1 December 2013

New developments regarding Prof. Séralini’s article on Monsanto’s GMO maize NK 603

This article had been published in August 2012 by a CRIIGEN team led by Prof. Séralini in  ‘‘Food and Chemical Toxicology’’ (FCT). It analysed the long term toxicity on rats of the Roundup herbicide and the Roundup-resistant GMO maize NK 603. The journal has now requested for the article to be retracted according to a New York times article and the announcement made on the CRIIGEN website. You may remember that Prof. Séralini’s article had been the object of violent criticisms and a wide debate regarding the approval procedures of pesticides and GMOs in the European Union in 2012 and early 2013.

In a letter to Prof. Séralini, the Editor-in-Chief of the journal, A. Wallace Hayes, acknowledges the good level of cooperation received from the CRIIGEN team during the review of the article, as they provided the raw data produced by the experiment that served as basis for the paper. The letter also acknowledges that there has been no fraud or incorrect data, nor intentional misinterpretation at the time of the publication. It however requests for the retraction of the paper for the following reasons: (i) the insufficient number of tested animals; and (ii) the strain of animals selected for the experiment (Sprague-Dawley rats). According to the journal, these reasons are sufficient to consider that the results are not statistically significant. It is therefore on the ground of this non significance that the retraction of the paper is requested.

CRIIGEN has reacted to this request by emphasising that it is being made in violation of ‘‘the international ethical norms accepted by FCT (called COPE), because there is no error or fraud’’. It also stresses that the ‘‘short Monsanto study, which was published in the same journal to prove the safety of their product, contains errors or frauds, and is not the subject of a controversy’’. Based on this, CRIIGEN requests ‘‘the retraction by the FCT of the Monsanto study on the same GMO, which has been used for its regulatory approval’’. Should this request not be granted, CRIIGEN would take legal action against the journal.

CRIIGEN takes this opportunity to ‘‘refer the case to the European authorities to reexamine the studies used to approve GMOs and pesticides, because the GMO and other contaminants present in control feed as well as in the reference or historical data which invalidate these studies’’.

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The article

Séralini, Clair, Mesnage, Gress, Defarge, Malatesta, Hennequin and Spiroux de Vendômois Long term toxicity of a Roundup herbicide and a Roundup-tolerant genetically modified maize

Last update:    December 2013

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