For related articles and more information, please visit OCA’s Genetic Engineering page and our Millions Against Monsanto page.

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has issued guidelines for two-year whole food feeding studies to assess the risk of long-term toxicity from GM foods.

http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/efsajournal/pub/3347.htm

This is a fascinating document which largely validates the methodology and choices of Prof, Gilles-Eric Seralini in his 2012 study on GM maize NK603 – methodology and choices that EFSA and countless other critics previously attacked him for.

Particular points to note:

1. EFSA admits that “no standardised protocol or guidelines exist for this type of study and [industry] applicants have to adapt protocols” – as Seralini did, too.

2. EFSA says the same strain of rat that was used in the 90-day study on the GM food should be used in the longer study – thus vindicating Seralini’s use of the Sprague-Dawley rat, which Monsanto used in its 90-day study on the same maize.

3. EFSA says animals should be fed ad libitum, which Seralini did, but which critics complained made it impossible to measure individual food and water consumption.

4. EFSA admits that you do not necessarily need a narrow and fixed hypothesis and that such a study can be “exploratory”, in spite of its previous claim that Seralini’s experiment was flawed because it (according to EFSA) didn’t have a clear hypothesis or objective.

5. EFSA recommends against using the extra control or “reference diet” groups commonly included by Monsanto in its 90-day studies and fed a variety of supposedly non-GM diets, on the grounds that the concurrent controls are the valid controls AND what is being tested is the difference between the GM variety and the non-GM comparator. Seralini was criticised by many for not including these spurious extra control groups and for thus having “inadequate controls”.