Safety of GM Corn

There is something inordinately wrong with our values when governments permit strenuous lobbying by powerful conglomerates to create monopolistic markets - whose only interest lies in producing products that will make them ever more wealthy, rather than give consideration to the public weal - by allowing those interests to create empires that prove to be inimical to health and safety. 

As in the case with massive industrial interests such as Monsanto who have no loyalty to country or to human need, only to their share of the industry's profit margin.

Monsanto's herbicide Roundup, now represents the widest selling such product in the world.  If that doesn't represent a monopoly what does?  It doesn't represent a successful formula that is safe for use and which enhances agricultural production as much as an assortment of combined chemicals assigned a particular purpose whose long-range effects have never been competently and studied in an unbiased attempt to arrive at meaningful conclusions.

The same appears to be true for genetically modified corn, a product that has hugely wide use in all manner of commercial applications, introducing supermarket products that a consuming public has been assured by food scientists is a completely safe product.  Yet the first genetically modified food safety study to test the entire lifespan of laboratory rats, published in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Food and Chemical Toxicology, calls into question that assumed safety.

It is a study, conducted in France, which is being taken seriously by the French government which ordered an urgent review of the findings.  Once it is confirmed - if it is - that the safety of GM corn does present as a health threat to the public, there are plans to work for a Europe-wide ban of imports of the crop. 

Genetically-modified corn is grown in Canada, used for animal feed and processed food ingredients, so it is well integrated into the food production chain. Health Canada has announced that while it feels it would be premature to produce an assessment of its own on the matter, its scientists are reviewing those cautionary findings.

Monsanto's GM corn NK603 was approved in 2001 by Health Canada.  It was engineered to surmount the effects of Roundup spraying.  The newly-revealed study has found that rats fed the GM corn or Roundup developed tumours faster, died sooner than non-GM-fed rats.

The study found that up to 50% of male rates fed GM corn or Roundup and 70%of female rats died prematurely, in comparison with 30% and 20% respectively in the control group.  Rats fed GM corn or Roundup developed two to three times more tumours.  Female rats developed pituitary disorders; male rats suffered liver damage, developed kidney and skin tumours and digestive system problems.

The preliminary and yet-to-be-confirmed suspicion is that Canadian-grown genetically modified corn has been linked to elevated risks of cancer, organ damage and premature death.  In rats, of course, but the findings also point to a possible "demonstrate a risk" for human health.