Gallery1. Most criticisms of Séralini’s study wrongly assume it was a badly designed cancer study. It wasn’t. It was a chronic toxicity study – and a well-designed and well-conducted one. (more…)
Criticism: Séralini’s study was so badly designed that no conclusions can be drawn from it
Summary answer:
This criticism hinges on the incorrect assumption that Séralini’s study was intended to be a carcinogenicity study. The critics say that Séralini used too few rats of a strain prone to tumours, so the tumours seen may have
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Criticism: Séralini’s study does not conform to internationally accepted protocols
Summary answer:
No mandatory protocols exist for GM food safety testing. Industry is free to design its own tests, which are generally weak. Séralini designed a protocol to test the long-term health effects of a GMO and its associated pesticide.
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Criticism: Séralini’s findings do not justify his conclusions
Summary answer:
This criticism centres on the incorrect assumption that Séralini’s study is a carcinogenicity study, and concludes that it is poorly designed for this purpose. But Séralini’s study was not a carcinogenicity study, but a chronic toxicity study. Thus
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Criticism: Séralini used too few animals to draw any conclusions
Summary answer:
Séralini used ten rats per sex per group – the same number of animals as Monsanto analyzed for blood and urine chemistry in its 90-day tests claiming to show that GM foods are safe. This is the same
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Criticism: The statistical methods Séralini used are inadequate and his experiment has no statistical power
Summary answer:
According to standard carcinogenicity protocols, Séralini did not have enough animals to do a statistical analysis on the increased rates of tumours and mortality. He did have enough for a statistical analysis on the biochemical measurements, which confirmed
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Criticism: Study designed to achieve pre-determined outcome/Study objectives unclear
Summary answer:
Séralini has been criticized on both these grounds, though they contradict one another. In fact, Monsanto, not Séralini, is guilty of conducting studies with a pre-determined outcome. Also, the GM authorization system is inherently biased, in that industry
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Criticism: Séralini used a type of rat naturally prone to tumours
Summary answer:
The Sprague-Dawley (SD) rat strain that Séralini used is also used in long-term 2-year toxicity and carcinogenicity studies by industry and academic scientists, as well as in 90-day studies on GMOs. If this was the wrong type of
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Criticism: Tumour incidence and mortality rates were within “historical norms” and should be dismissed
Summary answer:
Many of Séralini’s critics say that the tumour incidence and mortality rates fall within the range of “historical norms” and so can be dismissed. The critics are referring to historical control data – data from other experiments and
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Criticism: The fact that 30% of control females got tumours shows this rat is an unreliable model
Summary answer:
The Sprague-Dawley (SD) rat is an excellent human-equivalent model for predicting cancer in long-term (two-year) studies. It gets around the same number of tumours as humans do over its lifespan and as with humans, these increase with age.
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