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As proof of GMO safety, Little cites EU Commission report that failed to test any commercialised GMO for safety!

Dr Julian Little of the GMO industry lobby group, the Agricultural Biotechnology Council, has been misleading the public about GMO safety studies.

Talking to the Daily Mail, Little (item 1 below) disputes the description of the Factor GMO study as the largest ever study on GM. He appears to believe that the largest ever study was a report (not a study in itself) by the EU Commission which concluded that GM foods were no more risky than non-GM foods.

What Little fails to tell us is that while this report swallowed 300 million Euros of public money, it failed to investigate the safety of a single GMO that is actually in our food and feed supply!

The authors of GMO Myths and Truths searched the report for published animal feeding trials with GMOs and were only able to find five.

None of the studies tested a commercialized GM food; none tested the GM food for long-term effects beyond the medium-term period of 90 days; all found differences in the GM-fed animals, which in some cases were statistically significant; and none concluded on the safety of the GM food tested, let alone on the safety of GM foods in general.

The findings of three of the studies raised concerns, including differences in organ weights and immune responses in the GM-fed animals. These findings should be followed up in long-term studies.

Therefore the EU research project provides no evidence that could support claims of safety for any single GM food or of GM crops in general.

It does provide yet more evidence that all GMOs are potentially unsafe and should be tested in long-term studies that can answer the questions raised by the handful of 90-day mini-studies performed by the EU researchers.

Julian Little appears to have misrepresented science and misled the readers of the Daily Mail.