GM Maize Study Retracted

The journal Food and Chemical Toxicology has retracted a much-criticized paper that links a strain of genetically modified (GM) maize with diseases in rats. Elsevier, the journal's publisher, said in a 28 November statement that "the results presented (while not incorrect) are inconclusive, and therefore do not reach the threshold of publication for Food and Chemical Toxicology."

In the 2-year study, rats who received various doses of Monsanto's herbicide-resistant NK603 maize suffered from more tumors, organ damage, and premature deaths than control animals. Many scientists dismissed the paper as flawed when it was published in September 2012. Explaining the retraction, the journal's editor-in-chief, Wallace Hayes, cited the low number of animals in each study group and the high natural incidence of tumors in the strain of rat used.

At a press conference in Belgium, the paper's author, biologist Gilles-Eric Séralini of the University of Caen, countered that his experiment was modeled after Monsanto's own NK603 toxicity study. He called the decision an attempt by the GM crop industry to muzzle scientists who question the safety of its products.

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6163/1152.2.full

China's Publication Bazaar

Science 29 November 2013: 
Vol. 342 no. 6162 pp. 1035-1039 
DOI: 10.1126/science.342.6162.1035

• NEWS FOCUS

China's Publication Bazaar

1. Mara Hvistendahl*

A Science investigation has uncovered a smorgasbord of questionable practices including paying for author's slots on papers written by other scientists and buying papers from online brokers.

SHANGHAI, CHINA—The e-mail arrived around noon from the mysterious sender "Publish SCI Paper," with the subject line "Transfer co-first author and co-corresponding author." A message body uncluttered with pleasantries contained a scientific abstract with all the usual ingredients, bar one: author names. The message said that the paper, describing a potential strategy for curbing drug resistance in cancer cells, had been accepted by Elsevier's International Journal of Biochemistry & Cell Biology. Now its authorship was for sale.

"There are some authors who don't have much use for their papers after they're published, and they can be transferred to you," a sales agent for a company called Wanfang Huizhi told a Science reporter posing as a scientist. Wanfang Huizhi, the agent explained, acts as an intermediary between researchers with forthcoming papers in good journals and scientists needing to snag publications. The company would sell the title of co–first author on the cancer paper for 90,000 yuan ($14,800). Adding two names—co–first author and co–corresponding author—would run $26,300, with a deposit due upon acceptance and the rest on publication. A purported sales document from Wanfang Huizhi obtained by Science touts the convenience of this kind of arrangement: "You only need to pay attention to your academic research. The heavy labor can be left to us. Our service can help you make progress in your academic path!"

More on: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6162/1035.full