Dame Jane Goodall, the renowned primate expert, has condemned ‘deluded’ politicians for pushing ‘Frankenstein Food’.

The highly respected academic has endorsed a new book, which argues the companies responsible for developing genetically modified farming and food have twisted the evidence to minimise the dangers.

Historically, critics of GM food have been lambasted by the GM companies, scientists who rely on their funding, and politicians, including the UK Government, as being ‘anti-science’.

However, Dame Jane argues that the advocates of GM food have ignored evidence of harm with the result it is they who are guilty of being ‘anti-science’.

The intervention is a powerful condemnation of the way biotech companies like Monsanto, Syngenta and Bayer, have forced GM crops and food on to dinner plates in the US without proper safety tests.

And she is joining a growing campaign warning that Britain and Europe must not drop safeguards that have kept GM crops out.

Dame Jane’s concerns have been raised in the foreword to a new book, ‘Altered Genes, Twisted Truth’, which is written by the American public interest lawyer, Steve Druker.

Its publication comes as the US is seeing a growing backlash against GM. Just last week it emerged that the country’s favourite chocolate manufacturer, Hershey, is to drop GM from its products.

Dame Jane said she has become appalled as what she calls a ‘shocking corruption of the life forms of the planet’.

She said the GM process, which involves adding foreign genes to plants to create toxins to fend off insects or give them immunity to being sprayed with chemical pesticides has fundamentally changed them.

However, she complains that supporters of the technology have committed a ‘fraud’ by trying to give the false impression that these new plants are essentially the same as those created by conventional plant breeding.