Monsanto Launches Damage Control Over GMO/Cancer Study

Monsanto Launches Damage Control Over GMO/Cancer Study

Biotech giant attempts to discredit shocking findings

Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
September 24, 2012

Biotech giant Monsanto has launched a desperate damage
control effort in the aftermath of a French study which found that rats
fed on Monsanto’s genetically-engineered corn were far more likely to
suffer tumors, organ failure and premature death.



Aside from the details of the study, a wider question
remains. If Monsanto and other GMO giants are so confident in the safety of their products and have no qualms about them being in the food supply, why have they spent a combined total of over $19 million dollars in an attempt to prevent Americans from knowing that their food is genetically modified?

Monsanto has bankrolled a huge campaign fronted by
lobbyists in an effort to sink California’s Proposition 37, a bill that
would simply mandate genetically modified food and ingredients be
labeled at the retail level.

If genetically-modified food is safe and the studies
have proven it is safe, why is Monsanto so desperate to keep its
presence in our food hidden?

The recent study,
conducted by scientists at the University of Caen and published in the
journal Food and Chemical Toxicology, found that 50 percent of male and
70 percent of female rats fed on a diet containing NK603 – a genetically
modified corn produced by Monsanto – or those exposed to Monsanto’s
Roundup weedkiller – suffered tumors and multiple organ damage, causing
them to die prematurely.

Monsanto immediately went into spin mode, issuing a
press release over the weekend claiming that toxicologists and public
health experts had found “fundamental problems with the study design,”
without specifically explaining what those problems were.

Given
the fact that Monsanto-funded scientists are routinely wheeled out in
public to attack the abundance of evidence confirming the link between
GMO and cancer, the reaction to the French study was unsurprising.

As Sayer Ji explains,
the two previous studies before the French inquiry, the results of
which claimed that there was no link between Monsanto’s Roundup Ready
herbicide and cancer, were both funded by Monsanto itself.

A study published in the journal Regulatory Toxicology
and Pharmacology which exonerated Monsanto contained this glaring
admission of a conflict of interest;

“The authors have disclosed the funding source for this
research. JSM [study author] has served has a paid consultant to
Monsanto Company….This research was supported by the Monsanto Company,
St. Louis, Missouri.”

Is it really just a coincidence that the first study in
recent years not to be funded by Monsanto produces completely different
results?

“There is no plausible mechanism for the results
reported with genetically modified maize and the results are
inconsistent with an extensive body of experience and scientific study,”
Monsanto claimed in response to the French study.

However, the results are only inconsistent with previous
(Monsanto-funded) studies because the French study went beyond the
90-day period which Monsanto had previously been able to hide behind in
claiming their GMO products were safe.

As The Grocer highlights,
the French investigation “Was the first study to look at the long-term
effects of Roundup and NK603, which has been approved for human
consumption based on 90-day feeding trials. Scientists found that rats
developed mammary tumours and severe liver and kidney damages as early
as four months in males and seven in females, compared with 23 months
and 14 months respectively in a control group.”

Since tumors and other ailments were only discovered
after a four month period, this throws into serious doubt previous
(Monsanto-funded) studies the biotech giant pointed to as proving the
safety of GMO because they failed to extend beyond a 90 day period,
whereas the French study looked at the effects of GMO throughout the
whole life span of the rats.

This again illustrates the fact that far from being
inadequate or badly modeled, the French study was more extensive and
more complete than any previous study – with the added bonus that it was
not funded by Monsanto – it was completely impartial.

As we reported last week,
apologists for Monsanto have jumped on the bandwagon in an effort to
discredit the findings of the French study, lying by omission in an
attempt to cast doubt on its findings.

David Spiegelhalter of the University of Cambridge tried
to question the accuracy of the study by highlighting that “The study’s
untreated control arm comprised only 10 rats of each sex, most of which
also got tumors.”

However, Spiegelhalter failed to acknowledge that it
took these rats anything up to 19 months longer to develop tumors
compared to those fed on Monsanto’s GM corn.

Having had its nose bloodied in various European
countries and facing being kicked out of the European marketplace
altogether, Monsanto is in panic mode right now. California’s Right to
Know Act - otherwise known as Prop 37 - could spell the beginning of the end not only for Monsanto’s business model but for the whole GMO agenda across the globe.


Source:-
http://www.infowars.com/monsanto-launches-damage-control-over-gmocancer-study/