Harm of GM corn: the opinion of non-pseudo-scientists

Simultaneously with the publication on the website of the scientific journal of an article about the monstrous harm to the health of rats from the addition to their diet of genetically modified corn resistant to the herbicide "Roundup" and this herbicide itself, messages with headlines one more terrible than the other appeared in all world news agencies. But the very next day, responses from the expert community appeared on the same tapes. One of the most detailed analyses of the work, positioned by the French authors as "the first peer-reviewed long-term study of the toxicity of biotechnological cultures", is published on the website of the Black Sea Biotechnology Association.

An article by a group of scientists from the University of Caen (France), headed by Gilles-Eric Seralini, has been published on the website of the Journal of Food and Chemical Toxicology (Food and Chemical Toxicology). The article (Long term toxicity of a Roundup herbicide and a Roundup-tolerant genetically modified maize) states that this work lasted two years and was the first peer-reviewed long-term study of the toxicity of biotechnological crops.

(For links to Seralini's work and to critical reviews about it, see the article on the BBA website "A long-term study of the effect of the GM diet on Seralini rats.")

The study was conducted on 200 rats and included three scenarios:

• feeding rats with herbicide-resistant corn NK603 with different proportional content of it in the diet
• feeding rats with herbicide-resistant corn NK603, pretreated in the field with herbicide Roundup (Roundup), with different proportional content of it in the diet
• the rats were watered with water containing the herbicide Roundup in three different concentrations

Seralini concluded that biotechnological corn and herbicides can cause "severe adverse effects, including the development of breast tumors, kidney and liver damage, leading to premature death."

Here's what the scientific community says:

1. Statistical analysis is questionable or incorrect. The sample size is too small – the control group is insufficient to draw any conclusions. The exclusively corn-fed diet of rats is questionable and unrealistic. No feed consumption data or growth change data are provided.

2. The report does not conclude that the noted effects are due to genetic modification.

3. The choice of rat type is wrong and deeply questionable. This type of rat is very prone to the formation of breast tumors, especially with unlimited food intake. The report does not mention that up to 86% of male and 72% of female rats of this type spontaneously get cancer at the age of 2 years (Suzuki H, Mohr U, Kimmerle G. Spontaneous endocrine tumors in Sprague-Dawley rats. J Cancer Res Clin Oncol. 1979 Oct;95(2):187-96).

4. There was no proper control group of experimental rats, without these additional controls, "these results have no value."

5. French scientists claim the primacy of research throughout the life of animals, which is incorrect. The report says nothing about references to hundreds of existing reports, as is customary in good scientific practice.

6. The data from this study were not available. From a scientific point of view, this is a dubious practice and suggests there is something to hide. The article is supposed to be reviewed by other scientists before it is allowed to be published, but a French group of scientists refused to allow journalists to show the article to other scientists before publishing it in the journal.

7. This French researcher has long been an opponent of GM crops - often creating a "pseudo-science", as one scientist put it. This group of researchers has a conflict of interest, since it is funded by large French retailers, and anti-GMO NGOs, and also has close ties with Greenpeace and with the movement for organic agriculture and other representatives of national and European politics who have questionable political motives.

8. The process of the first release of data in the media, before the publication of the article, took place in a highly organized and coordinated manner, as well as the fact that everything was organized by PR people closely associated with the organic movement, suggests that the main intention was not to get good scientific data, but to scare people and the media and form a negative opinion about GMOs. The combination of the release of the report with the publication of the anti-GMO book by MEP Corinne Lepage raises doubts: is this a science or a political campaign?

9. The inclusion of emotionally stressful photos in the article suggests that the authors have other intentions in mind than just presenting scientific data. Rather, the interest was in creating "noise and din".

10. The report says that "all data cannot be shown in one report and the most relevant ones are described here." This is one of the forms of scientific "berry picking", which is not a good scientific practice. In this sense, the report is "non-standard" and should not have been peer-reviewed.

It is a pity that Rospotrebnadzor and Comrade G.Onishchenko personally did not read this compilation. Maybe then they would not have rushed with an order to suspend the import of genetically modified corn NK603 to Russia (for some reason, only corn and only this variety, and not dozens of Roundup-resistant varieties of various species).

Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru26.09.2012