Section at a glance

• Peer-reviewed studies have found harmful effects on the health of laboratory and livestock animals fed GMOs. Effects include toxic and allergenic effects and altered nutritional value.
• Most animal feeding studies on GMOs have only been short-term or medium-term in length. What is needed are long-term and multi-generational studies on GMOs to see if the worrying changes commonly reported in short- and medium-term studies develop into serious disease. Such studies are not required by government regulators.
• Industry and regulators dismiss findings of harm in animal feeding trials on GMOs by claiming they are “not biologically significant” or “not biologically relevant” – scientifically meaningless terms that have not been properly defined.
• No GM nutritionally enhanced (biofortified) foods are available on the market. In contrast, conventional plant breeding has successfully and safely produced many biofortified foods.
• The most-hyped GM nutritionally enhanced food, Golden Rice, aimed at combating vitamin A deficiency, has wasted millions in development funds – yet has not been proven safe to eat and is still not ready for the market. Meanwhile, proven and inexpensive solutions to vitamin A deficiency are available and only need proper funding to be more widely applied.