Thousands
of rats will be fed Monsanto maize diets in a $23m, three-year ‘Factor GMO’
study into long-term health effects of GM food and associated
pesticides
A
Russian group working with scientists is set to launch world’s largest long-term
health study on a GM food. Photograph: Daniel
Acker/Bloomberg
Tuesday
11 November 2014 11.32 EST
A
Russian group working with scientists is set to launch what they call the
world’s largest and most comprehensive long-term health study on a GM food.
The
$25m three-year experiment will involve scientists testing thousands of rats
which will be fed differing diets of a Monsanto GM maize and the world’s most
widely-used herbicide which it it is engineered to be grown
with.
The
organisers of the Factor GMO [genetically modified organism]
study, announced in London on Tuesday and due to start fully next
year, say it will investigate the long-term health effects of a diet of a GM
maize developed by US seed and chemical company Monsanto.
“It
will answer the question: is this GM food, and associated pesticide, safe for
human health?” said Elena Sharoykina, a campaigner and co-founder
of the Russian national association for genetic safety (Nags), the co-ordinator
of the experiment.
According
to the Nags, the experiment will try to establish whether the GM maize and its
associated herbicide cause cancers, reduce fertility or cause birth defects. The
scientists also want to know whether the mixture of chemicals present in Roundup
(Monsanto’s tradename for its glyphosate herbicide) are more or less toxic than
its active ingredient glyphosate.
Farmers,
governments, scientists and consumers around the world have been involved in an
intense debate since GM foods were introduced in 1994. But while there have been
many thousands of studies conducted, mostly by GM companies, which show that
there is no health risk, government regulators have not required evidence of
long-term safety and deep mistrust has built between different
“sides”.
“We
would clearly support well-conducted, hypothesis-driven science. If the science
is conducted according to OECD guidelines and shows that there are hazards with
a particular event, then the public will understand that,” said Prof Huw Jones, senior research scientist at
Rothamsted Research, which specialises in agricultural research and is the only
research institute in the UK currently carrying out a GM crop
trial.
Oxana
Sinitsyna, deputy science director at the Sysin research institute of human
ecology and environmental health which is part of the Russian ministry of
health, one of the three scientists on the Factor GMO study’s review board,
said: “The scale and format of this research project will allow us to create a
really objective and comprehensive data set on the mechanics of the impacts of a
GM diet on the health of living organisms over the long
term.
“From
a scientific point of view the ‘Factor GMO’ project is highly ambitious, which
makes it very interesting, for both the public and for the scientists
involved.”
Bruce Blumberg, another board member, who is a
biology professor at the University of California, Irvine, said: “The
cultivation of herbicide resistant crops is widespread in the US, and the use of
the herbicides to which these crops are resistant has increased many-fold in the
decades since they were introduced. There is a notable lack of published,
peer-reviewed data on their safety, as well as data on the safety of the
increased use of herbicides with which they are grown.”
The
planned study will have no input from the biotech industry or the anti-GM
movement, said Sharoykina.“Comprehensive scientific safety studies on GMOs and
their related pesticides are long overdue. All previous studies caused
controversy for various reasons: choice of animal, insufficient statistics,
duration of tests, research parameters, and researchers’ connections to the
anti-GMO movement or the biotech industry.
“This
study is intended to remedy the situation. The project organisers have
considered all of the points of disagreement and distrust surrounding this
subject.” She added that Nags would not have any involvement in the scientific
process.
Most
of the $25m has been raised, say the organisers, but the names of sponsors and
funders will not be revealed until the experiment starts fully next
year.
Fiorella
Belpoggi, a cancer specialist with the Ramazzini insistute in Italy and a board
member of the study said: “This is not at all an anti-GM study. We are being
neutral. We don’t know if it’s good or bad. Maybe in the future I will be a
cheerleader with Monsanto. But I want science to find
out”.
The
experiment, which will be conducted in western Europe and Russia, was cautiously
welcomed by both GM sceptics and proponents of the technology. However, Monsanto
did not respond to invitations for an interview.
Karl
Haro von Mogel, a public research geneticist in Madison, said on the Biofortified website: “If they
conduct the study and publish it in the peer-reviewed literature, it can make a
contribution to the existing literature. They frame the need for this study by
saying that ‘there has never been a scientific study that is comprehensive
enough to give them a clear answer regarding the safety for human health of any
one GM food – until now’. The study has not been done yet, so this is putting
the cart before the horse.”
Doug
Parr, chief scientist at Greenpeace UK, said: “There is still scientific
uncertainty regarding what effects GM crops could have on the environment and
the health of consumers, especially in the long term. If this is a
well-designed, transparent and accountable study, then hopefully it can help to
fill some of the major gaps in our knowledge of the impacts of GM glyphosate
resistant maize and glyphosate on health.”
Peter
Melchett, policy director with the Soil Association, said: “I welcome this. It
has been a scientific fraud that no scientific study like this has been done in
the past.”
Monsanto was contacted for a response but did not reply. In the past it has claimed that trillions of meals have been eaten by consumers without ill effects.
The
announcement of the experiment came as British anti-GM campaignersdelivered a letter to Downing street signed by US
environment groups representing over 50m people, as well as
celebrities including Susan Sarandon, Daryl Hannah and Robert Kennedy. The
letter warns Britain that the intensive growing of GM crops has caused major
environmental problems in the US.
“GM
crops have never delivered on their promises to increase yields and profits or
to decrease pesticide use. In fact, they have done the opposite with the cost of
growing GM crops now greater than conventional crops in the US and pesticide use
24% higher amongst GM farmers than non-GM farmers planting the same crops”, says
the letter which was delivered by former Labour environment minister Michael
Meacher and Tory MP Zac Goldsmith.
Separately
on Tuesday, MEPs voted to allow national bans on GM
food crops for environmental reasons.
