Scientist Challenges Monsanto: $10 Million If You Can Prove Me Wrong About GMOs

MIT graduate Shiva Ayyadurai’s offer is simple.

If the Monsanto Company can disprove his claim that there are “no safety assessment standards” for genetically modified organisms (GMO), he will give the agro-giant a $10 million building that he owns in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

That’s how strongly the inventor believes in the alleged danger of unregulated GMOs.

Ayyadurai - who engaged in a well-publicized spiritual ceremony with actress Fran Drescher and holds the first U.S. copyright for “email” - confirmed the details of his $10 million challenge via an exclusive interview with Patch on Thursday.

Ayyadurai’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.

“This is not a pro- or anti-GMO question,” Ayyadurai wrote in his abstract. “But [rather], are we following the scientific method to ensure the safety of our food supply? Right now, the answer is no. But we need to, and we can if we engage in open, transparent and collaborative scientific discourse, based on a systems approach.”

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.

Ayyadurai told Patch that he has made repeated attempts to contact and meet with Monsanto officials to discuss his findings, but that the agrochemical giant has ignored his requests.

“They know who I am,” Ayyadurai emphasized. “And they definitely know about our research.”

Patch reached out to the Monsanto Company via email seeking comment on Thursday, but did not receive a reply.

Photo and video courtesy of Shiva Ayyadurai

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