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SELECTING THE CORRECT NATURAL COLOUR ANTHOCYANIN FOR FOOD AND BEVERAGE APPLICATIONS
Food Ingredient Solutions, LLC
A French study on the effects of Monsanto’s genetically modified (GM) maize in rats has said little about the safety or otherwise of GM crops – but it has said plenty about how the media can be used to push an agenda.
The study itself has been widely criticised, but at a time when pressure is on reporters more than ever to be the first news organisation to ‘break’ a story, many members of the public will have read nothing but the initial, scaremongering reports – which reflect exactly what the researchers intended.
There are several issues that bother me here. However, as a journalist, top of the list is the fact that reporters given pre-embargo access had to sign an agreement that they would not speak to any outside experts before the embargo was lifted.
This more or less guaranteed that no early reports would question Séralini’s findings – and, worryingly, some pretty well-respected news outlets agreed to this condition. The contract was essentially an abuse of the media, and of the embargo system, to quash early criticism.
It also took advantage of journalists who failed to grasp that the peer review process is not gospel; even published studies need to be questioned.
Nearly immediately, anti-GM groups started leveraging the reports to push their agenda , leading Russian authorities to temporarily ban imports of the crop and the French government to call for an EU-wide ban.
Passion and urgency, but a lack of data
There are few issues in food today that stir up such impassioned – and such ill-informed – views as GM materials in our food supply. As such, Séralini et al knew that many news outlets would take their results as presented, run with them, and never take a second look, and in many cases they were right.
Meanwhile, the researchers have refused to publish their full data set.
Frankly, this is bizarre. It is normal and expected for scientists to make their data available so others can assess their methodologies and attempt to replicate results.
However, even without the full data, there were some glaring faults, as EFSA and other food safety agencies around the world have pointed out.
I smell a rat…
Some of the most obvious were the small sample size (just ten per group) and that the rats used were genetically predisposed to develop tumours. In fact, the Sprague-Dawley rats have a 70 to 95.8% chance of developing tumours within their two-year lifespan – that’s before any treatment of any kind. Especially if they only number ten, these rats were not suitable controls, and it’s hardly surprising that five of the ten Sprague-Dawley rats in the control group developed tumours.
In addition, Séralini listed no conflict of interest for this study, but Embargo Watch – which has an interesting take on this issue – pointed out that he also has a book on GMOs out this week. Coincidence…?
In short, it doesn’t matter what your ideologies are, this study was hugely flawed. Nevertheless, it managed to get a lot of publicity with little analysis by taking advantage of the media’s desire to be first on a story in a high-speed world.
It actively took advantage of widespread paranoia about GM foods and a lack of understanding of scientific methodologies.
So what next?
We need a cool head to examine what is going on with the safety or otherwise of GM crops, without the baggage of a predetermined viewpoint. Unfortunately, few individuals have that, even researchers, as this study underlines.
My hope is that there are lessons to be drawn anyway; it could lead to better testing of the safety of GM crops, including the development of methodologies that will be acceptable to global food safety authorities…as well as a much larger dose of scepticism among journalists next time someone tells them to whom they can and cannot talk.
19 comments (Comments are now closed)
Author response @Jennifer Christiano
Thank you Jennifer for your well-written and respectful response. You raise lots of interesting points, and I agree with you on many of them. In particular, the study you link to was something I covered for this publication last year, and something that I found - and find - very concerning.
To reiterate the main point of my commentary, I was drawing attention to the flawed media approach - by scientists and by media - in their handling of this study, not offering a critique of Monsanto, although whenever I discuss the GM issue, my lack of a critique of this company seems to be what readers hear, more than the issues I actually discuss.
I find it interesting how many people seem to have a "if you're not against Monsanto, you're for Monsanto" ideology. I haven't said that I'm either. However, when it comes to a type of agriculture becoming globalised and dominant without global consensus, I do indeed find that worrying.
There are many, many issues in the GM debate, but I find that too often they get rolled into one that is strongly based on emotion. Again, I appreciate your thoughtful approach.
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Posted by Caroline Scott-Thomas
11 October 2012 | 09h59
Response to author's call
In response to the author's comment regarding not being "pro-GM", I would suggest that perhaps the tenor of her articles don't do her feelings justice. There must be some reason why the majority of readers across time seem to be getting the incorrect impression. Regarding the issue of good journalism, I won't disagree, but it's interesting that the few positive responses to the relentlessly pro-GM sounding articles usually seem to come either from those who express a marked pro-GM bias, themselves, or from those who don't reason particularly well. Personally, I'm going to withhold judgement about the articles being 'fair and insightful' until I see some good supporting evidence.
But my intent is to help, not criticize. The author asked for links to articles that show poor methodologies being used elsewhere. Surely she's aware of the difficulties of proving negatives, but I do have a few examples. One that comes to mind are the remarkable number of field trials of GMO crops that purport to demonstrate their safety, but which fail to follow the 'life cycle' of GM proteins as they leave the plant and enter the gut flora of pollinating insects or the soil biota. Where do those genes go after leaving their initial points of contact, and what influences do they have as they travel through the environment? Nobody really knows, because very few (especially Monsanto et. al.) have asked. However, the most recent research suggests that this gap in inquiry has allowed the gut flora of field insects exposed to GM proteins in situ, to mutate and confer host immunity. That wasn't, according to Monsanto et al., supposed to happen! There was no evidence that it could happen! The reality is that the evidence was waiting to be discovered, but the GM industry never honestly looked for it. It wasn't found until independent researchers thought to inquire. How much more evidence of harm is out there, lying hidden until somebody insightful enough and wealthy enough to ask, can run the correct studies?
Unfortunately, the absence of evidence was taken as the evidence of absence. This seems to hallen a lot with Monsanto. It's too bad that economic and political interests often push this mental sleight-of-hand onto unsuspecting members of the public and the press. When one substitutes logical fallacy for logic, and bolsters one's world view with selective evidence, the mistaking of all sorts of absurdities for truth becomes easy.
An issue related to "absence of evidence" is the sheer politics of publishing scientific reviews critical of Monsanto's work. Surely the author knows that scientific research and publishing are highly political endeavors, despite the official dogma that science is free and independent of such un-scientific concerns. Independent? Hogwash. The practical reality is that science is almost as political an endeavor as - well, as politics itself. And those pushing GM are currently the same ones holding the clout, and always have been right back to the beginning of this game.
Finally, there is the issue that Monsanto doesn't have to disclose all of its work to regulators or the rest of the scientific community. As a former bench researcher in the biosciences, myself, I can attest to the fact that the majority of articles published in peer-reviewed journals do NOT contain sufficient information to allow other researchers to fully replicate the published study in detail. And the researchers themselves are often coy about giving critical details to rivals or potential critics - especially when their work is being funded by powerful bosses or rakes in handsome rewards. The process of peer review does not normally require the sort of degree of disclosure that would be necessary for thorough evaluation of results, and why should we believe that, given the enormous reputations and amounts of money involved, the process of deciding whether GE crops are "safe" be a huge and glaring exception to the rule?
Anyway, with those caveats in mind, I am supplying a link to a good article from PlosONE regarding the evolution of a BT-resistant corn rootworm that Monsanto assured regulators would not evolve (or, at worst, that it would be well contained and never create any significant damage to corn fields, if it did somehow evolve): http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0022629 I hope that the author considers PlosONE to be at least as credible as any journal in which Monsanto publishes. Here is an excellent example of Monsanto's scientific environmental safety data being proven horrifically wrong by the empirical evidence. The PlosONE article points to several areas where Monsanto's methodolgy was miserably, if predictably, inadequate. Yet Monsanto's studies were accepted by regulators as "good evidence" of the envronmental safety of the particular strain of BT corn being affected. Let's write about that!
Before I leave, I suggest that all readers investigate James Shapiro's excellent nonpartisan book "Evolution: A View From the 21st Century". It is a fantastic guide to understanding the limits of scientific knowledge about genetics. One topic Dr. Shapiro explains is epigenetis, a brand new field of genetic knowledge which is finally validating the "jumping genes" discovered by Barbara McClintock. Dr. McClintock's observations were scoffed at or simply ignored for decades by most of the conventional scientific establishment because the scientists themselves lacked a framework in which to contextualize the evidence. The genetic engineering studies I've read over the years have never, until perhaps extremely recently, taken epigenetics into account. However, that doesn't mean that the processes weren't at work despite our ignorance. Did Monsanto include epigenetic concerns in its studies? I don't know the entire body of Monsanto's evidence, but what I have seen, directly and indirectly, says no. And of course not - they couldn't! The theories hadn't been developed, yet. That didn't stop our bodies and those of our offspring from being affected by epigenetics, though. And they will continue to be affected by whatever else we don't understand, yet. Why not write about that? Might be better than risk having to write a huge apology on down the road.
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Posted by Jennifer Christiano
10 October 2012 | 21h47
this sounds like Damage Control
it has been known for over 3 decades that GMO's are a weapon of mass destruction--even though no one has labeled as such---and studies abound to validate this---yet here we have a writer who neither knows anything and is using this forum-format to do damage control--if these foods were so safe then why no label access in north america--whether I buy them of not is a choice-or should I say an option--this was a controlled market here in North america and people here really have no choices--so much for freedom--what we have is a limited access to health and a whole lot of options on poison
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Posted by anth
10 October 2012 | 15h39
Please ask the right questions
The interplay of these agencies and the reporters is fascinating, possibly.
The point would be moot if foods are identified as containing GM ingredients, so I can decide whether I consume them.I am responsible for my health not the seed companies.
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Posted by Beauallen4049
10 October 2012 | 13h11
Monsanto science
No bias?? The science is no different than the the science and methodology that Monsanto uses. There is one difference only. Monsanto plays Russian roulette with out health and from our children.
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Posted by James
10 October 2012 | 11h14
And yet it moves
Thank you very much for your balanced and well informed analysis. This "anti GM" medieval hysteria (and in this case dishonesty) causes the consumers a great disservice. To my mind, GM science is indispensable to food production and in the future will even be considered compatible with Organic production.
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Posted by Daniel Johannot
10 October 2012 | 01h08
Very nice article
I enjoyed reading this article. Peer review is the minimum requirement for solid science, and even peer reviewed published articles must not be mistaken for the truth. Science can never prove anything, it can only fail to disprove. Currently, there is no evidence that the myriad of unknown genetic modifications in traditionally selected crops are safer than the few perfectly known and understood genetic engineering steps that have been done on purpose in a informed manner. The however doesn't make anything safe, not traditional crops, not any crops. One should also focus on the fact that some of the most poisonous substances on Earth are perfectly natural. Well done Caroline, O look forward to reading your next article...
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Posted by Jurgen Denecke
09 October 2012 | 15h59
Naive or disingenuous reporting
I agree with others that Caroline, in her attempts to put "balance" into her article, is either naive or disingenuous in her assessment of the Seralini study. She writes as if the study was conducted in an open and free scientific environment. It was not. The study was conducted in conditions of great secrecy and fear, and it is a miracle that it was completed and published in a peer-reviewed journal. Such is Monsanto's record of thuggery and intimidation that the researchers genuinely feared that their laboratories might have been targetted, and publication of the research results stopped at the last minute. Over a period of several years, this research was under constant threat -- and many other research projects in the past have been killed off before reaching completion by those who perceive that free independent research threatens their commercial interests. The regulators in Europe and elsewhere have connived in this murky world of scientific orthodoxy and heresy, in which the orthodoxy is based on non-replicable and non-verifiable science and in which honest scientists are vilified and victimised. THAT is the real story here, and the one that science reporters should be covering.
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Posted by Brian John
09 October 2012 | 11h05
It is not the result but the message
I read the article as a condemnation of poor science and media manipulation. Both are serious and increasing problems. It does no one credit to suggest that the article is a pro or or anti GM piece. If such poor science was carried out by a pro organisation I would hope that the condemnation would equally as harsh.
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Posted by Simon
09 October 2012 | 09h46
Author response
Thanks to those who took the time to comment on this article.
I would like to underline that I am not "pro-GM", but I am pro good science, and pro good journalism. I'd certainly be interested in seeing some links to published studies backing up some of the claims of poor methodologies elsewhere.
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Posted by Caroline Scott-Thomas
09 October 2012 | 09h34
Flawed media and flawed EFSA fail public
I agree that the publication of this study is an example of how the media can be used to push an agenda. But as far as I can see, in this case, it was the agenda of the pro-GM industry lobby group that calls itself the Science Media Centre (SMC) and masquerades as an independent resource for journalists. It was their extremely misleading and erroneous take - peddled by their signed up and biased "experts" which dominated most of the coverage.
The French team, in my view, made an error in not circulating at least some copies of the paper in advance. But this was done because of their justifiable fear that Monsanto would bring influence to bear to prevent publication: A fear that seems fanciful until one looks at the intimidation and gagging orders that have been employed by GM companies.
One example of this has been the number of anonymous or pseudonymous but clearly knowledgeable comments made in the media and on websites correcting the SMC generated impression that the statistics and science of this paper are deeply flawed.
You may question whether you can trust the opinion of anyone who refuses to name themselves but possibly a more pertinent question is why is it we have such a fearful situation where scientists dare not question the GM orthodoxy. And if Ms Scott-Thomas is a worthwhile journalist she ought to be probing that.
Her article furthers the SMC propaganda in a number of points:
- The strain of rats; in fact this study used the same strain that Monsanto had used and was accepted by EFSA to approve the GM maize in question. If the strain is wrong now, it was then.
- The small sample size; in fact the sample size accords with OECD guidelines for a chronic toxicity study (which this one is). Moreover the sample size is larger than that used by Monsanto and accepted by EFSA when approving the maize. Again, if it is wrong now, it was then
- The statistical robustness of the study has been questioned by some; however, other statisticians consider that the methods are appropriate for this work
- That all data was not included in the published paper; in fact many of the questions that have been raised under this catch all are answered in the paper but few critics have actually read it properly. The paper is not unusual in not including all data and the authors have declared their desire to publish all the raw data as long as EFSA publishes all the raw data that underpins its approval of the Monsanto maize in question.
EFSA have refused to do so but instead have put out an assessment of the paper largely written by the same people who approved the Maize in the first place. This hardly seems to be a balanced approach and made far worse by the fact that the EFSA opinion looks to be a gratuitous misreading and misinterpretation of the French study.
This research may not be perfect in all respects but nor is it “hugely flawed”. On the contrary it is “hugely” significant and important because it shows – if nothing else – that the safety tests required for GM crop applications might be ineffectual and not protecting the public; that EFSA is in need of a complete reconstruction and that large sections of our media are supine in the face of the GM industry – especially those who claim to be scientists.
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Posted by Lawrence Woodward
09 October 2012 | 06h35
Americans choice of ignorance will be the death of them!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAL_AMdMXqY
The above link is just a short blurp on the subject. I am appalled that most bury their heads in the sand because they chose not to be uncomfortable. Oh Well, there are eventual consequences for not having teachable hearts! People wake up!!!Mommy/Daddy government and Big Pharma are out for themselves. NOT YOU!!!
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Posted by cheryl
09 October 2012 | 03h13
reproductive system failures
The only studies I've seen show that rats fed GM corn developed complete reproductive system failure at the 4th generation. This study was replicated 2 more times.....same results.....4th generation complete reproductive system failure. Then those studies were scrubbed from the internet. Test beyond 3 months before you blather any more safety results. Looks like we won't be needing birth control after all. And the cancer.....likely coming from the increased use of Roundup. They already know glyphosate is carcinogenic. Why are we continuing to allow Monsanto to poison civilization?
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Posted by dawn
08 October 2012 | 22h10
You had better pray.
Dieter Ehlerman - I certainly hope that your grandchildren do not end up with genetic mutations. Previous studies for GMOs have been laughably short in terms of duration, not even 1 generation out. If GMO crops are so wonderful, why is MONSANTO spending millions to defeat Prop 37 in California? What are they afraid of ?
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Posted by Dr. Robert Foy
08 October 2012 | 20h32
Valid Science Shouted Down
How is it that the study by Gilles-Eric Séralini uses the same experimental protocol ( sample size, rat variety, etc. ) that Monsanto used to justify the safety of their Round Up Ready Corn, just tested the rats for their life span, instead 90 days, and these experiments are somehow not valid ?
Since 70 percent of the corn grown in the US is the Monsanto varieties then its safe to conclude if the product ( made from corn ) is not labeled organic then it is secretly made from GMO corn. Think about those pictures of the rats with tumors the next time you eat your corn flakes, or pretend those results were made by a fairy.
If you care to read the an article on this subject that's not propaganda, google: Study linking GM maize to cancer must be taken seriously by regulators by John Vidal, guardian.co.uk Guardian.
Why have no newspapers run a story on these studies. Only critical editorials have been published. Shouldn't the possibility of the corn being unsafe be headlines news ??
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Posted by John Wagoner
08 October 2012 | 19h53
GMO is safe!
There is no reliable scientific finding that GMO-food could cause any damage to consumers. However, we can never be 100% that no risks at all exist. Science has never found any proof that GOD exists; but science can also never prove the opposite. As for the potential risks from GMO-food.
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Posted by Dieter Ehlermann
08 October 2012 | 18h24
Imperfect study helps draw attention to imperfect government
As pointed out in a different story, if the standard is that scientists reveal their data set, why would something as important as food safety and supposed scientific method used to verify it still lead government (EU at least) food safety agencies to hide their data used to proclaim a food safe? This smells like a double standard.
I also think we (US) need to change any law that makes it difficult for scientists to use patented products for research purposes (especially safety testing). I don't think it's clear whether or not food can be patented, but, if so, we are long overdue for a "fair use" on patents, and it should cover this and hopefully other types of research.
I would hope there are at least 10 studies that began "yesterday" to try and see if these results can be corroborated to some degree.
I would hope the arguments/pressures against labeling GMO foods in the US will be disappearing hopefully sooner rather than later.
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Posted by Jose
08 October 2012 | 18h11
GMO lobbing
It is a pitty that in such a "clever" article the author forgets to say the most important fact. By this case came out that all the previous surveys stating GMO is safe were done in max.3 months time becuase the lobbysts from Monsanto "somehow" convinced the appropriate authoritiies not test the GMO food in longer periods.
Perhaps nowadays case has its weaknesses but it doesn't change the matter that all the previous studies just becuase of this one condition are worthless. And GMO should be banned as long as we aren't 100% sure its safe and not like today to be allowed as long as all the surveys prove in 100% that it's poisonous
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Posted by Leszek
08 October 2012 | 17h37
A Lesson to be Learned
How often we run with the sounds rather than checking the substance. An excellent article. Thank you.
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Posted by John David
08 October 2012 | 16h04
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