Thursday, November 05, 2015 by: David Gutierrez, staff writer
(NaturalNews)
Pregnant goats fed a diet of genetically modified (GM) soybeans
produced small, slow-growing offspring compared with goats fed a diet of
non-GM soybeans, according to a study conducted by Italian researchers
and published in the journal
Small Ruminant Research.
The soybeans used in the study were "Roundup Ready," engineered for resistance to Monsanto's global bestselling
herbicide Roundup (glyphosate). This is the GM soybean variety most widely grown around the world.
Further
analysis revealed that the milk produced by the goats fed GM soy was
less nutritious and contained lower levels of a key growth-promoting
class of antibodies.
Milk from GMO-fed goats is deficient
Sixty days before kidding, the researchers assigned pregnant Cilentana goats to be fed a diet containing either
Monsanto's Roundup Ready soybeans
at one of two different concentrations or the same concentrations of
non-GM soybeans. After birth, the kids were fed only their mothers' milk
for 60 more days. The growth of the kids was assessed at 30 and 60 days
after birth.
The researchers found that kids of mothers fed GM
soy were an average of 20 percent shorter and weighed 20 percent less
than kids from the control groups.
Analysis of the mothers'
colostrum (the type of milk produced for the first period following
birth) revealed surprising findings. The milk from the mothers fed GM
soy
was significantly lower in quality, with lower levels of both fat and
protein. For example, the milk from the control goats was 18 percent
protein, while the milk from the GMO-fed goats was only 6 percent
protein. These differences disappeared after several weeks. Perhaps even
more significantly, the antibody composition was significantly
different between the two groups. Milk from mothers fed GM soy had
significantly lower levels of IgG antibodies, which promote growth and
development of the immune system.
"This was a carefully conducted
study," said Judy Carman of the Institute of Health and Environmental
Research, Australia, who was not involved in the research.
"The
differences in the composition of the colostrum between the mothers fed
the GE soy and the non-GE soy were particularly striking. The colostrum
from the GE-fed mothers contained only 2/3 of the fat, 1/3 of the
protein and close to half of the IgG of the mothers fed the non-GM soy."
The
researchers also detected transgenic (modified) DNA in the colostrum of
10 of the 16 GMO-fed goats, and in none of the colostrum of the control
goats. This confirms prior findings that transgenic DNA from the diet
can pass into the milk of ruminant mammals.
Another reason to avoid GM crops and Roundup
Because
there was no significant difference in size between kids from the two
groups at birth, the researchers believe that the differences observed
in the mothers'
milk
likely account for the growth differences in the kids. There might also
have been other changes in nutrient content of the milk that the
researchers did not test for.
Significantly, prior studies have
shown that IgG antibodies also play a role in nutrient absorption by
promoting newborn gut development.
"It is already known that Roundup Ready
soybeans
have various defects including a Manganese deficiency," said Allison
Wilson of The Bioscience Resource Project, who was not involved in the
study. "Yet regulators and GMO developers have continuously dismissed
credible reports of GMO crops causing apparent harm to animals, from
many different research groups."
Roundup Ready crops are also
known to be coated with higher average levels of glyphosate residue than
non-GM crops. Glyphosate, in turn, has been linked to various toxic
effects, including on the reproductive system and on growth and
development,
in addition to causing cancer.
Sources for this article include:
IndependentScienceNews.org
NaturalNews.com
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