Panchin 2012 - Toxicity of roundup-tolerant genetically modified maize is not supported by statistical tests. Letter to the editor Alexander Y.
Panchin , Sector of Molecular Evolution, A.A. Berry 2012 - Letter to the editor. Dear Dr.
Hayes I should like to comment on what I understand is a proposed publication from the Seralini group. This reports on adverse effects in a feeding study of a GM derived corn in rats. As the authors point out, this is not a formal carcinogenicity study. Cockburn 2012 - Letter to the Editor. Schorsch 2012 - Serious inadequacies regarding the pathology data presented in the paper by Séralini et al. (2012) Letter to the editor Frederic Schorsch Available online 7 November 2012.
Tribe 2012 - Letter to the editor. Dear Professor Hayes, Since I last wrote to you, the scope and seriousness of the international scientific criticisms of the Séralini (2012) paper appearing in your journal has made me realise that my comments about the paper do not adequately describe the serious failures that have occurred in the peer review process at FCT.
I urge you to include attention to the following documents given below in your response to this issue. A classical contingency table using Chi squared test can show that random variation is sufficient to account for the deaths occurring in this trial. The tumour numbers can similarly be assessed. I thus call for a full conventional statistical assessment be made of the paper, and made available in the journal. Sincerely, David Tribe University of Melbourne A sample of recent severe commentaries about Food and Chemical Toxicology are included below EFSA Journal 2012;10(10):2910 [9 pp.]. doi:10.2903/j.efsa.2012.2910 European Food Safety Authority Abstract.
Pilu 2012 - Letter to the editor. Roberto Pilu , , Di.S.A.A. – Produzione, Territorio, Agroenergia, Università degli Studi di Milano, Via Celoria, 2, 20133 Milano, Italy Available online 7 November 2012.
Tester 2012 - Letter to the Editor. Dear Dr.
Hayes I am writing to ask that the paper by Séralini et al. be retracted for the several reasons: Séralini’s allegations of negative impacts on rat health as a result of eating biotech corn and glyphosate have been refuted by numerous studies, including long-term feeding studies, in the peer-reviewed scientific literature. A 2008 two-year rat feeding study by Sakomoto et al. found that biotech soybeans pose no health risks. A 2012 assessment by Snell et al. reviewed 12 long-term feeding studies of biotech maize, potato, soybean, rice, and triticale and found that biotech crops are nutritionally equivalent to their conventional counterparts and can be safely used in food and feed. Previous peer-reviewed rat feeding studies using the same products (NK603 and Roundup) have not found any negative food safety impacts. Mark Tester. Grunewald 2012 - Comment on publication by Séralini et al. Letter to the editor Wim Grunewald , , Jo Bury VIB, The Flanders Institute for Biotechnology, Rijvisschestraat 120, 9052 Gent, Belgium Available online 7 November 2012 , How to Cite or Link Using DOI.
Williams 2012 - Letter to the editor. Bella Williams Head of Engagement, Understanding Animal Research, United Kingdom Available online 6 November 2012 , How to Cite or Link Using DOI.
Heinemann 2012 - Letter to the editor. Letter to the editor Jack Heinemann School of Biological Sciences, University of Canterbury, 226 von Haast, New Zealand.
Tel.: +64 3 364 2500 Available online 6 November 2012. De Souza 2012 - Letter to the editor. Letter to the editor Lúcia de Souza ANBio – Brazilian Biosafety Association, Brazil.
Langridge 2012 - Letter to the editor. Dear Dr. Hayes I am writing to express my concern at the recent publication authored by Séralini et al. in “Food and Chemical Toxicology.” As you will be aware this paper has caused considerable disquiet in the scientific community. The problems lie at several levels and bring into serious question the quality and standard of the editorial processes in your journal. I became concerned about the quality of the editorial process when I reached the second sentence “In females, all treated groups died 2–3 time more than controls, and more rapidly.” At the scientific level there are also major problems with this manuscript. Further, the comment “All data cannot be shown in one report, and the most relevant are described here” is clearly unacceptable.
I also have concerns about the way in which this paper was launched. I was concerned to receive a message from colleagues encouraging scientists to write to you urging retraction of the paper. Trewavas 2012 - Letter to the editor. I examined the paper with some care but like many found the graphs difficult to interpret although a clarification has now appeared on the web from Emily Willingham that enables easy disentangling of the data. The differences frankly look rather small and that should have alerted the authors to natural variation rather than induced response. If inbred rodents like Sprague Dawley are kept in a cage for 2–3 years most die of cancer. The company Harlan (www.harlaneurope.com) who market Sprague Dawley rodents describe their life characteristics under Life Span and Spontaneous Disease. I quote- pituitary gland tumours were found in 20% of the males and 39% of the females.
This relatively low incidence had little effect on the survival of the females (50%) due to the high incidence (76%) of mammary gland tumours (predominantly fibroadenomas) resulted in unscheduled sacrifices of many females. When I looked at Seralini’s data in table 2 it looked like random numbers to me. Wager 2012 - Letter to the editor. Dear Dr. Hayes: We write to you, as Editor in Chief, to request a serious reconsideration of the recent paper by Seralini et al. alleging tumorigenesis in rats resulting from consumption of corn derived from crops improved through biotechnology (Séralini et al., 2012). As you are undoubtedly aware, the use of molecular methods to improve crop plants, now known as GMOs, continues to be a highly controversial subject globally despite the absence of evidence, to date, of human, animal or environment harm. The paper by Seralini et al. makes claims that contradict a large body of literature on the subject, reviewed recently in your journal by Snell et al. (2012).
This review, analyses by serious scientific bodies, including the U.S. We make this request for you to reconsider the paper because it falls short of the customary scientific and ethical standards in several specific regards: Thank you in advance for your consideration. Hammond 2012 - Letter to the editor. Response to original research article, in press, corrected proof, “Long term toxicity of a Roundup herbicide and a Roundup-tolerant genetically modified maize” Available online 19 September 2012, Gilles-Eric Séralini, Emilie Clair, Robin Mesnage, Steeve Gress, Nicolas Defarge, Manuela Malatesta, Didier Hennequin, Joël Spiroux de Vendomois.
We have reviewed the aforementioned article and have found numerous deficiencies in the way the study was designed, and in the manner in which the data were presented and analyzed. As a consequence of these deficiencies, the study cannot be used to support any conclusions regarding the safety of NK603 glyphosate tolerant maize and Roundup® herbicide.1 1. Experimental design The authors of this study assert that it was conducted in a GLP environment and according to OECD guidelines. 2. For example, in Table 3, mean values are not presented for each group and sex to allow comparison of measured parameters. Le Tien Dung 2012 - Comments on Séralini paper. Letter to the editor Le Tien Dung , 1 , , Le Huy Ham Agricultural Genetics Institute, Pham Van Dong Str., Hanoi, Viet Nam Available online 7 November 2012.
Seralini 2012 and referring papers. This article has been retracted: please see Elsevier Policy on Article Withdrawal ( The journal Food and Chemical Toxicology retracts the article “Long term toxicity of a Roundup herbicide and a Roundup-tolerant genetically modified maize,” which was published in this journal in November 2012. This retraction comes after a thorough and time-consuming analysis of the published article and the data it reports, along with an investigation into the peer-review behind the article.