2012년 유전자조작 작물과 라운드업 제초제가 아주 소량으로 종양의 발생, 내부장기의 심한 손상, 조기 사망을 일으킨다는 연구결과를 쥐 실험을 통해 학계에 보고한 세라리니 교수가 자신의 연구결과를 설명하기 위해 영국을 방문했다는 소식입니다. (세라리니 교수의 입장에서는
자신의 정당성을 주장하기 위해 적진 깊숙히 들어간 셈입니다.)
영국 정부는 EU 내에서 GM 작물의 상업화에 가장 앞장서고 있으며… 영국에 기반을 둔
사이언스미디어센터(Science Media Centre ; SMC)는 세라리니 교수의 논문이 학술지에
발표된 당일부터 과학적 정당성이 의심된다는 맹렬한 공격을 개시한 바 있습니다.
아래 뉴스에도 언급하고 있듯이… 사이언스미디어센터(Science Media Centre)는 스스로를
독립적 기관이라고 표방하고 있으나… 유전자조작(GM) 기업으로부터 자금지원을 받고 있는
사실이 폭로된 바 있습니다.
세라리니 교수의 연구결과는 몬산토, 다우케미칼 등을 비롯한 유전자조작 산업계(소위 ‘생명
공학업계’)의 경제적 이해관계에 치명적인 위협이 되었고… 사이언스미디어센터가 GM 산업계
의 이해관계를 앞장서서 대변한 것으로 추정됩니다.
이러한 공격은 도를 지나쳐 업계의 앞잡이 노릇을 하는 과학자들이 학술지에 세라라니 교수
팀의 연구 논문의 게재를 철회하라는 압력을 행사하는데까지 이르렸습니다.
세라리니 교수팀의 연구 결과가 과학적 사실에 어긋난다는 것은 똑같은 장기독성실험의 재현을
통해서 규명한 후… 이를 학술지에 발표하면… 당연히 논문 게재가 철회될 것인데도 불구하고…
연구진실성 규명을 위한 실험을 실시하지도 않고… 친유전자조작(Pro-GM)업계의 과학자들이
집단적으로 의사표명을 한 것은 마치 중세의 마녀사냥을 연상시키기에 충분한 모습이었다고
생각합니다.
세라리니 교수팀의 논문 발표 이후에도 몬산토 사를 대표로 하는 유전자조작 작물과 라운드업
제초제가 독성이 있다는 몇몇 연구 결과들이 발표되고 있습니다.
아직 유전자조작 작물과 라운드업 제초제의 안전성과 독성에 관한 과학적 결론이 나지 않은
상황이지만… 주로 경제전문지 등의 언론을 통해 괴담식으로 유포되는 상업적 이해관계를
앞세운 친유전자조작(Pro-GM)업계의 비과학적인 주장들은 전혀 전문적이지도 과학적이지도
않다고 생각합니다.
세라리니 교수팀의 논문에 대한 학계의 엄정하고도 개관적이면서 과학적인 연구진실성이
하루 빨리 밝혀져야 대중들의 건강과 안전이 기업의 상업적 이익에 위협받지 않을 것이라
생각합니다.
=====================
Seralini to visit UK to speak about his research
Prof Gilles-Eric Seralini will visit the UK in September to speak about his research on GM health risks.
The GM health study they don’t want you to know about
Claire Robinson
GMhealthriskweek.org, August 2013
http://www.gmhealthriskweek.org/the-study-that-should-have-been-a-wake-up-call-to-the-world/
Claire Robinson is editor of GMOSeralini.org, a public information website to counter misleading spin about the Séralini study.
She is an editor at GMWatch and research director at Earth Open Source.
The most detailed scientific study ever conducted on the health effects of a genetically modified (GM) food was published last year. The findings of the study, led by Prof Gilles-Eric Séralini at the University of Caen in France, were shocking. Rats fed over a two-year period with two Monsanto products, a GM maize and tiny amounts of the Roundup herbicide that the maize is engineered to tolerate being sprayed with, had increased rates of severe organ damage, tumours, and premature death.[1]
The study should have been a wake-up call to the world, but most members of the public and the scientific community are in danger of learning nothing from it. The reason? Within hours of the study’s release, an orchestrated media campaign swung into action to discredit it.
Quotes from scientists criticizing the paper were circulated by the UK-based Science Media Centre (SMC), an organization which claims to be independent and to aim to ensure the public have access to the best scientific evidence[2] – while at the same time taking funding from GM companies.[3] SMC director Fiona Fox later said that she took pride in the fact that the SMC’s “emphatic thumbs down had largely been acknowledged throughout UK newsrooms”. Few newspapers had covered the story, and those that did “used quotes supplied by the Science Media Centre”. She added that several television news programmes had also rejected the story after reading the quotes.[4]
The SMC’s efforts ensured that few British people heard about the study and many of those who did swallowed the SMC line that it was rubbish.
Now you have a once-in-a-lifetime chance to cut through the misinformation and spin that was fed to us and to hear the inside story of the study that’s got the GM industry – as well as scientists whose careers depend on it – seriously worried. Prof Séralini will visit the UK from September 2-8 on a rare speaking tour, speaking about the health risks posed by GM foods. He’ll speak in London, Cardiff, and Edinburgh as part of an expert panel.
Other panel members will include Ib Pedersen, a Danish farmer who found digestive and reproductive problems in his pigs when they ate GM feed and restored them to health by substituting a non-GM diet. Ib’s experience shows that toxic effects from a GM diet are not just something that happens to rats in a lab but that potentially put at risk all livestock – and all people.
There are powerful forces that don’t want you to hear this message. The US is currently trying to force GM foods into Europe through the EU-US free trade agreement and sees Britain as the weak link in European resistance to GM. That’s not because the British people want GM – they overwhelmingly do not – but because our government is rabidly pro-GM and is moving in lockstep with US government interests on the issue. Environment secretary Owen Paterson acts as a mouthpiece for GM industry talking points, even promising that the UK will ignore opposition to GM from the rest of Europe and “go it alone” on GM.
So please come to hear Prof Seralini and the other speakers. It’s never been more urgent that British citizens arm themselves with the information they have to offer.
[1] Séralini, G. E., et al. (2012). Long term toxicity of a Roundup herbicide and a Roundup-tolerant genetically modified maize. Food and Chemical Toxicology 50(11): 4221-4231.
[2] Science Media Centre (2013). Home page. http://www.sciencemediacentre.org/
[3] Powerbase (2013). Science Media Centre. http://www.powerbase.info/index.php/Science_Media_Centre
[4] Matthews, J. (2012). Smelling a corporate rat. Spinwatch, 11 December. http://www.spinwatch.org/index.php/issues/science/item/164-smelling-a-corporate-
