GMO MON810 maize gut rot

January 2017

Image © Greenpeace

In the late 1990s, Scotland sparked an anti-GM storm when scientists Arpad Pusztai and Stanley Ewen at Aberdeen University reported adverse effects on laboratory rats fed GM potatoes.

It's not to the credit of scientists that these preliminary, short term (10-day), small-scale (6 animals per treatment) findings were not followed up.  Instead, Pusztai was silenced, and the science of GM safety-testing was effectively stifled for years. 

Four generations to snail Armageddon

June 2015

Photo Creative Commons

A recent publication has just blown yet another hole in the 'Roundup is safe for animals' myth.

In Egypt, the equivalent product to Roundup is 'Herfosate'. Herfosate is made up of 48% glyphosate herbicide and 52% 'inert' ingredients needed to allow the glyphosate to penetrate plant cells. 

Such glyphosate-based herbicides are widely used to control weeds in fields of GM glyphosate-resistant crops as well as for pre-planting field-clearance, pre-harvest dry-down, waterway clearance, and weed-control in urban public areas and private gardens. A proportion of the spray ends up in surrounding areas, in the soil and in drainage water.