Irina Ermakova: Influence of genetically modified soya on the birth-weight and survival of rat pups

Four main sources of the hazards of GMO are discussed by scientists worldwide: 1) those due to the new genes, and gene products introduced; 2) unintended effects inherent to the technology; 3) interactions between foreign genes and host genes; and 4) those arising from the spread of the introduced genes by ordinary cross-pollination as well as by horizontal gene transfer (World Scientists' Statement 2000). GM crops contain material, which is not present in them under natural conditions, and they form a part of our daily diet. To understand what effect they can have on us and on our animals it is vitally important to study the influence of these GM plants in different organisms for several generations. At the present, these studies are lacking from the scientific literature. Several detrimental effects of GM crops had been showed on the metabolism of animals. The hazard of genetically modified organisms (GMO) was shown for animals and the environment in many investigations (Traavik 1995; Ho and Tappeser 1997; Pusztai 1999 and 2001; Kuznetcov et al. 2004 and others). Experiments, conducted by Pusztai showed that potatoes modified by the insertion of the gene of the snowdrop lectin (an insecticidal proteins), stunted the growth of rats, significantly affected some of their vital organs, including the kidneys, thymus, gastrocnemius muscle and others (1998) and damaged their intestines and their immune system (Ewen and Pusztai 1999). Similar effect of GM potatoes on rats was obtained at Institute of Nutrition in Russia (Ermakova 2005). In the researches of Malatesta with co-authors the significant modifications in the cells of liver, exocrine pancreas and testis of mice, fed by diet containing Roundup Ready GM soybean were described (Malatesta et al. 2002, 2003; Vecchio et al. 2004).