Conflicts of interest at the European Food Safety Authority erode public confidence.

In September 2012 Professor Gilles-Eric Séralini, a researcher at the University of Caen in France, published his team’s findings that a Monsanto genetically-modified (GM) maize and Roundup herbicide caused increased rates of organ damage, tumours and mortality in rats fed over a 2-year period. The study was significant because it followed the rats over a longterm period, with the first tumours only appearing after 4–7 months. In contrast, the safety studies carried out by GM seed companies in support of EU authorisations typically last for a maximum of 90 days. In other words, these studies are incapable of seeing long-term effects such as those found in Séralini’s study. Europe’s food safety agency, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), dismissed Séralini’s study on the grounds of ‘inadequate design, analysis and reporting’. 6 However, far from laying to rest public concerns about GM foods, EFSA’s review of the study sparked renewed accusations of conflicts of interest of the type that have plagued the agency since its founding in 2002. EFSA’s critics questioned the objectivity of its review because the agency’s original opinion that the GM maize was safe had led to its EU authorisation. So, in dismissing Séralini’s study, EFSAwas in effect defending its own decision. Also, EFSA has argued against the need for mandatory animal feeding trials on GM foods, adding that if they are carried out, 90 days is sufficient to see any effects. 9 Member of the European Parliament Corinne Lepage said that, if EFSA had accepted that Séralini’s findings had any validity, this would have been equivalent to ‘cutting the branch on which the agency has sat for years’. EFSA was accused by scientific organisations and individual scientists of applying double standards to studies on GM foods. They said that EFSA rejected Séralini’s findings yet accepted less rigorously designed studies from industry as proof of safety of GM foods. In comparison with the industry studies, Séralini’s study: ▸ measured more parameters more often and over a longer period; ▸ tested more doses, allowing dose-response to be meaningfully analysed; ▸ analysed all animals for blood and urine chemistry instead of selecting 10 from each group of 20, a practice that enables bias; ▸ distinguished between effects caused by the GM maize, Roundup alone, and a combination of the two; ▸ excluded the additional ‘reference’ control diets included in industry tests. These ‘reference’ diets introduce variables from irrelevant factors, such as different growing conditions, that can mask toxicological differences arising from the genetic modification of the crop. This practice is contrary to an EU Directive which stipulates that the purpose of the risk assessment is to identify differences in the GM crop arising from the genetic modification. EFSA’s review of the study did not address this contentious issue of double standards. 6