I’m reblogging this article from 2014 to remind us all of the evidence. WHO some twelve months or so ago decided that glyphosate was probably a carcinogen. That got everybody frantically spreading the word however the probably has now given them a convenient little out for later in my opinion anyway… going by what has since happened, that being the major flip flop they’ve done. So … to recap, they (IARC)  look at the myriad of independent research and decide on the probably carcinogenic scenario (yes rats fed very diluted glyphosate and GE corn for two years grew enormous tumours all over their bodies) then a year or so later do an about turn. Even if their current conclusions are correct they don’t inspire much trust in their processes to have done a major flip flop like that within a year. And remember, first up after the Séralini experiment Monsanto went into debunk mode by discrediting the Professor’s choice of rat as not being the correct type as in that particular rat is supposedly prone to tumours anyway. All the links to that info are on our Glyphosate pages (the independent research etc) and a brief google search will tell you that you can relax and start spraying everything with Roundup again because yes it’s perfectly safe. After all it is in the GM food you are eating that you don’t know about because it’s so safe they don’t need to label it for you. Please do yourself a favour and watch carefully Professor Séralini’s evidence, and/or read the transcript below.  EnvirowatchRangitikei

The Séralini Experiment

 Transcript:     Pay close attention to what you are about to see. These images will be seen around the world. These rats have been fed with transgenic corn during their entire life cycle. The tumours they suffer from are enormous. The study that revealed the effect of these GMOs on the health of these rats has just been completed. It benefited from exceptional financial & technical means. We were able to witness the study in its entirety. It lasted for two years. Following years of doubt and controversies will we finally know the truth about GMOs? Would we then be faced with a health crisis of global proportions?

Paris, December 16^th, 2011, Criigen offices, Committee for Research & Independent Information for Genetic Engineering…. Presentation of the results collected by Professor Seralini during his study focused on determining the potential harmfulness of the GMO corn Nk603 for humans and animals….

This is the longest most thorough study to have been carried out on a GMO and we’ve also carried out a joint study on the most used pesticide in the world, the Roundup which is a herbicide. It belongs to the main pesticide category. We spent over a year trying to obtain transgenic corn because no GMO manufacturers were willing to provide them. This is because Monsanto requires contracts to be signed stipulating that the seeds must not be used for testing and an arrangement must be made prior to the testing. We wanted our study to be independent.

Joel Spiroux Vendomois

Doctor specialized in Environmental Health

President of the CRIIGEN

This is the first time that a two year study has been conducted on GMOs and there lies the big difference. Furthermore, we tried to evaluate a maximum of biochemical & biological parameters with repeated blood tests, weighing of the specimens and urine tests. We studied the hepatic & urinary parameters as well as the blood parameters, all the parameters that can be studied. We also studied the hormonal parameters which has never been done in previous studies. This experiment is a world premiere.

Up until now the corn NK603, the very one selected for the study had only been tested over a three month period and that in a test environment entirely controlled by Monsanto, its manufacturer. Furthermore, concerning the Roundup, also manufactured by Monsanto & which is used for growing corn, only its active agent, Glyphosate had been assessed. But one needs to understand that the manufacturers in order to enable the agent to penetrate the plant cell successfully, use additives that are sometimes more harmful than the actual Glyphosate.

Gilles-Eric Seralini

Molecular biologist

University of Caen (France)

We have two clear objectives, firstly to conduct the studies exactly according to international requirements, but making sure we are very thorough when it comes to analyzing the results. Secondly we want to determine if there are secondary effects. The only way to do this is to carry out tests on animals, and then to examine all the blood parameters whilst paying close attention to their organs.

Commentator: At this stage it might prove useful to know exactly what GMOs are used for. It is a plant that has been developed either to produce its own insecticide or to be tolerant to a herbicide, thusenabling it to be exposed to massive doses of it without dying. One can understand how GMOs can be useful to farmers, for example they would be able to spray their entire field with Roundup, killing all the weeds in the process & never harming the genetically modified plant. On the other hand it is hard to see the benefits for the consumer who will effectively be ingesting substances coming from a plant that has absorbed the pesticides. That is why it is crucial to test not only the GMO, but also the GMO with its residue & the pesticide on its own.

Professor Seralini: This type of testing had never been done before because the corporations doing the test would do them on GMOs with the Roundup which meant that we had no idea what between the GMO & the Roundup caused the pathologies. Or they did them on GMOs without specifying that this was the case. So what we decided to do was to address the question, are we dealing with the effects of the GMO or the pesticide. During the last ten years of testing the national commissions did not envisage a pesticide effect.

Commentator: Therefore Europe does not even demand chronic or toxicity tests to be systematically carried out on animals, & when they are required, it is the manufacturers who decide the protocol to be used. For example, the Amflora potato was only tested on a group

of thirty rats, ten of which were being fed the GMO. The Monsanto corn was tested on 400 rats. Eighty of them were fed the transgenic plant, but only forty of them were then subjected to blood tests. Either way, none of these studies lasted longer than 90 days.

Professor Seralini: What is represented by this figure is that certain groups of rats, male and female, have ingested GMO corn. GMO with Roundup residue and Roundup on its own. Every time we go up a level a rat dies. The limit is ten due to the number of rats that constitute a group. The dotted line represents the females in the group who die but have a completely normal diet. Only two animals die spontaneously after 550 days. On the other hand, every female that has been fed on the GMO, GMO with Roundup or Roundup diet has died more frequently than the other rats. Some will challenge

the relevance of such results but what is undeniable is in the group that has been exposed to the GMOs there is a 600% increase or six times more deaths compared to the control group. As far as medicine or biology is concerned there is no need for further testing. An important fact is that all the studies carried out on the rats are done over a three month period. It so happens that none of the effects are visible until the fourth month. This is fundamental in understanding that studies conducted over a three month period are useless. This conclusion is easily understandable. It could be said that their only use is to soothe their consciences.

Commentator: Every rat out of the 200 that were tested was dissected by Professor Seralini’s team. They did this to discover

exactly what had affected their organs. The purpose behind this was to identify the way each diet, GMO, GMO & Roundup & Roundup on its own had acted on the metabolism of each animal. Focusing on the development rate of the tumours, that, and this comes as no surprise, only start to manifest themselves after the initial three month period.

Professor Seralini: This figure represents a number of palpable tumours contracted by the animal during the experiment. Here we can see the rats subjected to GMOs compared to those with a regular diet. As you can see, very few males contracted tumours. This is due to them being more resistant to the testing process. What these figures show are the for the large tumours, each step up

represents a large tumour which can measure 17 millimeters by 17 millimeters. For a rat these measurements are colossal. It would equate to a tumour of this size if seen on a human being. It is enormous. After having studied these tumours it can be said that 94% of them take effect in the mammary glands which would equate to breast cancer in a woman. We are faced with renal tumours for the males but not only. Some males also suffer from mammary tumours. This points towards a hormonal effect that isn’t affected by the dosage. Sixty percent of breast cancer cases are caused by hormonal deficiencies.

Commentator:  Professor Seralini’s study holds one last surprise for us, and this is a major one. Up until now, one could have thought that the main cause of death for the tested rats was coming from the

pesticide added to the corn. But what the study highlighted, and this for the first time ever, is the fact that the transgenesis itself could have killed the rats. What this means is that just by interfering with the genome of the plant in order to modify it, we are faced with repercussions that no one could have anticipated. This is enough to make us reconsider all the scientific precepts that have led to the creation of GMOs.

Professor Seralini:  Roundup had never been tested separately. Whilst conducting cellular studies we saw that the cells of the liver, embryos, placenta, kidneys and the umbilical cord died much faster and so we could deduce that there was a toxic effect on the organism. What can be said is that there is an increase in deaths due to GMOs and Roundup. The biggest surprise came when we realized

that GMOs without any Roundup residue were responsible for an increase in the death rate of females and of some males. This could be the result of the GMO gene that has been badly assimilated by the plant and that has therefore resulted in a negative effect, or due to a secondary metabolical effect.

Joel Spiroux Vendomois:  What that means is that we are dealing with a GMO in particular. The modification of a cereal or GMO corn, with regard to the genes inserted into the corn, to make it a GMO corn can make it result in different effects. It’s not because a certain GMO has a particular effect that other GMOs will have an effect, but some have even more of an impact. What is alarming is that this

is the GMO that is being eaten by the Americans but, also the GMO that has been proved for importation by European agencies including the French ones and that obviously contaminates our food.

Commentator:  Nowadays, only two types of GMOs are being produced in a few European countries. One is corn and the other potato. But what about the 27 million tons of transgenic soya that are being unloaded each year in European ports. This soya is used to feed our cattle, but it also makes its way into a number of our foodstuffs.

Professor Seralini:  What we want to achieve with this study is a moratorium. The situation is serious enough, and we’re not going to eat anything and everything. We imported without knowing what was being imported. And the United States have produced crops without knowing what they were producing. There needs to be more studies of this kind, and GMO manufacturers need to conduct them before commercializing their products.

Commentator:  A moratorium on growing GMOs has been approved by most European countries. Now that we know the results of the study conducted by Professor Seralini, could it be time to extend this moratorium to all the GMO used in many of our foods. To establish an undeniable scientific truth, one needs teams, time and means. Some will say that it takes too much time and that this is too expensive. But had we taken this precaution, could we not have avoided recent sanitary scandals? Will GMOs be responsible yet again for a calamitous scenario? And while we are waiting for scientific certainties, evidently, this is a risk we cannot afford to take.

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