Back in 2005 then WA Agriculture Minister Kim Chance announced the Government would fund a feeding study of GM food in rats http://www.non-gm-farmers.com/news_details.asp?ID=2563 to be conducted by the Institute of Health and Environmental Research, which operates out of a post office box in an Adelaide suburb http://gmopundit.blogspot.com.au/2005/11/long-term-feeding-trials-funded-by-wa.html#!/2005/11/long-term-feeding-trials-funded-by-wa.html The trial was apparently supposed to examine the safety of genetically modified canola varieties http://www.non-gm-farmers.com/news_details.asp?ID=2574

Well, now we know what the WA taxpayer got for its money http://www.organic-systems.org/journal/81/abstracts/8106.html A study on pigs fed a mix of corn and soybeans and published in a niche organic journal no one has heard of and where authors have to pay to have their work published.

It is not even a very good piece of research. Here are some criticisms:

The whole study had problems including failure to properly determine whether inflammation of the stomach was real http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/once-more-bad-science-in-the-service-of-anti-gmo-activism/

The statistical analyses were wrong http://www.quantumforest.com/2013/06/ordinal-logistic-gm-pigs/

The evidence of harm claimed turned out to be pretty flimsy http://weedcontrolfreaks.com/2013/06/gmo-pig/

If you feed pigs different diets and measure enough stuff you will find a difference, but does it matter http://gmopundit.blogspot.com.au/2013/06/pigs-in-real-world-feed-them-different.html?m=1

If you don’t manage a pigs diet, you have no idea what it ate http://www.biofortified.org/2013/06/pig-feeding-study-gmo/

And the study conclusions themselves were just … well http://randomrationality.com/category/science/

Agronomist, I think this is all a bit much for us li’’tle ol’ OLOers to absorb.

Could you possibly summarise it and give us your opinion on what it all actually means. Thanks.