No Significant Difference Found in Animals Fed GMO Corn and Soybeans
Published: Apr. 25, 2001
April 25, 2001
URBANA-- Currently, in the United States genetically modified corn and soybeans that have reached the marketplace are approved for use in animal feed. But what does that genetically modified corn and soybeans do to the animals who eat it? According to recent research?nothing significant.
Jimmy Clark, a professor of ruminant nutrition in Animal Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, reviewed the results from 23 research experiments which were conducted over the past four years at universities throughout the United States, Germany and France.
In each study, separate groups of chickens, dairy cows, beef cattle and sheep were fed either genetically modified corn or soybeans or traditional corn or soybean as a portion of their diet.
Each experiment independently confirmed that there is no significant difference in the animals' ability to digest the genetically modified crops and no significant difference in the weight gain, milk production, milk composition, and overall health of the animals when compared to animals fed the traditional crops.
Clark concluded, "Based on safety analyses required for each crop, human consumption of milk, meat and eggs produced from animals fed genetically modified crops should be as safe as products derived from animals fed conventional crops."
Clark added that approximately 70% of the genetically modified soybeans produced in the world and 80% of the genetically modified corn produced in the United States are used as animal feed.
"Since these genetically modified crops were grown beginning in 1996, they have been fed to livestock and no detrimental effects have been reported," Clark said.
In the experiments that Clark reviewed, the corn used was genetically modified with a gene from Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), a soil bacterium that produces protein that kills the European corn borer, a common and very destructive pest in corn fields.
Corn borers reduce the quality and yield of corn and damage the plant tissue which results in an increased opportunity for fungal growth. The fungi can produce a dangerous toxin that can kill horses and pigs and cause esophageal cancer in humans.
So, eliminating the corn borer from corn, reduces the chance for growth of the fungi from the corn plant, improving the safety of corn for animals and humans.
The soybeans used in the studies were produced by inserting a gene that causes the plant to be tolerant to the environmentally friendly herbicide glyphosate. This tolerance to glyphosate allows farmers to spray and kill weeds without killing the soybeans.
In other studies the nutritional value of genetically modified corn and soybeans was compared to that of traditional crops. These studies showed no significant difference in the nutritional composition of the grains themselves.
Along with many other scientists working with biotechnology, Clark believes that biotech crops hold the answer to how the growing population of the world will continue to be fed. "It has been estimated that the supply of food required to adequately meet human nutritional needs over the next 40 years," Clark said, "is quantitatively equal to the amount of food previously produced throughout the entire history of humankind."
With the current world population at about six billion, and the estimated 10 billion people expected by the year 2040, Clark believes that modern methods of biotechnology must be used to produce enough feed for livestock and food for humans.
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