After years of lobbying against genetically-modified crops
(GMOs) without any science to back them, an international team is launching a
new multi-year study to try to settle the question once and for all.
The group has backing from institutions in Russia, the United
States and $25 million to run the study feeding GMO corn to 6,000 rats.
The study includes the effects of glyphosate herbicides which
are sprayed on fields of GMO corn.
The research is to be done in Russia and western Europe
over two to three years.
“The science on these GMOs is not settled by a long
shot,” said Bruce Blumberg, an endocrinology expert at the University of
California, Irvine, who sits on the study review board.
“Studies that were done by the manufacturers are the
main ones showing safety, and those have an inherent conflict of interest,” he
said.
So where is the money coming from for this new study? Is that, too, subject to "an inherent conflict of interest"? Just who can you trust these days?
The study’s leaders emphasize on its website they
have “no connection” to either “the biotech industry or the anti-GMO movement.”
Monsanto, the leading developer of GMO crops, has many
research studies that point to the safety of its products. Many U.S. university
scientists also back the safety of GMOs, as do the Canadian and U.S. governments.
Karen Batra, a spokeswoman for the Biotechnology Industry
Organization, says “merely a handful of studies” point to health or safety
issues, and all have been debunked.
Still, the debate continues. Some biotech crop critics
worry about pesticide residues in GMO foods, while others worry about what
impact the crops have on the environment.
