• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Séralini Republished

Red Baron Farms

Philosopher
Red Baron Farms
Joined
Apr 30, 2013
Messages
5,234
Location
Oklahoma
That's right. The infamous Séralini long term toxicity paper has been republished. This time with open access as well as extra material addressing criticisms of the original publication.

Personally I don't know what to make of it. I had thought the matter was laid to rest when the study was retracted in November last year. Yet here it is:

Republished study: long-term toxicity of a Roundup herbicide and a Roundup-tolerant genetically modified maize

There is also a very detailed accusation of misconduct by meatpuppets for Monsanto pressuring the original retraction.
Conflicts of interests, confidentiality and censorship in health risk assessment: the example of an herbicide and a GMO
 
Last edited:
The decision to retract was pretty simple: If you want your journal to have respect among the scientific community, you should retract a flagrantly bad paper. Sometimes editors merely publish a letter of concern about questionable work that gets published. I consider Seralini to be a quack, he's funded by green peace, and pretty much all he does is fear monger about GMOs.
 
It's a good thing the paper is out for discussion and evaluation again. A paper should not be retracted because someone disagrees with the conclusions drawn - that is what further discussion is for. Retraction because of methodological errors is more justified, but it appears that no good case can be made on that count. I suggest laying off the "funded by Greenpeace vs funded by Monsanto" angle for that reason.
 
catsmate1 said:
Meh, Séralin's crap is still crap.
Click to expand...
Maybe.

But last year when I was asking why someone didn't falsify the Seralini paper and actually show it was crap by showing the results were not reproducible, I was told there is no need. The paper didn't show anything, was too flawed to need actually proving wrong with evidence. That's why the study was retracted, so it wouldn't need to be replicated to falsify.

Now that it is republished, seems to me exactly what I asked last year needs to be done. Instead of harassing Seralini, do the long term study over again with whatever perceived errors you might think are there corrected, and then with actual scientific evidence show the paper is crap. This calling it crap because the good and faithful Monsanto would never fraudulently say any product of theirs is safe while the evil Greenpeace is full of quacks is getting old.

Science is about the evidence, not slur campaigns. Sure slur campaigns happen all the time...both ways....but ultimately it is about the evidence.
 
Last edited:
Improper experimental methods invalidate a paper even if the conclusion is correct. The right thing is for the paper to be withdrawn and the experiment re-run with appropriate methodology, and a new paper published.

And then it's time for independent replication (or not, as the case may be).

Republishing a seriously flawed paper helps no-one.
 
PixyMisa said:
Improper experimental methods invalidate a paper even if the conclusion is correct. The right thing is for the paper to be withdrawn and the experiment re-run with appropriate methodology, and a new paper published.

And then it's time for independent replication (or not, as the case may be).

Republishing a seriously flawed paper helps no-one.
Click to expand...
Monsanto's 90 day toxicity study also used the exact same number of the exact same breed of rats for toxicity, 10 per group. (200 total in the Seralini study, but only 80 total in the Monsanto study)

If Seralini gets thrown out for that reason, that would also invalidate the original Monsanto safety study.

An initial study on NK603 maize was submitted by Monsanto Company in support of commercial authorization of the maize. NK603 maize was fed to 4 groups of 20 Sprague Dawley rats (2 doses of 11% and 33% in the diet of both sexes) for 90 days. The blood analyses were performed on 10 rats per group.
Click to expand...

So tell me please. What exactly was so seriously flawed about the Seralini study that it can't be published? Because it seems ESE and Springer would disagree. Turns out that 4 journals actually offered to publish, but Seralini opted for ESE because it is open access with no paywalls. Makes me think that the Conflicts of interests, confidentiality and censorship in health risk assessment: the example of an herbicide and a GMO might potentially have some merit. I certainly can't dismiss it out of hand. It is very detailed.
 
"...The blood analyses were performed on 10 rats per group.... " Which ten, the ones that looked healthiest?
 
Red Baron Farms said:
Monsanto's 90 day toxicity study also used the exact same number of the exact same breed of rats for toxicity, 10 per group. (200 total in the Seralini study, but only 80 total in the Monsanto study)

If Seralini gets thrown out for that reason, that would also invalidate the original Monsanto safety study.
Click to expand...

OECD standards dictate that ten rats of each sex are sufficient for 90 day studies, but longer chemical toxicity studies require at least 20 rats of each sex, and carcinogenicity studies require at least 50 rats of each sex.
 
Red Baron Farms said:
There is also a very detailed accusation of misconduct by meatpuppets for Monsanto pressuring the original retraction.
Click to expand...
Oh dear, Red Baron Farms: That "meatpuppets" sounds quite paranoiac :rolleyes:!
Luckily you seem to be just reflecting the paranoia that seems to be in Conflicts of interests, confidentiality and censorship in health risk assessment: the example of an herbicide and a GMO commentary.

I would say that the first two points that caused the retraction of the paper remain valid
* They did only have 10 rats per group. This is a small sample size.
* Those rats were Sprague Dawley rats. Their tendency toward cancer adds statistical noise to the already small samples.
The authors point that this was toxicity, not a carcinogenicity, study though seems valid.

The history of Séralini's publications shows that his papers tend to be statistically flawed. It looks like a classic case of confirmation bias. Here is an anti-GMO biased scientist at least partially funded by Greenpeace.

I find it ironic that Séralini complains about non-disclosure in the criticisms when he did not disclose his conflict of interest in the 2012 paper!
Letter to the editor by Erio Barale-Thomas (Président of the Conseil d’Administration of the SFPT)
Regarding the statement that “The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest”, we respectfully disagree: Pr Gilles-Eric Séralini being President of the Scientific Board of the CRIIGEN, and the CRIIGEN having been a “major support” of the study, it seems to us that this should have been disclosed.
Click to expand...

ETA:
The letter raises another question for me: "the quantity of blood removed is not indicated, and this could have had an effect on the well being of the animals and on their sanitary status." is stated in the animal Ethics section. But it also raises a methodology doubt for me. Without accurate records we cannot know whether the quantity of blood removed was different between the groups of rats and so could have had an effect on their well being and even the parameters being studied (certainly their life spans). I would expect a tendency to concentrate on non-control groups since that is where the interesting results are. That suggests more blood taken than the control groups. That suggests that there is a bias toward the non-control groups being sicker than the control groups.
 
Last edited:
The first problem with the Seralini study is the type of rats used. Up to 70% of them will develop tumours over their lifetime. This isn't a big problem if you are doing a 90 day toxicity study, as the tumours will tend to show up later in life. It is a problem if you are going to study the rats for two years.There are other strains of rat that should be used for long term studies.

If you want to use Sprague-Dawley rats anyway then you have to have a much larger control group. If 70% of the rats will get tumours on average, you are looking at the difference between 70% and 100%, you need a bigger group. Wikipedia suggest 65 as a reasonable number of subjects in intervention and control groups in this situation.

Seralini's results do not make much sense anyway. Certain combinations of GMO feed and Round Up resulted in fewer tumours than control, thus implying some sort of protective effect? You did not hear Seralini trumpeting that result.

There was no dose response effect. If the feed was causing tumours you would be expecting to find increased tumours with higher dose- there was not.

Because he had multiple groups, and fewer controls, the statistics get rather complicated.
Seralini did not do those statistics.

It seems bizarre that both GMO corn and Round Up would cause the same result - more tumours.

If he was serious about doing a long term feeding study, he should have had a simpler study, with fewer intervention groups, more controls and different rats. That might have added to knowledge instead of creating such a mess.
 
Red Baron Farms said:
Maybe.

But last year when I was asking why someone didn't falsify the Seralini paper and actually show it was crap by showing the results were not reproducible, I was told there is no need. The paper didn't show anything, was too flawed to need actually proving wrong with evidence. That's why the study was retracted, so it wouldn't need to be replicated to falsify.

Now that it is republished, seems to me exactly what I asked last year needs to be done. Instead of harassing Seralini, do the long term study over again with whatever perceived errors you might think are there corrected, and then with actual scientific evidence show the paper is crap. This calling it crap because the good and faithful Monsanto would never fraudulently say any product of theirs is safe while the evil Greenpeace is full of quacks is getting old.

Science is about the evidence, not slur campaigns. Sure slur campaigns happen all the time...both ways....but ultimately it is about the evidence.
Click to expand...

You're the one that brought up "monsanto meat puppets" in the first post of this thread. The evidence is clear, which is why every virtually scientist of stature is on one side of the issue, regardless of where their money comes from (mostly government sources, distributed based on peer review). Shall we spend money, time, and careers debunking a quack? I do not think it is a good use of resources. It's also hard to get "I could not reproduce these results" published in a decent journal. Just because one lab cannot reproduce some results does not mean they are invalid anyways.

Bad papers get published, it happens. Good papers get reproduced. The onus is not on somone else to fail to reproduce some crappy paper, the onus is on convincing fellow researchers that what you have produced is valid. That's how science actually works. The bad **** just gets ignored after a while. It would be stupid to waste lab resources and the burgeoning careers of young scientists just trying to prove a quack wrong.
 
Last edited:
ThunderChunky said:
It would be stupid to waste lab resources and the burgeoning careers of young scientists just trying to prove a quack wrong.
Click to expand...
It would be more stupid not to. Here is the scientific opinion that most closely approximates my own opinion:

The republication of the Séralini study raises a number of important issues to do with the scientific process. It must be noted that the paper being published is identical to the first one, which was initially attacked on methodological bases.

The paper is being republished because the authors feel it was unfairly retracted from Food and Chemical Toxicology. I think that the problem here is the controversial nature of the original paper.

This was a publication that gave some interesting results, but that needed to be replicated with larger numbers of rats in the experiment and, perhaps, a more statistically robust analysis. The paper was, in my mind, inconclusive, but pointed a direction in which future research could go.

After much public discussion the paper was withdrawn by the journal against the wishes of the authors. This is unusual. Even more unusual is the notice of retraction that states that the study was inconclusive, but there was no flaw or fraud in the original paper. Inconclusive data is no reason to retract a peer-reviewed and published paper.

The republication of this paper, and the rebuttals presented, have not changed my opinion. I am not convinced that the original paper indicates any danger of genetically modified food. I do think, however, that this research needs to be continued.

I am also convinced that retracting the original paper in this unusual way has not served the scientific process well. All good science is a debate, and one that should be held publicly in published journals. Only through open publication, replication and exchange of scientific data can we use science effectively.

Controversial studies should not be buried because of public argument. They should be investigated, repeated, and new data published to either disprove or support the original findings. Only then do we get a clear and robust argument.

Peter Dearden, associate professor and director of Genetics Otago, Laboratory for Evolution and Development at the University of Otago
Click to expand...
 
Red Baron Farms said:
It would be more stupid not to. Here is the scientific opinion that most closely approximates my own opinion:
Click to expand...
Red Baron Farms: That is one person's opinion, not a "scientific" opinion.
The scientific opinion is the one that lead to the paper being retracted, i.e. that their conclusions could not be drawn from their data.

The quote is a bit strange - authors do not usually want their papers to be retracted! So it is common for papers to be retracted against the wishes of the author. There are cases when the authors themselves realize that a paper is flawed and ask for it to be retracted. This is not the case here.

The paper has not been "buried" - it has been published!

ETA: Journals have standards for published papers. According to RETRACTED: Long term toxicity of a Roundup herbicide and a Roundup-tolerant genetically modified maize, Food and Chemical Toxicology has a standard that papers not have inconclusive results:
Ultimately, the results presented (while not incorrect) are inconclusive, and therefore do not reach the threshold of publication for Food and Chemical Toxicology.
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
Red Baron Farms said:
I forgot. Only one scientific opinion is allowed.:rolleyes:
Click to expand...
:rolleyes: Only "scientific" opinions that support your beliefs are acceptable.

I note that the republication of Séralini's garbage has not been after additional peer review, so it's still rubbish.
 
Red Baron Farms said:
It would be more stupid not to. Here is the scientific opinion that most closely approximates my own opinion:
Click to expand...

You think trying to replicate the results of a quack that no one believes anyway actually helps a young scientist's career? Most journals wont even bother to consider publishing "we couldn't replicate the results of so and so's study" unless the original paper is considered very important. Careers are much more wisely invested in other endeavors.
 
Last edited:
I think the study is more interesting for what it left out. They conducted a toxicology study, and came back with carcinogenicity results.

Know what that tells me? That they didn't find any toxicity at all.

If you perform an experiment to test something specific, and then you leave out that specific thing when writing up the publication... that's kind of a no no.

Questionable results, shaky scientific integrity, publish-retract-unretract... nobody does it like Seralini.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom