For those of you who would like more information on the French GMO rat feeding study by Seralini et al, please read Emily Willingham’s critique of the study. It is by far the most comprehensive summary I have read. Emily is on twitter at @ejwillingham. An excerpt:
The possible explanations are legion, but with several different kinds of estrogen receptors with different actions in different tissues, compounds that block a receptor at one concentration but activate it at another, compounds that interact with different kinds of hormone receptors in different ways, and differential effects in different species–it’s no wonder the results with mixtures are themselves so mixed. The one thing that doesn’t leap out here as being involved, among a sea of likely possibilities, is the GM corn itself.
Comments
Hi Andrew, there is also a nice piece at Discover Magazine http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2012/09/21/under-controlled-why-the-new-gmo-panic-is-more-sensational-than-sense/
Emily has plotted the data out in a way that most researchers would do to see what is going on. Done that way it is easy to see that the conclusions drawn by the authors of the study are not supported by the data – let alone the method.
It struck me that all the data was presented in ways that are not usual. I can’t help thinking whether that this was done more to obscure the data rather than to inform.
Cheers
See you next time I am in town.
Hi Chris,
Thanks for stopping by and commenting. Your input in the other thread on the OECD standards is enlightening, since I’ve not had the time (or frankly, the interest) to look them up myself. I agree that the way Seralini et al. presented the data made very little sense, and Emily’s version is much closer to the way I would typically present the information. I have read the Discover piece, and it is also good.
Other good articles on the topic can be found at ScienceBlogs: http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2012/09/24/bad-science-on-gmos-it-reminds-me-of-the-antivaccine-movement/
and a piece by Keith Kloor at Slate: http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2012/09/are_gmo_foods_safe_opponents_are_skewing_the_science_to_scare_people_.html