Ratted out: Scientific journal bows to Monsanto over anti-GMO study
William Engdahl is an award-winning geopolitical analyst and strategic
risk consultant whose internationally best-selling books have been
translated into thirteen foreign languages.
Published time: December 02, 2013 12:34
AFP Photo / Evaristo Sa
Rigid criteria exist for a
serious scientific journal to accept a peer-reviewed paper and to
publish it. As well there exist strict criteria by which such an article
can be withdrawn after publication.
The Journal of Food and Chemical Toxicology has apparently
decided to violate those procedures, announcing it is
retracting a long-term study on the toxic
effects of Monsanto Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs)—GMO
Maize it published a year ago.
The bizarre reports come only six months after Elsevier created a
special new position, Associate Editor for Biotechnology (i.e.
GMO), and filled it with a former Monsanto employee who worked
for the giant Monsanto front-organization, the International Life
Sciences Institute, which develops industry-friendly risk
assessment methods for GM foods and chemical food contaminants
and inserts them into government regulations. Sound like
something wrong with this picture?
Some background
In its November, 2012 issue, The Journal of Food and Chemical
Toxicology published a
paper titled
‘Long term toxicity of a Roundup
herbicide and a Roundup-tolerant genetically modified maize’
by Gilles-Eric Séralini and his team of researchers at France’s
Caen University. It was a highly important study as it was the
first and, astonishingly, still the only long-term study under
controlled conditions of possible effects of a diet of GMO Maize
treated with Monsanto Roundup herbicide.
Seralini submitted his study results to the respected journal
following a rigorous four-month review by scientific peers
regarding methodology and such. Seralini’s group tested more than
200 rats of a diet of GMO corn over a period of a full two years
at a cost of 3 million euro. The study was done in absolute
secrecy to avoid industry pressure.
The publication created an atomic blast rocking the entire
edifice of the GMO industry. Pictures of test rats with grotesque
cancer tumors appeared in newspapers around the world.
Seralini’s group studied the effect of a Monsanto GMO maize diet
on the rats for much longer than Monsanto had done in their study
submitted to the EU European Food Safety Authority for approval.
The group conducted its study for the full two-year average
lifetime instead of just 90 days in the Monsanto study. The
long-term span proved critical. The first tumors only appeared
four to seven months into the study. In the industry's earlier
90-day study on the same GMO maize Monsanto NK603,
signs of toxicity were seen, but were dismissed as
“not
biologically meaningful” by industry and EFSA alike.
It seems they were indeed very biologically meaningful.
The later study was also done with the highest number of rats
ever measured in a standard GMO diet study. They tested
“also
for the first time three doses (rather than two in the usual 90
day long protocols) of the Roundup-tolerant NK603 GMO maize
alone, the GMO maize treated with Roundup, and Roundup alone at
very low environmentally relevant doses starting below the range
of levels permitted by regulatory authorities in drinking water
and in GM feed.”
Their findings were more than alarming.
AFP Photo / Mychele Daniau
Mammary tumors that developed in rats fed GMO corn and/or low
levels of Roundup. From the paper
"Long term toxicity of a
Roundup herbicide and a Roundup-tolerant genetically modified
maize," published in Food and Chemical Toxicology
The
Seralini study concluded,
“In females, all
treated groups died two to three times more than controls, and
more rapidly. This difference was visible in three male groups
fed GMOs. All results were hormone and sex dependent, and the
pathological profiles were comparable. Females developed large
mammary tumors almost always more often than and before controls;
the pituitary was the second-most disabled organ; the sex
hormonal balance was modified by GMO and Roundup treatments. In
treated males, liver congestions and necrosis were 2.5–5.5 times
higher. This pathology was confirmed by optic and transmission
electron microscopy. Marked and severe kidney nephropathies were
also generally 1.3–2.3 greater. Males presented 4 times more
large palpable tumors than controls…”.
Monsanto on defensive
Monsanto and the related GMO industry immediately went on a war
footing to control the potentially fatal damage from the Seralini
study. Suddenly, with worldwide attention to the new Seralini
results, the EU Commission and its EFSA was under fire as never
in their history. How they reacted was worthy of a bad copy of an
Agatha Christie murder novel. They piously announced that they
had passed the Seralini study on to their EFSA scientific panel
for evaluation.
The Brussels EU scientific food regulatory organization, EFSA,
was under the gun from the damning results of the long-term
Seralini study. EFSA had recommended approval of Monsanto’s NK603
Roundup-tolerant maize in 2009 without first conducting any
independent testing. It admitted it had relied on
“information
supplied by the applicant (Monsanto).” EFSA also admitted
that the Monsanto tests on rats were for only 90 days. Seralini’s
group noted that the massive toxic effects and deaths of GMO-fed
rats took place well after 90 days, one reason longer-term
studied were obviously warranted.
A
picture released by the Committee for Research and Independent
Information on Genetic Engineering (CRIIGEN) shows a combination image
of three pictures featuring rats with tumors after they were fed a diet
of genetically modified (GMO) maize produced by US chemical giant
Monsanto. CRIIGEN researchers examined a two-year study, that shows the
long-term toxicity of GMOs and chemical weed killer "Round-up",
establishing "alarming" results according to professor Gilles-Eric
Seralini. (AFP Photo / Griigen)
EFSA concluded at the time of its initial Monsanto NK603 approval
in 2009 that,
“data provided [by Monsanto - author] are
sufficient and do not raise a safety concern.” The Brussels
body added,
“The EFSA GMO Panel is of the opinion that maize
NK603 is as safe as conventional maize. Maize NK603 and derived
products are unlikely to have any adverse effect on human and
animal health in the context of the intended uses.” Oops!
Now comes this guy Seralini and puts EFSA and the entire
regulatory control process for GMO under grave doubt.
The EU Commission was on record stating that no independent
non-GMO industry long-term studies were needed on animals to test
their safety. The
EU guidelines for testing stated,
“Toxicological assessments on test animals are not explicitly
required for the approval of a new food in the EU or the US.
Independent experts have decided that in some cases, chemical
analyses of the food’s makeup are enough to indicate that the new
GMO is substantially equivalent to its traditional counterpart…In
recent years, biotech companies have tested their transgenic
products (maize, soy, tomato) before introducing them to the
market on several different animals over the course of up to 90
days. Negative effects have not yet been observed.”
The
‘up to 90 days’ is the key statement. Seralini’s study
only observed serious tumors and other effects after 120 days in
their two-year study.
EFSA cover-up
On November 28, 2012, only a few weeks after the study was
published, EFSA in Brussels issued a
press release with the following conclusion:
“Serious defects in the design and methodology of a paper by
Séralini et al mean it does not meet acceptable scientific
standards and there is no need to re-examine [sic!] previous
safety evaluations of genetically modified maize
NK603.” Per Bergman, who led EFSA’s work, said
“EFSA’s
analysis has shown that deficiencies in the Séralini et al. paper
mean it is of insufficient scientific quality for risk
assessment. We believe the completion of this evaluation process
has brought clarity to the issue.”
EFSA argued that Seralini had used the wrong kind of rats, not
enough rats and that the statistical analysis was inadequate. By
these standards, all toxicity studies on glyphosate and GMOs
should be retracted because they used the same type and
approximate number of rats as those in the Séralini study.
Professor
of the University of Caen, Gilles-Eric Seralini (2ndR), poses in a
laboratory with his team in Caen. (AFP Photo / Charly Triballeau)
At the very minimum, the
‘precautionary principle’ in
instances involving even the potential for grave damage to the
human population would mandate that the EU Commission and its
EFSA should order immediate further serious, independent
long-term studies to prove or disprove the results of the
Seralini tests. Refusal to re-examine its earlier decision to
approve Monsanto GMO maize, no matter what flaws might or might
not have been in the Seralini study, suggested EFSA was trying to
cover for the GMO agrichemical lobby at the very least.
Many members of the EFSA GMO review panel had documented ties to
Monsanto and the GMO industry, a conflict of interest to put it
mildly. Corporate Europe Observer, an independent EU corporate
watchdog group noted about the
EFSA response,
“EFSA failed to properly and
transparently appoint a panel of scientists beyond any suspicion
of conflicts of interest; and it failed to appreciate that
meeting with Europe's largest biotech industry lobby group to
discuss GMO risk assessment guidelines in the very middle of a EU
review undermines its credibility.”
New blood at Elsevier
While the official EFSA statement seemed to take pressure off
Monsanto, it clearly was not enough so long as the Elsevier
journal study could circulate and be cited around the world.
Then, out of the blue, in May 2013, six months after the Seralini
study release, Elsevier announced that it had created a new
position,
‘Associate Editor for Biotechnology’. The person
they hired to fill it was Richard E. Goodman, a former Monsanto
employee who in addition was with the Monsanto pro-GMO lobby
organization, the International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI)
which develops industry-friendly risk assessment methods for GM
foods and chemical food contaminants and inserts them into
government regulations.
As one
critical scientific website posed the obvious
ethical sham of hiring Monsanto people to control GMO
publications,
“Does Monsanto now effectively decide which
papers on biotechnology are published in FCT? And is this part of
an attempt by Monsanto and the life science industry to seize
control of science?”
Then on November 24, 2013, six months after Goodman took control
of GMO issues at the Journal, Dr. A. Wallace Hayes, the editor of
the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology reportedly decided to
retract the study by the team of Professor Séralini.
The reasons for the extraordinary retraction a full year after
publishing are in violation of the guidelines for retractions in
scientific publishing set out by the Committee on Publication
Ethics (COPE), of which FCT is a member. According to the
guidelines, the only grounds for a journal to
retract a paper are:
• Clear evidence that the findings are unreliable due to
misconduct (e.g. data fabrication) or honest error;
• Plagiarism or redundant publication;
• Unethical research.
Séralini’s paper meets none of these criteria and Hayes admits as
much. In his letter informing the professor of his decision,
Hayes concedes that
examination of Séralini’s raw data showed no
evidence of fraud or intentional misrepresentation of the
data.
As
Claire Robinson of GM Watch points out,
"inconclusiveness of findings is not a valid ground for
retraction. Numerous published scientific papers contain
inconclusive findings, which are often mixed in with findings
that can be presented with more certainty. It is for future
researchers to build on the findings and refine scientific
understanding of any uncertainties.”
Elsevier, the publisher of the journal Food and Chemical
Toxicology, is one of the giants in worldwide scientific
publications. And they are apparently not so rigorous when it
comes to making money over scientific principle.
In 2009, Elsevier invented an entire medical journal, complete
with editorial board, in order to publish papers promoting the
products of the pharmaceutical manufacturer Merck. Merck provided
the papers, Elsevier published them, and doctors read them,
unaware that the
‘Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint
Medicine’ was simply a PR vehicle for the drug giant Merck.
The
statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those
of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
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