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The Goodman Affair: Monsanto Targets the Heart of Science

May 20, 2013 Biotechnology, Commentaries, Science Media 23 Comments
R Goodman

by Claire Robinson and Jonathan Latham, PhD

Richard Smith, former editor of the British Medical Journal, has jested that instead of scientific peer review, its rival The Lancet had a system of throwing a pile of papers down the stairs and publishing those that reached the bottom. On another occasion, Smith was challenged to publish an issue of the BMJ exclusively comprising papers that had failed peer review and see if anybody noticed. He replied, “How do you know I haven’t already done it?”

As Smith’s stories show, journal editors have a lot of power in science – power that provides opportunities for abuse. The life science industry knows this, and has increasingly moved to influence and control science publishing. … Continue Reading

The Experiment Is on Us: Science of Animal Testing Thrown into Doubt

May 6, 2013 Environment, Health, News 3 Comments

by Pat Dutt and Jonathan Latham, PhD

New scientific research has cast grave doubt on the safety testing of hundreds of thousands of consumer products, food additives and industrial chemicals.

Everyday products, from soft drinks and baby foods, to paints, gardening products, cosmetics and shampoos, contain numerous synthetic chemicals as preservatives, dyes, active ingredients, or as contaminants. Official assurances of the safety of these chemicals are based largely on animal experiments that use rabbits, mice, rats and dogs. But new results from a consortium of researchers and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggest such assurances may be worthless (Seok et al. 2013). … Continue Reading

Regulators Discover a Hidden Viral Gene in Commercial GMO Crops

January 21, 2013 Biotechnology, Commentaries 129 Comments
Cauliflower Mosaic Virus

by Jonathan Latham and Allison Wilson

How should a regulatory agency announce they have discovered something potentially very important about the safety of products they have been approving for over twenty years?

In the course of analysis to identify potential allergens in GMO crops, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has belatedly discovered that the most common genetic regulatory sequence in commercial GMOs also encodes a significant fragment of a viral gene (Podevin and du Jardin 2012). This finding has serious ramifications for crop biotechnology and its regulation, but possibly even greater ones for consumers and farmers. This is because there are clear indications that this viral gene (called Gene VI) might not be safe for human consumption. It also may disturb the normal functioning of crops, including their natural pest resistance. … Continue Reading

Seralini and Science: an Open Letter

October 2, 2012 Biotechnology, Commentaries, Health 47 Comments
Gilles-Eric Seralini

(Authors listed below) (Traduction Francaise)

A new paper by the French group of Gilles-Eric Seralini describes harmful effects on rats fed diets containing genetically modified maize (variety NK603), with and without the herbicide Roundup, as well as Roundup alone. This peer-reviewed study (Seralini et al., 2012), has been criticized by some scientists whose views have been widely reported in the popular press (Carmen, 2012; Mestel, 2012; Revkin, 2012; Worstall, 2012).  Seralini et al. (2012) extends the work of other studies demonstrating toxicity and/or endocrine-based impacts of Roundup (Gaivão et al., 2012; Kelly et al., 2010; Paganelli et al., 2010; Romano et al., 2012), as reviewed by Antoniou et al. (2010).

The Seralini publication, and resultant media attention, raise the profile of fundamental challenges faced by science in a world increasingly dominated by corporate influence. These challenges are important for all of science but are rarely discussed in scientific venues. … Continue Reading

Designed to Fail: Why Regulatory Agencies Don’t Work

May 1, 2012 Commentaries, Environment, Health 19 Comments
EPA Cleans up the San Juan River oil spill disaster 1972

William Sanjour*

Albert Einstein said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. We have been “reforming” regulatory agencies over and over again, and over and over again they have failed. Yet, as a result of the recent catastrophic failures of regulatory agencies, politicians and pundits are talking about the same old “Regulatory Reform” again.  “Fill the regulatory agencies with honest people who won’t cave in to special interests.”  “Give them more money, more authority and more people.”  But my experience has shown that by concentrating all legislative, executive and judiciary authority in one regulatory agency just makes it easier for it to be corrupted by the industries it regulates.

I worked for the US Environmental Protection agency for 30 years and lived through many cycles of “Regulatory Reform,” doing the same “reforms” over and over again and expecting different results. I’ve learned that the way to achieve true regulatory reform is to give regulatory agencies less money, less authority, fewer people but more intelligent regulations. The theme of this article is that by dispersing regulatory authority, rather than concentrating it, we would make corruption more difficult and facilitate more sensible regulation.
… Continue Reading

Psychiatrists plead to continue funding of genetic approaches to disease

August 30, 2011 Health, News 4 Comments

Jonathan Latham

Ninety six leading psychiatric geneticists have publicly requested their scientific funding agencies not to abandon the search for genetic links to mental health. In a letter, published Aug 9th in the journal Molecular Psychiatry, they argue that the ongoing failure to uncover significant disease genes for mental illness does not indicate that current research is fundamentally misdirected.

Instead, they believe that current experimental designs lack sufficient statistical power. And it is a defect they want remedied by further studies. “Since family history is a major risk factor” they write “we urge the major funding bodies worldwide to continue to support GWAS (Genome-Wide Association Studies) as a major investigative tool’. … Continue Reading

23andMe disproves its own business model

July 7, 2011 Health, News 1 Comment

Jonathan Latham

Online gene testing company 23andMe last week published its first genetic research study into Parkinson’s Disease. The study was funded by the participants (many of whom are customers of 23andMe), the company itself, and Google-founder Sergei Brin, who is married to 23andMe’s CEO and founder, Anne Wojcicki (1). Wojcicki is also personally subsidising the company and is a co-author on the paper.

23andMe’s study shows that two new genes it has discovered, plus all known existing genes linked to the disease, are not much better than random selection for predicting who will get Parkinson’s Disease. … Continue Reading

The Great DNA Data Deficit: Are Genes for Disease a Mirage?

December 8, 2010 Commentaries, Health, Science Media 4 Comments
Are Genes for Disease a Mirage?

Jonathan Latham and Allison Wilson

Just before his appointment as head of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), Francis Collins, the most prominent medical geneticist of our time, had his own genome scanned for disease susceptibility genes. He had decided, so he said, that the technology of personalised genomics was finally mature enough to yield meaningful results. Indeed, the outcome of his scan inspired The Language of Life, his recent book which urges every individual to do the same and secure their place on the personalised genomics bandwagon.

… Continue Reading

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Commentaries

The Goodman Affair: Monsanto Targets the Heart of Science

R Goodman

by Claire Robinson and Jonathan Latham, PhD Richard Smith, former editor of the British Medical Journal, has jested that instead of scientific peer review, its rival The Lancet had a system of throwing a pile of papers down the stairs and publishing those that reached the bottom. On another occasion, …

Is the Hidden Viral Gene Safe? GMO Regulators Fail to Convince

EFSA Head Office

by Jonathan Latham, PhD and Allison Wilson, PhD Having unwittingly allowed a viral gene into the food chain, the response of regulators so far has been to release statements intended to allay public concerns. These statements, however, are inadequate to meet a potentially major food crisis. Not only do they …

Regulators Discover a Hidden Viral Gene in Commercial GMO Crops

Cauliflower Mosaic Virus

by Jonathan Latham and Allison Wilson How should a regulatory agency announce they have discovered something potentially very important about the safety of products they have been approving for over twenty years? In the course of analysis to identify potential allergens in GMO crops, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) …

How Millions of Farmers are Advancing Agriculture For Themselves

SRI-grown Rice in China

by Jonathan Latham The world record yield for paddy rice production is not held by an agricultural research station or by a large-scale farmer from the United States, but by Sumant Kumar who has a farm of just two hectares in Darveshpura village in the state of Bihar in Northern …

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Reviews

The China Study: The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted and the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss and Long-Term Health

The China Study

Author: T. Colin Campbell, PhD and Thomas M. Campbell II ISBN: 1932100660, 978-1932100662 Publisher: Benbella Books (2004) What will it take for veggie stir-fry on rice to replace a beef burger on a bun as the all-American meal? A switch to a more plant-based diet has been standard dietary advice …

The Unhealthy Truth: How our Food is Making us Sick and What We Can Do About It

The Unhealthy Truth

Author: Robyn O’Brien (with Rachel Kranz) ISBN: 978-0-7679-3071-0 Publisher: Broadway books (2009) Allergies and food intolerances are serious medical conditions. They are the cause of many deaths and hospitalizations annually and they predispose to other illnesses. They can also exact a high toll in other ways since worry, inconvenience and …

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