Immune status changes consistently feature in all animal studies -according to GMO safety expert Arpad Pusztai;
Monsanto's own research to government-funded trials revealed that rodents fed Bt corn had significant immune reactions.
Burns JM, "13-Week Dietary Subchronic Comparison Study with MON 863 Corn in Rats Preceded by a 1-Week Baseline Food Consumption Determination with PMI Certified Rodent Diet #5002." December 17, 2002;
Finamore A, et al, "Intestinal and Peripheral Immune Response to MON810 Maize Ingestion in Weaning and Old Mice," J. Agric. Food Chem., Nov 2008;
Damaged soy DNA creates new (or more) allergens - The usual understanding is that genetic engineering imports genes that produce new proteins that may provoke allergies by triggering reactions.
Creating a GM crop can cause native genes to be mutated, deleted, permanently turned on or off, and hundreds may change their levels of protein expression, which can increase existing allergens, or produce new, unknown allergens, both of which seems to have happened in GM soy.
E.g. In the mid 1990s soybeans were outfitted with a gene from the Brazil nut, but the attempt to produce a healthier soybean ended up with a potentially deadly one. Blood tests showed that people allergic to Brazil nuts reacted to the beans and it was never marketed.
GM soy has up to seven times more of a known soy allergen - Levels of the soy allergen, trypsin inhibitor, were up to seven times higher in cooked GM soy compared to cooked non-GM soy.
Zolla L et al, "Proteomics as a complementary tool for identifying unintended side effects occurring in transgenic maize seeds as a result of genetic modifications," J Proteome Res. May 2008;
Hye-Yung Yum et al, "Genetically Modified and Wild Soybeans: An immunologic comparison," Allergy and Asthma Proceedings 26, May-June 2005;
Gendel, "The use of amino acid sequence alignments to assess potential allergenicity of proteins used in genetically modified foods," Advances in Food and Nutrition Research 42, 1998;
Pusztai A et al, "GMO in animal nutrition: potential benefits and risks," Chapter 17, Biology of Nutrition in Growing Animals, Elsevier, Oct. 2005;
One study discovered a unique, unexpected protein in GM soy - likely to trigger allergies.
Soy allergies soared soon after GM soy was introduced to the UK -skyrocketing by 50%.
Safety precautions ignored - GM soy (91% of US soy acres) is called Roundup Ready, designed to survive otherwise deadly applications of Monsanto's Roundup herbicide. The plants contain genes from bacteria, which produce a protein that has never been part of the human food supply. As a precaution, scientists compare this new protein with a database of proteins known to cause allergies. According to criteria recommended by WHO and others, if the new GM protein contains amino acid sequences that have been shown to trigger immune responses in other proteins, the GM crop should not be commercialized without additional testing. However, sections of the protein produced in GM soy are identical to shrimp and dust mite allergens, and the soybean got marketed anyway.
