Are Humans Mammals? Report: Monsanto Corn Causes Organ Damage in Mammals

Report: Monsanto Corn Causes Organ Damage in Mammals

A report released by the International Journal of Biological Sciences states that three types of Monsanto corn, cause cancer and organ damage in mammals.

In what is being described as the first ever and most comprehensive study of the effects of genetically modified foods on mammalian health, researchers have linked organ damage with consumption of Monsanto’s GM maize.

Three varieties of Monsanto’s GM corn " Mon 863, insecticide-producing Mon 810, and Roundup® herbicide-absorbing NK 603 " were approved for consumption by US, European and several other national food safety authorities.

The Committee of Independent Research and Information on Genetic Engineering (CRIIGEN) and Universities of Caen and Rouen obtained Monsanto’s confidential raw data of its 2002 feeding trials on rats after a European court made it public in 2005.

The data “clearly underlines adverse impacts on kidneys and liver, the dietary detoxifying organs, as well as different levels of damages to heart, adrenal glands, spleen and haematopoietic system,” reported Gilles-Eric Séralini, a molecular biologist at the University of Caen.

Their December 2009 study appears in the International Journal of Biological Sciences (IJBS). This latest study conforms with a 2007 analysis by CRIIGEN on Mon 863, published in Environmental Contamination and Toxicology, using the same data.

The researchers conclude that the raw data from all three GMO studies reveal novel pesticide residues will be present in food and feed and may pose grave health risks to those consuming them.

They have called for “an immediate ban on the import and cultivation of these GMOs and strongly recommend additional long-term (up to two years) and multi-generational animal feeding studies on at least three species to provide true scientifically valid data on the acute and chronic toxic effects of GM crops, feed and foods.”

This may be the reason we see bee colony collapse disorder and massive butterfly deaths. If GMOs are wiping out Earth’s pollinators, they are far more disastrous than the threat they pose to humans and other mammals.

UPDATE: I received an Email from Monsanto shortly after publication of this article with a rebuttal. In deference to journalistic fairness, because we consider ourselves unbiased in our reporting and because Monsanto has a history of litigation and heavy handedness, here is there response…

Hi Adam,

I saw your post on Twilight earth about Monsanto corn causing organ damage and wanted to let you know we have a response page on our website and a comment that was forwarded to me from one of our medical directors, Dan Goldstein. Please see below. I hope you can add this to your blog post. If not, I would be happy to leave this information in the comments section.

In the current paper (de Vendomois et al., 2009) that is cited in your post, as with the prior publication (Seralini et al, 2007), Seralini and his colleagues use non-traditional statistical methods to reassess toxicology data from studies conducted with MON 863, MON 810 and NK603 corn varieties, and reach unsubstantiated conclusions.

The French High Counsel on Biotechnology (HCB) has considered both the de Vendomois (2009) and Seralini (2007) papers and has found that these papers make no useful contribution to the safety assessment.

Statistical fluctuations occur commonly in any large study with many endpoints, and statistical significance alone does not determine when an observation can be translated into evidence of risk. Making this determination requires consideration of:
• dose-related trends (higher dose should produce greater effect)
• reproducibility
• relationship to other findings such as abnormal organ appearance on pathology examinations
• the magnitude of the differences and the relationship of the findings to the normal range of values
• occurrence of a particular finding in both sexes (adjusting for known gender related differences in some tests)

When considered using proper statistical analysis in conjunction with these other criteria, the toxicology studies cited fail to demonstrate any adverse effects of these products.

A more complete discussion of the issues related to this publication, as well as references to pertinent publications, see is available on the Monsanto website: Monsanto Response: de Vendomois et al. 2009

Dan also wrote a blog post about Seralini’s past studies and their lack of validity. http://blog.monsantoblog.com/2009/06/23/seralini-safety-study/

Thanks so much,

Kathleen Manning

Monsanto Company

(Twilight Earth) The creator of the study has a follow up to Monsanto’s rebuttal:

Séralini explained that their study goes beyond Monsanto’s analysis by exploring the sex-differentiated health effects on mammals, which Doull, et al. ignored:

“Our study contradicts Monsanto conclusions because Monsanto systematically neglects significant health effects in mammals that are different in males and females eating GMOs, or not proportional to the dose. This is a very serious mistake, dramatic for public health. This is the major conclusion revealed by our work, the only careful reanalysis of Monsanto crude statistical data.” [Communication to author]

Other problems with Monsanto’s conclusions

When testing for drug or pesticide safety, the standard protocol uses three mammalian species. The subject studies only used rats, yet won GMO approval in more than a dozen nations.

Chronic problems are rarely discovered in 90 days; most often such tests run for up to two years. Tests “lasting longer than three months give more chances to reveal metabolic, nervous, immune, hormonal or cancer diseases,” wrote Seralini, et al. in their Doull rebuttal. [See “How Subchronic and Chronic Health Effects can be Neglected for GMOs, Pesticides or Chemicals.” IJBS; 2009; 5(5):438-443.]

Further, Monsanto’s analysis compared unrelated feeding groups, muddying the results. The June 2009 rebuttal explains, “In order to isolate the effect of the GM transformation process from other variables, it is only valid to compare the GMO … with its isogenic non-GM equivalent.”