Scientist Challenges Monsanto To $10M GMO Debate, NJ High School Will Be Battleground

The place… Livingston High School.

The debate… an alleged lack of safety standards for genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

The prize… a $10 million building.

As part of an unprecedented, multi-million challenge to the Monsanto company – one of the world’s largest producers of GMOs - MIT graduate and Livingston High School Hall of Famer Shiva Ayyadurai will return to his alma mater on Dec. 21 to participate in a school-sanctioned public debate about his research.

And if the crusading scientist loses, he’s going to be out $10 million.

Ayyadurai - who engaged in a well-publicized spiritual ceremony with actress Fran Drescher and holds the first U.S. copyright for “email” – first confirmed the details of his unique challenge to Monsanto via an interview with Patch in November.

• See related article: Scientist Challenges Monsanto: $10 Million If You Can Prove Me Wrong About GMOs

The scientist’s multi-million dare to Monsanto - one of the world’s largest producers of GMOs - revolves around his alleged discovery of the accumulation of high levels of formaldehyde in GMO-engineered plants, and his resulting shock that “acceptable standards for testing” do not exist.

Ayyadurai asserted his position in a paper published in Agricultural Sciences, a peer-reviewed trade journal.

Here is Ayyadurai’s official challenge to the Monsanto Company, as told to Patch:

“If Monsanto can disprove the fact that there are no safety assessment standards for GMOs, the conclusion of our fourth paper, then I will give them my $10 million building.”

• See the full position paper online here.

School administrators confirmed with Patch that the debate, slated to begin at 7 p.m. in the LHS auditorium, will be open to the public and that Monsanto representatives have officially been invited to attend the event.

“We see this as an opportunity for our students to discuss real world science,” LHS Spokeswoman Marilyn Joyce Lehren told Patch.

Lehren explained how Ayyadurai involved four Livingston High students in the research that would eventually inspire his $10 million challenge.

“When [Ayyadurai] visited the school, a connection was made between Ayyadurai and the Livingston High School Science Research Program. This connection quickly became a working relationship between Ayyadurai’s company Cytosolve and four students in the program. The premise of this working relationship was to expose these students to research strategies used at Cytosolve to investigate real world issues. The information provided by these four students was used in a published paper, with all four students listed as contributors.”

Ayyadurai said that so far, Monsanto representatives have denied they received his challenge and research, but that he hopes that the company will be present at the Dec. 21 debate.

MONSANTO RESPONDS

Charla Lord, a spokeswoman with Monsanto, provided Patch the following statement:

“Mr. Ayyadurai’s allegation that there is no safety assessment of genetically modified foods is uninformed. GM crops undergo safety assessments that are more rigorous and thorough than assessments of any other food crop in history. The safety assessment strategy ensures that new GE crops are developed and tested in accordance with comprehensive risk assessment strategies and international safety assessment guidelines.”

According to Lord, those guidelines include:

• World Health Organization – Safety Aspects of Genetically Modified Foods of Plant Origin
• Food and Agriculture Organization – GM Food Safety Assessment
• Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development – Safety Evaluation of Food Derived by Modern Biotechnology
• Codex Alimentarius - Principles for the risk analysis of foods derived from modern biotechnology
• Codex Alimentarius - Guideline for the conduct of food safety assessment of foods derived from recombinant-DNA plants

“Regulatory agencies around the world then develop their own national biosafety laws and frameworks derived from these international standards,” Lord told Patch. “In many countries, there is not just a single regulatory authority, but as many as seven, each with the responsibility of assessing a particular aspect of safety. The extensive safety data are then subjected to review by hundreds of risk assessors and scientists across a wide range of disciplines.”

Lord continued:

“Second, Mr. Ayyadurai’s computer model has already been reviewed by The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), which recently published its assessment in a technical report on November 3 concluding, “Considering that the authors do not provide information on the input data and the algorithm used in the model, that the model is not validated, and that no empirical studies have been presented to support the predictions of the model, EFSA is of the opinion that the author’s conclusions are not supported.”

Lord concluded:

“Last, we do not know Mr. Ayyadurai, and are not aware of repeated – let alone any – professional, scientific attempts by him to meet with us to discuss the rigorous safety standards and testing established to ensure the safety of biotech crops. While this appears to be a stunt, if he is truly interested, we would welcome the opportunity. And if he is serious about the building we would be willing to make arrangements with a charity.”

Photo caption: Shiva Ayyadurai appears with musician Neil Young at a 2015 Vermont press conference to speak about GMOs.