No scientific evidence of GM food dangers
Business Report
Hans Lombard, Consultant to agricultural biotechnology industry
August 23, 2007
The so-called evidence of genetically modified (GM) food dangers raised by Andrew Taynton is absolute rubbish and unsubstantiated (GM food dangers: Here is the evidence, Business Report August 14).
Taynton is entitled to his opinion but certainly not to his "facts". For "evidence", he uses an example of rats that developed potentially precancerous cell growth after being fed GM potatoes and rats that developed stomach lesions, with seven out of 40 dying within two weeks.
These so-called studies were done eight years ago, then denounced and rejected by scientists as flawed and scientifically unsubstantiated.
The infamous potato study was done by professor Arpad Pusztai in the UK in 1998.
Pusztai, in the first place, did not use GM potatoes; there were no GM potatoes grown commercially in the UK at that time. He used ordinary potatoes that he injected with a lectin.
These potatoes were never intended to be developed as a food crop, as was pointed out by Taynton's quoted source, The Lancet, in its July 3 1999 issue.
Surely Taynton must be aware by now that The Royal Society of London produced a peer review of Pusztai's study and concluded the experiments were badly designed, poorly carried out and inaccurately interpreted due to technical limitations of the experiments
I challenge Taynton to produce substantiated scientific or medical evidence of any adverse effects humans, animals or the environment have suffered as a result of GM food over the past 12 years (nine in South Africa; his reference to 65 health risks documented in a book by Jeffrey Smith is a joke: the book is a farce and flawed).
Source: Business Report
