In the article “Health Risks of Genetically Modified Foods” published in Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition, 49:164–175(2009) some direct quotations from other sources were not identified as such.
On page 172 of the article, in the paragraph beginning “The lasting skeptical and/or ambivalent attitude.” the following text should have been identified as a direct quotation from Davos et al. (2007): “The lasting skeptical and/or ambivalent attitude of Europeans towards agro-food biotechnology and the continued controversies about the commercialization of transgenic agro-food products are illustrative of an ongoing legitimacy crisis. One could even interpret the stigma on agro-food biotechnology and its products as testifying to a “robust” societal disapproval: it signals a lack of trust in scientific institutions and expert systems, and voices a social response against the reduction of the complexity of the GMO issue to a solely scientific risk-based problem. Hence, a move from a merely scientific evaluation towards a socially more robust one—that addresses precaution and socio-ethical issues in a more “sensible” way, whilst making “sense” of the different stances taken in the GMO debate—is still sought after. It will be interesting to see whether new controversies show (triggered, for example, by GMO contaminations or traces of unapproved transgenic events in non-transgenic produces), how these will be communicated and developed in the societal climate, and how they will be interpreted and tackled by, and/or lead to new adjustments in the now running legal system.”
On page 171 of the article, in the paragraph beginning “17.2% of the fish meal.” the following text should have been identified as a direct quotation from Sanden et al. (2004): “17.2% of the fish meal was replaced with either GM or non-GM soy. A control diet composed of fish meal as the only protein source was used for comparison purposes. The transgenic sequences (120 and 195bp) and the lectin gene (180 bp) could be detected in the GM soy feed. In the fish GI tract, however, only the smaller DNA fragment (120bp) could be amplified from the content of the stomach, pyloric region, mid-intestine, and distal intestine. No transgenic or conventional soy DNA fragments could be detected in liver, muscle, or brain tissues dissected from sacrificed fish. The sensitivity limit of the method was evaluated to be 20 copies. Their data indicated that though GM
soy transgenic sequences may survive passage through the GI tract, they could not be traced in fish tissues.”
Beginning on page 169 with “Recent work with gene transfer research . .” the following text should have been identified as a direct quotation from Rasmussen and Morrissey (2007): “A recent work on gene transfer research which resulted in the production of the aquatic species with enhanced abilities in areas such as growth, cold tolerance, disease resistance, and metabolism of plant-based diets. Research with transgenic GHs has made the most progress, with the patented production of a line of Atlantic salmon capable of increased growth and feed conversion efficiency. This product has been licensed to a major biotechnology company and is currently awaiting regulatory approval for commercial use in the United States and Canada. Although transgenic research with invertebrates is far behind that for vertebrates, there is much potential for generic improvements among commercial bivalve species. Recent advances include development of successful, patented gene transfer methods, and research into boosting disease resistance. Despite the potential for GMOs in aquaculture, a number of environmental and human health concerns remain. Major concerns include escapement of transgenic fish into the wild, where they could disrupt natural gene pools through breeding with wild species, and the possible detrimental effects of introducing transgenics into the human and aquatic food chains.”
Lastly, on page 168, the following text should have been attributed to De Schrijver et al. (2007): “another aspect that is of concern when considering the extrapolation of the whole GM crop or food/feed toxicology and allergenicity studies carried out with single GM events to the GM stacked event, are the potential interactions of the newly introduced genes, regulatory sequences, and proteins (or its metabolites) with the host genome of the GM stacked event. Given that the transgenic DNA sequences/proteins are brought into a different genetic background, namely the stacked genetic background, their interaction with the genome might change, particularly if regulatory proteins, such as in experimental stress-resistant crops described in literature” are involved.
The authors of this article would like to apologize for not having clearly indentified the above text as direct quotations from other sources.