GMO does not alter human genes: scholar  

农科院副院长:转基因食品不会影响人类自身基因

(ECNS) -- A Chinese scholar has dismissed rumors that genetically modified organisms (GMOs) could modify human DNA.

During a training session for journalists on covering GMOs held in Wuhan on Friday, Wu Kongming, Vice President of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, said previous media reports on GMOs being the cause for cancer and infertility are not accurate.

A 2010 article citing a hospital report in southwest China's Guangxi province pointed to genetically modified corn as the cause for lowering fertility among local male college students. The article brought many people to panic, although the local government later clarified that the corn was of a hybrid type and not genetically modified.

In 2013, an article relating genetically modified beans to cancer and infertility went viral. It claimed that areas growing these crops also saw high rates of cancer.

Wu said statistics used in the article were not precise and a causal relation was not valid.

Foreign genes from GMOs could be digested by human beings and would not mess up human DNA, he added.