The Homemakers United Foundation yesterday accused the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of trying to mislead the public by running an advertisement that says there is insufficient scientific evidence that genetically modified (GM) food causes cancer.
The agency placed a half-page advertisement in the Chinese-language United Daily News on Wednesday last week entitled “Is genetically modified food carcinogenic? There is not enough scientific evidence!” It cited statements from a biotechnology professor in Taiwan, the vice president of a food company in South Korea and FDA Director Yeh Ming-kung. The advertisement claimed that a renowned experiment by French scientist Gilles-Eric Seralini — which showed that laboratory rats had higher cancer rates when fed with genetically modified corn — was removed by its publisher because of the small sample size and the breed of rats used for the experiment.
The foundation accused the FDA of quoting the specialists out of context to suit its own purpose and of wasting taxpayers’ money to convey so-called “scientific facts.” It said that officers from Monsanto Co, the world’s largest producer of genetically modified seed, had visited Taiwan in April, and questioned whether the agency had placed the advertisement to pave the way for genetically modified food products.
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