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AUS– MISLEADING AD STUDY DISCREDITED
05 September 2008 Source: The West Australian
Misleading ad
The advertisement placed by radical anti-GM activist Scott Kinnear (Vote health and safety for you and your family, 4/9) represents a new low in gross misrepresentation of GM crops. The photograph of a malnourished rat was from a study by Russian scientist Irina Ermakova that has been totally discredited by a distinguished team of scientists convened by the journal Nature Biotechnology, and in a separate independent review by the British Food Authority.
First, it was found that the mortality rate among normal rats used in the study as a control was seven times the norm, indicating gross incompetence in the laboratory practices. Second, the sample size used in the study was three pups (baby rats) per feeding treatment, when 20 is the accepted practice by international food authorities in order to get a reliable result.
Third, there was no evidence of any equivalence of the GM versus non-GM diets fed, or a balance in the diets provided (this is critical when raw soybeans are known to contain anti-metabolites).
Fourth, examination of the photograph by animal feeding experts gives cause to doubt that the rats were even the same age as shown by the nose shape and ratio of head-to-body size. Finally, the study was sponsored by an anti-GM activist group that engaged Dr Ermakova despite the fact that she had no previous expertise in this area.
This is another example of the lack of truth in advertising during this election campaign, but is consistent with the ideological and non-scientific approach of the Carpenter Government on new technologies for food production.
Ian Edwards, chairman, AgBio Advisory Group,
AusBiotech. Salter Point.
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