Publications on GM food toxicity are scarce. An article in Science magazine said it all: “Health Risks of Genetically Modified Foods: Many Opinions but Few Data”.1 In fact, no peer-reviewed publications of clinical studies on the human health effects of GM food exist. Even animal studies are few and far between.

In the mass media in recent months the debate about genetically modified (GM) foods has increased, and scientific journals have not been an exception. Science and other prestigious journals such as British Medical Journal, Lancet, and Nature have contributed to this broad debate, which was vigorous in 1999, particularly as a result of the stir caused by Arpad Pusztai's premature release of information to the popular media (before publication in the scientific press) about adverse effects in rats that ate GM potatoes [see, for example, science, 21 aug. 1998, p. 1124; 19 feb. 1999, p. 1094; and 22 oct. 1999, p. 656]. In the early months of 2000, however, the concern about the health risks of the transgenic foods seems relatively latent.