Smell a rat? Results from animal feeding trials give us reasons to be earful, says Cundula Azeez

摘要

A few years ago the debate on the safety of GM was high profile but there was little evidence on either side. We were sure that GMOs (genetically modified organisms) were a health risk but the GM companies argued we were being irrational. The Government said decisions should be made on "sound science". Years later, we now have1 a body of science. But this indicates that GMOs really are unsafe. Industries use animal feeding trials to test whether their products are safe for humans. In the 1990s, the biotechnology company Calgene found that mice fed on its new product, Flaw Savr tomatoes, the first GM food, developed lesions in their gut wall, while seven out of 40 rats fed the GM tomatoes died within two weeks. In defiance of its own scientific advisors, the US Government decided to abandon animal trials to test GM safety and instead adopted an alternative approach from the industry, 'substantial equivalence'.