistakes.

But, check this out - 8 years before Seralini, Monsanto also explored rats-cancer-GMO foods connection and published the results of the study in the very same journal. Expectedly, Monsanto’s study showed no traces of cancer in rats. But there is a catch here. Monsanto used the same strain of rats as Seralini did later, and the same number of rats (10). At that time, no one complained on their results. The big question here is how far is Monsanto ready to go?

In June 2014 and July 2015 Seralini’s original study was republished in the journal Environmental Sciences Europe and by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, respectively.


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