Genetically Modified Organisms, which refers to any food product that has been altered at the gene level. Scientists support retraction of the Seralini GMO study, the petition to reinstate – It is misleading and contradictory The Seralini study that is memorialized by those picturs of rats with huge tumors now has a petition online calling for reinstatement of the retractiong by Elsevier’s Food and Chemical Toxicology journal. And there is an article written around the petition claiming that experts are up in arms, calling for reinstatement. This petition web site is registered to Henry Rowlands, who claims to be director of Sustainable Pulse, a site dedicated to anti-GMO activism. The petition misleads with statements bordering on outright lies. For instance: “While critics of Séralini’s study claim that the Sprague-Dawley is an unusually tumour-prone strain of rat, in fact it is about as prone to developing tumours as humans living in industrialized countries.” (All of these were copied Feb 3, 2014) The Sprague Dawley rat develops tumors at very high rates when allowed to eat an unrestricted diet without exposure to carcinogens. Those rates range from 45% (male) and 70% (female) on up to 95%. It is true that the overall human lifetime rate of cancer in the general population is 45% for males (a rough 1 in 2 risk) and 38% for females ( a rough 1 in 3 risk) but that is while exposed to carcinogens. Smoking, for instance, raises risk of lung cancer by 10-20 times. When various known risk factors are removed, total cancer risk drops by as much as half or more, as seen in Seventh Day Adventists. So while the Sprague-Dawley rat is a useful model, representing it to laymen as if those rats replicated normal human cancer is essentially lying. It’s just not true. Another misleading petition claim: “The study was the first and only investigation of the long-term effects of this variety of GM maize (called NK603), grown with and without the pesticide Roundup, which the maize is engineered to tolerate during cultivation.” This is like saying, “My article is the first and only article covering George Clooney white-water rafting on the American River.” News flash. George Clooney likes white-water rafting even though there is no article on George Clooney on the American River. Similarly, the Seralini paper failed to mention other similar studies which have relevance, including a major review by Snell, et al in the exact journal in which this paper appeared. Making the above claim gives a layman (and a scientist who doesn’t bother to spend hours on it) the impression that Seralini and friends broke new ground nobody had looked at before. Reality is, this study came late. It makes representations that contradict all the previous evidence. If you want to do that, fine. But you better have serious evidence. What evidence against Seralini was around before he was published? “The aim of this systematic review was to collect data concerning the effects of diets containing GM maize, potato, soybean, rice, or triticale on animal health. We examined 12 long-term studies (of more than 90 days, up to 2 years in duration) and 12 multigenerational studies (from 2 to 5 generations). The studies reviewed present evidence to show that GM plants are nutritionally equivalent to their non-GM counterparts and can be safely used in food and feed.” – Snell, et al. The petition makes much of how the paper wasn’t about cancer but presented toxicity and there were other toxicity effects in pathology. No. The paper presented tumors and various elements of pathology as evidence of toxicity, and specifically the toxicity of GMOs. The petition says it. The petition contradicts itself. First, it says: “It is unjustifiable to retract an entire paper because it contains some “inconclusive” findings. Conclusive findings are rare in science.” Then it says: “The study found severe organ damage, particularly to the liver, kidneys and pituitary gland, in rats fed the GM maize and/or low levels of Roundup in their diet. Additional unexpected observations were higher rates of large palpable tumours and mortality in most treatment groups.” Then it flips back again: “The authors do not claim that the GM maize NK603 and/or Roundup herbicide have a “definitive link” to “cancer”. Moreover, the authors specify in their introduction that the study is not a carcinogenicity study.” Pardon me. What? That is, in terms of logic, just gibberish. Make up your mind Henry. Is the study inconclusive, or did the study show what it claims? The petition claims that the review process that led to retraction was not transparent. Baloney. The review process was open in the journal, visible in letters to the editor – many of them. Many of those letters are linked to below in the appendix to this article. They are devastating. While the review process for retraction was as open as it could be, Seralini wasn’t. Seralini still refuses to share his raw data with other scientists. He sent something to Elsevier when the editor of the journal requested it. But that hasn’t been released for general consumption. I can only presume that Seralini instructed Elsevier not to do so. You figure that out. So what is wrong with Seralini’s paper? It has that picture of rats with huge tumors! What did Seralini do wrong?! 1. Seralini, et al skated the edge of Elsevier’s policy which says that scientists will make all data available. Sure, not everyone does. I’ve even gotten a review back that complained that it was crazy to expect a reviewer to go through hundreds of pages of supplemental data. Summaries have their place. But when other scientists ask to see your stuff? Not letting them see it is beyond uncool. That’s like the cold fusion guy who responded to questions by refusing to share his data. For that alone Elsevier had grounds to retract the paper. Yes, Seralini did supply it when the journal asked for it. If he hadn’t that would have been grounds for retraction right there. But don’t you think it is curious that his data has not been shared openly. Why not? 2. Seralini, et al, failed to disclose a big conflict of interest. The major funder of the study was CRIIGEN.org. This is a web site registered to Gilles-Eric Seralini himself. He is the apparent founder of the organization. Perusal of the site shows that it has an anti-GMO agenda. Certainly, there are private foundations that fund such research, and that is fine. But getting funded by the organization that you started and appear to run? Getting funded by that organization when it has a clearly biased position on what you are studying? That’s like a lawyer failing to mention that he is being paid by your opponent. That’s like failing to mention that your study was funded by Monsanto and you are CEO of Monsanto – but in reverse. And it is a violation of Elsevier policy on conflict of interest. 3. Seralini, et al, violated laboratory standards on animal cruelty. Allowing tumors to get that large and ulcerated is not considered ethical. Based on what is reported in the article it probably violated French law. There is no reason to allow animals with tumors to go on so long without euthanasia. You have the same data whether you euthanize them or not. There are only two plausible reasons to not euthanize the animals that are apparent: A.) Seralini, et al, wanted to produce a photo that would go viral and place it in a scientific publication. It has. Good for him – if his job was in advertising. B.) Seralini, et al, hoped for organ failures to occur secondary to the tumors or due to aging, in order to skew their results. Either way, that’s not science. That’s propaganda. Minor cleverness, but not science. 4. The histopathology was so poor it appears to be incompetent. At least 11 serious types of errors were obvious in the article and some specific. For instance, in specific, it named a tumor two different things, and incorrectly attributed the tumor. That incorrect analysis was made much of, and yet in reality it simply proved there is no relationship. (Read the linked criticism for more depth.) The article does not make clear who did the pathology. The pathology is not clearly laid out, but scientifically useless pictures of animals and tumors are shown. This is a very serious problem for the article since the core of it is pathology. So why? I’ve done a bit of pathology myself. (And I was pressured to say that results showed X when they didn’t. Cost me, big time, when I didn’t bend – lost a job over it. Professors can be very nasty people, and some put agreement with them above truth.) Usually slides are kept, and photos of the slides, and there is often excess material left in lab freezers. Sure, sometimes, if samples are small, you have to use it all. But that would not be the case in this study. And yes, his lab can say, “Oh, we disposed of it.” But, put this problem together with the others and you may see a pattern emerging. 5. Apparently, Seralini, et al, are incompetent at statistics. The small number of animals per group, even with the poor to incompetent pathology work, shows nothing meaningful. A different critique than the above link says: “When I looked at Seralini’s data in table 2 it looked like random numbers to me. So I took a random numbers table that had numbers from 0 to 9 in blocks of five. Assuming a final rodent total of 50% with tumours, the numbers 0–4, I considered a rodent with tumours randomly, 5–9 a rodent without tumours. Placing them in blocks of 10 as Seralini did, I got the following as rodents with tumours for each group of 10; 4, 4, 3, 4, 5, 6, 3, 1, 3, 6, 6, 3, 5, 7, 6, 4, 8, 6, 5, 5. Note largest variation is 8-fold, if I had gone to progressively larger numbers then after several hundred many numbers but not all would be 5 and if Seralini et al. had chosen his control group inadvertently as 3 in the figures above (4 in 20 chance of doing do) then variation is nearly 3-fold (3 from 8). All predictable from statistics but there are none in this paper.” Yet another critique nails it. Take a look at the table in the link. “There is no evidence that mortality to the end of the experiment was significantly different in the groups of rats fed either the GMO, GMO + R or when R was administered in the drinking water at three different levels. The claim by the authors that “In females, all treated groups died 2–3 times more than controls, and more rapidly” is not true (allowing for the poor English). I have not yet studied the rest of the paper in detail as the errors noted above alone are sufficient to make the paper unfit for publication.” 6. Seralini has produced lousy studies before. “Similar feeding studies conducted by Séralini in the past have been found to be deficient in their analysis by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), as well as the Public Research and Regulation Initiative (PRRI).” Etcetera. There’s more. But this is more than enough. Seralini’s group caused needless pain and suffering to animals and proved nothing at all. The study’s results are no more significant than random numbers selected from a phone book. Actually, this paper is less meaningful than random numbers because the numbers in the study were produced by work that in its most charitable analysis is slipshod or incompetent. To me, it reeks. There is absolutely no reason to be sympathetic to Seralini over this. None.
Posted on: Tue, 04 Feb 2014 03:04:53 +0000
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