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