Home » test » Recent Articles:

Is a Major GMO Safety Test Ineffective?

June 17, 2008 Biotechnology, Environment, Health, News Comments Off

Jonathan Latham and Allison Wilson

Commercially, insect-resistant transgenic (GMO) plants are made by inserting a gene coding for one of a family of toxins produced by the soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis. These Bt toxins are regarded by most regulators to be safer for the environment than externally applied synthetic pesticides and this is because, as plant-expressed proteins, they are considered specifically targeted to organisms that consume the crop (Glaser and Matten, 2003). As a result of this understanding Bt toxins expressed by transgenics are managed as a ‘public good’ by the US Environmental Protection Agency (US-EPA 1998).
… Continue Reading

Study Questions Application of Animal Experiments to Humans

March 30, 2007 Health, News Comments Off

Jonathan Latham and Allison Wilson

Much of science, including healthcare research and important fields of risk assessment, depend, in part or in whole, on the presumption that animal models can usefully predict human responses to treatments. However, relatively little research has been done to test this assumption. A new study has compared the results of animal experiments and human clinical trials. The study selected six treatments in which the human clinical trials had shown a clear result (either benefit or harm). They compared these to the results of animal tests. In three cases the results were in concordance while in the other three they were not.
… Continue Reading

Science News on the Web

Why Independent Science News?

Scientific inventions and ideas shape the future. As science becomes ever more beset by commercial and ideological pressures, there is now an urgent need for scientific reporting and analysis from an independent, expert, public interest perspective. With this as its standard, Independent Science News works to shape a future that is biodiverse, just, and healthy for everyone.
More about us...

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 …

More Commentaries...

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 …

More Reviews...