New Report highlights Monsanto's corrupt science in GM canola assessment

watch.eu/latest-listing/1-news-items/11849-monsantos-qcorrupt-scienceq-in-gm-assessment

In a new Report (1) written by Madeleine Love (Researcher for MADGE Australia Inc) and submitted to the elected politicians of Western Australia and South Australia, it has been revealed that "evidence" based on corrupt science has been accepted at face value by regulators across the globe prior to the issuing of consents for RR canola commercialization and feed and food use.

RR canola (oilseed rape) has consent for cultivation in Australia, United States, Japan and Canada:
http://www.agbios.com/dbase.php?action=ShowProd&data=GT73,%20RT73

It is allowed in Europe for processing and feed use, but not for cultivation. In its assessment of GT73, EFSA reported: "the GMO Panel has considered all the evidence provided and is of the opinion that GT73 oilseed rape is as safe as conventional oilseed rape and therefore the placing on the market of GT73 oilseed rape for processing and feed use is unlikely to have an adverse effect on human or animal health or, in the context of its proposed use, on the environment." (17 August 2004)

Love has now pointed out that the studies on which these consents were based were highly defective and probably fraudulent. Also, none of the studies were true health / safety studies. As is often the case with feeding studies contained within "approval dossiers", the emphasis is not on the health or physiology of the animals involved, but upon "nutritional equivalence" and '"performance" parameters such as animal weight, growth rates etc. Animal welfare and wellbeing figures hardly at all in the studies, and animal deaths, replacements and ailments are hardly ever recorded -- and yet the regulators (including EFSA) blithely accept that all is well, without asking any serious questions about the validity of the research which passes under their noses. Is that down to incompetence, negligence, or a deliberate policy of "don't look, don't see"?

To quote the author:

"there have been reports on four animal production studies using GM RR canola. Two were done by Monsanto (trout & chickens), one by collaborating bodies in Canada on lambs using GM and non-GM feed prepared and provided by Monsanto, and there is an abstract report of a similar study done in Canada on pigs. Where the Monsanto data was explicitly available we can read that the feeds were contaminated and differentially prepared at Monsanto's will. Monsanto failed to provide full information on deaths and removals from the studies. There is no information that can be learnt from the studies, except that farmers should not feed their animals on feed prepared by Monsanto! However, the material provides clear evidence on the lengths to which Monsanto has gone to prevent information about the feed value of their GM RR canola crop emerging, and their preparedness to use corrupt feed and practices, and to report on it."