GenØk - Centre for Biosafety, Tromsø, Norway.
Food Chem Toxicol. 2018 Jan;111:268-274. doi: 10.1016/j.fct.2017.11.023. Epub 2017 Nov 16.
Recent genetically modified plants tend to include both insect resistance and herbicide tolerance traits. Some of these 'stacked' GM plants have multiple Cry-toxins expressed as well as tolerance to several herbicides. This means that non-target organisms in the environment (biodiversity) will be co-exposed to multiple stressors simultaneously. A similar co-exposure may happen to consumers through chemical residues in the food chain. EFSA, the responsible unit for minimizing risk of harm in European food chains, has expressed its scientific interest in combinatorial effects. However, when new data showed how two Cry-toxins acted in combination (added toxicity), and that the same Cry-toxins showed combinatorial effects when co-exposed with Roundup (Bøhn et al., 2016), EFSA dismissed these new peer-reviewed results. In effect, EFSA claimed that combinatorial effects are not relevant for itself. EFSA was justifying this by referring to a policy question, and by making invalid assumptions, which could have been checked directly with the lead-author. With such approach, EFSA may miss the opportunity to improve its environmental and health risk assessment of toxins and pesticides in the food chain. Failure to follow its own published requests for combinatorial effects research, may also risk jeopardizing EFSA's scientific and public reputation.
最近的转基因植物往往同时具有抗虫和耐除草剂的特性。这些“叠加”的转基因植物具有多种 Cry-toxins 的表达，以及对几种除草剂的耐受性。这意味着环境中的非目标生物（生物多样性）将同时受到多种胁迫因素的共同暴露。消费者也可能通过食物链中的化学残留物而受到类似的共同暴露。EFSA 是负责最大限度地降低欧洲食物链中危害风险的责任单位，对组合效应表现出了科学兴趣。然而，当新的数据显示两种 Cry-toxins 如何共同作用（增加毒性），以及当与 Roundup 共同暴露时，相同的 Cry-toxins 表现出组合效应时（Bøhn 等人，2016），EFSA 驳回了这些新的同行评审结果。实际上，EFSA 声称组合效应与其无关。EFSA 通过引用一个政策问题并做出无效假设来为这种做法辩护，而这些假设本可以直接与主要作者进行核对。采用这种方法，EFSA 可能会错过改善其对食物链中毒素和农药的环境和健康风险评估的机会。未能遵循其自身关于组合效应研究的请求，也可能危及 EFSA 的科学和公众声誉。
