Monsanto’s GM Corn Shows Kidney, Liver Toxicity
217 ViewsFrom NewsTarget, the GM corn used in the United States and many parts of the world has been discovered to create toxicity in the kidneys and liver of animals.
This may also be linked to the recent Bee Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). This is the same Bt corn Bacillus thuringiensis used in the study in Germany.
I’m no fan on Monsanto, I don’t know anybody that is. Genetically modifying food used for human consumption is proving to have severe side effects and may be a large component in the crash.
April 11th, 2007 at 10:09 am
That is interesting. They are experimenting with some very dangerous ideas. ‘Wonder what would happen if this new gene gets cross bred with other grasses? Since this was designed to repel pests, wouldn’t be obvious that helpful bugs like bees, would also be affected?
There was a law suit I read about that claimed a nearby farmer had “stolen” the GM technology because GM canola was growing in his fields. The farmer was not trying to grow this canola, but was trying to prove his crop got contaminated from nearby fields.
I guess maybe the seed companies will have to get into the “Genetically Modified Bees That Can Survive GM Corn” business. The bees could be designed to only self propogate in the presence of the GM corn gene.
This could be a never ending cycle of disasters. What will they think of next?
April 11th, 2007 at 11:18 am
Uncontrolled GM cross pollination is a MAJOR problem, one that the USDA (and others) have been aware of since at least 1998, but that has received little attention (I used to work for USDA-ARS) or publicity.
Worse, the GM’ed crops, being frankenstein-like creations, typically outcompete native, conventional, and organic crops (much like weeds), leading to inadvertent monocropping and strain diversity loss, even when cross pollination can be prevented.
Finally, many GM’ed crops have other inherent weaknesses, such as demonstrateably lessened drought resistance (in the case of roundup ready cotton), higher planting cost (associated with licensing fees and inability to save seed), and heavier use of chemicals (US farmers use, on average, nearly twice as much herbicide on fields containing GM’ed crops as they do on conventional crop fields).
April 11th, 2007 at 2:45 pm
Bees do NOT pollinate corn - nor other grasses such as wheat, oats, rye, barley, etc.
Corn (maize) and most grains are polinated by the wind.
Bees can polinate vitually every non-grass plant species. Fruits, vegetables and nut (trees), achemes and some legumes are all commercially dependant upon bees. Certain crop spcies can also be pollinated by bumblebees and specific butterflies.
April 12th, 2007 at 7:44 am
The German study at the University of Jena didn’t say that they bees polinated the corn, but the did say they were fed the Bt corn pollen. The link seems to be that if the bees eat the Bt, there is a significant mortality rate.