Studies should be conducted on Monsanto management

Revealed: health fears over secret study into GM food

(Excerpt)

Rats fed on a diet rich in genetically modified corn developed abnormalities to internal organs and changes to their blood, raising fears that human health could be affected by eating GM food.

The Independent on Sunday can today reveal details of secret research carried out by Monsanto, the GM food giant, which shows that rats fed the modified corn had smaller kidneys and variations in the composition of their blood.

According to the confidential 1,139-page report, these health problems were absent from another batch of rodents fed non-GM food as part of the research project.

[Snip]

Although Monsanto last night dismissed the abnormalities in rats as meaningless and due to chance, reflecting normal variations between rats, a senior British government source said ministers were so worried by the findings that they had called for further information.

Environmentalists will see the findings as vindication of British research seven years ago, which suggested that rats that ate GM potatoes suffered damage to their health. That research, which was roundly denounced by ministers and the British scientific establishment, was halted and Dr Arpad Pusztai, the scientist behind the controversial findings, was forced into retirement amid a huge row over the claim.

[Snip]

Now, however, any decision to allow the corn to be marketed in the UK will cause widespread alarm. The full details of the rat research are included in the main report, which Monsanto refuses to release on the grounds that "it contains confidential business information which could be of commercial use to our competitors".

A Monsanto spokesman said yesterday: "If any such well-known anti-biotech critics had doubts about the credibility of these studies they should have raised them with the regulators. After all, MON 863 isn't new, having been approved to be as safe as conventional maize by nine other global authorities since 2003."

(My Comments)

Information concealment and selective release should be grounds for criminal prosecution whether we are talking about GM food, nuclear power (energy policy), ethical lapses by our elected representatives, or a multitude of other issues that intentionally result in harmful effects toward the American people. This behavior has become so common place, it will take continuous radical reaction to force the issues into the public square discussion.
It is beyond time for accountability to take on the level of importance required to match the degree of affront being perpetrated upon the common citizen. We are afflicted with every disease and malady concieveable (and many that aren't) because the industrial practices that have spawned them are being protected by elected and appointed officials who think it is more important to fatten their bank accounts than protect and nurture the citizenry who defenselessly depend on them. It is time to try them as adults in the courts of shame.