Long-term study: New debates on the safety of GM maize
(12 November 2008) A long-term feed study on mice delivered yesterday at a conference in Vienna once again brought up the debate on the safety of GM maize. Individual laboratory mice, fed a certain type of GM maize, had fewer offspring. Scientists warned of jumping to conclusions.
In the study contracted by the Austrian Ministry of Health, Family and Youth, laboratory mice were fed a diet containing up to a third of GM maize NK603xMON810. A control group received conventional maize. The study was made up of three trial designs: in the first, lab mice were fed GM maize during their whole lifetime. In the second, a group of mice were fed with both diets over four generations. In the third variant, the parent mice and four litters from the first-generation were tested. It was in this experiment that the abnormalities arose: in the group fed GM maize, the number of offspring in the third and fourth litter was smaller than in the control group fed conventional maize.
In the two other trials no differences between the groups were observed regarding feeding habits, weight gain or fertility.
It is not yet known to what extent these variances can be attributed to the NK603xMON810 diet. The Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety (AGES), organiser of the conference at which the study was presented, issued a statement emphasising that this is the result of just one trial, the “results of which, can in no way be transferred to humans”. Prof. Jürgen Zentek, who carried out the trials at the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna, said that a validation of these preliminary results through further studies is of the utmost urgency.
The GM maize NK603xMON810, a cross between an herbicide-resistant and a pest-resistant maize, is authorised in the EU as a food and feed product.
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