Russian study claims genetically modified foods are harmful for reproduction | Hacker News Reader

Russian study claims genetically modified foods are harmful for reproduction

english.ruvr.ru

32 pointschaostheory18 comments

This is prima facie stupid. Genetically modified is not a meaningful term; it is merely political. Furthermore, this was not a blinded study and — surprise! — the scientists got the result they clearly wanted.

How can you tell the study wasn't double blined? The article gives so little information, I'm not even sure where to find the original study or if it has been published.

I believe this is the original study: http://oagb.ru/lib.php?txt_id=12292

Alas, I cannot read it. Nevertheless, the way the story is told in the article, it is clear that this was not blinded. It is possible that the article was both clear and incorrect, I admit. (Also, I don't know what you mean by double-blinded in an animal study.)

From the scientist interviewed in the article, it is difficult to tell if the animals were even randomized, though I assume they were.

The last paragraph gives away the political nature of this experiment: "They suggest implementing the project, 'Safety Gene Technology' at the innovation centre, 'Skolkovo' which is being set up near Moscow."

Update: the Russian livejournal author's page is Google-translatable, and she states that this study was not even single-blinded. And she points out that this could all be an inbreeding effect, since not enough information is given in the study to rule that out.

The generalization simply can't be true - genetically modified food is a very broad category.

Seems like they tested one specific modified soy.

The article starts by claiming

The researchers discovered that animals that eat GM foodstuffs lose their ability to reproduce.

And goes on to briefly describe the study:

Campbell hamsters that have a fast reproduction rate were fed for two years with ordinary soya beans, which are widely used in agriculture and those contain different percentages of GM organisms...

Obviously they've drawn an incorrect conclusion. The strongest statement they could make is "a particular GM food caused problems in a particular animal".

This is so mind-bogglingly obvious that one wonders if they're just trolling.

If i ate soybeans for 2 weeks, never mind 2 years, i would probably not only lose my reproductive ability but also my lust for life.

This blog post by Russian-Ukrainian biologist explains, why this study is wrong in many ways: http://progenes.livejournal.com/90883.html (Russian)

"Conclusion: it is obvious that hamsters are breeding poorly and even dying because of some unknown causes, but this "study" can't tell anything about this causes"

The "control group of hamsters" being five couples is very reassuring. They can't possibly be wrong, with a sample of such epic proportions!

The original article goes on to say that "hair grew in the mouth of animals", and so on, all to 'suggest' a big government-sponsored research programme. These guys may need jobs badly, but this is just sad. Russia currently is living through a wave of blatantly bad science, on the scale of U.S. religious superstition wave. (look up one "Петрик")

No. These guys don't need jobs. They obviously need education and also to stop posing as scientists unless they adhere to acceptable standards.

As a related note, if any of you guys have a Netflix account, I'd highly suggest watching the film Food, Inc. It's on streaming, so you can watch it on your computer, Xbox, etc... Definitely an insightful film that relates to genetically modified foods.

Regardless of whether this particular research is any good, independent research into genetically modified food (and openness about the progress from the few market leaders) is desperately needed.

and especially http://www.responsibletechnology.org/utility/showArticle/?ob... for pictures of the hair inside the mouth

and http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1314908/ for related article published in peer reviewed journal

That last article doesn't seem to be related, unless it's really screwed up in translation - it's about rats bedding in corn, not hamsters eating soy.

Also, the article only mentions the word genetic once, and has this to say:

  Although we have not directly quantified the levels of LTX-diol   
  or THF-diol in corncob bedding by GC-MS, it is clear from HPLC 
  analysis of a number of corncob extracts that the concentration 
  of these disruptor/mitogenic agents in different lots or 
  varieties of corncob, and genetically engineered corn, vary 
  significantly

So it sounds to me like this substance occurs in all sorts of corn, GM or not...

    some in the third generation even had hair growing inside their mouths

I assume they took inbreeding in the hamster population into account. This could be the expression of a trait that already existed in the original population that was magnified by inbreeding (it's the third generation of GM soy eaters).

In fact, all the observed effects could be explained by the reduced genetic diversity in the hamster population.

These scientists do understand we have been genetically modifying our crops since the day we decided agriculture was a good idea.

Oh aye. Published where?

At least with GM food you know what's in it ;-)

To solve a problem, you need to create it first! (first rule of politics).

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