I'm trying to avoid conflicts of interest so I was just wondering if all the scientists who test the long terms safety issues of gmos work for Monsanto?

Expert response from GMOAnswers Admin_1

Friday, 30/08/2013 18:02

No.  Many studies are performed by independent scientists.  In fact, a 2012 literature review by Snell et al provides a good summary of feeding studies with diets containing large amounts of GMO-derived ingredients (Snell C, Bernheim A, Bergé JB, Kuntz M, Pascal G, Paris A, Ricroch AE. 2012. Assessment of the health impact of GM plant diets in long-term and multigenerational animal feeding trials: a literature review. Food Chem Toxicol. 50:1134-48). 

 This paper also includes a section specifically devoted to long-term studies and provides funding information for each of these studies.  Independent scientists performed all of these studies, and most of the studies were independently funded as well.  However, only 50% of the studies list the funding sources, so we can only verify that those studies were independently funded.

It is also worth noting that feeding studies on our products that are submitted to regulators and are funded by industry are not conducted by industry scientists, but by independent contract research labs that also conduct similar kinds of studies for the food and pharmaceutical sectors.  These research labs comply with federal and international guidelines (known as Good Laboratory Practices (GLPs) on the conduct of research.  These labs would not be in business, nor would their results be acceptable to global regulators, if they did not accurately and consistently conduct these studies according to well established protocols and methods and prepare the results for the groups that have sponsored the studies.  These labs are also subject to inspection by federal agencies.