Monsanto tries to get Seralini study retracted

The study by GE Seralini showed that even low amounts of Roundup had toxic effects on rats over the long-term. This includes liver and kidney damage. Seralini's other study where rats got tumors was done incorrectly as they used a type of rat that is supposed to get tumors.

Extract from a Monsanto employee review:

Goal: 
PROMOTE GLYPHOSATE FREEDOM TO OPERATE THROUGH PROACTIVE ENGAGEMENT OF EXPERTS, TECHNICAL PUBLICATIONS AND RESPONSES TO THIRD PARTY ALLEGATIONS.

2. In effort to enhance global long-term scientific outreach and freedom to operate, coordinate (i) an initial South American Toxicology Expert Panel meeting in Buenos Aires by the end of FY2013 and (ii) the 2012 EU. Glyphosate Expert Advisory Panel meeting in Harrogate, UK 8/9 November, 2012.

Employee comment: 
2 (ii) coordinated the November EU Expert Panel meeting which provided opportunity for valuable interaction with experts and peers, consolidating strategies in addressing activist publications (eg. Seralini and Earth Open Source) and industry sponsored technical publications supporting FTO and glyphosate EU Annex I Renewal.


Source
GMO Inside.
The Monsanto memo in PDF form, document name FY2013. This looks like an employee review of David Anthony Saltmiras.

Low levels of Roundup cause liver disease in rats

A long-term, low-dose study by Seralini and others shows Roundup causes liver disease in female rats. The study took 2 years and...

The dose selected was below what people are commonly exposed to in the everyday environment and 75,000 times below what is permitted by EU regulators.

The study found Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease in the rates. NAFLD is found in 20% of the general population today, making people wonder if there's a link between Roundup (which contains more chemicals than just glyphosate) and NAFLD. Naturally, a study was warranted. In a previous study, even rats given 0.1ppb (parts per billion!) over 2 years showed liver damage. In the current study, 214 proteins out of 1906 were "disturbed". That's 11.2%. But hundreds of proteins being disrupted is still very bad.


Sources
EurActive. Jan 11, 2017.
The study in Nature. Backup link at archive.is.

Monsanto damn themselves in emails

2012 Seralini 2 year study with rats supported at last.

Quotes:

Perhaps most astonishing was the fact that the Seralini study was the first long-term study of the effects of a GMO diet in the world after almost two decades of widespread proliferation of GMO crops. No one else until then had made tests over the entire two year life span of rats—no government, no university, no food end-user like Nestle, Unilever, Kellogg or Kraft Foods or any such mega food concerns using GMO in their products. All previous studies were merely a brief three months or less, far too short a time to determine the possible effects of a GMO diet, as Seralini’s study dramatically confirmed. (The study here was retracted after pressure from pro-Monsanto industry.)

Seralini’s 2012 study also independently confirmed carcinogenic effects of Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide paired with the GMO corn.

Keep in mind that GMO corn, containing Roundup, is also used to make corn syrup, which is in 90%+ of packaged products in the US. And GMO corn is not the only problem. Many other non-GMO crops are sprayed with Roundup to kill them all at the same time to make harvesting easier.

On 19 September, 2012 according to the emails seen by Foucart, Nebraska University professor Richard Goodman, a former Monsanto employee who continued research work that was primarily funded by Monsanto and the agribusiness industry, informed Monsanto about the publication of the Séralini’s article. Goodman wrote his Monsanto contact that he “would appreciate” it if Monsanto could provide him with criticisms against the Seralini piece. Monsanto replied to Goodman, “We’re reviewing the paper. I will send you the arguments that we have developed.” A few days later, Goodman was named “associate editor” responsible for biotechnology, i.e. GMO, a specially-created post at Food and Chemical Toxicology journal, by Wallace Hayes, then editor.

Source
Journal Neo.org.

An example of bad headlines

From Skeptical Raptor we have this headline:
"Séralini’s controversial GMOs cause cancer article retracted"

Yes, his first study ("Long term toxicity of a Roundup herbicide and a Roundup-tolerant genetically modified maize") was retracted. But he wasn't studying all GMOs. He was studying Roundup Ready corn fed to rats, which contains glyphosate. This headline is deceptive and borderlines on being plain inaccurate. There is plenty of proof Roundup Ready crops contain glyphosate, and are dangerous to animals and humans. I have yet to see evidence that drought-resistant eggplant is a problem. If you have such evidence please put your link to the study in the comment, and a description of what the study says.

All this over-generalization and hysteria makes the non-GMO movement look really bad. I take offense because I'm part of the non-Roundup Ready movement. I want the right to choose which poisons I put in my body, and usually that's a glass of wine at dinner. I didn't pay for wine with glyphosate, nor do I want it. Even some organic wines had glyphosate.


The Skeptical Raptor article continues:

But here’s the simplest of simple math–glyphosate is not sprayed directly on the ears of corn. Glyphosate suppresses weeds, and would kill corn if sprayed directly. So the amount on that ear of corn is basically undetectable.

Wrong. Roundup Ready crops are sprayed directly with Roundup, and the crops don't die. That's the GMO part. Other non-RR crops are regularly sprayed with Roundup 2 days before harvest so the whole crop dies at the same time. All parts of a crop dying at the same time doesn't normally happen on a farm. Different areas of the field ripen at different rates. Thus when they are harvested, they are full of Roundup.

There are plenty of studies that show glyphosate is dangerous to cells, animals, and humans even at low doses. To accept some studies and not others for the convenience of profit is not science. To assume a substance is safe when it has not been proven to be safe in peer-reviewed studies is also not science, nor is it wise.

Seralini wins second lawsuit against crooked biotech!

1. The Parisian High Court ruled that Seralini was right when his studies found GMOs are not safe for human consumption despite the claims he used rats that were prone to tumors anyway. 
2. Marc Fellous, former chairman of France's Biomolecular Engineering Commission (BEC) has been indicted for forgery. 
3. The BEC lied to the public, and hid scientific data, when they said GMOs were safe for humans. 
4. Fellous had used a signature or copy of a signature of a scientist, without his consent, to smear Seralini. 

From Naturalnews, Mar 21, 2016.

In one study, both the test and control group of rats were fed GMOs, so no significant differences were seen. Seralini analyzed 13 samples of rat feeds commonly fed to rats in studies and found all the feeds contained one or more of GMOs, heavy metals, dioxins, furans, and PCBs.

Links

Seralini's full article from 2015 here.
GMOwatch.org.