Environmental for Food Justice

Evidence of harm has been available since 1990s FURTHER PROOF MONSANTO, ET AL. & US GOVERNMENT ARE ANTI-SCIENCE Devon G. Peña | Seattle, WA | March 3, 2014 We often hear that the opponents of genetically engineered crops and foods with transgenic ingredients are anti-science. However, it is actually the commercial agricultural biotechnology corporations that are anti-science and the United States government has always been their biggest direct enabler. One of the ways in which this anti-scientific discourse occurs is by repeating a false mantra about how studies show little or no risk from the consumption GE crops and processed foods. Of course, the industrial gene giants – and their many enablers in the USDA, EPA, and FDA – seldom admit that their research is based on deeply flawed research designs. The industry average for self-study involves so-called 10 day to 6 week feeding trials with rats that are so poorly designed that they would have trouble passing a college-level molec...

Credit: Union of Concerned Scientists Moderator’s Note: I am reposting a statement from the European Network of Scientists for Social and Environmental Responsibility (ENSSER) that defends the Séralini study but goes further by demonstrating that the latest analysis by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), which supports the retraction, also violated scientific standards and applied double standards. Recall, that the editorial authority at the Elsevier publishing corporation that piublishes the journal of Food and Chemical Toxicology violated scientific principles by issuing the retraction. It appears we have another rat in the mix and EFSA is also adopting a double standard in which only studies challenged are those suggesting GMO food safety is a legitimate concern . The double standard in this case is clear since the Monsanto and Séralini studies adopted comparably well-vetted and quite similar research designs and methodologies. ENSSER is a scientific organization and not ver...

A CALL TO SCIENTISTS TO  BOYCOTT ELSEVIER JOURNALS Moderator’s Note: Over the holiday break we had a repeat of the notoriously unethical case of the journal Nature and its retraction of a rigorous, well-designed and subsequently replicated study. I am, of course, referring to the retraction of the study by Ignacio Chapela and Jonathan Quist verifying introgression of GMO transgenes in Oaxacan native heirloom maize. This time it is the Elsevier, Inc. journal Food and Chemical Toxicology retracting a study viewed as “unbiased but inconclusive”.   The new retraction involves a widely cited study by a French toxicology team led by Gilles-Eric Séralini et al (2012), which found that rats fed Monsanto GMO corn and glyphosate-contaminated water developed tumors and other abnormalities leading to earlier morbidity compared to a control group fed non-GMO corn and clean water. Rats fed GMO corn in the Séralini study. We reported on the Séralini research project because his researc...