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New Study Says Monsanto GM Corn Causes Tumors, Kidney and Liver Disease

LE MONDE (France)

Worldcrunch

PARIS - Genetically modified corn from Monsanto, touted as safe for human consumption, has been shown to cause breast tumors in female rats and kidney and liver disease in male rats, a new study shows.

NK603 corn was originally engineered by Monsanto, a worldwide agricultural conglomerate, to be resistant to the herbicide RoundUp, which is used to keep weeds out of cornfields. However, biologist Gilles-Eric Séralini of the University of Caen, in northwestern France, is publishing a study in the next issue of Food and Chemical Toxicology, an important peer-reviewed journal in the field, suggesting that the corn has harmful effects on rats, whose genetic makeup largely resembles that of humans.

According to Le Monde, the study was “particularly ambitious,” testing more than 200 rats, divided into four groups, for more than two years. One group of rats received the genetically modified corn alone; one group got the modified corn treated with Roundup; one group got just Roundup; and a control group was fed with corn close in type to NK603, but not genetically modified or treated with herbicide.

Interestingly, the deleterious effects showed up in the rats fed with the genetically modified corn whether or not they were exposed to RoundUp. In the control group, before the average life expectancy was reached, only 30 % of male and 20 % of female rats had died. But up to 50% of the males and 70 % of females in the control group died before reaching the same age.

The authors of the study note that the apparent toxic effects of the genetically modified corn were not proportional to the amount of corn eaten, but instead suggest that some substance was interfering with the rats hormonal systems. Mr Séralini, whose study was partly funded by the French government’s research ministry and by an anti-GMO organization, told Le Monde that he is prepared to turn over all raw data from the study to any researcher who asks.

A few dozen protestors at Nimes, in the south of France, demonstrated in front of the gates of Monsanto’s headquarters, demanding to be allowed to inspect activities there. The company’s management refused, saying that in any case GMO experiments are illegal in France and that none took place at the facility.

The French government has asked a health watchdog to investigate the matter further.

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FOCUS: Russia-Ukraine War

That Man In Mariupol: Is Putin Using A Body Double To Avoid Public Appearances?

Putin really is meeting with Xi in Moscow — we know that. But there are credible experts saying that the person who showed up in Mariupol the day before was someone else — the latest report that the Russian president uses a doppelganger for meetings and appearances.

screen grab of Putin in a dark down jacket

During the visit to Mariupol, the Presidential office only released screen grabs of a video

Russian President Press Office/TASS via ZUMA
Anna Akage

Have no doubt, the Vladimir Putin we’re seeing alongside Xi Jinping this week is the real Vladimir Putin. But it’s a question that is being asked after a range of credible experts have accused the Russian president of sending a body double for a high-profile visit this past weekend in the occupied Ukrainian city of Mariupol.

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Reports and conspiracy theories have circulated in the past about the Russian leader using a stand-in because of health or security issues. But the reaction to the Kremlin leader's trip to Mariupol is the first time that multiple credible sources — including those who’ve spent time with him in the past — have cast doubt on the identity of the man who showed up in the southeastern Ukrainian city that Russia took over last spring after a months-long siege.

Russian opposition politician Gennady Gudkov is among those who confidently claim that a Putin look-alike, or rather one of his look-alikes, was in the Ukrainian city.

"Now that there is a war going on, I don't rule out the possibility that someone strongly resembling or disguised as Putin is playing his role," Gudkov said.

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