The world according to Monsanto : pollution, corruption, and

oundup: a massive brainwashing operation 83“A Killer of Embryos”“Not interfering with the development of GMOs” is also the only excusethat Gilles-Éric Séralini was able to find to explain the inertia of the authoritiesin the face of Roundup’s toxicity. A professor at the University of Caen,this biochemist is a member of the French Biomolecular Engineering Commission,charged with assessing the potential risks involved in the deliberaterelease of GMOs, as well as of the CRII-GEN, the Committee for IndependentResearch and Information on Genetic Engineering, which has continuallycalled for more exhaustive studies of the health effects of GMOs.Séralini has conducted several studies to assess the impact of Roundupand its effects on human health, as he explained when I met him on November10, 2006, at his laboratory in Caen. “The reason I became interestedin Roundup is because, with GMOs that have been modified to be ableto resist it, it has become a food product, because residues are found intransgenic soybeans and corn kernels. In addition, I had read epidemiologicalstudies done in Canada showing that there were more miscarriages andpremature births among farm families using Roundup than in the generalpopulation.”In fact, a study of Ontario farm families conducted by Carleton Universityand Canadian government researchers showed that the use of glyphosate inthe three months preceding conception of a child was associated with an elevatedrisk of late spontaneous abortions (between the twelfth and nineteenthweeks). 25 It is noteworthy that according to another study of NorthAmerican farm families 70 percent of farmers had detectable levels ofglyphosate on the day they used Roundup in the field, with a mean concentrationof 3 ppb and a maximum of 233 ppb. 26A Texas Tech University laboratory likewise established that exposure ofthe Leydig cells in the testicles, which play a major role in the male reproductivesystem, to Roundup reduced their production of sex hormones by 94percent. 27 Finally, Brazilian researchers found that female rats that werepregnant when exposed to Roundup were more likely to produce offspringwith skeletal malformations. 28All these results were confirmed by the two studies conducted by Séraliniand his team, which measured the toxic effect of Roundup first on humanplacental cells and then on embryonic cells—“taken,” he was careful to