2026 Credibility and Reputation Report

The GLP is committed to full transparency. Download the report.

Global Gene Editing Regulation Tracker

Our interactive GLP global map explains the status of each country’s regulations for human and agricultural gene editing and gene drives.
Genetic-Literacy-Project-Annual-Report-.jpg

GLP 2021 Annual Report

The GLP is committed to full transparency. Download our 2021 Annual Report.

Month: May 2013

Improved DNA sequencing helps leukemia treatments

by

The following is an excerpt.

ST. LOUIS – Doctors can now view patients’ leukemia from the equivalent of a helicopter instead of an airplane with new DNA sequencing of cancer cells, an analogy described by Richard Wilson, director of Washington University’s Genome Institute.

The researchers led by Washington University studied the genetic profiles and mutations of 200 patients in St. Louis with acute myeloid leukemia, a blood cancer that can spread fast and is difficult to treat.

An average of 13 mutated genes were found in each patient’s cancer cells, which could give doctors a road map for how aggressive a patient’s cancer is and which drug might work best. As genetic coding becomes more accessible to cancer treatment centers, each patient could be tested for hundreds of dollars. Ideally, the coding could help doctors predict which patients would benefit from risky and expensive bone marrow transplants.

View the original article here: Improved DNA sequencing helps leukemia treatments

Connecticut: Don’t label GE food

by

The following is an edited excerpt.

The recent call for labeling of foods containing genetically engineered ingredients — especially on a state-by-state basis as in Connecticut — is unnecessary, unrealistic and uninformed.

As someone who grew up in Connecticut, I appreciate the state’s farmland preservation program and the thriving local agriculture. And as a pediatrician I know the weight new parents place on every decision affecting their children. I have made it my life’s work to help guide parents through these challenges.

This work, however, has been made even more complicated by the barrage of information and misinformation that we all encounter daily. What is most important is to help parents separate myth from fact, and recognize when emotion has trumped hard science. That is exactly what is at the core of a debate currently playing out in Connecticut over foods produced through biotechnology.

Read the complete article here: Don’t Label Genetically Engineered Food

Biological secrets of the criminal mind

by

The following is an excerpt.

What is science revealing about the nature of the criminal mind? Adrian Raine, a professor at the university of Pennsylvania, is an expert in the expanding field of “neurocriminology.” He has written The Anatomy of Violence, a sweeping account of crime’s biological roots, including genetics, neuro-anatomy and environmental toxins like lead. He spoke with Mind Matters editor Gareth Cook.

View the original article here: Secrets of the Criminal Mind

Kenya: National Biosafety Authority to ensure GM foods’ safety

by

The following is an excerpt.

Dr Willy Kiprotich Tonui is the chief executive officer (CEO) of the National Biosafety Authority (NBA). He is one of the leading scientists in Africa and the only Registered Biosafety Professional (RBP). Prior to his appointment, he served as a Principal Research Officer and Environment Coordinator (Immunology), Health and Safety at the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI). He spoke to Star Reporter Agatha Ngotho about his role in the NBA.

The National Biosafety Authority (NBA) was established pursuant to the provisions of the Biosafety Act No 2 of 2009. The overarching mandate of NBA is to exercise general supervision and control over development, transfer, handling and use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) so as to ensure human safety and animal health and provide adequate protection to the environment.

View the original article here: Kenya: National Biosafety Authority to Ensure GMO Foods Safety

Israel Police skirt law, create migrant DNA database

by

The following is an excerpt.

Police have been collecting for over a year now the DNA of African migrants who cross into Israel from Egypt and are incarcerated at the Negev’s Saharonim detention facility. The police wanted to find a way to collect the DNA of the migrants before they disappear in Tel Aviv, as a means of helping them solve crimes in which African migrants are suspected of involvement.

Senior police officials had sought permission in the past to collect such samples, and had even approached Knesset committees about it, but were turned down after encountering public opposition and legal hurdles. Until January 2012, police had no legal means of collecting the DNA. Only the Israel Prison Service can legally collect the samples, but those it took were not the right kind to help police investigations.

Police then found a way of getting around the obstacles to collecting the samples. They did so using the fact that by entering the country illegally, the migrants were committing a security-related crime. This meant that the police were authorized to collect DNA samples from suspects in such a crime − the African migrants.

View the original article here: Israel Police skirt law, create migrant DNA database

Using DNA technology tack mosquitoes and fight malaria

by

The following is an excerpt

Malaria is responsible for about 700,000 deaths annually in sub-Saharan Africa alone, and a team of Texas A&M University researchers is doing their best to help stem this perpetual tide of human suffering.

Dr. Giridhar “Giri” Athrey, post-doctoral associate with Texas A&M’s department of entomology vector biology group, is the lead author of a study recently published in the open-access journal PloS Genetics. The research aims for the first time to accurately measure pre-and post-control mosquito populations using DNA technology

View the original article here: Recently published research targets malaria mosquito control woes

“Jews a genetic race” theory attacked by DNA expert

by

The following is an excerpt.

Scientists usually don’t call each other “liars” and “frauds.”

But that’s how Johns Hopkins University post-doctoral researcher Eran Elhaik describes a group of widely respected geneticists, including Harry Ostrer, professor of pathology  and genetics  at Yeshiva University’s Albert Einstein College of Medicine  and author of the 2012 book “Legacy: A Genetic History of the Jewish People.”

For years now, the findings of Ostrer and several other scientists have stood virtually unchallenged on the genetics of Jews and the story they tell of the common Middle East origins shared by many Jewish populations worldwide. Jews — and Ashkenazim in particular — are indeed one people, Ostrer’s research finds.

It’s a theory that more or less affirms the understanding that many Jews themselves hold of who they are in the world: a people who, though scattered, share an ethnic-racial bond rooted in their common ancestral descent from the indigenous Jews of ancient Judea or Palestine, as the Romans called it after they conquered the Jewish homeland.

View the original article here: ‘Jews a Race’ Genetic Theory Comes Under Fierce Attack by DNA Expert

There’s a genetic goldmine in the Black Sea

by

The following is an excerpt.

The Black Sea sediment record has a terrific variety of past plankton species that left behind their genetic makeup – the plankton paleome.

Using a combination of advanced ancient DNA techniques and tools to reconstruct the past climate,  Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution marine paleoecologist Marco Coolen , Giosan and colleagues have determined how communities of plankton have responded to changes in climate and the influence of humans over the last 11,400 years. 

“DNA offers the best opportunity to learn the past ecology of the Black Sea,” says Coolen. “For example, calcareous and organic-walled dinocysts are frequently used to reconstruct past environmental conditions, but 90 percent of the dinoflagellate species do not produce such diagnostic resting stages, yet their DNA remains in the fossil record.”

View the original article here: Black Sea: There’s Genetic Gold In Them Thar Sediments

Bad brains: Did my DNA make me do it?

by
Criminal brains

Can neuroscience shed light on why people turn violent? Are perpetrators of violence suffering from a medical condition that demands a public health reaction that might radically alter the way criminals—or those views warily—are handled? Did those genetically endowed lesions in my frontal lobe make me do it? Adrian Raine, author of the recently released new book The Anatomy of Violence: The Biological Roots of Crime, believes that may be so. Raines taps into the emerging field of neurocriminology, which takes the current fascination with neuroscience —many sober scientists would say overhyped fad—into uncharted legal territory. The book has garnered interesting reviews, most notably in New Scientist (“makes a convincing case that violent criminals are biologically different from the rest of us”) and New York Journal of Books (“The Anatomy of Violence will convince even the most skeptical that there is a genetic or biological cause for the violence exhibited by psychopaths across all cultures.) Not so fast, says Michael Gazzinga in a provocative analysis in The Wall Street Journal. Gazzinga follows the logic of this emerging science as it has made its way into the legal system. In the UK, for example, a new law allows authorities to preemptively lock up as a preventive measure a person deemed suffering from “dangerous and serious personality disorder.” Certainly, as Raine suggests, new perspectives about how the brain works are both interesting and potentially important. Biology undoubtedly plays critical roles in violence. However, considering the current empirically frothy, loosey-goosey state of the ‘science’ of neuroscience, appeals for socially complicated preemptive public health responses and experimental legal interventions may be decidedly premature.

Vermont: GMO labeling won’t pass this year

by

The following is an excerpt.

With time ticking down in this year’s Vermont Legislative session, it’s becoming clear that lawmakers won’t pass a bill requiring labels on genetically modified food before wrapping up their work for 2013.

The House Judiciary Committee isn’t expected to finish its work on the measure and send it to the full House for debate until next week. On Friday afternoon, committee members were digging into the legal weeds, examining opinions from the Hawaii attorney general, an industry group and legislative lawyers in Oregon on how well such a measure might hold up in court.

View the original article here: GMO labeling won’t pass this year

The evolution of prenatal disease

by
pregnant bw x

The following is an editorial summary.

Genetics and evolution have shaped human pregnancy — and the risks of babies developing diseases like gestational diabetes — for as long as mankind as existed, but we’re just now beginning to tease apart the interactions between natural selection, pregnancy, and disease. As Carl Zimmer writes at his National Geographic Blog:

In a paper to be published in Trends in Genetics, the researchers argue that pregnancy has been one of the most important targets of natural selection in all of human biology. Mutations that raise the success rate of pregnancies let women have more offspring, who can spread their genes throughout a population. Pregnancy has also posed huge risks to women that could threaten their own survival. A woman’s reproductive success depends not just on her newborn child surviving, but on her own survival as well.

Zimmer explores the many ways in which evolution and genetics can help to explain ethnic and geographic variance in disease rates among pregnant women and their offspring.

View the original article here: What To Expect When You’re Expecting, By Charles Darwin

Additional Resources:

  • “Maternal-fetal health and natural selection,” Gene Expression, Discover Magazine Blog
    Razib Khan offers a more technical perspective, tying the paper at the center of Zimmer’s piece into a larger context of evolutionary theory.

UK: GM crops aid farmers, citizens and the environment

by

The following is an edited excerpt.

Biotechnology has delivered an increase in farm income while providing substantial benefits to both farmers and citizens. That’s the take a way from a new study from United Kingdom-based PG Economics – “GM crops: global socio-economic and environmental impacts 1996-2011.”

The study also says crop biotechnology was responsible for producing an additional 110 million tons of soybeans and 195 million tons of corn from 1996 to 2011. “Where farmers have been given the choice of growing GM crops, adoption levels have typically been rapid.” says Graham Brookes, director of PG Economics, and co-author of the report.

View the original article here: GM crops aid farmers, citizens, and the environment, study says

 

A new way to create genetically modified mice to model human disease

by

The following is an excerpt.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – Whitehead Institute Founding Member Rudolf Jaenisch, who helped transform the study of genetics by creating the first transgenic mouse in 1974, is again revolutionizing how genetically altered animal models are created and perhaps even redefining what species may serve as models.

“This new method is a game changer,” says Jaenisch, who is also a professor of biology at MIT. “We can now make a mouse with five mutations in just three to four weeks, whereas the conventional way would take three to four years. And it’s rather straightforward, probably even easier than the conventional way.”

View the original article here: SCIENTISTS REVOLUTIONIZE THE CREATION OF GENETICALLY ALTERED MICE TO MODEL HUMAN DISEASE

 

Washington: One grocer already labeling GMO products

by

The following is an edited excerpt.

Before Stephen Trinkaus slapped “GMO Alert!” labels on dozens of products in his Bellingham grocery store, he asked customers what they wanted. The choices were: do nothing, label products that contain genetically modified ingredients (GMO means genetically modified organisms) or get rid of the items altogether.

Customers overwhelmingly chose labels, which began appearing on Terra Organica’s shelves in March.

View the original article here: Customers pushing for GMO in labeling in state

Activist groups pressures Abbott to remove GMOs from infant formula

by

The following is an edited excerpt.

Shareholders of Abbott Laboratories will vote on whether the manufacturer of Similac, a leading brand of infant formula, should adopt a policy of sourcing ingredients that have not been genetically engineered. The vast majority of corn and soy-based ingredients in processed foods in the United States, including infant formula, come from genetically engineered crops.

“Based on the body of existing research, nobody should be eating GMO foods, especially not babies,” says Charlotte Vallaeys, Policy Director at Cornucopia. The Cornucopia Institute, a farm and food policy research group, filed the resolution, in calling on Abbott Laboratories shareholders to vote yes on the resolution. Cornucopia also recently launched a social media campaign, on Facebook and Twitter, and a petition drive.

View the original story here: Pressure Mounts to Remove GMOs from Infant Formula; Abbott Laboratories Shareholders Set To Vote on Non-GMO Policy

 

General Mills maintains opposition to labeling GMOs

by

The following is an edited excerpt.

Ken Powell, chairman and CEO of General Mills, restated his opposition to mandatory labeling of genetically modified organisms. The conference, called Brainstorm Green, was put on by Fortune.

In an unedited transcript posted by the magazine, Powell said GMOs are safe and they’re part of a solution to feeding the world’s growing population. Powell said he didn’t have a problem with specialty retailer Whole Foods’ recent announcement it would require GMO information on labels.

View the original article here: General Mills’ Powell maintains opposition to labeling GMOs

The ignorance of Whole Foods

by
fd e e

The following is an excerpt.

STANFORD, Calif. — Whole Foods markets are big business in this part of the world, upscale havens for rich shoppers seeking “healthy” foods. But notwithstanding their financial success, the two co-CEOs of the company are utterly clueless.

When one of them, John Mackey, gave a talk to Stanford MBA students in 2010, it was replete with airy-fairy New Age ideas. “Why should the purpose of business be to make money?” he asked.

Whole Foods is widely referred to as “Whole Paycheck” — because that’s what you’ll spend shopping there.

There are more holes in Mackey’s worldview than in his stores’ insect-ravaged organic arugula. 

View the original article here: Would you buy food from morons? (If not, don’t go to Whole Foods.)

Additional Resources:

Walking the ethical edge: ‘Made-to-order’ embryos address genuine needs

by
Human embryo e

An important debate has erupted around the desire for infertile couples to have children and how best to service this growing need.

The latest round of ethical contretemps is an intriguing April article in The New England Journal of Medicine, “Made-to-Order Embryos for Sale—A Brave New World?” which discusses—comprehensively and dispassionately—many of the concerns raised about embryo donations, whether gifted or for sale.

It was a response to the controversy touched off last fall by a report in the Los Angeles Times featuring a Davis, California for-profit embryo selling business that opened in 2010. That story stirred an ethical tizzy. “I am horrified by the thought of this,” the article quoted Andrew Vorzimer, a Los Angeles fertility lawyer, who voiced his belief that there was a huge and disturbing distinction between clinics that arranged “friendly” donations of embryos and ones that paired anonymous ones. “It is nothing short of the commodification of children.”

As if on cue, the NEJM report written by I. Glenn Cohen, a lawyer and Co-Director of the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard University and Eli Y. Adashi, physician-scientist and Immediate Past Dean of Medicine and Biological Sciences at Brown University, brought out a familiar rebuke from the Center for Genetics and Society, which called the made-for-order’ IVF model “truly terrifying.”

Fist, let’s acknowledge the “eeeew” factor. The idea of selling any body part, let alone the combination of sperm and egg that leads to the formation of an embryo, can be disconcerting at first (or even second) thought. I would argue it’s far less provocative than aborting embryos (disclosure: I’m a strong abortion rights supporter), a key point CGS—known for its selective and highly idiosyncratic ethical choices—only obliquely addresses, and then in a way dismissive of abortion opponents.

The question that CGS fails to ask—though more mainstream ethics groups and abortion rights advocates address it all the time—is to what degree we “own” our own bodies. There are already several ways in which people can sell their bodily parts or products, ranging from livers to breast milk to bone marrow, and from blood to hair. In fact, the shortage of sperm and egg donors (in 2010, the last year for which data in the United States were available, fewer than 1000 embryo donations were recorded) has prompted robust discussions around the world about the potential benefits and challenges of a for-profit model.

Twenty-five years ago, I reported a story for NBC News about the nascent market for selling kidneys that was then budding in India. The practice was condemned by many people in the US, particularly ideological liberals, as a commodification of human life—even as thousands of people died each year on waiting lists because of a shortage of donated kidneys. Now the New York Times runs opinion pieces endorsing it. “People should not have to beg their friends and family for a kidney, nor die while waiting for one,” wrote Andrew Berger, a research analyst for GiveWell, a nonprofit that works closely with donors, last year.

There’s now a groundswell of support for the kidneys-for-sale model, particularly among those with kidney disease and their families, disgusted by the authoritarian views of so-called ethical gatekeepers that have intimidated lawmakers. Many bioethics organizations such as the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University—which 15 years ago objected to the buying and selling of kidneys—have now come full circle, favorably featuring those who believe a for-profit model has virtues. Center assistant director Miriam Schulman recently cited an article in the Kidney International Journal of the International Society of Nephrology, quoting AD Friedman and AL Friedman:

At least debating the controlled initiation and study of potential regimens that may increase donor kidney supply in the future in a scientifically and ethically responsible manner, is better than doing nothing more productive than complaining about the current system’s failure.

It’s clear from the Los Angeles Times article that California Conceptions, one of small number of for-profit embryo donation centers in the US, is serving a genuine need. For infertile couples, making babies is not cheap. The clinic appears to be thriving by providing a service to desperate infertile couples that cannot afford the astronomical price tag, which starts at $20,000 and can sometimes exceed $100,000, for the hit-and-miss adventure of multiple rounds of in vitro fertilization (IVF) using donated embryos. Dr. Ernez Zeringue offers his Davis, Ca. patients a reassuring guarantee: $9,800 or your money back.

Invoking the specter of eugenics, as CGS does, is unpersuasive. Forced eugenics, as practiced in the 1920s and 30s and supported most aggressively by “reformers” on the left and right (including the founder of Planned Parenthood) who championed sterilization laws, is clearly inappropriate. That’s not what’s on the table, however. We practice eugenics—which merely means ‘good genes’—all the time. Birth control, nonprofit embryo donations, pre-conception DNA screening tests, amniocentesis and even Match.com for baby-desirous singles who “select” potential mates based on targeted qualities, such as income and education, are all forms of eugenics—accepted and even celebrated by society. Abortion, widely supported by libertarians and political liberals, is a form of eugenics. The selective approbation attached to for-profit embryo donation comes across as just plain odd.

Cohen and Adashi, the NEJM article authors, offer thoughtful guidance through the ethical thicket of embryo donation. As they note, there is really only one critical difference between the current, expensive model that excludes the majority of people who need this service and the for-profit model: a legal framework. The sale of gametes—human eggs and sperm—is already legal and widespread around the world. The crucial issue, it would seem, is “the lack of clear legal guidance as to the parentage of the embryos in question.”

As the NEJM authors note, “[I]t may be difficult to claim that respect for personhood requires that the sale of embryos be prohibited at a time when parentally sanctioned embryonic destruction (with or without the generation of a human embryonic stem-cell line) is being practiced. Even if one believes that embryos deserve special respect not granted to gametes, it is far from clear why the sale of embryos to facilitate family building is any more contrary to that respect than the destruction thereof.”

Carping about or in some cases ignoring the failures of the current IVF system, seems the preferred choice for those opposed to even debating the benefits and challenges of a for-profit embryo market. Unless we as a society are determined to reserve the right of reproduction by infertile couples to the wealthy, we should welcome options.

Jon Entine, executive director of the Genetic Literacy Project, is a senior fellow at the Center for Health & Risk Communication and STATS (Statistical Assessment Service) at George Mason University.

Navigating the agricultural biotech minefield: When an MIT study is not an MIT study

by
b e ca e

Despite what you have read on the Internet, an MIT study has not shown that glyphosate, the herbicide used in conjunction with Monsanto’s line of Roundup Ready genetically modified seeds, is behind “most of the diseases and conditions associated with a Western diet,” including “gastrointestinal disorders, diabetes, heart disease, depression, autism, infertility, cancer, and Alzheimer’s disease.”

Last week, an overly credulous Reuters article summarizing a study by non-experts in a “pay for play” journal with no credibility among scientists quickly spread around the web, under headlines that almost invariably cited “an MIT study” and linked the herbicide and the biotech plants it is used with to a litany of diseases and disorders. Respected science journalists Keith Kloor and Paul Raeburn have written thorough take downs of the paper and Reuters article in question. In short: It’s not a study (no data is presented); the “MIT” comes from the fact that one of the researchers happens to be affiliated with the university in a way that has nothing to do with genetics or chemistry;  and shame on Reuters for propagating such sketchy journalism masquerading as “science.”

I should be used to credulous journalism and suspicious science; as someone with a background in evolutionary biology, I know the tactic of taking ideology, trussing it up like proper science by placing questionable articles in questionable journals and brandishing science-like jargon and parading it across the cultural stage—the folks behind Intelligent Design have been doing this for ages. Yet here I am, M.S. in science writing from MIT itself,  having been taken in—at least momentarily—by the shoddy work of two people who have at best produced a terrible effort at science and at worst an ideology-driven bit of scaremongering dressed up in science’s clothes.

I’m here not to trash the uncritical coverage or the paper itself but to offer some perspective on navigating the intellectual landscape of agricultural biotechnology which is full of well-hidden mines just like this one, primed to explode on well-meaning, intelligent, educated—and trusting—laypeople. I’m here to admit how difficult it can be, even for people with relevant training, to invest the time and mental energy required to calibrate their bullshit detectors. All the same, it is possible and necessary to separate science from pseudoscience. I want to walk you through my own process of evaluating the paper—not from a position of authority but from that of an educated person trying to muddle through.

Seth Mnookin, author of The Panic Virus and current member of the MIT graduate program in science faculty, offered his comments about the fiasco via email: “Anytime a study is claiming to have discovered the reason for a literal grab bag of diseases—in this case, everything from IBD and ADHD to autism and Alzheimer’s—huge, blaring alarm bells should go off. These are dramatically different diseases; presuming to find one cause doesn’t just stretch the imagination, it sounds insane.” Mnookin was one of several people who blasted Michael Pollan on Twitter for sharing a link to the Reuters report.

This is bullshit detection 101: If someone claims they’ve figured out everything that’s wrong with American politics and it’s all because there was a second shooter at JFK’s assassination, you would rightfully give them a sidelong look.

When alarm bells fire, it’s time to dig. Even if you lack formal scientific training, it’s good practice to call up a copy of the paper if you can (here’s the one we’re talking about). The abstract is almost always readable, and you can find out who the authors are and what sources they cite.

At a quick glance, this paper gives the impression of being a proper piece of scientific writing. It’s in what sounds like a reputable journal, Entropy, and formatted like other academic papers, with an interminable list of citations. You might laugh at the idea of being tricked by formatting, but the human brain is particularly good at recognizing patterns, and conscious or not we’re influenced by how “official” a document looks. Why else would a resume in comic sans evoke laughter?

However, from the first page, the report is riddled with danger signs. The two people listed as authors are an “independent scientist and consultant” and a member of MIT’s computer science and artificial intelligence laboratory – neither is a geneticist or biochemist or biologist or botanist or nutritionist or anything else that might lend them expertise in the matter of glyphosate’s effects on human health.

By the second page, despite those 280-odd citations, the authors have made a major claim without citing any evidence: “Research indicates that the new RNA and DNA present in genetically engineered plants … have not yet fully understood biological effects.” Given the impressive literature that exists documenting the safety of genetically engineered plants, it seems rather glib to hinge your entire argument on a premise without providing a single piece of supporting evidence. In fact, the biological effects of new RNA and DNA in genetically engineered plants has been widely studies in dozens of articles. With a few controversial exceptions, the overwhelming consensus of mainstream geneticists and major international science bodies is that the biological impacts of genetically modified crops are benign and GE foods are safe for human consumption.

The authors ignore 98% of the studies to focus on a single discredited one. The authors cite the now-infamous work of French scientist Gilles-Eric Seralini, whose deeply flawed study linking Roundup to cancer in rats has been roundly rejected by the scientific community. Not good.

The paper doesn’t get any better. The authors jump from unsupported conclusion to unsupported conclusion and from one disorder to another, daisy-chaining the supposed deleterious effects of glyphosate on our gut bacteria as a facile explanation for colitis and autism and obesity. At no point do they perform any original experiments or provide any direct evidence of the links between the various rungs in their daisy-chain of doom – it’s all couched in far-fetched plausibility-as-evidence.

Anyone with a clear head can tell you that just because something is remotely possible does not make it so. This entire paper is simply 30 pages of long-shot arguments for the plausibility of a too-bad-to-be-true story using the world’s most notorious herbicide to explain every ailment under the sun.

Even worse, they wave away all of the evidence of safety accumulated over glyphosate’s 30 years of use. It’s extensively tested and is known to be one of the mildest herbicides used in agriculture today—as much as 100 times less toxic than many commonly used agricultural chemicals. It is widely used for agriculture, horticulture, and silviculture purposes, as well as garden maintenance (including home use). The EPA considers glyphosate to be noncarcinogenic and relatively low in toxicity. It does not bioaccumulate and breaks down rapidly in the environment.

There are other factors pointed out to me by Mnookin, Kloor and Raeburn—including the fact that the journal Entropy requires authors to pay for publication, much like the vanity presses that churn out terrible books for the sake of author’s egos and a quick buck.

The fact remains that it took a few hours—and the help of more experienced journalists—for me to fully grasp the massive scale of flaws in this study; simple baseline skepticism wasn’t enough. That’s a huge amount of time that few people have at their disposal (especially folks who are not getting paid to look into these things).

Unfortunately, this is the state of affairs surrounding the trumped-up, histrionic and admittedly exhausting debate around the health and safety of genetic modification and agricultural biotechnology—it’s as rife with pseudoscience and misleading wooly-headed nonsense as discussions over Intelligent Design and the alleged dangers of vaccines (pet pseudosciences of the right and left, respectively). If you want to be involved in the discussion, or even just want to make informed decisions, though, wading through this mess is the price of entry.

Kenrick Vezina is Senior Editor for the Genetic Literacy Project and a freelance writer and educator based in the Greater Boston area.