The Weekly Times: Another side to GM story

Letter published in The Weekly Times, August 3, 2011, p20.

WHAT about the next generations?

As an agricultural scientist (ex-CSIRO) and consumer, I am deeply concerned about the lack of evidence presented in The Weekly Times regarding safety of GM in both food and environment.

For example, your editorial “Farcical hit on science” (July 20) states that study after study has already proven GM foods are safe for human health and environment.

Please consider describing such studies for the readers.

There are no results of authorised animal feeding studies in the international literature demonstrating health over multiple generations.

Unauthorised studies show animal health and fertility problems after the first generation.

All so-called safe outcomes have been achieved in feeding studies with adult animals only.

This satisfies the requirements by our regulator to do feeding studies for at least 30 days.

Why don’t GM proponents lay our fears to rest by publishing GM feeding studies with five generations of mice or rats?

Long-term environmental impacts have also been underestimated with more and more studies in North America showing negative outcomes after 15 years of GM crops.

Dr Maarten Stapper,

BioLogic AgFood,

Holder, ACT.

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