Monsanto Releases GM Corn Data

Monsanto Releases GM Corn Data

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Catherine J. Frompovich, Contributor
Activist Post

Recently, Monsanto released its data files for GM maize or corn and
those files are behemoth: 491 Mb! The European Food Safety Authority
(EFSA) is making that data available to the public on its website HERE.
Be forewarned that it takes about an hour to download the files, which I
did not do. The data concerns maize (corn) NK603 and is part of EFSA’s
commitment to transparency and openness.

EFSA Executive Director Catherine Geslain-Lanéelle said:
<blockquote class="tr_bq">Risk assessment is an evolving science and
EFSA is always willing to review its past work should new robust science
bring a new perspective to any of the Authority’s previous findings.
With the launch of today’s initiative that aims to make data used in
risk assessment publicly available, EFSA will help scientists from
different areas of expertise develop research that can ultimately enrich
academic literature and provide valuable new perspectives that can be
included in risk assessments. This will make the conclusions of risk
assessments even stronger when ensuring public health protection and
further build confidence in EFSA’s work. [1]</blockquote>Not having read
the 491 Mb data, this author cannot make any comment regarding it.
However, for those who wish to know more about what Monsanto is
declaring and making public, you may be interested in obtaining that
information.

The corn in the data released by Monsanto is the same
variety Professor Gilles-Eric Seralini, PhD, and his researchers at
CRIIGEN used in their two-year study of rats fed Monsanto-produced NK603
GM corn. I found this amusing cartoon created about GM-fed rats, which shows photographs of the tumor-laden mice from the Seralini, et al. study.


Even though EFSA rejected the Seralini two-year rat study as inadequate
and not scientifically sound—Why? when Monsanto’s study on that corn
supposedly lasted only three months and that’s the data Monsanto
submitted to have it U.S. FDA approved—and Professor Seralini’s team
found the following:
<blockquote class="tr_bq">a. 50% of male and 70% of female rats died prematurely.

b. Both sexes of treated rats developed two to three times more large cancers.

c. By the 24th month, 50 to 80% of females in treated groups developed cancers, with up to three tumors per animal.

d. The first large detectable cancers appeared after the 4th month in males and after the 7th month in females.

e. The majority of cancers were detectable after 18 months.

f. GMO developer Monsanto tested only to the end of three months and
those results were given to U.S. EPA, FDA, and USDA to approve the
crop.</blockquote>A suggestion I would like to offer EFSA is to
duplicate the Seralini study exactly for two years, not only three
months, and report those results. Isn’t that what science is all about?


By the way, in the United States consumers have been eating unlabeled
GMO foodstuffs since 1994. Isn’t it about time there was transparency
in food labeling?

Source:-
http://www.activistpost.com/2013/01/monsanto-releases-gm-corn-data.html