Does GM Corn Cause Tumors? The Full Story of the Séralini Paper Controversy

Text / Huang Jialin (co-founder of the Campus Lunch Goes Non-GMO campaign)

In 2012, French biologist Seralini published a paper discussing how GM foods cause tumors and liver and kidney lesions in rats. More than a year later, the academic journal published by Elsevier announced, for certain reasons, that it was retracting the paper. This retraction incident is often used by pro-GMO proponents to accuse anti-GMO advocates of being irrational and lacking scientific evidence.

However, tracing the whole affair precisely highlights the ugly picture of corporate hands reaching into academia, suppressing and distorting independent scientific research. It is a concrete example of how Monsanto, the leader in GMOs, persecuted scientists conducting independent research on GMO risks. The facts that pro-GMO proponents never mention include:

• Half a year after the retraction incident, the paper was republished in a European academic journal;
• As soon as the incident occurred, it triggered global scientists' condemnation of GMO companies' interference with academic freedom. Subsequently, 1390 scientists from more than 90 countries, in response to the absurd farce of the paper's retraction, and based on academic conscience and the spirit of seeking scientific truth, signed their names in a joint statement of boycott, pledging not to submit papers to that publisher in the future;
• Products from agribusiness companies such as Monsanto usually only have evaluation reports conducted for a period of ninety days. From this study, it can be seen that the first tumors in rats appeared only after four to seven months. A three-month GMO risk assessment is far from sufficient. Regulatory authorities in all countries should require manufacturers to provide longer-term research data;
• The Seralini team has already made the original data public for peer review by academics; in contrast, Monsanto to this day still hides behind so-called product patent rights, refusing to provide the original data from the company's experiments and evaluations. The public and academia have no way at all of knowing what is really going on.

From the content of the experiment to the process of retraction and republication, one can see where the controversy in this incident lies.

On November 28, 2013, Elsevier, a long-established European publishing company, issued a statement in Massachusetts, USA, announcing the retraction of a paper published in its US journal Food and Chemical Toxicology (hereinafter referred to as FCT) (Note 1).

When a journal retracts a paper for certain reasons, the controversies it triggers are mostly about the credibility of research procedures, research ethics issues, whether the conclusions are true or false, and so on. It is usually a storm in a small academic circle, not a news event widely taken seriously by all sectors of society. However, this retraction statement caused an uproar in Europe, the United States, and even globally. Its impact even reached the point that Taiwan's Food and Drug Administration under the Ministry of Health and Welfare, in its publicly funded food safety advertisement, began by using this case as an example, sarcastically treating the paper's controversy and retraction as evidence that the safety and scientific evidence of GM foods remain inconclusive to this day (Note 2).

Origin of the Incident

This paper, published by French scholar Gilles-Eric Seralini and his research team under the title "Long term toxicity of a Roundup herbicide and a Roundup-tolerant genetically modified maize" (Note 3), exactly how important is it? Why did the research controversy of this well-known French professor of molecular biology, Seralini, and the storm in the academic teapot attract widespread attention from all sectors, even leading Wikipedia to have an entry named after the "Seralini affair"?

Note 1 Elsevier Announces Article Retraction from Journal Food and Chemical Toxicology – See more at: http://www.elsevier.com/about/press-releases/research-and-journals/elsev…

Note 2 The article "Science on the Tip of the Tongue: Does GM food cause cancer? Insufficient evidence!" was provided by an advertisement from the Food and Drug Administration. http://udn.com/NEWS/NATIONAL/NAT3/8748123.shtml

Note 3 The paper has been retracted from that journal, but the original text, other scholars' exchanges of opinions, discussions, comments, responses, and so on can still be found. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0278691512005637

Note 4 NK603 GM corn is approved for import in our country as food or animal feed.

Note 5 Thanks to netizen Ben-Min Chang for providing the detailed grouping method of the experiment: ten groups each for males and females, fed according to the following 10 treatments:

1. Fed DKC 2675 + clean water
2. Fed 11% GM NK603 grown with R herbicide + clean water
3. Fed 22% GM NK603 grown with R herbicide + clean water
4. Fed 33% GM NK603 grown with R herbicide + clean water
5. Fed 11% GM NK603 grown without R herbicide + clean water
6. Fed 22% GM NK603 grown without R herbicide + clean water
7. Fed 33% GM NK603 grown without R herbicide + clean water
8. Fed DKC 2675 + 50 ng/L of Glyphosate (simulating contaminated tap water)
9. Fed DKC 2675 + 400 mg/kg of Glyphosate (the maximum residue limit standard set by the United States)
10. Fed DKC 2675 + 2.25 g/L of Glyphosate (half the effective herbicidal concentration)

Note 6 The International Life Sciences Institute Taiwan was established on July 28, 2013, and became the 16th branch of ILSI worldwide. From its recent related activities, one can also see its position of being committed to promoting GM foods and supporting GM crops in Taiwan.

http://www.ilsitaiwan.org/Page/PageContent.aspx?PID=smYrsGe28Rg%3D

For example, in 2014 the organization held its annual meeting, inviting then president of the International Life Sciences Institute, Dr. Jerry Hjelle, and others to come to Taiwan to speak. Jerry Hjelle was Monsanto's Vice President of Global Regulatory Affairs. At present, Jerry Hjelle is still on the board of directors of international ILSI, and the unit he represents is still Monsanto. Incidentally, a representative of another multinational agrochemical company, DuPont, is also on that board list. http://www.ilsi.org/Pages/Leadership.aspx

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Part of this article was published in the August 2014 e-newsletter of the Homemakers United Foundation Environmental Protection Foundation

http://www.huf.org.tw/essay/content/2570 and http://www.huf.org.tw/essay/content/2571.