Biotech Bullying: French Government Withdraws from Long-Term GMO Study

Monsanto’s Roundup-containing GMO crops to tumors and organ damage, the French government called for a health agency investigation. Seeking to analyze the research and potentially ask European authorities to protect human health and abandon the use of GMO crops, France’s Agriculture Minister and others decided to sound the alarm.

The study was the first to ever examine the true effects of lifelong GMO consumption in rats, and was dubbed ”the most thorough research ever published into the health effects of GM food crops and the herbicide Roundup on rats.”

Finding an onset of mass tumors and damage to the kidneys and liver, the study had serious implications as to what large-scale GMO consumption is doing to humans. Since a serious lack of serious information surfaced on the long-term effects of GMO consumption, human consumption of GMOs itself was and is seen as a mad scientist experiment on a global scale.

This was a short term study which pointed to some hideous outcomes, and the scientific community was divided on its efficacy in measuring the true effects of GMOs. In order to solidify its findings that GMOs cause tumors in rats, a longer term study was to be conducted.

Both French Agriculture Minister Stephane Le Foll and Social Affairs Minister Marisol Touraine described the decision in a joint statement:

“Depending on ANSES’ opinion, the government will urge the European authorities to take all necessary measures to protect human and animal health,” they said.

The duo went on to highlight how the decision could go as far as generating an emergency suspension of Monsanto’s modified corn known as NK603 (maize) throughout Europe:

“(The measures) could go as far as invoking emergency suspension of imports of NK603 corn to Europe pending a re-examination of this product on the basis of enhanced assessment methods.”

Fast-Forward to Mid-2014

The French government Risk’OGM project was intended to follow up on the Séralini findings. In April of 2014, the government announced a budget allocation of 3.7 million Euros to the Risk’OGM project, which was more than Séralini’s total budget of 3 million Euros to carry out his first experiment.

Earth Open Source has learned from ANSES that the French authorities decided to fund a study which was only 6 months in length, even though a 2 year study would be incontrovertible within scientific circles.

The independent scientific research organization CRIIGEN was also to follow up on the controversial GM maize study. But they withdrew from the long-term study plans.

The study, entitled “Improved predictability of sub-chronic GMO toxicity by identification of early biomarkers of toxicity” ANSES explained, “aims at improving the 90 day study [the length of Séralini’s first experiment] in order to better and earlier detect potential side effects. This 6-month study will be carried out using various kinds of ‘omics’ analyses.”

It seems the French government has aborted its initial intention to conduct a long term study that could have answered some important questions about the true toxicity of RoundUp, making it difficult for biotech companies to continue purporting that their chemicals are ‘safe,’ and thereby helping to halt their monopoly over agriculture.

The six-month study they proposed will only open up more ambiguity about Roundup and would not definitively prove RoundUp’s toxicity. Though other studies, taken into consideration alongside the original Séralini study, make it obvious to most observers that GMOs are unsafe.

Depending on how the study is conducted, for example if both the control group and the treated group are given GMO diets, the study will essentially be another waste of time and money, and the results will be lost in ‘data noise.’

Has the biotech industry successfully scared another government silly, so much so that they are unwilling to carry out true scientific research on the long-term damage that GMOs could cause animals, people, and the environment?

It will enable industry and pro-GMO lobbyists to continue to lie about GMO’s safety. It supports the number one rule of the GMO industry and its lobbyists when it comes to scientific studies looking at GMOs and pesticide risks: Don’t look, don’t find. Here’s why:

Don’t Look, Don’t Find

“Omics” analyses can indeed add valuable information to our knowledge of GMO and pesticide health effects, but only in retrospect, after serious diseases like tumors or organ damage have already appeared. Such “omics” analyses can then look more deeply at pathways and biological processes through which the diseases arose.

If initial signs of potential long-term toxicity are identified through “omics” analyses in a short or medium-term study of only 3-6 months but the study is not extended to see whether any serious disease actually appears, then those initial signs can be easily dismissed as “not biologically relevant.”

This tactic was also used by GMO proponents and the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) as well as Monsanto to dismiss early signs of toxicity in Monsanto’s NK603 maize. It was only tested for 90 days. The dismissal of its toxicity using such a short ‘omics’ study led to the maize being approved.

Differing from France, the EU has announced a 2-year carcinogenicity study on NK603 maize to follow up on the Séralini findings. There are no protocols for publishing the findings of this new study, though.