Recently, the food safety and food health worlds were both rocked when French scientist Gilles-Eric Seralini made a shocking announcement in regards to a proposed link between consumption of genetically modified corn and the development of cancer.
Seralini explained that his studies had turned up evidence that the occurrence of cancer in lab rats increased when the rats were fed corn that had been genetically modified. Cancer also increased in rats that had been allowed to consume water that had been spiked with trace elements of the weed killer Roundup. A paper detailing the findings of Seralini and his colleagues was published in the food safety journal Food and Chemical Toxicology.
French ministers in charge of such areas as health, ecology, and safe agriculture responded to the release of these study results by ordering the National Agency for Health and Safety to investigate the team’s findings further.
Nevertheless, it has recently been suggested that some of the claims made in regards to the potential link between genetically modified corn and cancer development may have been overstated, so health nuts needn’t jump the gun worrying just yet.
Many of the claims made in the study can’t irrefutably be linked to the consumption of the corn, as they haven’t been able to eliminate other factors such as chance from the mix effectively. Also, the data obtained from the actual studies were found by other health experts not to be complete enough to prove a link strong enough to necessitate policy changes.
That said, it’s been speculated that the government will not and cannot move forward with any proposed regulations based on the claims generated in this particular study. It is certainly not scientifically possible to draw any clear-cut conclusions about the safety of either Roundup or genetically modified maize stain NK603 GM based on these test results.
