Genetically Modified Soy in Russia

Filed in archive Food and Agriculture on November 1, 2005

This entry has been submitted by Creative Reporters Robin Good and Sepp Hasslberger.

A breakthrough study from a national Russian research agency suggests that a diet with genetically-modified (GM) soy may indeed affect newborns of parents maintaining a GM-based food diet. According to the study reported by Russian federal news agency Regnum News Agency, GM foods can affect " the posterity of humans and animals". This is the first research that determined clear dependence between eating genetically modified soy and the posterity of living creatures.

If you think that this is news propaganda, look at the photograph of two mice of the exact same age, and guess which is the one that has had parents on a GM-food diet. The study that included this information was presented on Oct. 10 at a symposium on genetic modification, a program organized by the National Association for Genetic Security (NAGS). The study has been conducted by a team of researchers led by Irina Ermakova, Doctor of Biology, at the Institute of Higher Nervous Activity and Neurophysiology of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS).




Irina Ermakova

During the experiment, Dr. Ermakova added GM soy flour to the food of female rats two weeks before conception, during conception and nursing. In the control group were the rat females that were not added anything to their food. the scientists used GM soy flour in a diet for female rats two weeks before and during conception, and after birth.

Three groups of rats were assigned a different diet each: a control group received no soy, the second group received GM soy flour, and the third group received conventional soy flour. The scientists counted birth and death after the offerings. Three weeks after birth, the death rate of the baby rats was counted for each group.

It was found that both the conventional soy and the GM soy did not affect the number of baby rats each mother produced. However, the death rates of baby rats in three weeks after birth were drastically different. The death rates for the control, the group raised by mothers on a GM soy diet, and the group raised by mothers on a conventional soy diet were 6.8 percent, 55.6 percent and 9 percent respectively.The results indicate that conventional soy did not have a negative effect on the death rate, while a GM soy diet increased the death rate by a factor of eight.

Also, 30 percent of the babies in the GM soy group had an abnormal weight of less than 20 grams.

"The morphology and biochemical structures of rats are very similar to those of humans, and this makes the results we obtained very disturbing," Irina Ermakova told the NAGS press office.
Aleksey Kulikov, NAGS Vice-president, said the results of the study justified the necessity of full scale testing of GM-products over all living creatures.

Recently, Russian scientists have warned about the dangers of genetically modified products in a letter to President Putin. Importing genetically modified foods is jeopardizing both Russia's health and agriculture, they have been claiming. In one instance, Alexander Baranov, president of the National Association for Genetic Security, explained that genetically modified products are putting the health of the nation in serious danger, RIA News Agency reported. The letter to Vladimir Putin, signed by more than 30 key public, political, and scientific figures, read:

"This address is imposed by the growing vulnerability of Russia's biological security. There is a process of substituting environmentally friendly foods, which are typical for Russia, with imported genetically modified products. Russia is becoming a site for testing foreign biotechnology."

Among other precautions, the letter advises a ban on using GM products in baby food, a moratorium on growing GM crops before they are proved to be harmless, and a new federal law concerning biological security. The letter also notes that the Russian food market is flooded with imported genetically modified and transgenic products that are not subject to any state control.

"These products are dangerous in their unpredictability, especially considering their prolonged use. We don't know their eventual effects on the human body"

Vladimir Kuznetsov, head of the scientific council of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said. Kuznetsov also warned that some sectors of Russian agriculture, such as seed-farming, are disappearing because of the use of genetically modified cultures and that Russian agriculture risks of becoming completely dependent on multi-national corporations, which may have strong impact in steering Russia toward loosing its status as a leader supplier of ecologically safe and environmentally-sound products.

Alexei Yablokov, President of the Center for Environmental Policy, went even further with a strong statement supporting his strong stance against what he calls "biogenetic terrorism". According to him the roots of biologically modified products are in biological weapons.