Many of us are quite concerned about the safety of GMO foods and try to avoid them. And to support our concerns, we look to sites like Natural News to bring us the latest facts. For example, we learned that researchers Aris and Leblanc reported that “100 percent of pregnant women and their unborn babies tested positive for GMO toxins in their blood,” They found residues from the herbicides glyphosate and glufosinate, in both pregnant and non-pregnant women in a study carried out in Quebec. These herbicides are commonly used around herbicide resistant GMO crops.
And of course, many of us are familiar with Giles-Eric Seralini’s paper that found increased tumors in rats fed GM crops and those treated with glyphosate. This paper had been withdrawn, but was fortunately republished here.
And further, Brazilian authors Miranda-Vile and Grisolia reported that the spore crystal strains Cry1Aa, Cry1Ab, Cry1Ac and Cry1Ad, are found to be hemotoxic and genotoxic in mice. These crystals are used to cause the generation of various Bt toxins in GM plants. The paper is discussed in detail here in Natural News, where the toxins are linked to blood cell disorders.
But one set of papers has fallen by the wayside because of serious misrepresentations, or outright fraud. Professor Federico Infascelli and his Naples research group have published some eight papers showing the DNA from GMO feed has been found in the bloodstream of goats and rabbits. Unfortunately, as reported in Retraction Watch, his 2013 paper has been retracted because of “plagiarism.”
It turns out that Infascelli reused diagrams in other papers, representing completely different samples, such as blood versus milk analyses, or even rabbits versus goats. These were which were photos of gel electrophoresis experiments and not likely to the same. This fakery was initially reported in the journal discussion group PubPeer, where they noted that even the noise imperfections were duplicated between the two photos.
Then, a more extensive study by Enrico Bucci of the firm BioDigital Valley analyzed all of Infascelli’s papers. His report is here. Sadly, the report found data digitally deleted, figures cropped, data spliced in and data completely fabricated. Not only does this report discredit essentially all of Infascelli’s work, sadly, it even calls into question one of his students’ Ph.D. theses. Infascelli is now under investigation for academic misconduct by his university in Naples.
The disturbing thing about this turn of events is that even if some of what he reported was true, it has now all been discredited. This happened because of Infascelli’s eagerness to publish more papers that his data warranted. So, at the moment we have to put claims of GMO plants’ DNA being found in the bloodstream in abeyance.
References
- A L Miranda-Vilela and C K Grisolia, “Hematotoxicity of Bacillus thuringiensis as Spore-crystal Strains Cry1Aa, Cry1Ab, Cry1Ac or Cry2Aa in Swiss Albino Mice, ” Journal of Hematology & Thromboembolic Diseases, 1:104. doi: 10.4172/2329-8790.1000104
- Aziz Aris and Samuel Leblanc, “Maternal and fetal exposure to pesticides associated to genetically modified foods in Eastern Townships of Quebec, Canada,” Reproductive Toxicology, Volume 31, Issue 4, May 2011, Pages 528–533
- Gilles-Eric Séralini1, Emilie Clair1, Robin Mesnage, Steeve Gress, Nicolas Defarge, Manuela Malatesta, Didier Hennequin and Joël Spiroux de Vendômois, “Republished study: long-term toxicity of a Roundup herbicide and a Roundup-tolerant genetically modified maize,” Environmental Sciences Europe, 2014, 26:14 doi:10.1186/s12302-014-0014-5
