I know it is politically incorrect to say all this, but we need a a major dose of both international myth-busting and de-regulation.In my opinion, we need to start from an earlier set of assumptions, rather than reacting to the crisis as it unfolds. Population growth and over-consumption of resources for starters.
Are the findings reliable?They arn't just not taken seriously by any of the American regulatory agencies, but also the European, Kiwi, and Australian equivalents that take the precautionary principle way way past any conceivable sense of reason. Only the Russians, who have direct protectionist interests in not importing grain, give a damn.
There is little to suggest they are. Tom Sanders, head of nutritional research at King's College London, says that the strain of rat the French team used gets breast tumours easily, especially when given unlimited food, or maize contaminated by a common fungus that causes hormone imbalance, or just allowed to age. There were no data on food intake or tests for fungus in the maize, so we don't know whether this was a factor.
But didn't the treated rats get sicker than the untreated rats?
Some did, but that's not the full story. It wasn't that rats fed GM maize or herbicide got tumours, and the control rats did not. Five of the 20 control rats 每 25 per cent 每 got tumours and died, while 60 per cent in "some test groups" that ate GM maize died. Some other test groups, however, were healthier than the controls. Toxicologists do a standard mathematical test, called the standard deviation, on such data to see whether the difference is what you might expect from random variation, or can be considered significant. The French team did not present these tests in their paper. They used a complicated and unconventional analysis that Sanders calls "a statistical fishing trip". Anthony Trewavas of the University of Edinburgh, UK, adds that in any case, there should be at least as many controls as test rats 每 there were only 20 of the former and 80 of the latter 每 to show how variably tumours appear. Without those additional controls, "these results are of no value", he says.
Aside from the statistics, are there any other problems?
Yes. Tests like this have been done before, more rigorously, and found no effect of GM food on health. The French team claims to be the first to test for the animal's whole lifespan. But "most toxicology studies are terminated at normal lifespan 每 2 years", as this one was, says Sanders. "Immortality is not an alternative." And those tests did not find this effect. Furthermore, the team claims to see the same toxic effects both with actual Roundup, and with the GM maize 每 whether or not the maize contained any actual herbicide. It is hard to imagine any way in which a herbicide could have identical toxic effects to a gene tweak that gives the maize a gene for an enzyme that actually destroys the herbicide.
Does seeming unlikely mean that this is an invalid result?
Not necessarily. But even more damning from a pharmacological perspective, the team found the same effect at all doses of either herbicide or GM maize. That's unusual, because nearly all toxic effects worsen as the dose increases 每 it is considered essential for proving that the agent causes the effect. Even the smallest dose that the team applied resulted in alleged effects on the rats. That is sometimes seen with other toxic agents. The team suggests that the effect kicks in at some very low dose, hits its maximum extent immediately, and stays the same at any higher dose. But it could more simply mean the GM maize and the herbicide had no measured effect, and that is why the dose made no difference. "They show that old rats get tumours and die," says Mark Tester of the University of Adelaide, Australia. "That is all that can be concluded."
Why would scientists do this?
The research group has long been opposed to GM crops. It claimed in 2010 to have found evidence of toxicity in tests by the GM-crops giant Monsanto of its own Roundup-resistant maize. Other toxicologists, however, said the supposedly damning data revealed only insignificant fluctuations in the physiology of normal rats. French blogger Anton Suwalki, who campaigns against pseudoscience, has a long list of complaints about the group, including what he calls "fantasy statistics".
And who funded the work?
The group was funded by the Committee for Research and Independent Information on Genetic Engineering, or CRIIGEN, based in Paris, France. The lead author on today's study, S谷ralini, is head of its scientific board, and it pledges to "make every effort towards the removal of the status of secrecy prevailing in genetic engineering experiments and concerning genetically modified crops (GMOs), both being likely to have an impact on the environment and/or on health".
Don't they realise that other scientists criticise their methods?
They might. The paper is supposed to have been reviewed by other scientists before it was allowed for publication. But the team refused to allow journalists to show the paper to other scientists before the news reports were due to be published.
The Celtic grazing lands of... Ireland had been used to pasture cows for centuries. The British colonised... the Irish, transforming much of their countryside into an extended grazing land to raise cattle for a hungry consumer market at home... The British taste for beef had a devastating impact on the impoverished and disenfranchised people of... Ireland... Pushed off the best pasture land and forced to farm smaller plots of marginal land, the Irish turned to the potato, a crop that could be grown abundantly in less favorable soil. Eventually, cows took over much of Ireland, leaving the native population virtually dependent on the potato for survival.So, is this a problem for science or politics?
I＊d assumed that it would increase the use of chemicals. It turned out that pest-resistant cotton and maize needed less insecticide.I have a confession to make too. I'd assumed that anyone who would have believed any of these of Lynas' original assumptions was beyond hope for finding the truth, too religious to ever be convinced of anything else. Particularly if they'd gone so far as to vandalize experiments.
I＊d assumed that GM benefited only the big companies. It turned out that billions of dollars of benefits were accruing to farmers needing fewer inputs.
I＊d assumed that Terminator Technology was robbing farmers of the right to save seed. It turned out that hybrids did that long ago, and that Terminator never happened.
I＊d assumed that no-one wanted GM. Actually what happened was that Bt cotton was pirated into India and roundup ready soya into Brazil because farmers were so eager to use them.
I＊d assumed that GM was dangerous. It turned out that it was safer and more precise than conventional breeding using mutagenesis for example; GM just moves a couple of genes, whereas conventional breeding mucks about with the entire genome in a trial and error way.
#MarkLynas saying farmers shd be free to grow #GMOs which can contaminate #organic farms is like saying #rapists shd have freedom to rapeYikes.
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posted by absalom at 4:45 AM on January 4, 2013 [1 favorite]