Russia completely suspends use of Monsanto’s GM corn
by J. D. Heyes | Natural News
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(NaturalNews) What does Russia know about genetically modified corn that we don’t? Well, maybe not much, but the difference is Moscow is at least prepared to act on the information it has.
According to recent reports, the Russian consumer-rights watchdog agency, Rospotrebnadzor, said recently it made the decision to suspend importation and use of genetically engineered corn made by Monsanto Co., after release of a study alleging that the crop causes cancer.
Rospotrebnadzor said in a statement that Russia’s Institute of Nutrition has been asked to gauge the validity of the study’s results, while the European Commission’s Directorate General for Health & Consumers has also been contacted, in order to lay out the European Union’s position on the issue.
The study was conducted by the University of Caen in France and published earlier this month. Researchers alleged that rats that were fed over a two-year period with the U.S. crop-biotech company’s GMO corn, called NK603 and marketed under the brand name “Roundup Ready,” “developed more tumors and other severe diseases than a test group fed with regular corn,” Fox Business reported.
French government to decide whether it will also ban GMO corn importation
The study also proffered that rats fed with the modified corn and then exposed to the St. Louis-based Monsanto’s Roundup weed killer tended to suffer more pathologies that did the test group.
The corn variety is genetically engineered to stave off glyphosate, a weed killer that Monsanto offers under the Roundup brand, the report said.
As expected, a number of scientists and nutritionists discounted the study, greeting it with skepticism. For example, the Science Media Centre, a London-based independent organization that gathers reactions to published research, posted a number of comments by several experts that were critical of the research. Most said the sample size was too small while the data was incomplete, among other concerns.
The study prompted the French government to order its food-safety agency to quickly review its results. Officials said they planned to seek an immediate ban on EU imports of the crop if the findings of the study were deemed to be legitimate and conclusive.
Again, as expected, Monsanto repeated earlier claims that nothing in the French study warranted any sort of ban of the company’s biotech-engineered seed.
In particular, the company bashed the study in a statement released shortly after the research published its findings, saying they did “not meet minimum acceptable standards for this type of scientific research,” adding that “the findings are not supported by the data presented, and the conclusions are not relevant for the purpose of safety assessment.”
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