News

2018-07-09 |

Rats fed GM stacked-trait maize developed leaky stomachs

Rats fed a triple-stacked trait GM maize engineered for insect resistance and herbicide tolerance developed leaky stomachs, according to a new peer-reviewed paper by Australian researchers.

In the experiment conducted by Irena M. Zdziarski of the University of Adelaide, Judy A. Carman of the Institute of Health and Environmental Research (IHER), and John W. Edwards of Flinders University, the rats were split into two groups of 10 males each.

One group was fed on the GM stacked-trait maize, containing Monsanto Bt insecticidal toxin traits MON863 and MON810, and glyphosate-tolerant trait NK603, for six months. That's twice as long as the typical rat feeding study performed by industry for regulatory authorisations. The GM maize was grown in the US.

The other group of rats was fed for the same amount of time on the control diet, which contained a commercially-grown non-GM maize grown in Australia. The control maize was not sourced from the US due to the difficulty of finding a non-GM corn variety from that country that would be uncontaminated with GM genes.