Smelling a corporate rat

A new study suggesting a Monsanto GM maize and the company's Roundup herbicide may pose serious health risks has been widely attacked, not just by scientists and commentators but also by scientific bodies and regulators. Here, Jonathan Matthews of GMWatch looks at the role of industry-linked scientists and lobbyists in a campaign aimed at getting the paper retracted. You can also download this article as a PDF. At the end of November Reuters ran the headline Science Journal Urged to Retract Monsanto GM Study and New Scientist also reported the growing pressure for retraction. These articles marked the latest stage in a campaign that kicked off the moment the study was published in mid-September, when researchers led by Prof. Gilles-Eric Seralini at the University of Caen in France announced their findings of serious health problems in rats that had been fed a Monsanto maize genetically engineered to be resistant to the company's herbicide Roundup, as well as in rats just fed low doses of the herbicide itself. In both cases the rats fed with the GM maize and/or minute amounts of the herbicide in water were several times more likely to develop lethal tumours and suffer severe liver and kidney damage when compared to the controls.