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The two verdicts are in line with a tide of criticism that has been coming from all corners of the scientific world, including EFSA and Germany's Federal Institute for Risk Assessment. The controversy around the study was fueled by accusations that Séralini and his team orchestrated media hype by giving selected reporters advance access to the results but banning them from seeking outside comment. On Friday, six French science academies, in a rare joint statement , questioned the ethics of the way the team handled its publicity, calling it "unacceptable" and "motivated more by ideological considerations than by the quality or pertinence of the obtained data." (They also dismissed the results of the study.)

The two new reports, however, may set the stage for new types of studies of the risk of GM food. ANSES welcomed the "originality" of Séralini's study, which it said was the first to test exposure, over a long period of time and at several doses, to untreated GM plants, GM plants treated with the pesticides to which they were made resistant, and the pesticide itself. The agency, which has been pushing for the toughening of European regulations on GM food approval, calls for more public money to be poured into studying what it sees as an insufficiently documented health hazard.

Source: Science AAAS

by jasonmajor

Which ran the article, “ The very real dangers of genetically modified foods ”, by Ari Levaux has unleashed an unusually massive online response. The reasons seem to be many, but I would suggest it starts with the journalist’s complete mangling and distortion of the science that produced a misleading, even deceptive article. The result was 334 comments, at last count, some from TechNyou. An analysis of this commentary reveals the obvious two distinct tribes fighting trench warfare at a stalemate, but more revealing was the difference in their tactics, which might be indicative of why this debate never moves forward..

The ample commentary tearing apart Levaux’s faulty analysis and interpretation has forced him to rewrite his article and I won’t repeat the criticism of the article from others more qualified than myself. Nevertheless because Levaux’s claims the main point of his article was to point out the inadequacy of substantial equivalence as a tool to assess the safety of GM foods, calling it an outdated and an unproven hypothesis, at the end of this post I have included some of his points and the key responses to it. I have done this largely because Australia’s regulators also rely on substantial equivalence as their key assessment tool for GM foods....

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by joetaxpayer

January 20, 2012

Monsanto’s disregard for human health is evidenced by their hazardous GMO crops and herbicides , but a shocking new report has revealed the company’s  illegal ‘slave-like’ working conditions . Forcing slave workers to work the cornfields for 14 hours per day and buy their food (most likely GMO ) at highly-inflated prices from the company store , Monsanto has been running these slave rings for an unknown number of years.