Unethical GM Golden Rice study finally withdrawn

It’s the GM food that promises to heal the sick – and the one most often used to portray those who opppose GMOs as heartless child-murderers. Now an controversial study into GM Golden Rice has been retracted due to questions over its legitimacy.

August 5, 2015 by Lawrence Woodward

Golden_Rice

Support for genetically engineered Golden Rice is likely to be undermined as a Court decision leads to the retraction of a key study due to “multiple irregularities”.

The study, led by Tufts University researcher Guangwen Tang, involved feeding genetically engineered rice to children.

The study has faced criticisms over the validity of its results as well as its ethical basis since it first appeared in 2012. Even so, according to the journal Science, supporters of Golden Rice are dismayed by this latest setback.

Adrian Dubock, executive secretary of the Golden Rice Humanitarian Board in Switzerland says “This is a low point” but he thinks it is too soon to assess the impact on political support for golden rice.

In fact, despite all the hype and claims there is very little evidence that Golden Rice delivers – while alternatives are generally ignored by the media.

Scanty evidence eroded further

This news will be a blow to the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) which is leading the development of Golden Rice.

IRRI’s evidence of any actual nutritional benefit of rests largely on three research papers – including this retracted one – by Tang.

And, as a result of its internal investigation, Tufts has barred Tang from working with human subjects for two years after finding “multiple irregularities” in the study’s ethical conduct.

Ethical misconduct dismissed by GM supporters

Golden Rice has been engineered by adding genes which seek to allow the rice to make beta-carotene, a precursor for Vitamin A synthesis.

In this study, researchers compared feeding engineered rice with spinach or a supplement to 68 children aged 6 to 8 in Hunan province.

When this came to light there was a public outcry in China and throughout the world about using children as “guinea pigs”.

It then emerged that a number of significant ethical irregularities had also occurred.  These included misleading parents and teachers about the nature of the trial and a failure to obtain parental consent.

An investigation by the Chinese Center for Disease Prevention (CDC) found that approval documents had been fabricated and that Tang had brought Golden Rice from the United States to China illegally, without due declaration to the relevant Chinese authorities.

Golden Rice supporters have dismissed these ethical failings as irrelevant.

Doubt about the research results

Dubock believes that the study will be republished because the findings are robust and showed that the rice is as effective as spinach and vitamin supplements in providing vitamin A.

However, the study’s conclusions have also been criticised.

All the children in the study were given meals comprising of 20% fat and green leafy vegetables which is necessary for the beta carotene absorption and therefore raises doubts about the applicability of Golden Rice in extremely poor, nutritionally impoverished communities.

China’s CDC highlighted some significant discrepancies concerning the full details of the trial. In particular, as was reported in the journal Nature, the CDC’s investigation revealed that the children ate Golden Rice just once — and not lunch every day during the three-week study as the paper states.

“How much Golden Rice did the children have exactly?” asks Wang Zheng, a policy researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Policy and Management in Beijing in the Nature report.  “Either the researchers are lying about this now or they lied about it in their paper. It’s a serious offence either way.”

Wherever you look into the Golden Rice story there is a thread of myth, misinformation, disinformation, fabrication and fantasy which is far from golden.

 

  • This news story first appeared on the Citizens Concerned about GM website. Read the original here.
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