GM-free Scotland

News | August '07 | Dodgy data

An independent re-evaluation of the safety data supplied in support of an application to market a GM maize came to a very different conclusion from that reached by EU regulators.

French research institute, CRIIGEN, re-analysed the raw data of tests on Monsanto's MON 863 maize which has been genetically transformed to produce a Bt-type insecticidal toxin. The data had already been accepted as evidence of no harm by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA).

CRIIGEN's conclusion was that the evidence was sufficient to require an immediate ban of MON 863 and all its hybrids for human or animal consumption, and that now more carefully conducted feeding studies were vital.

The main health concerns raised were multiple, consistent symptoms of toxicity and endocrine disruption. These included changes in body weight, liver function and kidney function, and premature disease. The French team noted that Monsanto's protocols were questionable, its statistics insufficiently detailed, and its analyses omitted statistics on body weights and omitted urine chemistry.

As a result, CRIIGEN raised the questions:

In March this year the EFSA decided to review the data.

Predictably, the Authority discussed everything at length, acknowledged that 40 significant effects on physiology had been evidenced, but ignored the fundamental point made by CRIIGEN: the EFSA is condoning crucial scientific weaknesses in the GM safety assessment; it is allowing dodgy data manipulated using inadequate statistics to be used routinely by the biotech industry to prove anything it wants to prove.

CRIIGEN indicated the key scientific weaknesses exposed were:

  1. The politics of absence of transparency. All normal and essential independent review of data by other scientists is blocked.

  2. The use of rats as the ONLY model for effects on humans is unacceptably limited.

  3. The use of 90-day feeding trials (1/8 of a rat life-span) cannot reveal chronic effects nor damage to future generations.

  4. The EFSA accepts biotech excuses as to why any physiological differences measured can be ignore. For example, indications of toxicity were excused by inconsistencies in observed toxic responses when different amounts of GM chow were eaten, despite the protocol used being unsuitable for measuring dose-responses. For example, significant differences between the test rats fed MON 863 and the control rats fed the parent non-transgenic strain of maize were excused by further comparisons with a whole lot of other, scientifically irrelevant, 'control' maize strains.

OUR COMMENT

The secrecy of the data, which comprised over 1,130 pages of readings and calculations and was only released after a court battle, might also suggest neither Monsanto nor the EFSA were confident enough of its quality to release it.

CRIIGEN concluded its answers to the EFSA re-evaluation by saying: “we appeal to the scientific community, government authorities and the public to question the EFSA scientific methodology in this case. Our recent paper stands as robust testimony to the questionable safety of this genetically modified food for humans and animals.”

You have an MP and an MSP with direct links to the departments controlling your food. You have a Food Standards Agency with an obligation to challenge the EFSA on your behalf. You have a local council with a public health department which is directly responsible for the safety of any food permitted for sale in your area. All these are easily contactable (a good place to start is FACTFINDER).

WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?

SOURCES

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