Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Should Rats Eat Corn?

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“In the past 2 weeks there has been considerable press about a forthcoming article in the journal Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology. This article ‘New Analysis of a Rat Feeding Study with a Genetically Modified Maize Reveals Signs of Hepatorenal Toxicity’ by Gilles-Eric Séralini, Dominique Cellier and Joël Spiroux de Vendomois, purports to show that a genetically-modified corn causes damaged to the livers and kidneys of rats and hence is likely to be dangerous to humans…

Read the full blog post entitled ‘Lies, damn lies and statistics’ over at GMO Pundit: http://gmopundit.blogspot.com/2007/03/lies-damn-lies-and-statistics.html

And there is more information in an earlier blog post entitled ‘WA Ag Minister Kim Chance wrong on GM food safety concerns’ also at GMO Pundit including comment that:

“Quite aside from the statistical procedure used it was found that the adverse toxicology results that they reported occurred only when 11% GM maize was fed – they did not occur when 33% maize was fed. This lack of a dose response alone should have alerted them to the fact that their procedure might be wrong, but it did not stop them publishing without explaining the anomalies! Their publication also contained four totally incorrect statements that have since been addressed by several groups. What is quite extraordinary is that these anomalies were not picked up by the reviewers of their paper.”

So much for peer review and eating corn.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Jim says

    I only had to see ” Monsanto” in the first line for the BS detector to start humming.
    Monsanto
    Haliburton
    Wal Mart
    Bush
    Cheney
    Rove
    Howard
    It’s a Pavlovian reaction for some.
    Why are many on the irrational left so tiresomely predictable?

  2. Schiller Thurkettle says

    They feed rat poison to rats.

    Engineered crops don’t hurt people.

    If GE crops kill rats and don’t hurt people, isn’t that the ideal thing?

    But then Greenpeace would complain about “endangered rat species” and hand out leaflets with cute pictures of rats…

    But check out this link:
    http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/3018/

    Turns out, the scientists paid by the Amsterdam-based multinational Greenpeace saved their butts by accepting *all* of the scientific evidence presented to governmental bodies.

    Their only quibble is freakin’ statistical analysis.

    And it looks like Greenpeace money buys shoddy work, see: “Lies, damn lies and statistics,” Dr. Christopher Preston, Discipline of Plant & Food Science, University of Adelaide, March 29, 2007, AgBioWorld, http://www.agbioworld.org/newsletter_wm/index.php?caseid=archive&newsid=2675

    There’s eco-freaks, and then there’s just plain goofy cr@p.

    Even so, they’re in serious violation of the International NGO Accountability Charter, which Greenpeace signed. Signatories are not supposed to back junk science. See, http://www.ingoaccountabilitycharter.org/download/ingo-accountability-charter-eng.pdf

  3. Woody says

    I’ve often reminded of the phony cancer scare and product banning connected with the sugar substitute cyclamate. Researchers applied a paste of this stuff directly on the internal organs of Canadian lab rats in quantities equivalent to a person drinking something like a thousand diet soft drinks a day and, lo and behold, cancers developed. So, they got a perfectly good sugar substitute banned for no good reason except that it hurt western business–which is what all the environnmental movement is about. No one was able to reproduce that cancer study, but the ban stayed in place. Ban it for Canadian rats, but let people use products with normal consumption. Using their standards, we should ban water because too much of it can kill you. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclamate

  4. Aaron Edmonds says

    Here’s a simple solution.

    If you allow me (Aaron Edmonds, cereal and oilseed producer) to grow GM crops, as a farmer I do solemnly vowe to only ever supply biofuel producers and never to sell to another human mouth …

    Consumers are sending a dangerous signal to the world’s farmers:
    ‘We want you (farmers) to produce less; we want food prices to continue to hyperinflate; we accept the need for Tortilla riots in Mexico, rice wars in Indonesia and staple supply crises in Nigeria; and focus on biofuel end uses …’

    Hmmm …. Crazy world. Nobody is arguing the world is perfect except for consumers. The bubble will be pricked one day and it won’t be a familiar shock. Watch meat prices rally strongly this year.

  5. Luke says

    So being consistent should we not have the dodgy rat study proposed here first a contrarian GM study like Global Warming Swindle movie. Maybe it was cosmic rays on the rats/

    Why suddenly get all scientific ? Appeal to peer review ? hah – surely a conspircacy.

  6. Schiller Thurkettle says

    Luke,

    Glad you brought up global warming, cinema and particle physics. You forgot to mention Atlantis and the Trilateral Commission.

    Oops! Were we discussing something else?

    How many Eco-Freaks does it take to change the topic? Any one of them.

    Now, back to the topic.

    The data the Greenpeace paper relies on show that rats fed *high* doses of engineered corn had no ill effects, while those which ate low doses had random ill effects within the normal range.

    So, eating lots of engineered stuff will protect you against random normal things that occur when you fail to eat lots of engineered stuff.

    Makes no sense to toxicologists, nor to statisticians. Except to statisticians hired by Greenpeace, who hork up a Type I error anyone who’s taken Stats 101 knows better than to do.

  7. Luke says

    Nope I’m going be consistent with the blog’s position – it’s big end science so must be done by well paid estblishment creeps. I’m backing the non-scientific outside edge cosmic ray approach that the effect only manifests itself at low dosage rates where at high dosage rates the non-linear effects cancel out. So there given we can’t be sure of the dosage rate that is applied in the field that not only this technology but all GM technology be banned. So all GM technology has known side effects at low doses.

    Type I errors – wow – that’s a bit sciencey for someone who pretends not to understand basic physics and proportions.

  8. Ann Novek says

    There have been some discussions on this Monsanto maize in the Swedish GP forum.

    One scientist from an agricultural institution pointed out that Swedish organic farmers are not opposed to Bt proteins , and it could be used in organic farming as this lowered the use of pesticides.

    This was news for me!

    The connection between Monsanto and pesticide manufacture seems also have been ended as Monsanto seems to have sold out the chemistry part of the company.

    Finally, this person from the Institution asked why GP opposed the use of GMOs as it lowered the pesticide/herbicide/ insecticide use in agriculture. However, Greenpeace never responded to this.

  9. Schiller Thurkettle says

    Ann,

    Bt has been used by organic farmers for many years, and continues to be popular with them. It’s produced by Japanese chemical giant Sumitomo.

    Monsanto sold off most of its chemical assets, and most Roundup herbicide, now off-patent, is produced by Monsanto’s competitors.

    Greenpeace will not respond to an inquiry about the reduction in chemical use attributable to the use of engineered crops for one simple reason: it would embarrass the group to concede any environmental benefits of these crops.