Exactly a month ago, Professor Gilles-Eric Seralini and team from the University of Caen, France, published the findings of a two-year study on the long-term toxicity of a herbicide and a genetically modified maize, NK603, engineered to tolerate that particular herbicide. The study was done on rats fed with the maize and it showed alarming results with most of them developing tumours, liver congestions and necrosis.
The GM maize NK603, developed by Monsanto, is resistant to the effects of the herbicide, ‘Roundup.’ Roundup is a broad spectrum herbicide and can in principle, kill all plants. Genetically modified NK603 maize has a property that makes it insensitive to Roundup. That is, Roundup can be sprayed on this maize to kill all weeds without being harmful to the maize itself.
As soon as it was published in the scientific journal ‘Food and Chemical Toxicology’, there was a furore. The French scientists had observed significant disturbances - both biochemical and physiological - in rats, more in the case of herbicide than the genetically modified maize on its own. There were postings on Facebook which showed shocking images of rats with huge tumours, that were shared and shared all over the social media in the last couple of weeks.
Soon, Seralini-bashing too started. Looking back at the history of multinational corporates in shredding down research that did not match the safety claims of their products, this was nothing new. They called the study sub-standard, fraudulent and inadequate.
Though it was published in a reputed peer-reviewed journal with an impact factor of three, there was sharp academic criticism too.
Even the Elsevier Publications was not spared. That Seralini had a book coming on this topic did not help his cause.
The major criticism was about the small sample size he used, especially the control groups. Seralini used only ten animals per sex in the control group, whereas the standard for any cancer trial is 50.
The same control group was used as a reference for all different kinds of treatments he used for the feeding experiment. Too few control groups in relation to the treated group was pointed out as a major flaw in the design of the experiment.
However, Seralini supporters argued that this would have been true if this was a cancer study. They said that this was a toxicity trial and a minimum of ten per sex was enough for a toxicity study.
Besides, they pointed out that Monsanto had used 20 rats per sex group in its feeding trials, but published the effects on just ten, the same as the present study.
The second major criticism was about the breed of rats used. The Sprague Dawley rats are known to be prone to developing tumours, and in long-term feeding experiments the question as to how to differentiate between tumours that spontaneously occur and those which occur as a result of the feed was raised.
The answer was that the same rats were used by Monsanto in the 90-day trials to get authorisation for its maize. Besides, these rats are used in most animal trials.
There was also a hue and cry about the funding of the Seralini study, as it was supported by CRIIGEN, an organisation campaigning actively against GM crops. Given the fact that most GM research across the globe is funded by corporates or pro-GM crops institutions, this argument did not hold much water.
But, is this all about Seralini versus Monsanto or is it science? The French Health and Safety authorities now plans to investigate the maize variety NK603.
This study surely points to the need for more scientific studies on the long-term effects of both pesticides and weedicides and of course, the genetically- modified plants.