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[For a more in-depth look at 65 health risks of GM foods, excerpted from Jeffrey Smith's comprehensive new book Genetic Roulette: The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Foods, click here.]
Case Study on Industry Research:
Soy Study by Monsanto
Roundup Ready®* soybeans are engineered to withstand the normally fatal effects of Monsanto's herbicide called Roundup®*. In 1996, Monsanto scientists published a feeding study in the Journal of Nutrition that purported to test their soybeans' effect on rats, catfish, chicken, and cows. It has been used by the biotech industry as their primary scientific validation for safety claims. According to Arpad Pusztai, however, "It was obvious that the study had been designed to avoid finding any problems. Everybody in our consortium knew this." Pusztai, who had published several studies in that same nutrition journal, said the Monsanto paper was "not really up to the normal journal standards." Pusztai says that if he had been asked to referee the paper for publication, "it would never have passed." He's confident that even his graduate assistants would have taken the study apart in short order. Some of the flaws include:
- Researchers tested GM soy on mature animals, not young ones. Young animals use protein to build their muscles, tissues, and organs. Problems with GM food could therefore show up in organ and body weight. But adult animals use the protein for tissue renewal and energy. "With a nutritional study on mature animals," says Pusztai, "you would never see any difference in organ weights even if the food turned out to be anti-nutritional. The animals would have to be emaciated or poisoned to show anything."
- Even if there were an organ development problem, the study wouldn't have picked it up since the researchers didn't even weigh the organs.
- In one of the trials, researchers substituted only one tenth of the natural protein with GM soy protein. In two others, they diluted their GM soy six- and twelve-fold. Scientists Ian Pryme of Norway and Rolf Lembcke of Denmark wrote, the "level of the GM soy was too low, and would probably ensure that any possible undesirable GM effects did not occur."
- Pryme and Lembcke, who published a paper in Nutrition and Health that analyzed all peer-reviewed feeding studies on GM foods, also pointed out that the percentage of protein in the feed used in the Roundup Ready study was "artificially too high." This "would almost certainly mask, or at least effectively reduce, any possible effect of the [GM soy]." They concluded, "It is therefore highly likely that all GM effects would have been diluted out."
- In spite of the authors' claims that GM soy was equivalent to natural soy, their own data revealed significant differences in the ash, fat, and carbohydrate content. Roundup Ready soy meal also contained more trypsin inhibitor, a potential allergen, which might explain the sudden jump in soy allergies in the UK beginning right after Roundup Ready soy was introduced. Also, cows fed GM soy produced milk with a higher fat content, further demonstrating a disparity between the two types of soy.
- Years after the study appeared, medical writer Barbara Keeler discovered data from the original research that hade been omitted from the published paper. It showed that Monsanto's GM soy had significantly lower levels of protein, a fatty acid, and phenylalanine, an essential amino acid. Also, toasted GM soy meal contained nearly twice the amount of a lectin-one that may interfere with the body's ability to assimilate other nutrients.
- The study also omitted many details normally part of a published paper. According to Pryme and Lembcke "No data were given for most of the parameters."
- Researchers tested the effects of protein derived from bacteria, not from Roundup Ready soybeans, claiming the two were equivalent. There are more than a dozen ways, however, in which soy-derived protein might create health problems that would not be detected in protein produced from bacteria.
* Roundup® and Roundup Ready® are registered trademarks of Monsanto Company.
Copyright © 2003 Jeffrey M. Smith
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