EXTRACT: Lynas also claimed in the RT TV interview... that "in the EU these [safety] tests [on each new GM product that reaches the market] are all done independently and they're done by independent scientists".

This is so badly wrong that it's hard to know how any media outlet could ever again take Lynas seriously as a "scientific" authority.
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Mark Lynas and the safety of GM foods
Comment by GMWatch

Mark Lynas in his recent Oxford Farming Conference speech said there is a scientific consensus that GM foods are safe. But as Doug Gurian-Sherman has pointed out:

"While there is broad consensus on climate science, there is anything but on many aspects of GE science."
 http://blog.ucsusa.org/science-dogma-and-mark-lynas/

And this includes safety.

In his Oxford talk Lynas is actually very light on any specifics about why he feels such confidence in the safety of GM for human health. But in a subsequent interview with RT TV he is pushed on the issue and his answers are revealing.
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hu018hlyH1Y

Early on in the interview Lynas says, "My change of heart comes from the fact that I've spent a long time studying the science on biotechnology." Lynas goes on to claim yet again that there's a scientific "consensus" that GM foods are safe, but he also asserts in the interview that tens of millions of dollars' worth of tests have been done and that there has "never" been any evidence of harm.

He also makes the claim in the interview that "in the EU these [safety] tests [on each new GM product that reaches the market] are all done independently and they're done by independent scientists".

All of this is untrue. Let's take the "never" been any evidence of harm first.

For a lineup of tests on GM foods that found toxic effects, see the long list here:
 http://www.earthopensource.org/index.php/3-health-hazards-of-gm-foods/3-1-myth-gm-foods-are-safe-to-eat

A 2009 review by Dona and Arvanitoyannis (2009) found that most studies on the health risks of GM foods indicated that they caused toxic effects including hepatic, pancreatic, renal, or reproductive effects, and altered the hematological, biochemical, and immunologic parameters.
(Dona, A. and I. S. Arvanitoyannis (2009). "Health risks of genetically modified foods." Crit Rev Food Sci Nutr 49(2): 164ˆ175.)

A 2011 review of the scientific studies on safety aspects of GM foods found around an equal number of studies that concluded risk and studies that concluded safety.
(Domingo, J. L. and J. G. Bordonaba (2011). "A literature review on the safety assessment of genetically modified plants." Environ Int 37: 734ˆ742.)
However, the review concluded that most of the studies that claimed safety were conducted by biotechnology companies responsible for commercializing these GM plants.

A review by Snell et al (2011) of the health impacts of GM diets in long-term tests is often cited by GM proponents as showing GM foods are safe but in fact it provides no such proof.
(Snell, C., et al. (2011). "Assessment of the health impact of GM plant diets in long-term and multigenerational animal feeding trials: A literature review." Food and Chemical Toxicology.)
Some of the studies cited by Snell:
*do not examine health effects but are nutritional feeding studies of interest to farmers, looking at effects like milk yield and body weight gain
*are not conducted over the lifetime of the animal and so do not test for the effects of lifetime consumption
*do in fact find signs of toxicity, which are dismissed either by the authors of the original studies or by Snell et al as not being biologically significant
*have serious methodological shortcomings that limit the conclusions that can be drawn from them, such as not giving basic information like numbers of animals used; using very small groups of animals that are insufficient to prove safety; or not using the non-GM isogenic (genetically the same) variety as the comparator for the GM crop (biotech companies generally refuse access for independent researchers to the necessary research materials, which are the GM crop variety and the non-GM isogenic variety grown side by side in the same conditions). Snell et al point out these methodological shortcomings in studies that find risk and safety alike. But then, in an example of the double standards that we‚ve come to expect of GM lobbyists, Snell et al accept the findings of safety from these methodologically compromised tests at face value while rejecting the findings of risk!

A review by Kvakkestad et al (2007) of scientists' views on the ecological risks of releasing GM crops found no consensus on safety and found that views depended on funding:
"The GM crop issue is characterised by low consensus among scientists. This study has revealed two distinct and independently coherent perspectives on GM crops. Perspective 1 emphasises that the environmental effects from releasing GM crops are unpredictable, while perspective 2 emphasises that GM crops are useful and present no unique risks. No ecologists are associated with perspective 2, while all the scientists employed in the GM-industry are associated with perspective 2. Publicly funded scientists are likely to hold perspective 1, while scientists that are funded by the GM-industry are very likely to hold perspective 2."
(Kvakkestad, V., et al. (2007). "Scientists' perspectives on the deliberate release of GM crops." Environmental Values 16(1): 79ˆ104.)

Lynas also claimed in the RT TV interview, as we've noted, that "in the EU these [safety] tests [on each new GM product that reaches the market] are all done independently and they're done by independent scientists".

This is so badly wrong that it's hard to know how any media outlet could ever again take Lynas seriously as a "scientific" authority.

GM crops are authorized for commercialisation in the EU on the basis of safety and other tests done by the company that wants to market them. That means Monsanto, Syngenta etc. Sometimes the company will publish a short 90-day toxicological test in a scientific journal, but this is not a prerequisite for commercialisation and often occurs AFTER the GM food has already been commercialised. The quality of these tests has consistently been criticised by NGOs, scientists, and members of the European Parliament. Often, toxic effects are found but are dismissed by industry and/or regulators as not biologically significant - a claim that Seralini's recent 2012 study showed up for the nonsense it is, since the toxic effects found in Monsanto's 90-day test on NK603 maize did indeed escalate into serious organ damage, tumours, and premature death in Seralini's long-term 2-year test.
 http://gmoseralini.org/

In claiming that GM tests are done by independent scientists, Lynas may be thinking of the EU research project on GM foods, published in a report called A Decade of EU-Funded GMO Research (2001ˆ2010). However, this project has nothing to do with pre-market safety testing of GM foods. Some animal feeding studies were, as part of this project, carried out on GM rice, a crop not commercialised in the EU or, as far as we know, anywhere in the world. The findings were not reassuring but gave cause for concern, albeit there were the usual sorry attempts by the Commission and pro-GM lobbyists to spin the project as showing safety:
 http://www.earthopensource.org/index.php/3-health-hazards-of-gm-foods/3-2-myth-eu-research-shows-gm-foods-are-safe

Other tests under this project were carried out on commercialised GM corn which has already been in the EU food and feed supply for years, and also found worrying effects:
 http://www.rodale.com/gm-foods-facts

Lynas has had as much opportunity as we've had to dig out this evidence. Why won't he engage with it? It seems, as Prof John Vandermeer has said, that he's determined to end his science education at elementary level.
 http://www.foodfirst.org/en/GMO+uproar+in+EU

Or is it that his idea of scientific consensus is whatever the pro-GM lobby tells him?