GM Watch
  • Main Menu
    • Home
    • News
      • Newsletter subscription
      • News Reviews
      • News Languages
        • Notícias em Português
        • Nieuws in het Nederlands
        • Nachrichten in Deutsch
      • Archive
    • 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
      • 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
      • Health Effects
    • Contact
    • About
    • Donations
News and comment on genetically modified foods and their associated pesticides    
  • News
    • Newsletter subscription
    • News Reviews
    • News Languages
      • Notícias em Português
      • Nieuws in het Nederlands
      • Nachrichten in Deutsch
    • Archive
  • 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
  • Donations
  • Videos
    • Index of speakers
    • Glyphosate Videos
    • Latest Videos
    • Must see videos
    • Health Effects
    • 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
  • Contact
  • About
SUBSCRIBE TO REVIEWS

GMWatch Facebook cornfield banner

INTRODUCTION TO GM

GMO Myths and Facts front page.jpg

SCIENCE SUPPORTS REGULATION OF GENE EDITING

Plant tissue cultures

GENE EDITING: UNEXPECTED OUTCOMES AND RISKS

Damaged DNA on fire

GENE EDITING MYTHS AND REALITY

A guide through the smokescreen

Gene Editing Myths and Reality

ON-TARGET EFFECTS OF GENE EDITING

Damaged DNA

News Menu

  • Latest News
  • News Reviews
  • Archive
  • Languages

News Archive

  • 2022 articles
  • 2021 articles
  • 2020 articles
  • 2019 articles
  • 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!

Are Cathie Martin and the JIC throwing medical ethics in the bin?

  • Print
  • Email
Details
Published: 28 January 2014
Twitter

Prof Cathie Martin and the John Innes Centre appear to be intending to test their GM tomato on sick humans before doing animal toxicological tests - a breach of the Nuremberg Code and basic medical ethics.

It's been announced that human trials will be carried out "soon" on heart patients with the GM purple tomato developed by Prof Cathie Martin at the John Innes Centre.

http://sundiatapost.com/purple-tomato-juice-from-canada-for-clinical-trial-in-uk/

This is extraordinarily irresponsible and breaches medical ethics. This tomato has not, as far as we know, been through proper toxicological testing in animals, a necessary step before commercialising a GMO in the EU.

Martin and the JIC may be trying to sidestep the EU's GMO food and feed regulatory process, which demands a 90-day animal test prior to commercialisation, by classing this as medical research.

But in that case, they will be contravening the Nuremberg Code, which was set up to police medical trials after the horrors of Nazi human experimentation in Germany under Hitler. The Code demands that medicines are tested on animals before being tested on humans.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Code

The World Medical Association (WMA) wording adopting the Helsinki Declaration on ethical principles for medical research involving human subjects is a little equivocal but still implies that animal experimentation is needed before human:

"Medical research involving human subjects must conform to generally accepted scientific principles, be based on a thorough knowledge of the scientific literature, other relevant sources of information, and adequate laboratory and, as appropriate, animal experimentation."

http://www.wma.net/en/30publications/10policies/b3/

A WMA publication on Ethics and Medical Research is, however, clear and unequivocal. It lays out the necessary procedures for testing a drug as follows:

1. Lab studies

2. Animal toxicological testing

3. Research on healthy volunteers

4. Research on a group of patients who have the disease being targeted, to look for beneficial effects on the disease and side-effects.

5. Full-scale clinical trial, double-blinded so that neither subjects nor physicians know if they are receiving the drug or a placebo.

http://www.wma.net/en/30publications/30ethicsmanual/pdf/chap_5_en.pdf

As far as we can tell from the (lack of) published studies on the GM tomatoes, it looks as if Cathie Martin and the JIC have missed out at least (2) (animal toxicological studies) and (3) (research on healthy volunteers), preferring to go straight to (4).

Martin took the same line in a previous round of media hype on the GM tomato in 2008, claiming breathlessly, “The next step will be to take the preclinical data forward to human studies with volunteers to see if we can promote health through dietary preventive medicine strategies.”

http://gmwatch.org/index.php/purple-tomato-can-beat-cancer

It's interesting to contrast her claims with the more measured press release from one of the JIC's collaborators in the research - the Universita Cattolica del Sacro Cuore. In that press release, Marco Giorgio from the European Institute of Oncology warned, "We have to consider that in this study we have not taken into account any possible toxicity so I shall say we’re far from considering a human trial."

http://gmwatch.org/index.php/purple-tomato-can-beat-cancer

If Martin and the JIC really are planning to rush ahead with human trials on sick people before doing basic animal toxicology testing, then they are putting patients at risk. Sadly this would be typical of the arrogant behaviour we have come to expect of pushers of this technology.

Menu

Home

Subscriptions

News Archive

News Reviews

Videos

Articles

GM Myth Makers

GM Reports

GM Myths

GM Quotes

Non-GM Successes

Contacts

Contact Us

About

Facebook

Twitter

Donations

Content 1999 - 2022 GMWatch.
Web Development By SCS Web Design