At the time, I took these notes:
I read the original long-term pig-feding journal article, and I was impressed by the authors' statement that they looked closer and developed new techniques for looking for smaller changes, than were done in any normal feeding study or autopsy.
June issue of the peer-reviewed Journal of Organic Systems
http://www.organic-systems.org...
"Researchers said there were no differences seen between pigs fed the GM and non-GM diets for feed intake, weight gain, mortality, and routine blood biochemistry measurements."
It would interesting to see what abnormalities their state-of-the-art enhanced scrutiny would find as a result of other dietary practices.
It was a great study in most ways, and presented very well and sounded honest and unbiased to me.
90% of the GM corn was a triple-stacked GE cultivar (two Bt genes and one RoundupReady mod.)
The soy was all RR RoundupReady .
The non-GM corn and soy were fairly close to the GM feeds, but not genetically near-identical varieties.
The piggery workers were somehow kept blind to which group of pigs were which (nice touch!), but still fed one set with GM feed and the other set with normal feed.
Too bad they didn't store the GE feed as mold-free as they stored the conventional feed! (That was my thought, anyway.) Their testing showed "allowable" amounts of highly toxic aflatoxin and some other mold toxin in the GE feeds (I THINK from Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus parasiticus).
"2.08 ppb total aflatoxins and 3.0 ppm total fumonisins in a pooled sample of the GM feed and no aflatoxins and 1.2 ppm total fumonisins in a pooled sample of the non-GM feed. No other mycotoxins were detected. "
That "allowable" amount of mold toxins MIGHT have caused the changes they observed, or other mold products might have caused the inflamations and organ size changes (that's just my guess, not the authors'.)
Certainly the tests that established the "allowable" limits did not use the new tehcniques that these admirable researchers developed to put an extra-powerfull microscope on the effect of 100% GM fodder.
As I said at the time, the test actually supports "pro-GMO" activists more than "anti-GMO" activists. A really good long-term study feeding 100% GMO feeds found only changes so slight that usually no one would have noticed them!
As they said:
“The results indicate that it would be prudent for GM crops that are destined for human food and animal feed, including stacked GM crops, to undergo long-term animal feeding studies preferably before commercial planting, particularly for toxicological and reproductive effects.”
There certainly are tests that are required already before GMOs get licensed - I had assumed some of those were long-term feeding studies! I see that the Consumer's Union says: "There have been very few animal feeding studies of GE food to date, and extremely few that lasted longer than 90 days."
A 6-month feeding study certainly is a long one, but I agree there is value, expecially in trple-stacked GMOs, and ones with brand-new genetic additions, in doing expensive tests. Too bad the organic food industry isn't rich enough to fund studies like that ... or else even they expect the results to be flattering to GMO crops.
I guess it is arguable whether the long-term studies need to have NEW tests invented and performed that are more advanced and sensitive than any food product has ever been subjected to before.
Including tests that, when they come out positive, leave some people shrugging indifferently and others only mildly alarmed. (A few organs were enlarged by as much as 25% which they said WAS statistically signifigant with 168 newly-weaned pigs including controls).
I would love to know whether the stomach inflamation was related to Bt, the RuR gene, aflatoxin or poor feed storage. "More studies are desirable ..."
Of course, the best long-term feeding study is that almost all farm animals have been eating a high % of GM crops for 15 years. I guess little or no damage is discernible, or we would see studies proving it was.
Or maybe there is damage too subtle to see through the haze of unsanitary conditions and overcrowding that constitute normal practice in commercial piggeries.
