Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Suppressed Report Shows Cancer Link to GM Potatoes

Posted by Zonk on from the politics-and-potatoes-and-science-mix-poorly dept.

Doc Ruby writes "After an 8-year-long court battle, Welsh activists have finally been allowed to released a Russian study showing an increased cancer risk linked to eating genetically modified potatoes. While the victory of the Welsh Greenpeace members in the courtroom would seem to vindicate the work of the Russian scientists that did the original research, there are still serious questions to be answered. The trials involved rats being fed several types of potatoes as feed. The rats who were fed GM potatoes suffered much more extensive damage to their organs than with any other type; just the same, serious questions remain about the validity of the findings. The Welsh group wants to use this information to stop the testing of GM crops in the UK, tests currently slated for the spring of this year."

3 of 325 comments (clear)

  1. Garbage Science... by RexRhino · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Genetic modification is the artificial changing of DNA... you can say that a specific DNA change is harmful, so that a specific type of engineered potato is bad... but that doesn't say anything about GM foods. The safety or danger of the foods would have to be evaluated on the specific genetic changes made. Even then, the GM products don't carry any more risk than plants created by mutation breeding (in fact, GM was concieved as a less risky version of mutation breeding).

    That, of course, is totally ignoring the fact that the guy conducting the research was a hardcore anti-GM activist before the research. It is like asking activist creationists to do an impartial study on evolution.

  2. Re:Just bad science... by ColdWetDog · · Score: 4, Interesting
    I wouldn't necessarily make any statements about the general safety of Genetically Modified crops from this (or any other) single study or even experience with a single product. According to TFA, the potatoes in question were modified to produce (I assume additional) lectins. This is a broad class of potentially biologically active molecules that could be helpful or harmful at either "usual" dosages or the typically higher dosages found in these sorts of experiments.

    I haven't poured through the literature to see how good or bad this particular study is, but it's concerning that 1) someone's making GM crops with this molecule amplified (can't figure out why) 2) even a poorly done preliminary study seems to have suppressed instead of repeated and expanded.

    --
    Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
  3. Re:So...all potatoes are bad? by picob · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I confirm, potatoes are bad for rats. Potatoes contain glycoalkaloids a toxic compound, which can affect the digestive, nervous, and urinary systems. Cooking degrades this protein in some extent, but a small percentage will remain in the potato. While humans do not suffer effects because of their large body volume - you would have to eat many (green) potatoes - smaller animals often suffer from this. That's also why you shouldn't feed your dog potatoes.