Saltava aos olhos, mesmo de um pesquisador novato, que havia algo de errado na metodologia: como é que ninguém havia visto nada parecido? Os tumores já apareciam com 4 meses de experimento e iam se agravando até que os ratos morriam cheios deles. Uma barbaridade. Não foi preciso esperar dois anos para ver os tumores e experimentos com 90, 120, 180 dias ou um ano abundam na literatura, mostrando que os milhos GM até hoje no mercado são seguros. Também para o glifosato, dezenas de artigos mostravam ausência de impactos importantes na saúde. Como conciliar estes resultados com a bomba midiática do Séralini?
Desde o início denunciamos neste site: o artigo não presta. Matamos a cobra e mostramos o pau, evidenciando suas fraquezas. Linkamos muitos outros sites e referências que também denunciavam o mesmo. Os "independentes", entretanto, continuaram defendendo Séralini e esta paródia de artigo. Agora a revista vai retirar o artigo, se o Séralini e seus colaboradores não o fizerem.Os termos da revista são, por sua vez, muito brandos e isso vai custar ao editor e à credibilidade da revista um bocado. Esperávamos todos que a revista baixasse o sarrafo no artigo, mesmo às custas de entregar de bandeja seu mau sistema de revisão por pares.
Isso acalma a polêmica? Mures requiescat in pace... De jeito nenhum! Não tenho bola de cristal, mas posso prever que os "independentes" acusarão a revista de ter cedido à pressão da Monsanto, entre outras hipóteses fantasiosas. Basta ver o que já circula pela internet, poucas horas depois que saiu a notícia.
Vai abaixo o texto saído em retractionwatch.com
Paulo Andrade
PS. Como esperado, Séralini e seus parceiros de luta já fizeram uma Press conference relâmpago, cujo conteúdo foi garimpado e repassado pela Lúcia de Souza para mim. Lá vai:
This morning MEP Lepage andSeralini cum suis
organised an ‘Urgent Press Conference - Exclusive And Urgent Revelation Of A
Science-Industry Link Endangering Public Health On A Main Pesticide And Its
Tolerant GMO’.
As Seralini announced, the press conference was
organised in haste, because he had received a letter from the Editor of
the Food and Chemical Toxicology review informing him that they will
withdraw his paper this Friday or next Monday.
The press conference was attended by 10 people, of which it is not clear
how many journalists there were,
I paste some poignant points from the press conference below.
Some points from the Seralini/Lepage press conference.
Seralini cs hired a US law firm to get
compensation for the consequences of the withdrawal of the article. Claim is
journals can withdraw a paper only in case of fraud or error – both are
of course denied by Seralini, who said that he received letters of support from
the European editor of the review, Mr. Domingo.
· Lepage
made a call to action at the end of the press conf:
o For
all scientists to take action against the pressure of lobby groups within
editing boards of scientific reviews – the name of Richard Goodman, a former
Monsanto employee now working for the Food and Chemical Toxicology review,
was mentioned several times.
o For
all consumer and civil society organisations to fight against the monopoly of
lobby groups on foodsupply.
o To
put an end to the tendency to nominate at high level positions people who have
ties with industry: she and the others heavily criticized Anne Glover and
other people from the GMO panel at EFSA, as well as Mella Frewen,
FoodDrinkEurope and former Monsanto employee.
o Call
on the Council to vote on the nationalisation proposal, saying that this should
be done before the TTIP is concluded.
Seralini said that Monsanto rat studies were
flawed because he conducted an experiment that showed that rats used for
control groups showed levels of GM and pesticide residues, which according to
him, explains why there are tumors in both the control and experiment groups.
Paul DEHEUVELS, who presented himself as the only
statistician in the French Science Academy, announced an upcoming publication
of his hand backs Seralini’s statistics on the feeding study. It will be
published in Dec 2013 or Jan 2014 in a review called Statistical
Models and Methods for Reliability and Survival Analysis (ISTE).
The GRACE project was mentioned in the context of a
whole explanation of how research is influenced by industry.
Lepage said it’s good news that some organisations
(FR food safety body Anses) recognized the need to conduct long term feeding
studies but it will take time before anything comes out (3-4 years)
EFSA was the centre of all criticism having
expressed a “remarkably unscientific argument” on the Seralini study
DEHEUVELS said he worked for Sanofi in the past as
consultant. He drew a parallel between the cost of drugs to put a product on
the market and GMOs, saying that biotech companies should do thesame as drug
companies to ensure that all data on safety are there before putting their
products on the market.
Joel SPIROUX (CRIIGEN) briefly mentioned IP and
trade secrets describing them as “a scandal that everyone, incl. children are
paying the price of”.
Tracking retractions as a window into the scientific process
Controversial Seralini GMO-rats paper to be retracted
A heavily criticized study of the effects of genetically modified maize
and the Roundup herbicide on rats is being retracted — one way or another.
The paper — by Gilles Seralini and colleagues — was published in Food and
Chemical Toxicology last year. There have been calls for retraction since then, along with other criticism and a lengthy exchange of letters in
the journal. Meanwhile, the paper has been cited 28 times, according
to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge, and the French National Assembly
(their lower house of Parliament) held a long hearing on the paper last year, with Seralini and other scientists testifying.
Now, as reported in the French media,
the editor of the journal, A. Wallace Hayes,
has sent Seralini a letter saying that the paper will be retracted if Seralini
does not agree to withdraw it.
The panel had many concerns about the quality of the data, and
ultimately recommended that the article should be withdrawn. I have been trying
to get in touch with you to discuss the specific reasons behind this
recommendation. If you do not agree to withdraw the article, it will be
retracted, and the following statement will be published it its place:
The journal Food and Chemical Toxicology retracts the article “Long term
toxicity of a Roundup herbicide and a Roundup-tolerant genetically modified
maize,”1 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. The Editor in-Chief deferred making any public statements
regarding this article until this investigation was complete, and the authors
were notified of the findings.
Very shortly after the publication of this article, the journal received
Letters to the Editor expressing concerns about the validity of the findings it
described, the proper use of animals, and even allegations of fraud. Many of
these letters called upon the editors of the journal to retract the paper.
According to the journal’s standard practice, these letters, as well as the
letters in support of the findings, were published along with a response from
the authors. Due to the nature of the concerns raised about this paper, the
Editor-in-Chief examined all aspects of the peer review process and requested
permission from the corresponding author to review the raw data. The request to
view raw data is not often made; however, it is in accordance with the
journal’s policy that authors of submitted manuscripts must be willing to
provide the original data if so requested. The corresponding author agreed and
supplied all material that was requested by the Editor-in-Chief. The
Editor-in-Chief wishes to acknowledge the co-operation of the corresponding
author in this matter, and commends him for his commitment to the scientific
process.
Unequivocally, the Editor-in-Chief found no evidence of fraud or
intentional misrepresentation of the data. However, there is legitimate cause
for concern regarding both the number of animals in each study group and the
particular strain selected. The low number of animals had been identified as a
cause for concern during the initial review process, but the peer-review decision
ultimately weighed that the work still had merit despite this limitation. A
more in-depth look at the raw data revealed that no definitive conclusions can
be reached with this small sample size regarding the role of either NK603 or
glyphosate in regards to overall mortality or tumor incidence. Given the known
high incidence of tumors in the Sprague-Dawley rat, normal variability cannot
be excluded as the cause of the higher mortality and incidence observed in the
treated groups.
Ultimately, the results presented (while not incorrect) are
inconclusive, and therefore do not reach the threshold of publication for Food
and Chemical Toxicology. The peer-review process is not perfect, but it does
work. The journal is committed to a fair, thorough, and timely peer-review
process; sometimes expediency might be sacrificed in order to be as thorough as
possible. The time-consuming nature is, at times, required in fairness to both
the authors and readers. Likewise, the Letters to the Editor, both pro and con,
serve as a post-publication peer review. The back and forth between the readers
and the author has a useful and valuable place in our scientific dialog.
The Editor-in-Chief again commends the corresponding author for his
willingness and openness in participating in this dialog. The retraction is
only on the inconclusiveness of this one paper. The journal’s editorial policy
will continue to review all manuscripts no matter how controversial they may
be. The editorial board will continue to use this case as a reminder to be as
diligent as possible in the peer-review process.
Seralini — whom, as we note, tried to get reporters to sign a
non-disclosure agreement when the study was first being released, a move Ivan
called an outrageous abuse of the
embargo system designed to turn reporters into stenographers — rejected Hayes’
findings, according to Le Figaro. And GMWatch called Hayes’ decision
“illicit, unscientific, and unethical.”
There’s a lot to chew on here:
1.
Our read is that Hayes is basically saying that while the paper doesn’t
meet the usual criteria for retraction, it should never have been published in
the first place. This will likely be quite controversial, and it will be
interesting to see how the scientific community reacts. Based on comments here
at Retraction Watch, many scientists say that retraction should be reserved for
fraud and serious error. Does that hold for a paper that many criticized as
deeply flawed — and which challenged GMOs, whose use is supported by many
scientists?
2.
Hayes is also saying that expedience is never an excuse for rushing a
paper through peer review, no matter how controversial the subject. (Contrast
Hayes’ comments with those by the editor of another
Elsevier journal, Cell, earlier this year: “It is a
misrepresentation to equate slow peer review with thoroughness or rigor or to
use timely peer review as a justification for sloppiness in manuscript
preparation.”)
3.
Post-publication peer-review — something we’ve championed for a while —
is really important.
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