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SC Professor harassed by Monsanto after finding more evidence on proliferation of RNA in gene expression
When Vance dove into research RNA interference for medical purposes, she found similar results.
"We designed plants that make a cocktail of three human tumor suppressor RNAs and then fed those plants to mice," says Vance. "We fed that to the mice once a day for 28 days. The tumor burden was significantly suppressed in the mice. We're very excited about that. Seems like there's huge potential here and our work suggests the Chinese paper was right."
In her study, she showed how RNA interference proliferates in mammals, affecting their genes. She showed how this can be used medically to reduce tumors. When the technology is used to make plants insecticidal, there can be some serious consequences for human health, as the RNA is passed into the body where it can manipulate cellular functions.
When ILSI called Vance a year after the 2011 conference, the deputy director asked her to sign on as an author for the conference's conclusions reporting that RNA interference technology is safe.
Vance refused, and, shortly after, Monsanto began to call her.
A year before Vance's discoveries, Monsanto made arrangements allowing Vance to speak at the International Symposium of Biosafety of GMO plants. When they found out about her study, they disinvited her. Then, they began to call her and harass her about her studies. Monsanto attempted to send two scientists to Vance's lab. They wanted to help her with the experiments, because their results didn't line up with hers. They even told her that they hoped to get to her study before it was published.
RNA interference technology in plants affects humans, needs reevaluation.
Jonathan Lundgren, a research entomologist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture's North Central Agriculture Research Laboratory, believes that RNA interference technology needs more scrutiny, especially when used as a pesticide.
"Most of our experiences with RNAi [RNA interference] and the risks that it poses have been done in a petri dish or on a sick person," he said. "With pesticidal RNA, the scale that we're talking about, in terms of deployment."
"Genetically modified crops are planted on 9 percent of the terrestrial land surface of our country. That scale elevates the importance of understanding the risks that are imposed by RNAi technology. It may be safe, it may not, but we should understand that before large deployment is realized," Lundgren stated.
Sources for this article include:
https://boulderweekly.com/
https://www.testbiotech.org/
https://www.gmwatch.org/en/
https://science.naturalnews.com/