Yet Séralini has promoted the cancer results as the study’s major finding, through a tightly orchestrated media offensive that began last month and included the release of a book and a film about the work. Only a select group of journalists (not including Nature) was given access to the embargoed paper, and each writer was required to sign a highly unusual confidentiality agreement, seen by Nature, which prevented them from discussing the paper with other scientists before the embargo expired.
Journalists often receive embargoed journal articles, and standard practice is to solicit independent assessments before the paper is published. The agreement for this paper, however, did not allow any disclosure and threatened a severe penalty for non-compliance: “A refund of the cost of the study of several million euros would be considered damages if the premature disclosure questioned the release of the study.”
In an exceptional move, the ethics committee of the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) last week decried the public-relations offensive as inappropriate for a high-quality and objective scientific debate, and reminded researchers working on controversial topics of the need to report results responsibly to the public.
Meanwhile, Séralini says that he won’t make any data available to the EFSA and the BfR until the EFSA makes public all the data under-pinning its 2003 approval of NK603 maize for human consumption and animal feed. He has also criticized the EFSA, and most other detractors of his study, for alleged conflicts of interest, claiming that he is “being attacked in an extremely dishonest fashion by lobbies passing themselves off as the scientific community”.
The journal that published his study, Food and Chemical Toxicology, said last week in a statement that it “welcomes any and all ‘Letters to the Editor' that have questions and concerns about this paper”.
This article is reproduced with permission from the magazine Nature. The article was first published on October 10, 2012.
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14 Comments
Add CommentCan anyone say "agenda?"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA cogent question. If Sprague-Dawley rats are so prone to spntaneous tumors, and are, therefore, so unreliable in determining carcinogenic dangers of products, why even keep them as a group? Why not let the strain simply filter out? The answer seems to be that they are kept around for use in "experiments" to "prove" that substances currently being targeted by the New World Order are dangerous! Note how many "rank and file" even remember hearing about Sprague-Dawley rats six months from now! A false claim of carcinogenic properties will be lodged and many if not most "rank and file" won't even know that the Sprague-Dawley rats used apparently develop spontaneous tumors quite frequently!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNaturally it's all political denial on the findings of GM Corn that is reported.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLuckily, the Cows don't get to eat corn as much anymore due to the rising Cost, as corn for food is competing with the Bio-fuel conversion for which it can be used.
Did you know How Much is invested into corn crop growing to maximize output and resources?
The technology involved with Corn growing (for the corn Barons) is amazing, controlled by computers. Computers survey and measures were more or less rain has fallen, and additional fertilizers is needed in the entire corn-field. Still believe they ever going to acknowledge any substantial evidence that there is a health problem with the GM corn or other GM grown vegetable or Bean.
Kind of like the Army for Super powers it can only recruit more personnel and ask for more efficient Weapons for the Crew, regardless any advice that the casualties getting more and the reward is Less.
No turning back here either.
I am sure if you read about all the related chemicals, the soaps... they mix with Roundup are VERY toxic, and the fact that these chemicals are used so that they can use even more weed killers.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAre these weeds less toxic than the poisons?
Monsanto also made DDT, Agent Orange and other products that have been banned. Look them up...you might be shocked.
See how much $$ they make. Read the related links. and think for your self,is GM seeds really good for people.
It's likely that ALL the GM seeds in general are not good for food. It seem to show that glyphosate prevents fats from being converted to energy by the muscles. It seems to contribute to so many people being fat...they can't convert the food to energy and it collects as fat.
I am having a hard time just losing 10 lbs. Why?
I have been reading everything related to the subjects and there seems to be a problem between facts, what Monsanto, their lawyers, and other people who make big $$$$ say is true. There are just too many spaces between the data that they a basing the facts on.
Look up Monsanto. Look at all the law suits against farmers, regular people, all over the world. Look at the people who were Monsanto lawyers and now work to pave the way for copy writes.
If you think these GM foods are the same, you are not reading enough about the whole subject. Just because a someone says this or that does not make it a fact. People have been so busy doing other stuff that GM seeds have polluted the world one area at a time. Look up the facts for yourself and see if you still think the same.
Sorry about the typo's, I was in too much of a hurry.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf you read all background information on the subject and think for yourself.
Greeting Bops,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI will confine my comments to DDT.
If you had been around at the end of WW2 you would have noticed that DDT was used extensivelly for things like delousing the released prisoners from Concentration Camps.
It was the wonder product of the era,good for killing Cockroaches,Fleas,Flys(or it Flies?),Mosquitoes and lots of undesirable insects.
Yes , I know about the book "Silent Spring", which is a rather exaggerated account of effect of DDT on Birds.
I also know that there were "Envirenmentalists" who deliberately bred resistant Insects to DDT.
I know also that Monsanto is like a lot of Corporations,and are greedy ,degenerate etc.
Just a small question - What is a Genetically Modified Crop , can you provide a definition for me?
Of course GM 'frankenfood' kills humans; cancer, obesity, and autism may just be tips of icebergs.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI grow all my veggies organically. I would love to see a healthier world. But I am really pissed that so many people on either side of the issues regarding food and water are more interested in proving a point than doing good science. When will we find people who want to do good science and let the chips fall where they may?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAren't you the anti-vaxxer who thinks that electricity is tiny aliens in power wires?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYes, the study was flawed. But that's no reason to cry conspiracy. It's really quite simple: some unethical chemists/cancer biologists took money to ensure that the study ended up a particular way, and now no one will fully trust them again.
After reading all the negative reactions to the study, I've come to believe that the study must have reached the wrong conclusion.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisObviously, since the study used tumor prone mice later in their lives than previous studies did, one must conclude that non-GM maize will prevent late developing cancers in genetically susceptible people as it must have in the study's controls which were the SAME TUMOR PRONE MICE.
"""Greeting Bops,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI will confine my comments to DDT.
If you had been around at the end of WW2 you would have noticed that DDT was used extensivelly for things like delousing the released prisoners from Concentration Camps."""
So?
"""It was the wonder product of the era,good for killing Cockroaches,Fleas,Flys(or it Flies?),Mosquitoes and lots of undesirable insects."""
Undesirable insects that are food for many bird, insect, bat, and occasionally lizard species.
"""Yes , I know about the book "Silent Spring", which is a rather exaggerated account of effect of DDT on Birds."""
Wrong. It wasn't exxagerated. Osprey and Peregrine Falcon numbers are still low because of the mass hatching failures caused by DDT accumulation.
"""I also know that there were "Envirenmentalists" who deliberately bred resistant Insects to DDT."""
Conspiracist garbage. That is a complete fabrication; no one EVER bred resistant insects.
"""I know also that Monsanto is like a lot of Corporations,and are greedy ,degenerate etc."""
...Well, many corporations are greedy, but not all. You need to look closely. Also, financial firms (Bain Capital, Goldman Sachs, etc.) are almost always greedy and corrupt, but manufacturing firms, especially medical devices firms, tend to focus on the good of their employees (not always, but much of the time).
"""Just a small question - What is a Genetically Modified Crop , can you provide a definition for me?"""
It's a crop plant that has had DNA from another organism inserted into its genome through lab-based artificial means.
Can anyone specify how many millions of shareholders' money Monsanto, DuPont, and the rest have spent in California alone trying to defeat a voter's measure on the 11/12 ballot to require accurate labeling of foods?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am curious why the EFSA refuses to make public all the data under-pinning its 2003 approval of NK603 maize for human consumption and animal feed. The only reason that one can conclude that they would refuse to make public that data is that it contains something showing NK603 maize should NOT have been approved for human consumption and animal feed. Hopefully the FDA will do a 2 year study on hundreds of rats/mice/primates and see if they can replicate the results.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe ability for us to differentiate the real, the credible, from the crap/agendaed/junk science on behalf of those who would move GM forward for profit-at-any-cost becomes increasingly more difficult. Having studied and researched what goes into food; water and the poisons poured into it; and Monsanto (both the "old, bad" Monsanto as well as the "new, greener" Monsanto) for more than 20 years, to say I am skeptical of anything the Biotech Boys and their minion entities say would be a massive understatement. Good science discredited; junk science lauded...and all the while my question remains unanswered: If you had the cure for world hunger...if you could lift the Global South especially, out of starvation; if you could make the world better by these marvelous gm foods...would you not be flying huge banners across the sky? would you not be blitzing the airwaves and the internet with announcements? Finally...would you not be INSISTING that ALL foods containing these miracle foods be labeled so clearly that all the world could see how great they were and how altruistic the corporation is - which would make even more money for them? Let's get real. Please.
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