gorski SBM

<div></div><div>https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/a-science-based-blog-about-gmo/</div><div>
</div><div><h2 style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 30px; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 2.5em 0px 1.4em; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/a-science-based-blog-about-gmo/" title="A science-based blog about GMO" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 2.5em 0px 1.4em; padding: 0px; outline: none;">A science-based blog about GMO</a></h2><span class="metadata postinfo" style="border: 0px; font-style: italic; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px 0px 25px; padding: 3px 0px 3px 20px; display: block; background: url(" images="images" global="global" sprite.png="sprite.png" px="px" no-repeat="no-repeat" rgb="rgb">Posted by <a href="https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/author/timkreider/" title="Posts by Tim Kreider" rel="author" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none; text-decoration: none;">Tim Kreider</a> on October 26, 2009 <a class="top-leave-comment" href="https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/a-science-based-blog-about-gmo/#disqus_thread" data-disqus-identifier="2320 https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=2320" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none; text-decoration: none;">1 Comment</a>Much time, money, and ink is spent in our culture obsessing over what foods are “good” or “bad” for health. Oftentimes such claims are out of proportion with available evidence, perhaps based on reasonable-sounding theories but not so much on convincing data. Here are a few examples of SBM bloggers addressing food and diet: <a href="https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=207" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;">1</a>, <a href="https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=251" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;">2</a>, <a href="https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=570" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;">3</a>, <a href="https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=1591" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;">4</a>.An interesting subset of food claims relate to the safety of genetically modified organisms (GMO) in the food chain, safety both for individuals and for ecosystems. I’d like to recommend SBM readers to a blog called <a href="http://www.biofortified.org/" target="blank" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;">Biofortified</a> written by graduate students and scientists in plant genetics. The Biofortified bloggers explain hot topics and controversies in genetic engineering, attempting to cut through the wild propoganda in favor of calm science. The authors tend to be more pro-GMO than not—perhaps unsurprising since their careers are spent studying them—but they strike me as quite reasonable in their support. Here are a few posts I liked: on <a href="http://www.biofortified.org/2008/11/what-scares-you-about-ge-foods/" target="blank" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;">fears about GE crops</a>, on <a href="http://www.biofortified.org/2009/01/to-label-or-not-to-label/" target="blank" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;">food labels</a>, on<a href="http://www.biofortified.org/2009/04/the-inadequacy-of-anecdotes/" target="blank" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;">anecdotal health claims</a>, on <a href="http://www.biofortified.org/2009/05/aclu-and-gene-patents/" target="blank" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;">gene patents</a>, on <a href="http://www.biofortified.org/2009/03/breeding-tetanus-vaccines-into-plants/" target="blank" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;">smoking your vaccines someday</a>.Today is a particularly good time for you to check out Biofortified because they are competing in the Ashoka Changemakers “<a href="http://www.biofortified.org/2009/10/vote-for-biofortified/" target="blank" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;">GMO: Risk or Rescue?</a>” contest. According to Karl, a grad student who writes on Biofortified, theirs is the only “pro-science” group in the running. The prize includes a nice grant and an opportunity to have a conversation with author Michael Pollan. If you like the blog enough to vote for them by this Wednesday 10/28 at 6pm EST, see details about the contest <a href="http://www.biofortified.org/2009/10/vote-for-biofortified/" target="blank" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;">here</a>.</div><div></div><div><a href="https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/the-seralini-gmo-study-retraction-and-response-to-critics/">https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/the-seralini-gmo-study-retraction-and-response-to-critics/</a></div><div><h2 style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 30px; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 2.5em 0px 1.4em; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/the-seralini-gmo-study-retraction-and-response-to-critics/" title="The Seralini GMO Study – Retraction and Response to Critics" style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 2.5em 0px 1.4em; padding: 0px; outline: none;">The Seralini GMO Study – Retraction and Response to Critics</a></h2><span class="metadata postinfo" style="border: 0px; font-style: italic; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px 0px 25px; padding: 3px 0px 3px 20px; display: block; background: url(" images="images" global="global" sprite.png="sprite.png" px="px" no-repeat="no-repeat" rgb="rgb">Posted by <a href="https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/author/steven-novella/" title="Posts by Steven Novella" rel="author" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none; text-decoration: none;">Steven Novella</a> on December 4, 2013 <a class="top-leave-comment" href="https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/the-seralini-gmo-study-retraction-and-response-to-critics/#disqus_thread" data-disqus-identifier="29468 https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=29468" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none; text-decoration: none;">166 Comments</a>Elsevier <a href="http://www.elsevier.com/about/press-releases/research-and-journals/elsevier-announces-article-retraction-from-journal-food-and-chemical-toxicology" target="blank" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;">has announced that they are retracting</a> the infamous Seralini study which claimed to show that GMO corn causes cancer in laboratory rats. The retraction comes one year after the paper was published, and seems to be a response to the avalanche of criticism the study has faced. This retraction is to the anti-GMO world what the retraction of the infamous Wakefield <cite style="border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Lancet</cite> paper was to the anti-vaccine world.The Seralini paper was published in November 2012 in <cite style="border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Food and Chemical Toxicology</cite>. It was immediately embraced by anti-GMO activists, and continues to be often cited as evidence that GMO foods are unhealthy. It was also immediately skewered by skeptics and more objective scientists as a fatally flawed study.<a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0278691512005637" target="blank" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;">The study looked at male and female rats</a> of the Sprague-Dawley strain of rat – a strain with a known high baseline incidence of tumors. These rats were fed regular corn mixed with various percentages of GMO corn: zero (the control groups), 11, 22, and 33%. Another group was fed GMO corn plus glyphosate (Round-Up) in their water, and a third was given just glyphosate. The authors concluded:<blockquote style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.6em; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 20px 0px 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 36px; quotes: none; position: relative; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The results of the study presented here clearly demonstrate that lower levels of complete agricultural glyphosate herbicide formulations, at concentrations well below officially set safety limits, induce severe hormone-dependent mammary, hepatic and kidney disturbances. Similarly, disruption of biosynthetic pathways that may result from overexpression of the EPSPS transgene in the GM NK603 maize can give rise to comparable pathologies that may be linked to abnormal or unbalanced phenolic acids metabolites, or related compounds. Other mutagenic and metabolic effects of the edible GMO cannot be excluded.</blockquote>Sounds pretty scary. Now let’s look at the multiple criticisms:The biggest criticism of the study is the combination of two features – the small sample size and lack of statistical analysis. The entire study is premised on comparing various dose groups with control groups that were not exposed to GMO or glyphosate. And yet, the authors provide no statistical analysis of this comparison. Given the small number of rats in each group, it is likely that this lack of statistical analysis is due to the fact that statistical significance could not be reached.In other words – the results of the study are uninterpretable. In the retraction statement Elsevier wrote:<blockquote style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.6em; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 20px 0px 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 36px; quotes: none; position: relative; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Ultimately, the results presented (while not incorrect) are inconclusive, and therefore do not reach the threshold of publication for Food and Chemical Toxicology.</blockquote>The retraction reads like a long excuse for the editorial failure of the journal, and is disappointing. But at least they ultimately reached the correct conclusion – this paper should never have been published. It slipped through the cracks of peer review.If you look at the <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?ob=MiamiCaptionURL&method=retrieve&eid=1-s2.0-S0278691512005637&image=1-s2.0-S0278691512005637-gr1.jpg&ba=&fmt=full&orig=na&issn=02786915&pii=S0278691512005637&acct=C000028178&version=1&urlVersion=0&userid=559483&md5=9a964317faf21e423f9d84f945e6f5a1" target="blank" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;">survival curves for the various groups</a>, I think you will see that the results are all over the place. This is a typical scatter of data with no clear pattern. In the male groups, the GMO and glyphosate groups tended to do better, if anything. In the female groups they did worse, but there is no clear dose-response effect evident, and the overall results are a wash. Inconclusive is being polite – the data do not show anything, especially absent any statistical analysis.The study has also been criticized for their choice and treatment of animals. Choosing a strain with a very high background rate of tumor is asking for lots of noise in the data. In fact, <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11381627" target="blank" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;">a study of the strain found</a>:<blockquote style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.6em; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 20px 0px 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 36px; quotes: none; position: relative; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The total tumor incidences were 70 to 76.7% and 87 to 95.8% in males and females, respectively.</blockquote>Further, many scientists charged that the rats were not treated ethically. It is standard practice in such studies to establish an endpoint, such as tumor number and size, at which point the animal with be euthanized. In this study the rats were allow to die of their tumors. The more cynical critics of the study speculate that this was done to generate graphic images in order to have the intended effect on public opinion.<h3 style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.4em; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 2.5em 0px 1.4em; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Seralini Responds</h3>Despite the fact the the article has been withdrawn, Seralini is not backing off his support of the results. In a detailed response to critics, Seralini and his coauthors write in the introduction:<blockquote style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.6em; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 20px 0px 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 36px; quotes: none; position: relative; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">This may explain why 75% of our first criticisms arising within a week, among publishing authors, come from plant biologists, some developing patents on GMOs, even if it was a toxicological paper on mammals, and from Monsanto Company who owns both the NK603 GM maize and R herbicide.</blockquote>They are immediately trying to frame the discussion as that between vested corporate interests and scientists. This is a diversion, however, and is irrelevant to the substance of the scientific criticism of their paper. Further, much substantive criticism came from the scientific community, not Monsanto. <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23430588" target="blank" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;">The most recently published</a>, for example, concludes:<blockquote style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.6em; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 20px 0px 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 36px; quotes: none; position: relative; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">We and many others have criticized the study, and in particular the manner in which the experiments were planned, implemented, analyzed, interpreted and communicated. The study appeared to sweep aside all known benchmarks of scientific good practice and, more importantly, to ignore the minimal standards of scientific and ethical conduct in particular concerning the humane treatment of experimental animals.</blockquote>They also call for Monsanto to release the raw data for <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15110110" target="blank" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;">the 2004 Hammond study</a>, which was a 13-week trial of Roundup Ready corn. This is a reasonable request in itself – I think all such studies should disclose the raw data for independent review. But the placement of this request in the Seralini response still serves as another diversion from criticism and a way of calling into question the results of the 2004 study, which showed no health effects from the GM corn.Much of their defense of their protocol consists of pointing out deficiencies in other similar research. While this does address the standards typical in this type of research, it does not address the main criticism, that the cumulative deficiencies in the Seralini study make interpreting the results impossible.They even defend the lack of statistical analysis of the survival curves, which were the main outcome. They stated that they wanted to be “simply factual” and then again criticize the statistics used in other studies.<h3 style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.4em; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 2.5em 0px 1.4em; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Conclusion</h3>The Seralini study suffers from small sample size, lack of statistical analysis, ambiguous results, a questionable selection of rat strain which maximizes noise in the data, and dubious ethical treatment of the animals for possible dramatic effect. At this point anyone referencing this study as support for their position that GMO has health risks sacrifices their credibility.It helps that the study has now officially been withdrawn, but references to the study in the anti-GMO literature are spread across the internet. The damage is done.The study is similar in quality to the <a href="https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/once-more-bad-science-in-the-service-of-anti-gmo-activism/" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;">Carman pig stomach study</a> – which was also worthless but was presented as evidence that GMO is bad. This study also took a random scatter of data and then hunted for any possible illusion of a signal in the noise.Meanwhile, <a href="http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/2225-no-health-concerns-for-gmo.html" target="blank" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;">systematic reviews of the research</a> show no evidence for any health risks from GMO foods.Seralini et al.’s response to their critics is not convincing, and mostly consists if the tu quoque logical fallacy. They also call for more rigor and transparency in further GMO research. This is hard to disagree with – we can always use more rigor and transparency. This does not, however, answer the deficiencies in the Seralini study.Calls for more rigorous research also echo what we hear from the anti-vaccine movement. Safety data consists of not finding a health risk, and negative findings are difficult to prove. They are only ever as good as the amount and rigor of our current data. We can always benefit from more and more rigorous safety data, and this makes for an easy criticism for anti-GMO activists or anti-vaccinationists (or anti-fluoridation, or whatever) to make.At some point we have to set reasonable thresholds for safety data. To the critics, it will never be enough. Vested interests, of course, want the bar to be very low (they would probably be happy with the bar being eliminated, as with the supplement industry). The scientific community, in collaboration with regulators, need to set reasonable, science-based thresholds for safety data, which will never be perfect or guarantee zero risk.For current GMO foods the evidence seems to be above a reasonable threshold for safety. More data is always welcome, but that does not mean holding an industry hostage to endless calls for more data.</div><div></div><div>very long, refs biofort</div><div>
</div><div>https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/once-more-bad-science-in-the-service-of-anti-gmo-activism/</div><div>...</div><div>So what’s the problem? Heinemann and Carman are apparently worried that the siRNA that will be used to silence two genes in wheat called SEI and SEII. Heinemann apparently did an analysis based on the sequence of the SEI and SEII genes, comparing them against the human genome and looking for matches. He found them in the gene for the enzyme mentioned by Judy Carman. In humans, the equivalent gene is known as glucan (1,4‐alpha‐), branching enzyme 1, abbreviated GBE. Based on some similarities he found between SEI and GBE, Heinemann sounded an alarm through an anti-GMO activist group known as the <a href="http://safefoodfoundation.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Heinemann-Expert-Scientific-Opinion.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="blank" style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 25.6px; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Safe Food Foundation & Institute</a>. Humans store carbohydrates as glycogen, and GBE makes branches in glycogen. There is a consequence to not being able to branch one’s glycogen, although not branching it in wheat could be useful for decreasing its glycemic index. There is a disease known as <a href="http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/119690-overview" target="blank" style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 25.6px; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">glycogen storage disease IV</a>, which leads to damage to the liver over time. That’s the disease that Judy Carman was referring to....</div><div></div><div><h2 style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 30px; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 2.5em 0px 1.4em; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/antivaccine-versus-anti-gmo-different-goals-same-methods/" title="Antivaccine versus anti-GMO: Different goals, same methods" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 2.5em 0px 1.4em; padding: 0px; outline: none;">Antivaccine versus anti-GMO: Different goals, same methods</a></h2><span class="metadata postinfo" style="border: 0px; font-style: italic; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px 0px 25px; padding: 3px 0px 3px 20px; display: block; background: url(" images="images" global="global" sprite.png="sprite.png" px="px" no-repeat="no-repeat" rgb="rgb">Posted by <a href="https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/author/david-gorski/" title="Posts by David Gorski" rel="author" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none; text-decoration: none;">David Gorski</a> on October 1, 2012 <a class="top-leave-comment" href="https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/antivaccine-versus-anti-gmo-different-goals-same-methods/#disqus_thread" data-disqus-identifier="23012 https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=23012" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none; text-decoration: none;">96 Comments</a>Countering ideologically motivated bad science, pseudoscience, misinformation, and lies is one of the main purposes of this blog. Specifically, we try to combat such misinformation in medicine; elsewhere Steve and I, as well as some of our other “partners in crime” combat other forms of pseudoscience. During the nearly five year existence of this blog, we’ve covered a lot of topics in medicine that tend to be prone to pseudoscience and quackery. Oddly enough, there’s one topic that we haven’t really written much about at all, and that’s genetically modified organisms (GMOs). GMOs, as you know, are proliferating, and it’s quite worth discussing the potential and risks of this new technology, just as it is worthwhile to discuss the potential benefits versus the risks of any new technology that can impact our health, not to mention the health of the planet. Unfortunately, GMOs have become a huge political issue, and, I would argue, they have become just as prone to pseudoscience, misinformation, and bad science as vaccines, with a radical group of anti-GMO activists who are as anti-science as any antivaccinationist or quack.Leave it to that quackery promoter to rule all quackery promoters, Mike Adams, to give me just the opportunity to show you what I mean. Over the last couple of weeks, Mike has been in a fine lather about GMOs, with multiple posts with titles such as <a href="http://www.naturalnews.com/037262_GMO_Monsanto_debate.html" rel="nofollow" target="blank" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;">The GMO debate is over; GM crops must be immediately outlawed; Monsanto halted from threatening humanity</a> and <a href="http://www.naturalnews.com/037289_Monsanto_corporations_ethics.html" rel="nofollow" target="blank" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;">The evil of Monsanto and GMOs explained: Bad technology, endless greed and the destruction of humanity</a>. In other words, it’s a series of post with Adams’ typical hyperbole. If you were to believe him, GMOs are the product of a plot by Satan, Monsanto, big pharma, and the government, and he’s not sure which one of these is the most evil of the bunch.

Not to be outdone, that other quackery supporter vying with Mike Adams to be the quackery supporter to rule all quackery supporters, Joe Mercola, also weighed in with a post entitled <a href="http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/09/22/superbugs-destruct-food-supply.aspx" rel="nofollow" target="blank" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;">First-Ever Lifetime Feeding Study Finds Genetically Engineered Corn Causes Massive Tumors, Organ Damage, and Early Death</a>. It also turns out that Mike Adams had pontificated about this very same study a couple of days before Mercola with a title equally ominous, <a href="http://www.naturalnews.com/037249_GMO_study_cancer_tumors_organ_damage.html" rel="nofollow" target="blank" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;">Shock findings in new GMO study: Rats fed lifetime of GM corn grow horrifying tumors, 70% of females die early</a>. Whenever I see the cranks pile on a study like this, my curiosity is piqued. I also noticed that Steve Novella had <a href="http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/the-gm-corn-rat-study/" target="blank" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;">already discussed the study</a> that had this not-so-dynamic duo in such a frothy lather. Of course, as you know, that a blogger as awesome as our fearless leader had covered a topic never stopped me from pontificating about the very same study before (well, actually, it has, but in this case it wasn’t enough to stop me). Besides, these sorts of studies are right up my alley, given that I’m a cancer researcher, and the study being touted as “smoking gun” evidence that GMOs are pure evil is such a an incompetently designed and performed study that it actually irritated me more than the usual bit of bad science that I discuss on occasion.There’s a lot in common between anti-GMO activists and antivaccine activists. Perhaps the most prominent similarity is philosophical. Both groups fetishize the naturalistic fallacy, otherwise known as the belief that if it’s “natural” it must be good (or at least better than anything man-made or “artificial”). In the case of antivaccine activists, the immune response caused by vaccines is somehow “unnatural” and therefore harmful and evil, even though the mechanisms by which the immune system responds to vaccines are the same or similar to how it responds to “natural” antigens. That’s the whole idea, to stimulate the immune system to think that you’ve had the disease without actually giving you the disease, thus stimulating long term immunity to the actual disease! In the case of anti-GMO activists, the same idea appears to prevail, namely that, because GMOS are somehow “unnatural,” they must be harmful and evil. That’s not to say that they might not have problems and issues that need to be dealt with, but the apocalyptic language used by many of the anti-GMO activists like Mike Adams and Joe Mercola is so far over-the-top that it is very much like the language of the antivaccine movement. In fact, not surprisingly, antivaccinationists are often anti-GMO as well, and vice-versa, an example of<a href="http://scienceblogs.com/denialism/2007/06/28/crank-magnetism-1/" target="blank" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;">crank magnetism</a> in action. Indeed, Joe Mercola himself is one of the biggest backers of California Proposition 37, which would require the labeling of GMO-based food, <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2012/sep/16/business/la-fi-hiltzik-20120916" target="blank" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;">having donated $1.1 million so far</a>.The particular study that has been reverberating through out the anti-GMO community over the last couple of weeks was done by a group in France led by Gilles-Eric Séralini at the University of Caen with a history of opposition to GMOs. Also, as Steve pointed out, Séralini et al did not allow reporters to seek outside comment on their paper before its publication. If there’s a bigger red flag that a study is ideologically motivated crap and that the authors know it’s ideologically motivated crap, I can’t think of one. Even if Séralini et aldidn’t know their study was weak and were somehow afraid that the nefarious Monsanto scientists would plant negative sound bites into news stories about the study, I’m sorry, but trying to control initial news reports like this is just not how scientific results should be announced, period. It’s cowardice and an <a href="http://www.france24.com/en/20120919-france-orders-probe-after-rat-study-links-gm-corn-cancer" target="blank" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;">unseemly attempt at spin</a>:<blockquote style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.6em; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 20px 0px 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 36px; quotes: none; position: relative; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“For the first time ever, a GM organism and a herbicide have been evaluated for their long-term impact on health, and more thoroughly than by governments or the industry,” Séralini told AFP. “The results are alarming.”</blockquote>Meanwhile, <a href="http://www.naturalnews.com/037262_GMO_Monsanto_debate.html" rel="nofollow" target="blank" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;">Mike Adams writes</a>:<blockquote style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.6em; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 20px 0px 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 36px; quotes: none; position: relative; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">As a shocking new study has graphically shown, GMOs are the new thalidomide. When rats eat GM maize, they develop horrifying tumors. Seventy percent of females die prematurely, and virtually all of them suffer severe organ damage from consuming GMO. These are the scientific conclusions of the first truly “long-term” study ever conducted on GMO consumption in animals, and the findings are absolutely horrifying. (See pictures of rats with tumors, below.)What this reveals is that genetic engineering turns FOOD into POISON.</blockquote>I do so love all caps for emphasis. So very antivaccinationist-like.Meanwhile, <a href="http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/09/22/superbugs-destruct-food-supply.aspx" rel="nofollow" target="blank" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;">Mercola writes</a>:<blockquote style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.6em; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 20px 0px 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 36px; quotes: none; position: relative; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The research was considered so “hot” that the work was done under strict secrecy. According to a French article in Le Nouvel Observateur,2 the researchers used encrypted emails, phone conversations were banned, and they even launched a decoy study to prevent sabotage!</blockquote>One wonders if they mixed up the “decoy” study with the real study, if the quality of the final published study is any indication. Let’s take a look. This study, by Séralini et al, was entitled <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0278691512005637" target="blank" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;">Long term toxicity of a Roundup herbicide and a Roundup-tolerant genetically modified maize</a>. Here’s the abstract:<blockquote style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.6em; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 20px 0px 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 36px; quotes: none; position: relative; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The health effects of a Roundup-tolerant genetically modified maize (from 11% in the diet), cultivated with or without Roundup, and Roundup alone (from 0.1 ppb in water), were studied 2 years in rats. In females, all treated groups died 2–3 times more than controls, and more rapidly. This difference was visible in 3 male groups fed GMOs. All results were hormone and sex dependent, and the pathological profiles were comparable. Females developed large mammary tumors almost always more often than and before controls, the pituitary was the second most disabled organ; the sex hormonal balance was modified by GMO and Roundup treatments. In treated males, liver congestions and necrosis were 2.5–5.5 times higher. This pathology was confirmed by optic and transmission electron microscopy. Marked and severe kidney nephropathies were also generally 1.3–2.3 greater. Males presented 4 times more large palpable tumors than controls which occurred up to 600 days earlier. Biochemistry data confirmed very significant kidney chronic deficiencies; for all treatments and both sexes, 76% of the altered parameters were kidney related. These results can be explained by the non linear endocrine-disrupting effects of Roundup, but also by the overexpression of the transgene in the GMO and its metabolic consequences.</blockquote>Wow. Sounds really disturbing, doesn’t it? Certainly, at first glance it did to me, but something seemed fishy. Although some have pointed out that the rat strain used (albino Sprague-Dawley rats from Harlan Labs) have a high propensity for tumors to develop as it is, initially I didn’t really consider that as big a problem as some do. You want a certain baseline of tumor development, and it’s not entirely unreasonable to pick a strain that develops tumors at a rate that is frequent enough that it’s likely that the strain will be sensitive to carcinogens. On the other hand, if the baseline rate of developing tumors is high enough, there’s not much room to go up further, and it’s harder to detect effects that result in an increased incidence of tumors. The problem with this particular rat strain is that the rate might well reach that point, which is why the control group size is a really big problem.Indeed, what seemed fishier to me were two things. First, there were only 20 rats in the control group. In actuality, in practice it was less than that, because the authors looked at both males and females; so there were 10 male controls and 10 female controls, which struck me as a rather small number for a study of this type. Then there were nine other groups, with twenty mice in each group, 10 males and ten females each, making for a very complicated experimental design. Indeed, I agree with Marion Nestle, the Paulette Goddard professor in the Department of Nutrition, Food Studies and Public Health at New York University who supports labeling of genetically modified foods on a national scale, when <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/all-we-can-eat/post/french-scientists-question-safety-of-gm-corn/2012/09/19/d2ed52e4-027c-11e2-8102-ebee9c66e190_blog.html" target="blank" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;">she said</a>, “It’s weirdly complicated and unclear on key issues: what the controls were fed, relative rates of tumors, why no dose relationship, what the mechanism might be. I can’t think of a biological reason why GMO corn should do this.”“Weirdly complicated” doesn’t even begin to describe it. I found the experimental design unnecessarily complicated to a ridiculous degree, with too few mice in each group, especially the controls. In fact, these were the groups (the number of animals in the group is in parentheses):<ol style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.5em; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 2em 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 28px; list-style-position: outside; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><li style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding: 0px;">Controls (20)</li><li style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding: 0px;">11% GMO (20)</li><li style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding: 0px;">22% GMO (20)</li><li style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding: 0px;">33% GMO (20)</li><li style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding: 0px;">11% GMO + R (20)</li><li style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding: 0px;">22% GMO + R (20)</li><li style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding: 0px;">33% GMO + R (20)</li><li style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding: 0px;">R(A) (20)</li><li style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding: 0px;">R(B) (20)</li><li style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding: 0px;">R(C) (20)</li></ol>The percentage means the percentage of GMO corn in the rat chow, specifically the Roundup resistant strain NK603, and “R” means that Roundup had been applied to the corn. R(A) through R(C) are different concentrations of Roundup in the rats’ drinking water. This is way too many groups to have a high likelihood of producing interpretable data, particularly with only 10 females and ten males in each group. In essence, there were 20 experimental groups with ten rats in each group. Most problematic is the small number in the control group. There’s an <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/521452" target="blank" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;">old study on this line of rats</a> published in 1979 that looked at the spontaneous development of endocrine tumors. After two years, 86% of male and 72% of female rats had developed tumors of the sort described by Séralini et al. Note that the time period of this 1979 study was the same as that of Séralini et al, two years. In other words, the “treated” rats developed as many tumors as expected for this particular strain of rats allowed to live to their natural lifespanand in fact the control groups arguably had an unusually low incidence of tumors.Elsewhere, biologist Andrew Kniss <a href="http://weedcontrolfreaks.com/2012/09/why-i-think-the-seralini-gm-feeding-trial-is-bogus/" target="blank" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;">ran a simulation</a> (for which he provides the code) based on this study and found:<blockquote style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.6em; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 20px 0px 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 36px; quotes: none; position: relative; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Let’s assume that the Suzuki et al (1979) paper is correct, and 72% of female Sprague-Dawley rats develop tumors after 2 years, even if no treatments are applied. If we randomly choose 10,000 rats with a 72% chance that they will have a tumor after 2 years, we can be pretty certain that approximately 72% of the rats we selected will develop a tumor by the end of 2 years.In our very large sample of 10,000 simulated rats, we found that 71.4% of them will develop tumors by the end of a 2 year study. That’s pretty close to 72%. But here is where sample size becomes so critically important. If we only select 10 female rats, the chances of finding exactly 72% of them with tumors is much less. In fact, there is a pretty good chance the percentage of 10 rats developing tumors could be MUCH different than the population mean of 72%. This is because there is a greater chance that our small sample of 10 will not be representative of the larger population.</blockquote>In other words, large numbers matter. In a group of 10 mice, each with a 72% chance of developing tumors after two years, there’s a much higher chance that the number of rats in the control group that develop tumors will be a number other than 7 (72%). Also curious is that the rate of mortality didn’t appear to be related to the dose of GMO corn. The authors attribute this to the GMO corn being so nasty that it was a “threshold” effect, where the observed effect maxed out before the lowest percentage of GMO corn was even hit, which, if true, would imply that a followup study was warranted looking at, for instance, 0% GMO corn to 11% GMO corn. However, more modeling of the study revealed:<blockquote style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.6em; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 20px 0px 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 36px; quotes: none; position: relative; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">But here’s the important part: Simply by chance, if we draw 10 rats from a population in which 72% get tumors after 2 years, we have anywhere from 5 (“t2″) to 10 (“t1″) rats in a treatment group that will develop tumors. Simply due to chance; not due to treatments. If I did not know about this predisposition for developing tumors in Sprague-Dawley rats, and I were comparing these treatment groups, I might be inclined to say that there is indeed a difference between treatment 1 and treatment 2. Only 5 animals developed tumors in treatment 1, and all 10 animals developed tumors treatment 2; that seems pretty convincing. But again, in this case, it was purely due to chance.</blockquote>It’s even worse than Dr. Kniss demonstrates.What do I mean? The investigators measured numerous parameters in each group, some of them at multiple different time points. An experiment with this many groups and this many parameters measured this many times is virtually guaranteed to generate multiple “positive” results. How did they control for all these multiple comparisons? I’ve read the study a few times now, and I still can’t figure it out. An experiment with this many groups in which this many parameters are measured is guaranteed to produce “statistically significant” differences in a number of variables by random chance alone. Heck, in Figure 5, I counted 47 different parameters measured, and in some tables thirteen different parameters recorded curiously as percentage changes. Even worse, for the mortality data (arguably the most critical data), no confidence intervals are reported, and there appears to be no discussion of how the mortality data were analyzed, as <a href="http://michaelgrayer.posterous.com/in-which-i-blow-a-gasket-and-get-very-uppity" target="blank" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;">Michael Grayer points out</a> in an excellent takedown of the statistical analysis (or, more appropriately, lack of statistical analysis) in this paper. I would only add to this a couple of questions. First, why was there no power analysis reported to justify the number of mice per experimental group and the number of experimental groups chosen? What was the statistical power of this design to detect significant differences? This is some very basic stuff here. Second, who the heck was the statistician on this? He or she should be fired for gross incompetence.And don’t even get me on the lack of blinding of observers to the identities of the experimental groups. That’s just single blinding, which is the absolute minimum that could be acceptable in an animal experiment. Double blinding would have been better. Apparently, the researchers used neither.There’s another fishy thing about how the results are reported. Steve Novella noted this, too, but it’s more pervasive than he pointed out. In fact, never before in a scientific paper have I seen a line like, “”All data cannot be shown in one report and the most relevant are described here”—that is, until this paper. Steve wondered whether the authors were cherry picking the results they were presenting. I more than wonder. I strongly suspect. After all, in these days of online publication, that’s what supplemental data sections are for, to publish all the supporting data necessary to convince reviewers and readers, but prioritizing the important data to be shown in the paper. What this paper represents, in fact, is a massive failure of peer review.Then there are the graphs. I was half-tempted to reproduce the graphs here, but in reality I found Figure 1 (which contains them) so confusing. It consists of six graphs, three for males, three for females, each graph consisting of four curves for different percentages of GMO corn in the rat chow. Not only that, each graph had a shaded area stated to represent the mean lifespan and beyond. But not only that, each graph had an inset graph representing “cause of death” for mice who died before the lifespan of the gray area. That’s basically a total of twelve different graphs, in which it’s hideously difficult to directly compare the experimental groups that I would want to compare to each other. It’s almost as though the authors were trying to make it hard to interpret the results of this study. However, considering that, in essence, this was a study of 20 different groups (two controls and eighteen experimental groups), the results are well nigh uninterpretable to the point of meaninglessness. Besides, Emily Willingham went to the trouble (and it was a lot of trouble, I bet) of <a href="http://www.emilywillinghamphd.com/2012/09/was-it-gmos-or-bpa-that-did-in-those.html" target="blank" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;">graphing the data</a> in a much more standard way that makes it easier to interpret. Guess what? The differences mostly disappear. She also speculates whether BPA was a confounding factor, although I’m not particularly convinced by her arguments for that. She is correct, however, in pointing out how crappy the statistical analyses were and deceiving the graphs were. In fact, if you want an idea of why Figure 1 is so deceptive, you can find it in, of all places, this <a href="https://twitter.com/Gentomaat/status/248494144169844737" target="blank" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;">Tweet</a>. When someone can demolish graphs in a Tweet like this, you know they’re bad.Finally, there is a question of whether the control groups were exposed to GMO corn. <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2012/09/21/proof-perfect-that-the-seralini-paper-on-gm-corn-and-cancer-in-rats-is-rubbish/" target="blank" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;">Tim Worstall</a>, a blogger at Forbes.com, looked into the issue of whether there is GMO corn in normal rat chow sold for use in feeding laboratory rats. He contacted Harlan, the company that supplied the rats for this study, and asked about GMO products used in rat chow. The company told him that “we do not exclude GM materials from rodent diets.” He also points out that, if the findings of this paper were accurate, because there is a difference in the use of GMO corn in the U.S. and Europe, we’d expect to see a massive change in the incidence of tumors in this mouse strain in the U.S. but less so in Europe. He has a point, but I think he overstates his argument. If the incidence of tumors in these mice is really 72-86% by two years, it could very well be difficult to detect a significant increase in a number that is already so high. On the other hand, his point that the control mice might well have been exposed to GMO corn is valid. Certainly, there is nothing in the paper that demonstrated that the control group’s feed was free of GMO corn.The bottom line is that this study is about as bad as studies get. The editors of <a href="http://www.journals.elsevier.com/food-and-chemical-toxicology/" target="blank" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;">Food and Chemical Toxicology</a>, the journal in which this pitiful excuse for a study was published, ought to hang their heads in shame. As it was <a href="http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn22287-study-linking-gm-crops-and-cancer-questioned.html" target="blank" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;">so aptly put</a>:<blockquote style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.6em; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 20px 0px 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 36px; quotes: none; position: relative; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">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.”</blockquote>Indeed. That is about all one can say about the study. Certainly we can’t say whether the GMO maize increased the propensity for tumors. It’s also interesting how the authors included so many photos of the rats and their tumors, photos that quacks like Mike Adams and Joe Mercola eagerly post on their websites, but failed to include photos of the control rats. They got tumors too. Were they qualitatively different in histology or organ distribution or different in size than the tumors in the mice eating the GMO maize? No, including all those photos of rats with tumors served no purpose other than to be sensationalistic and provide shocking pictures for anti-GMO activists to use to scare people.So why should we care? As I said before, I detest ideologically-motivated pseudoscience and bad science. It’s the same reason I come down so hard on antivaccine “researchers” like Andrew Wakefield, Mark and David Geier, and various other “researchers” who pump out bad studies that support the long-discredited hypothesis that vaccines cause autism or that vaccines cause a whole host of problems. This bad science has real implications, both politically and in policy. Already, Séralini’s risibly bad study has motivated the French government to <a href="http://www.france24.com/en/20120919-france-orders-probe-after-rat-study-links-gm-corn-cancer" target="blank" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;">order a probe into the results of the study</a>, which could result in the suspension of this strain of genetically modified corn. Moreover, one can’t help but wonder a little bit about the timing of the release of this study, given that Proposal 37, which would require the labeling of GMO-based food, is a big issue in California right now, and a study like this might just influence the election.When it comes to GMO, I don’t really have a dog in the hunt, so to speak, but brain dead studies like this one certainly prod me towards the view that much of the “science” behind anti-GMO activism just doesn’t hold water, and the <a href="http://truth-out.org/news/item/11639-french-study-finds-tumors-and-organ-damage-in-rats-fed-monsanto-corn" target="blank" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;">easy acceptance of such nonsensical results</a> as valid by those who should know better but apparently don’t is just plain depressing. There might be valid reasons to be wary of the proliferation of GMO-based foods, such as concern over the control that large multinational corporations like Monsanto might exercise over the food supply, but the studies purporting to find horrific dangers of GMO-based food strike me as having the methodological rigor of a typical Andrew Wakefield or Mark Geier study—or an <a href="https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/can-we-finally-just-say-that-acupuncture-is-nothing-more-than-an-elaborate-placebo/" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;">acupuncture study</a>. Perhaps that’s why I wasn’t too surprised when one of my readers pointed out that one of the authors of the study is also a <a href="http://www.criigen.org/SiteEn/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=60&Itemid=105" target="blank" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;">homeopath and acupuncturist</a>; so maybe the better comparison to make to this paper would be papers by homeopaths trying to show that homeopathy works. Either way, this is bad, bad science, and it’s sad to see how many people who should know better (but apparently do not) <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2012/09/gmo-corn-rat-tumor" target="blank" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;">lap it up so credulously</a> while applying much greater skepticism to science that doesn’t damn GMOs as pure poison.Next up, I anticipate that someone, instead of calling me a “<a href="https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/the-pharma-shill-gambit/" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;">pharma shill</a>,” will call me a “Monsanto shill.” It’s coming. You know it is. Just wait. It’s inevitable. On the other hand, maybe I should look on the bright side. Perhaps I can generate a new revenue stream by adding all that filthy food industry lucre to all the filthy pharma lucre that antivaccinationists and quacks think I’m getting.Heck, maybe Monsanto will want to hire me.<a href="http://youtu.be/xJqJM4xM-oE" target="blank" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;">I kid. I kid</a>.</div><div></div><div>
</div><div>https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/microwaves-and-nutrition/</div><div>
</div><div>cherry picks snopes <a href="http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/cookplastic.asp">http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/cookplastic.asp</a></div><div>
</div><div>https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/vani-hari-a-k-a-the-food-babe-the-jenny-mccarthy-of-food/</div><div>
</div><div><h2 style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 30px; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 2.5em 0px 1.4em; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/vani-hari-a-k-a-the-food-babe-the-jenny-mccarthy-of-food/" title="Vani Hari (a.k.a. The Food Babe): The Jenny McCarthy of food" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 2.5em 0px 1.4em; padding: 0px; outline: none;">Vani Hari (a.k.a. The Food Babe): The Jenny McCarthy of food</a></h2><span class="metadata postinfo" style="border: 0px; font-style: italic; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px 0px 25px; padding: 3px 0px 3px 20px; display: block; background: url(" images="images" global="global" sprite.png="sprite.png" px="px" no-repeat="no-repeat" rgb="rgb">Posted by <a href="https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/author/david-gorski/" title="Posts by David Gorski" rel="author" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none; text-decoration: none;">David Gorski</a> on June 16, 2014 <a class="top-leave-comment" href="https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/vani-hari-a-k-a-the-food-babe-the-jenny-mccarthy-of-food/#disqus_thread" data-disqus-identifier="31964 https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=31964" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none; text-decoration: none;">318 Comments</a></div>...<div><h2 style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 30px; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 2.5em 0px 1.4em; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Oh, noes! GMOs!</h2>Perhaps the most horrific thing of all about beer to the Food Babe is that MillerCoors and Anheuser-Busch apparently use GMO-derived products to <a href="http://foodbabe.com/2013/07/17/the-shocking-ingredients-in-beer/" rel="nofollow" target="blank" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;">make their beer</a>:<blockquote style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.6em; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 20px 0px 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 36px; quotes: none; position: relative; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Most beers brewed commercially are made with more GMO corn than barley. Many of the companies I contacted dodged the GMO question – however Miller Coors had a very forthcoming and honest response. They stated “Corn syrup gives beer a milder and lighter-bodied flavor” and “Corn syrups may be derived from a mixture of corn (conventional and biotech.)”, admitting their use of GMOs.</blockquote>And:<blockquote style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.6em; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 20px 0px 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 36px; quotes: none; position: relative; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Dextrose and maltose can come from a variety of substances that are sweet, but likely are derived from GMO corn because it is super cheap for a company to use corn instead of fruit or other non-GMO sources. With cheap beer – you are not just getting a cheap buzz, you are getting the worst of the worst. Just like with cheap fast food – if you don’t invest in your beer – you will be drinking a lower quality product like Pabst Blue Ribbon that is made from GMO Corn and Corn Syrup.</blockquote>Hey, Vani, don’t diss my PBR! I lived in Chicago, and that’s blasphemy! (Actually, PBR is one of the only beers manufactured by “big beer” that I can stomach, at least when it’s on tap, but it’s not one of my favorites.)In any case, this is pure silliness, nothing more than tying GMO fear mongering to scary chemical name fear mongering. They’re too crappy tastes that test crappy together. I don’t feel the need to discuss the lack of validity of the anti-GMO nonsense that’s being peddled, other than to point out that the most “damning” studies presented by anti-GMO activists to convince people that GMOs are pure evil <a href="https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/the-seralini-gmo-study-retraction-and-response-to-critics/" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;">have</a> <a href="https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/once-more-bad-science-in-the-service-of-anti-gmo-activism/" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;">been</a> <a href="https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/antivaccine-versus-anti-gmo-different-goals-same-methods/" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;">thoroughly</a> <a href="https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/a-science-based-blog-about-gmo/" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;">discredited</a>by multiple <a href="http://www.biofortified.org/" target="blank" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;">sources</a>.biofortified In any case, it’s the naturalistic fallacy all over again. The basic fact is that the wheat, barley, and other grains used to make beer have been constantly genetically modified over many centuries through selective breeding, as has nearly every plant commonly farmed by humans for consumption. Ditto the very yeast used to ferment the grain products into beer. Indeed, there are many different <a href="http://byo.com/resources/yeast" target="blank" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;">strains of yeast</a> maintained by many different laboratories, often with the <a href="http://zythophile.wordpress.com/2008/09/11/a-short-history-of-yeast/" target="blank" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;">help of scientists</a>. Indeed, yeast are quite adept at swapping genes quite promiscuously; so in the wild yeast is constantly being “<a href="http://zythophile.wordpress.com/2008/09/12/the-history-of-yeast-breaking-news/" target="blank" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;">genetically engineered</a>.”....timothy n gorski txhttp://www.quackwatch.com/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/Hearing/gorski3.htmlsued mercola: <a href="http://www.quackwatch.com/search/webglimpse.cgi?ID=1&query=mercola">http://www.quackwatch.com/search/webglimpse.cgi?ID=1&query=mercola</a></div>