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Is GM corn really different to non-GM corn?
Friday, December 30, 2016 14:44
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| Big claims? Need to give them close scrutiny and pay attention to the experimental design |
Sci Blogs give a wide coverage of a new paper making big claims about “substantial equivalence” of GM corn. But what does close scrutiny of the evidence yield? Where are the data on range of expected variation in each parameter
‘Substantially equivalent’ is the term used by regulatory bodies as part of confirming a GM crop is safe for consumption. Earlier work claims GM corn is ‘substantially equivalent’ to non-GM corn.
Earlier this month a study was published in Scientific Reports claiming genetically modified corn is not substantially equivalent to non-GM corn, “Our molecular profiling results show that NK603 and its isogenic control are not substantially equivalent.”
Plant biologists have said this research doesn’t show what it claims to.
Rather than repeat what others have already said, I’m going to offer a brief explanation of what they have said.
For those in a hurry the main point that has been made is that they haven’t found what the typical range of amounts of each protein* is first, and without that you can’t tell if the differences they found are unexpected or not—the results end up hanging the air, neither here nor there.
There are other points, too, such as if the main differences observed are due to a fungal infection….
Source: http://gmopundit.blogspot.com/2016/12/is-gm-corn-really-different-to-non-gm.html
