The world according to Monsanto : pollution, corruption, and

176 the world according to monsantoliver sections and examining them under the microscope to be sure that thebrown color was normal? They were apparently satisfied with eyeballing theorgans, which is not a scientific way of conducting a post mortem study.Likewise, the authors state: ‘Livers, testes, and kidneys were weighed’ and‘several differences were observed,’ but ‘they were not considered to be relatedto genetic modification.’ Once again, how could they claim that? Theyapparently did not analyze the intestines or the stomachs, which is a very seriousfault in a toxicological study. They also say that forty tissues were sampledbut they don’t say which ones. Besides, I only know of twenty-threetissue types that have been recorded, such as skin, bone, spleen, thyroid.What are the others?“In addition, the rats used for the experiment were eight weeks old: tooold. For a toxicological study you usually use young test animals to seewhether the substance tested has an impact on the development of thegrowing organism. The best way of masking possible harmful effects is touse older test animals, especially because, despite the anomalies observed,the study lasted for only twenty-eight days, which is not long enough. Thelast paragraph of the study provides a good sense of the general impression:‘The animal feeding studies provide some reassurance that no major changesoccurred in the genetically modified soybeans.’ I don’t want ‘some reassurance,’but 100 percent reassurance! In fact, when you know that this studyjustified the introduction of GMOs into the food chain you can only be worried.But what can be done? Look at what happened recently to my colleagueManuela Malatesta,” Pryme concluded.Fear of MonsantoI met Manuela Malatesta on November 17, 2006, at the University of Pavia.She was still traumatized by the recent events that had forced her to leavethe University of Urbino, where she had worked for more than ten years. “Itwas all because of a study on the effects of transgenic soybeans,” she toldme. 41 The young researcher had done something that no one else had: shehad repeated Monsanto’s 1996 toxicological study. She and her researchteam had fed one group of mice a normal diet (control group) and anotherwith same diet to which had been added Roundup Ready soybeans (experimentalgroup). The test animals were followed from the time they were