GM Watch
  • Main Menu
    • Home
    • News
      • Latest News
      • Newsletter subscription
      • Daily Digest
      • News Reviews
      • News Languages
    • Articles
      • GM Myth Makers
      • GM Reports
      • GM Quotes
      • GM Myths
      • Non-GM successes
      • GM Firms
        • Monsanto: a history
        • Monsanto: resources
        • Bayer: a history
        • Bayer: resources
    • Videos
      • Latest Videos
      • Must see videos
      • Cornell videos
      • Agriculture videos
      • Labeling videos
      • Animals videos
      • Corporations videos
      • Corporate takeover videos
      • Contamination videos
      • Latin America videos
      • India videos
      • Asia videos
      • Food safety videos
      • Songs videos
      • Protests videos
      • Biofuel myths videos
      • Index of GM crops and foods
      • Index of speakers
    • Contact
    • About
    • Links
    • Donations
    • How donations will help us
News and comment on genetically modified foods and their associated pesticides    
  • News
    • Latest News
    • Newsletter subscription
    • Archive
      • 2018 articles
      • 2015 articles
      • 2017 articles
      • 2016 articles
      • 2014 articles
      • 2013 articles
      • 2012 articles
      • 2011 articles
      • 2010 articles
      • 2009 articles
      • 2008 articles
      • 2007 articles
      • 2006 articles
      • 2005 articles
      • 2004 articles
      • 2003 articles
      • 2002 articles
      • 2001 articles
      • 2000 articles
    • Daily Digest
    • News Reviews
    • News Languages
      • Notícias em Português
      • Nieuws in het Nederlands
      • Nachrichten in Deutsch
  • Articles
    • GM Myth Makers
    • GM Reports
    • How donations will help us
    • GM Quotes
    • GM Myths
    • Non-GM successes
    • GM Firms
      • Monsanto: a history
      • Monsanto: resources
      • Bayer: a history
      • Bayer: resources
  • Videos
    • Latest Videos
    • Must see videos
    • Cornell videos
    • Agriculture videos
    • Labeling videos
    • Animals videos
    • Corporations videos
    • Corporate takeover videos
    • Contamination videos
    • Latin America videos
    • India videos
    • Asia videos
    • Food safety videos
    • Songs videos
    • Protests videos
    • Biofuel myths videos
    • Index of GM crops and foods
    • Index of speakers
    • Glyphosate Videos
  • Contact
  • About
  • Links
  • Donations
SUBSCRIBE TO REVIEWS

GMO INFO

10 Questions About GM Foods
Do GMOs increase yields and reduce pesticide use, and are they needed to feed the world? Find out in the 16-page document, 10 Questions About GM Foods.

News Menu

  • Latest News
  • News Reviews
  • Archive
  • Languages

News Archive

  • 2018 articles
  • 2017 articles
  • 2016 articles
  • 2015 articles
  • 2014 articles
  • 2013 articles
  • 2012 articles
  • 2011 articles
  • 2010 articles
  • 2009 articles
  • 2008 articles
  • 2007 articles
  • 2006 articles
  • 2005 articles
  • 2004 articles
  • 2003 articles
  • 2002 articles
  • 2001 articles
  • 2000 articles

Please support GMWatch

Donations

You can donate via Paypal or credit/debit card.

Some of you have opted to give a regular donation. This is greatly appreciated as it helps place us on a more stable financial basis. Thank you for your support!

2013 articles

Golden Rice study violated ethics rules, say Tufts

  • Print
  • Email
Details
Published: 18 September 2013
Created: 18 September 2013
Last Updated: 18 September 2013
Twitter

rice ears on plantation + Tufts University logo

Tufts' leader of the research team is to be banned from conducting research on human subjects for 2 years. Team members in China have already been sacked.

NOTE: It will be interesting to see whether the Tufts' report fully addresses the issue of the discrepancies revealed about the study by an investigation undertaken by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention that led to the sacking of others involved in the research.

In the light of these discrepancies, a policy researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences was quoted in the journal Nature as asking, "How much Golden Rice did the children have exactly? Either the researchers are lying about this now or they lied about it in their paper. It's a serious offence either way."

For multiple resources on Golden Rice:
http://gmwatch.org/index.php/articles/gm-reports/15024

Golden Rice Study Violated Ethical Rules, Tufts Says

Dan Charles, NPR, September 17 2013
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2013/09/17/223382375/golden-rice-study-violated-ethical-rules-tufts-says

Tufts University announced Tuesday that one of its researchers broke ethical rules while carrying out a study of genetically modified "golden rice" in China.

According to the Tufts report, the scientific conclusions of the study remain valid. The researchers had found that a single bowl of this rice can supply more than half of a child's daily vitamin A requirement — the most convincing evidence so far that golden rice can, in fact, be a useful tool in fighting malnutrition. But when the study was published last year, anti-biotech campaigners at Greenpeace China immediately called it a scandal, accusing the research team, led by Tufts' Guangwen Tang, of feeding children a "potentially dangerous product" without informing their parents of exactly what the children were eating.

Chinese media started investigating and found evidence that Tang and her collaborators in China had cut corners when it came to informing Chinese parents and Chinese regulatory authorities about details of the study. According to a report in Nature magazine, Chinese reporters found an email from a Chinese official involved in the study in which he explained that he was dropping any mention of genetic modification in some documents presented to the children's parents because it was "too sensitive."

In December of last year, the Chinese government announced that it was punishing several China-based researchers who were involved in the study, removing them from their jobs. According to the government, the researchers didn't obtain proper approvals before carrying out the study.

EXTRACT: Some American researchers were skeptical of the Chinese findings. They suspected that the researchers involved in this study were simply the victims of an anti-biotech backlash in China.

But Tufts, after spending more than a year carrying out its own review, now says that the study was not "conducted in full compliance with ... policy or federal regulations." According to the Tufts report, the researchers did not adequately explain the nature of golden rice and made some changes in the study without getting approval from the committee at Tufts that is supposed to review all research involving human subjects.

Guangwen Tang will be banned from conducting research on human subjects for two years. For two years after that, any research that she conducts will be under the direct supervision of another investigator.

Menu

Home

News

News Archive

News Reviews

Videos

Articles

GM Myth Makers

GM Reports

GM Myths

GM Quotes

How Donations Will Help Us

Contacts

Contact Us

About

Facebook

Twitter

RSS

Content 1999 - 2018 GMWatch.
Web Development By SCS Web Design