permaculture

["Lawrence F. London, Jr." <lflj@bellsouth.net>]

Attn: all those following the GMO debacle, me, Sal, John, others...
pretty Earthshaking news revisited...
------- Original Message --------
Subject: [SANET-MG] small sample cancer positive  test of GM maize
Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2012 14:35:10 -0400
From: jcummins <jcummins@UWO.CA>
To: SANET-MG@LISTS.IFAS.UFL.EDU

Prof. Saunders points out a bizarre criticism of the discovery that GM
maize causes cancer. Saunders is a highly regarded Professor Emeritus of 
mathematics from the University of London. Only the servants of Monsanto 
are cheeky enough to claim that small samples showing that the many 
cancers found in small samples of animals fed GM maize are not valid 
because the samples are too small. Even high school students know that 
large samples are needed to detect weak cancer causing chemicals and 
significant levels of cancer in smaller samples means that the chemicals 
are rather strong cancer causing agents. The Monsanto based critics seem 
to believe that the public is gullible and that will make them rich.
ISIS Report 16/10/12 http://www.i-sis.org.uk/index.php
Excess Cancers and Deaths with GM Feed: the Stats Stand Up
That cancers are found even with a small number of rats tested is strong 
evidence that the GM feed and herbicide are carcinogenic Prof Peter Saunders

Please circulate widely and re post, but you must give the URL of the
original and preserve all the links back to articles on our website. If
you find this report useful.

In September 2012, the research team led by Gilles-Eric Séralini at the
University of Caen published the findings of their feeding trial on rats 
to test for toxicity of Monsanto’s genetically modified (GM) maize NK603 
and/or Roundup herbicide in the online edition of Food and Chemical 
Toxicology [1].

Séralini and his colleagues had previously found evidence for toxicity
of GM feed in data from Monsanto’s own experiments, which they had
obtained through a Freedom of Information demand [2]. Monsanto
challenged their conclusions and, to no one’s great surprise the
European Food Standards Agency (EFSA) supported Monsanto [3]. So the
team decided to run their own experiment, using an unusually large
number of animals and over a period of about two years, roughly the life 
expectancy of the rats, rather than the usual 90 days required in
toxicity trials including Monsanto’s.

What Séralini and his colleagues found was that NK603 and Roundup are
not only both toxic as expected, but also carcinogenic, which was
unexpected. The proportion of treated rats that died during the
experiments was much greater than the controls; moreover, in almost all
groups a higher proportion developed tumours, and the tumours appeared
earlier.

As soon as the paper appeared, the GM lobby swung into action. In
particular, the Science Media Centre (SMC), a London-based organisation
partly funded by industry, quickly obtained quotes from a number of
pro-GM scientists and distributed them to the media [4]. According to a
report in Times Higher Education [5], the SMC succeeded in influencing
the coverage of the story in the UK press and largely kept it off the
television news.

Séralini has rebutted the pro-GM critics point by point on the CRIIGEN
website [6]. The statistician Paul Deheuvels, a professor at the
Université Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris and a member of the French
Académie des sciences, has now drawn attention to another serious error
in the criticisms [7]: the complaint that Séralini used only 10 rats per 
group when the OECD guidelines [8] recommend 50 for investigations on 
carcinogenesis. Because the experiments did not follow the accepted
protocol, their results, they argue, can be safely ignored.

In the first place, this was not a willful disregard of the guidelines.
The experiment was designed to test for toxicity, and for that the
recommended group size is 10.

But Deheuvels pointed out that the fact Séralini and his colleagues had
used smaller groups than recommended makes the results if anything more
convincing, not less. That is because using a smaller number of rats
actually made it less likely to observe any effect. The fact that an
effect was observed despite the small number of animals made the result
all the more serious.
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