Roundup return
The Séralini et al paper on Roundup and Roundup-resistant GM corn is back. The NZ Science Media Centre has comments. As does Retraction Watch
The Séralini et al paper on Roundup and Roundup-resistant GM corn is back. The NZ Science Media Centre has comments. As does Retraction Watch
I’ve written before about the Seralini research that involved feeding glyphosate and GM corn to rats. Now, Retraction Watch is reporting that the paper will be retracted.
This is a slightly unusual retraction: typically either the scientist has a horrible realisation that something went wrong (maybe their filters were affecting composition of their media) or the journal has a horrible realisation that something went wrong (maybe the images were Photoshopped or the patients didn’t actually exist).
The Seralini paper, though, is being retracted for being kinda pointless. The editors emphasise that they are not suggesting fraud, and write
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.
They’re certainly right about that, but this is hardly a new finding. I’m not really happy about retraction of papers when it isn’t based on new information that wasn’t easily available at the time of review. Too many pointless and likely wrong papers are published, but this one is being retracted for being pointless, likely wrong, and controversial.
[Update: mass enthusiasm for the retraction is summarised by Peter Griffin]
For anyone who wants to read more coverage
I thought I saw a Stuff story, but I can’t find it now.
Update: Ivan Oransky, of Embargo Watch, has found more sources to confirm the dodgy embargo and has a post on it.
You’ll probably be seeing local stories about GM corn and the weedkiller Roundup coming out soon. Here’s an overseas example. I was asked for comment on the research paper by the NZ Science Media Centre, and said
I do not think the herbicide risks look convincing, especially with respect to cancer. There is no consistent pattern in deaths with dose of either Roundup or GM corn: this is not just showing a threshold, as the authors suggest, since in all six of their comparisons the highest-dose group has lower mortality than lower-dose groups. The hypothesis of hormone-related cancer differences is not supported by the multivariate biochemical analysis, which found differences in salt excretion but not in testosterone or estradiol. The strongest conclusion that could be drawn from this study is that it would be worth studying a larger group of controls than just 10 and (since there is no sign of dose-response) just a single low dose of Roundup or GM corn.
The researchers say “It is noteworthy that the first two male rats that died in both GM treated groups had to be euthanized due to kidney Wilm’s tumors”. This is noteworthy, but perhaps not in the way the researchers mean: increases in human Wilms’ tumor from GM corn or herbicide residues would already be obvious even at rates hundreds of times lower than reported in these rats.
At the time, I had only read the research paper, not any of the media stories. There is a detail in the story I linked above that is absolutely outrageous:
Breaking with a long tradition in scientific journalism, the authors allowed a selected group of reporters to have access to the paper, provided they signed confidentiality agreements that prevented them from consulting other experts about the research before publication.
That is, we’ll let you have a scoop provided we can make sure there’s no risk of getting it right or disagreeing with us. Embargoes on stories about scientific papers are standard, but one of the justifications is to precisely to provide journalists with time to get the facts right. It would be interesting to know how many of the journalists who signed these agreements were willing to admit to it in their stories.