Assessment of long-term, multigen feeding studies says GM foods are safe
Jason Major
TechNyou
A review of long-term and multi-generational animal feeding studies declares GM foods are safe, though there are many criticisms of the studies.
The review appears in the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology (in press). They analysed 12 long-term (greater than 90 days) feeding trials and 12 multi-generational feeding trial on a range of GM crops and traits. They analysed these alongside the many 90 day or less feeding studies.
Their overall conclusion is that GM plants are nutritionally equivalent to their non-GM counterparts and can be safely used in food and feed. The caveat here is that the reviewers had serious concerns with the study design and consequent strength of the statistical analysis for a lot of the studies reviewed. Topping the concern list was the lack of a comparable isogenic lines in the feeding trials. This means that the GM cultivar the researchers used was different to the non-GM one they used as a control. For example, if you go to the nursery to buy sweet corn, you will have loads of different varieties to choose from – all different cultivars. Each of these varieties (or cultivars) will have different nutritional and metabolomic/proteomic, etc profiles and consequently your body will produce different metabolites, etc in response to them. Hence if you have a specific GM cultivar, you should use the same cultivar without the transgenic trait for an accurate comparison.
There were also concerns with many trial having insufficient animals to provide sufficient statistical strength – the more you have the more certain you can be about your results.
Statistics V Biology
One thing that needs to be pointed out is that there is a big difference between something that is statistically significant and something that is biologically significant. In a few of the studies some parameters showed small differences that were statistically significant but not biologically significant. In the case of toxicology, it is the biologically significant that is important. For example, if 10 units of a particular toxin found naturally in a food is declared harmless for humans, and the normal range in a specific cultivar or plant is between 2 and 5 units. If your GM plant is found to have 6 units that may be declared statistically significant, but it is still going to be harmless from a biological perspective so has no biological significance and would be considered safe to eat.
It will be interesting to see if there is any controversy of this review. I have yet to see any which is surprising given the amount of uncertainty regarding the scientific methodology on some of the public papers and the criticism from the review authors. I would have thought this would have provided loads of ammunition for the opposing camps in this debate. Maybe it is too close to Christmas?
New stem cells, new chronic spinal cord injury clinical trial
The first cohort of in a Phase I/II clinical trial in chronic spinal cord injury has been successfully transplanted with neural stem cells.
University California Irvine: 15 December 2011
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New Scientist: 19 December 2011
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Boosting photosynthesis to double H production and using nanotech to store H safely as a solid.
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The Engineer: 16 December 2011
Brazil to test GM energy tree that grows 30% faster
A Brazilian pulp and paper maker is seeking approval to test its fast growing transgenic Eucalypt tree.
Bloomberg: 9 December 2011
TechNyou
Unless this tree was sterile I can’t see it ever being approved for Australia (assuming it works as claimed and is approved in Brazil). Eucalypts are introduced species and considered weeds in many parts of South America. In Australia, if such a trait was transferred to native Eucalypts there would undoubtedly be environmental consequences. And from a personal perspective, I don’t have sufficient information from the Bloomberg report to know the full story, but I am skeptical of the transgenic tree’s long-term use as a biofuel
The logic of critical thinking
How and why does our brain construct faulty arguments? How do we use logic to ensure we can think critically about stuff and avoid our usual mental shortcuts to make decisions?
We have put James Hutson’s nose to the grindstone again to come up with a series of spelndid videos that explore this important topic. They will be incorporated into our new Science Education Resource’s new critical thinking module, but are also available on TechNyou’s YouTube channel.
The video’s help give you the basics to thinking critically and constructing logical argument about important issues, in our case those issues are about emerging science and technologies.
The first video, “A valuable argument” is below. Video 2 and 3 are on the the YouTube chanel. There are 6 in the series and they will be uploaded over the coming weeks
Can GM-free biofortified crops succeed after Golden Rice controversy?
Howarth Bouis from HarvestPlus explains why their non-GM biofortified crops with higher portions of key vitamins can succeed in tackling malnutrition.
The Ecologist: 12 December 2011
TechNyou
This gives an insight into the issues of micro-nutrient deficiency worldwide. However, Bouis implies that HarvestPlus focus only on non-GM breeding technologies to develop biofortified crops. HarvestPlus fund the University of Melbourne research being done by Dr Alex Johnson to develop iron-enriched rice using transgenic (GM) technologies.
And some TechNyou commentary on the Golden Rice V Iron-enriched rice
Xenotransplantation: using pigs as organ and tissue donors for humans
Transplantation is the best available treatment for serious health problems such as diabetes, kidney failure and heart disease. Can pigs be our donors?
The Conversation: 14 December 2011
Why sunscreens are in the nanotechnology safety spotlight
With the inevitable march of technology, and recent forays into the field of nanotechnology, is all sunscreen safe?
The Guardian: 12 December 2011
TechNyou
The Friends of the Earth have released their 2011-12 Sunscreen guide this week. TechNyou has commented previously on some of the media and research related to nano sunscreens and the Education Unions decision to recommend that school not use sunscreens with nanoparticles. I will be posting some more details this week about what the latest research findings are on this topic, though I have just come from a seminar outlining some of this research and in a nutshell there is no evidence that the nanoparticles in sunscreen penetrate below the skin layer to be in contact with living cells. THe small amounts that do (at least for the research done with Zinc Oxide) are in quantities about 1000 less than what is naturally found in the body. The caveat here is that it applies to healthy and intact skin. More on this later
Previous commentary
Laser imaging assesses nanoparticles in sunscreen
Education Union and sunscreens
Jason, TechNyou
Nanoparticle mimics virus, offers new route to gene therapy
US researchers synthesized a new family of polymers to make a safe and efficient nanoparticle that can deliver genes into cells to kill them or treat disease.