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Friday, January 27
Elesha Gayman of DFQC Named DFA Rising Star
by
Linda Thieman
on Fri 27 Jan 2006 04:44 PM CST
 Elesha Gayman of DFQC Named DFA Rising Star
Elesha Gayman, a member of Democracy for the Quad Cities, has been named to the Democracy for America Rising Star list.
Elesha,
former Dean Delegate to the Democratic National Convention, is running
for the Iowa House of Representatives in District 84. Elesha's
dedication to her community inspired her to enter the non-profit sector
as a grant writer, fundraiser and volunteer. Now, she is running to
bring new energy to the Iowa State House.
Click here to read Blog for Iowa's in-depth profile of Elesha written by Caroline Vernon.
Click here to visit Elesha Gayman's campaign website.
Click here to visit DFA's Rising Star page.
Most Offspring Died When Mother Rats Ate GM Soy Diet
by
Linda Thieman
on Fri 27 Jan 2006 07:00 AM CST
 Most Offspring Died When Mother Rats Ate GM Soy Diet
By Jeffrey M. Smith, author of Seeds of Deception
The Russian scientist planned a simple experiment to see if eating genetically modified (GM) soy might influence offspring. What she got, however, was an astounding result that may threaten a multi-billion dollar industry.
Irina Ermakova, a leading scientist at the Institute of Higher Nervous Activity and Neurophysiology of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), added GM soy flour (5-7 grams) to the diet of female rats. Other females were fed non-GM soy or no soy at all. The experimental diet began two weeks before the rats conceived and continued through pregnancy and nursing.
Ermakova's first surprise came when her pregnant rats started giving birth. Some pups from GM-fed mothers were quite a bit smaller. After 2 weeks, 36% of them weighed less than 20 grams compared to about 6% from the other groups.
But the real shock came when the rats started dying. Within three weeks, 25 of the 45 (55.6%) rats from the GM soy group died compared to only 3 of 33 (9%) from the non-GM soy group and 3 of 44 (6.8%) from the non-soy controls.
Ermakova preserved several major organs from the mother rats and offspring, drew up designs for a detailed organ analysis, created plans to repeat and expand the feeding trial, and promptly ran out of research money. The $70,000 needed was not expected to arrive for a year. Therefore, when she was invited to present her research at a symposium organized by the National Association for Genetic Security, Ermakova wrote 'PRELIMINARY STUDIES' on the top of her paper. She presented it on October 10, 2005 at a session devoted to the risks of GM food.
Her findings are hardly welcome by an industry already steeped in controversy.
GM Soy's Divisive Past
The soy she was testing was Monsanto's Roundup Ready variety. Its DNA has bacterial genes added that allow the soy plant to survive applications of Monsanto's 'Roundup' brand herbicide. About 85% of the soy grown in the US is Roundup Ready. Since soy derivatives, including oil, flour and lecithin, are found in the majority of processed foods sold in the US, many Americans eat ingredients derived from Roundup Ready soy everyday.
The FDA does not require any safety tests on genetically modified foods. If Monsanto or other biotech companies declare their foods safe, the agency has no further questions. The rationale for this hands-off position is a sentence in the FDA's 1992 policy that states, "The agency is not aware of any information showing that foods derived by these new methods differ from other foods in any meaningful or uniform way."[1] The statement, it turns out, was deceptive. Documents made public from a lawsuit years later revealed that the FDA's own experts agreed that GM foods are different and might lead to hard-to-detect allergens, toxins, new diseases or nutritional problems. They had urged their superiors to require long-term safety studies, but were ignored. The person in charge of FDA policy was, conveniently, Monsanto's former attorney (and later their vice president). One FDA microbiologist described the GM food policy as "just a political document" without scientific basis, and warned that industry would "not do the tests that they would normally do" since the FDA didn't require any.[2] He was correct.
There have been less than 20 published, peer-reviewed animal feeding safety studies and no human clinical trials' in spite of the fact that millions of people eat GM soy, corn, cotton, or canola daily. There are no adequate tests on "biochemistry, immunology, tissue pathology, gut function, liver function and kidney function,"[3] and animal feeding studies are too short to adequately test for cancer, reproductive problems, or effects in the next generation. This makes Ermakova's research particularly significant. It's the first of its kind.
Past Studies Show Significant Effects
Other studies on Roundup Ready soy also raise serious questions. Research on the liver, the body's major de-toxifier, showed that rats fed GM soy developed misshapen nuclei and other cellular anomalies.[4] This indicates increased metabolic activity, probably resulting from a major insult to that organ. Rats also showed changes in the pancreas, including a huge drop in the production of a major enzyme (alpha-amylase),[5] which could inhibit digestion. Cooked GM soy contains about twice the amount of soy lectin, which can also block nutrient assimilation.[6] And one study showed that GM soy has 12-14% less isoflavones, which are touted as cancer fighting.[7]
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