Agricultural News
Study Finds GMO's Safe for Livestock
Wed, 08 Oct 2014 12:09:03 CDT
A recent study reviewed prior research on animal health and genetically modified materials in regards to genetically engineered animal feed. A few studies have seen a lot of the attention lately suggesting genetic engineering or ge products are dangerous. So the study looked at the last 30 years of research. University of California-Davis Corporate Extension Specialist for Animal biotechnology and Genomics Alison Van Eenennaam said the studies that are highlighting some of the so-called dangers of GMOs don't line up with what she has seen in real life.
"There's been a lot of media coverage of a handful of highly controversial studies suggesting highly egregious health effects of genetically engineered feed on animals causing them to be infertile or develop tumors to suggest there's something dangerous about these products," Van Eenennaam said. "That just didn't gel with my field experience cause I am often in slaughter houses and haven't noticed health problems with the animals coming through."
Farm Director Ron Hays of the Radio Oklahoma Ag Network featured Dr. Van Eenennaam on today's beef buzz. Click on the LISTEN BAR below for today's feature.
Van Eenennam says the Journal of Animal Science requested she do the review study. She says the data collected shows no abnormal trends in the health and production data collection on commercial livestock, which included billions of head of livestock.
"The broiler set is the most powerful because we have such a large number....about nine billions birds a year that are inspected and slaughtered in the US," Van Eenennaam said. "And again we are not seeing tumors in the postmortem examination, there has been decreased rates of postmortem condemnation, improved feed to gain ratio and age to market is decreased, all of which does not suggest these animals are suffering ill health and that really agrees with the much more controlled scientific literature where you have controls and appropriate experimental design to do a very fair comparison between the two. Although this is field data it really supports the wealth of scientific studies that have shown no deleterious effects from consuming genetically engineered feed in our livestock population."
The study from Dr. Van Eenennaam has published is called "The Prevalence and Impacts of Genetically Engineered Feedstuffs on Livestock Populations". Overall there is no harm seen in feeding genetically modified crops. She adds the study was funded by the California Experimental Funds of the University of California-Davis, and not funded by any company.
The Beef Buzz is a regular feature heard on radio stations around the region on the Radio Oklahoma Network- but is also a regular audio feature found on this website as well. Click on the LISTEN BAR below for today's show- and check out our archives for older Beef Buzz shows covering the gamut of the beef cattle industry today.
Click Here to read the scientific study.
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