Most important news

Over 50% of newborn rats died within 3 weeks when mothers were fed with GE soya

36% were severely stunted

More than half the offspring of soya fed rats died in the the first three weeks of life. This was six times as many as with normal diet. Of those who survived, six times many as those eating normal diet, had underweight.

"The morphology and biochemical structures of rats are very similar to those of humans, and this makes the results very disturbing" according to the scientists who did the research.

Liver changes from GE food

Liver changes were found in mice fed on Genetically Engineered Soy Beans. Ultramicroscopic study revealed significant changes in the cell nucleus.

This abnormality in the liver cells indicates that GE foods may cause serious disturbances in cellular function that may affect health.

Cows ate GE maize and died - the same gene as in GE maize for humans

Twelve dairy cows died in Hesse, Germany after being fed Syngenta's Bt 176 GE maize; and other cows had to be slaughtered due to mysterious illnesses.

A chief suspect for the death of the cows is the toxic Bt protein contained in the Bt 176 Maize. Syngenta says that the same toxic protein is found in Bt 11-Maize intended for human food.

Studies conducted in Japan in 2003 clearly showed that undigested Bt toxin is present in calf stomach, intestine and dung after being fed Bt 11 maize; and these results have been replicated in further experiments in pigs. This supports the suspiscion that it was the Bt-toxin that killed the cows.

The fact that Syngenta has not withdrawn its Bt-Maize in spite of this indicates a serious lack of responsibility. It indicates that it is dangerous to let the biotech corporations make the safety assessment of their products (as is the practice today, see "Inadequate safety assessment of GE foods") and not independent institutes.

Mass death of Sheep from grazing GE cotton field

At least 1 820 sheep were reported dead after grazing on post-harvest Bt cotton crops; the symptoms and post-mortem findings strongly suggest they died from severe toxicity.

This was uncovered in a preliminary investigation conducted by civil society organisations in just four villages in India. The actual problem is likely to be much greater.

This is the second instance of GE-plants killing animals feeding upon it. In both this case, and that of cows killed as described above, the plants were genetically manipulated with a gene producing the insect toxin of Bacillus Thuringiensis (Bt).

The serious thing about this is that the same toxin-producing gene is found in some GE-foods intended for human consumption, including GE-maize (for example Syngenta Bt11 Maize) and GE-potatoes (recently offered to Russia).

Animals Avoid GE Food

Experimental and anecdotal evidence shows that animals seek to avoid GE food and do not thrive if forced to consume such food.

In a study, the mortality rate was twice as high among the chickens eating GE maize as compared with those fed commercial non-GE hybrid maize.

An anonymous scientist reported: "Generally, the reports are concerned with Bt maize. Many farmers feed maize to their cattle just as it grows, without mixing in other feedstuffs. Typical reports are that the farmer buys a new shipment of maize, which his cattle either refuse to eat or eat with reduced consumption. Upon making enquiries, he discovers that the maize is a genetically modified variety. When he replaces it with a non-modified maize, the cattle start eating again. There have been dozens of such reports over the last two years."

GE crops causing agricultural crisis in Argentina

Argentina has suffered an environmental crisis with 'superweeds' overrunning the countryside and farmers reporting health problems, experts warn.

Since 1997, genetically-modified soya has been planted over almost half the country's arable land. Now farmers are having to use more and more herbicides to control the resistant weeds, damaging the soil's fertility for generations.

A study, detailed in the respected journal New Scientist, has found that over-use of weedkillers is rendering the soil 'inert' - and directly affecting human health.

FDA suppressed report on harmful effects of GE food

The safety of the first GE product intended for human food, the GE-tomato Flavrsavr, was studied very extensively and the result was used as a showcase of the safety of GE food. FlavrSavr was approved for human conumption by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of USA in May 18 1994, and it stated that the "proven safety of FlavrSavr" demonstrated that GE-foods in general are safe, and decided consequently not to demand as rigorous safety examinations for other GE-foods. In stead a very liberal procedure based on the principle of "substantial equivalence" was established, which did not require any careful testing of toxic or other harmful substances.

This decision was completely unscientific, as it is a well established fact that every case of genetic engineering has unique effects, so it is not justified to draw a general conclusion from a special case.

Moreover, several years later it was discovered that, in one of the "safety showcase" reports, it was found that the GE-tomato Flavrsavr caused lesions in the stomachs of mice. However, this finding was suppressed by FDA.

So the liberalization of GE food safety assessment decided by FDA had no scientific support at all, on the contrary it ignored serious scienific reasons not to allow liberal safety assessment.

The liberal safety assessment procedure established by FDA in 1994 has been applied on all GE foods in the market today and it is still applied in spite of extensive and serious critisism from a large number of scientific experts. It carries with it a significant risk for a repetition of the kind of large scale disaster caused by the production of tryptophan by a GE bacterium that killed 37 and severely disabled 1500 people, see The Showa Denko disaster.

The discovery of FDA's suppression of facts that would have necessitated very thorough safety assessment of GE foods was the result of a lawsuit procedure against FDA that required the disclosure of all documents underlying the decision to apply very liberal safety assessment requirements for GE-foods and to for failure to require labeling of GE foods. See Lawsuit Challenges Unscientific FDA Policy

These are only a few selected news items among the increasing number of disquieting news presented at this website. Please return to the home page for more.