when bad science, mass media, and luddism mix

There’s a good reason why politics and science don’t, and shouldn’t, mix. It’s one thing to use a number of thorough studies to inform policy. But trying to make law with cherry-picked studies is wrong from beginning to end. Don’t that that to The Guardian’s editor John Vidal. According to him, only GMO industry shills would dispute the widely ridiculed French study that tries to pin an often used weed killer on cancerous tumors in rats, smearing and ridiculing the chief researcher because they can’t handle the truth about their poisonous mutant plants coming out. Just ignore the fact that the chief researcher has a scathing anti-GMO book coming out in stores, and that his idea of peer review was to ban the press from publishing any criticism of his paper if science writers requested to see his work firsthand and solicit expert opinions.

Had a researcher working for Monsanto done the same thing, how much do you want to be that Vidal and his fellow anti-GMO crusaders would holler at the top of their lungs about bad science invading the public discourse? Tellingly, he applies this very double standard when presenting excuses for Gilles-Eric Séralini’s shoddy work, arguing that he used the same benchmarks as a typical Monsanto food safety study and therefore his control groups and timelines for the mice exposed to Roundup are valid. These, by the way, are the very same studies anti-GMO activists say are woefully inadequate to show anything conclusive. But then again, if you believe that any criticism of a study that says what to hear about GMOs is an industry conspiracy, I suppose you would think that industry studies are a proper rebuttal, even if you argue with their validity.

Here are the key issues. Séralini has a major conflict of interest and a heavy ideological slant he doesn’t even try to hide. He used rats known to frequently develop cancerous tumors by the end of a two year span. He didn’t show a relationship between tumor growth and frequency and the doses of Roundup used. The paper has numerous methodological and statistical flaws. And just to put the cherry on top, he sensationalized his findings and tried to ban the press from seeking second opinions before his formal announcement and the launch of his book. Even if you think that GMOs are pure mutated evil, you have to admit that this is a terrible way to do science and there are far better ways to show if GMOs are dangerous. Conducting a sound study and being open to criticism rather than just trying to make a political point would be one example. But for the environmentalist equivalent of global warming denialism, that’s very unlikely to happen…