Christou and co-authors also repeated ‘straw man’ arguments that had long ago been answered by Séralini’s team in the pages of FCT⁵ and by others.  These included claims that Séralini’s study was a failed carcinogenicity study, when it was a chronic toxicity study that unexpectedly found tumours; and that Séralini used a cancer-prone strain of rat, even though this claim is shown to be absurd by none other than Monsanto, whose long-term toxicity and carcinogenicity tests on glyphosate (the main ingredient of Roundup) used the same strain of rat.^{6 7}  

The authors added another reason why they believed the paper should be retracted: 'to comply with COPE [Committee on Publication Ethics] guidelines', a set of ethical standards for academic journals. 

What does COPE say about retraction?

Is Christou supported by the COPE guidelines on retraction? The guidelines clearly state the grounds on which a journal editor can retract a publication: if it proves to be fraudulent; if the findings prove to be unreliable due to misconduct (e.g. data fabrication) or honest error; if data were plagiarised; or if the research was conducted unethically. Inaccuracies or distortions are grounds not for retraction but for published correction. 

No one, including Christou, has demonstrated that Séralini and colleagues’ 2012 paper fufils the COPE criteria for retraction or even for published correction.

On the other hand, the COPE guidelines do justify retraction of letters published in FCT by Séralini’s critics and by Christou and co-authors in Transgenic Research. This is because COPE names as a criterion justifying retraction 'failure to disclose a major competing interest likely to influence interpretations or recommendations'. 

Critics of Séralini who failed to fully disclose their conflicts of interest with the GM industry or lobby groups in their letters to FCT include Henry I. Miller, Mark Tester, Chris Leaver, Bruce Chassy, Martina Newell-McGloughlin, Andrew Cockburn, L. Val Giddings, Sivramiah (Shanthu) Shantharam, Lucia de Souza, Erio Barale-Thomas, and Marc Fellous. These conflicts of interest were only subsequently revealed in independent investigations by GMWatch director Jonathan Matthews and the French journalist Benjamin Sourice.  Christou’s conflicts of interest have largely escaped attention, yet are extensive and serious, as detailed below.

Christou’s history of attacking inconvenient findings on GM crops

It is important to note that this is not the first time Christou has attacked scientific findings that have raised doubts about GM crops. In 2001 Ignacio Chapela and David Quist published a study in the journal Nature that reported contamination of native Mexican maize varieties with GM maize genes⁸.  In an exact parallel with the Seralini study, an Internet campaign was waged against Chapela and Quist, accusing them of being activists rather than scientists and demanding that the journal retract the study. 

The journal editor Philip Campbell asked the authors for more data, which they provided, and arranged another round of peer review. The paper passed both rounds of peer review, with only one reviewer in the final group of three supporting retraction. Nevertheless, and in spite of the fact that no one had presented any data or analysis that contradicted Chapela and Quist’s main finding of GM contamination, Campbell published a statement that 'The evidence available is not sufficient to justify the publication of the original paper.'⁹

This was not exactly a retraction, and the paper is still cited as valid in the scientific literature. Perhaps for this very reason, Christou did not stop there. Just as he was later to do with the Séralini study, Christou attacked Chapela and Quist’s paper in an article in Transgenic Research. The article’s title said it all: 'No credible scientific evidence is presented to support claims that transgenic DNA was introgressed into traditional maize landraces in Oaxaca, Mexico.'¹⁰

Christou used the same technique that he employed with the Seralini study, castigating the editor for publishing a paper with 'so many fundamental flaws'. Christou also claimed sample contamination was the likely cause of the results, not GM contamination. Needless to say, this remains only a hypothesis until proven by further experiments, which Christou did not do.

Christou was not the only vociferous critic of Chapela and Quist who was later to reappear in the attacks on Séralini: others include Anthony Trewavas, C.S. Prakash, and former tobacco lobbyist Henry I. Miller.^{11 12}  

Most reputable journals require conflicts of interest to be disclosed in published articles, including in letters to the editor intended for publication. Yet these people had serious conflicts of interest that were not fully disclosed in their lobbying efforts and in media articles quoting them – and were only revealed by subsequent independent investigations.^{13 14 15 16}      

Christou’s undeclared conflicts of interest

Christou published both his "attack" pieces – against Chapela and Quist and Séralini – in the journal Transgenic Research. However, in the case of the anti-Séralini article, Christou gave no indication that he is in fact the editor of Transgenic Research.  So it appears that Christou both wrote and decided to publish his own article. This violates the COPE stipulation that journal editors must ensure that 'submissions from members of the journal’s staff or editorial board receive an objective and unbiased evaluation'. However, the journal does not disclose if or how it ensured this, giving the default impression that Christou both wrote and decided to publish his own article.  

Christou’s article attacking Séralini violates the COPE stipulation that journal editors 'should have systems for managing their own conflicts of interest as well as those of their staff, authors, reviewers and editorial board members', since the journal fails to clarify such policy. COPE recommends that journals publish lists of relevant interests of all editorial staff.

Christou’s article attacking Séralini’s study carried no such disclosure. Yet his conflicts of interest are serious and extensive. He worked for the GM seed company Agracetus for 12 years until 1994.  Agracetus’s biotechnology interests were bought up by Monsanto in 1996. Christou is an inventor on a number of patents on GM crop technology, for most of which Monsanto owns the property rights.^{17 18 19 20 21 22 23}  It is not known whether Christou earns money from these patents but even if he does not, it is normal practice to declare inventor status on patents as a competing interest in scientific articles.

From 1994 to 2004, Christou worked at the John Innes Centre in the UK, which is also heavily invested in GM crop technology.

Scientific inaccuracy or PR disaster?

One paragraph in Christou’s attack piece against Séralini suggested that his real concern lay not with alleged scientific inaccuracies but with something far more threatening to the industry – the striking pictures of rats with tumours that had been released by the researchers. In apocalyptic language, Christou wrote:

'Even a full retraction of the Séralini article will not cleanse the Internet of the inflammatory images of tumorous rats.' Christou feared that this would shake 'public confidence in science' and 'persuade politicians and regulators to tighten restrictions on GM crops even further despite the urgent need for innovative solutions to the global food security challenge'.²⁴

It is easy to forget, amid the bluster, that this outcome would hurt no one but the GM industry and those with interests in the public acceptance of GM technology. As we have seen, the latter group includes Christou.

References

¹ Séralini GE, et al. (2012). Long term toxicity of a Roundup herbicide and a Roundup-tolerant genetically modified maize. Food and Chemical Toxicology 50(11): 4221-4231. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0278691512005637
² Letters to the editor (2013). Food and Chemical Toxicology 53. March. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0278691512005637
³ Arjo G, et al. (2013). Plurality of opinion, scientific discourse and pseudoscience: an in depth analysis of the Séralini et al. study claiming that Roundup Ready corn or the herbicide Roundup cause cancer in rats. Transgenic Res.
⁴ Séralini GE, et al. (2012). Long term toxicity of a Roundup herbicide and a Roundup-tolerant genetically modified maize. Food and Chemical Toxicology 50(11): 4221-4231. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0278691512005637
⁵ Séralini GE, et al. (2013). Answers to critics: Why there is a long term toxicity due to NK603 Roundup-tolerant genetically modified maize and to a Roundup herbicide. Food and Chemical Toxicology 53: 461-468. Online 12 November 2012 prior to print. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0278691512008149
⁶ Rapporteur member state Germany. Monograph on glyphosate. Vol 3-1 Glyphosat 05. German Federal Agency for Consumer Protection and Food Safety (BVL). 1998. http://earthopensource.org/files/pdfs/Roundup-and-birth-defects/VOLUME3-1_GLYPHOSAT_05.PDF
⁷ Rapporteur member state Germany. Monograph on glyphosate. Vol 3-1 Glyphosat 04. German Federal Agency for Consumer Protection and Food Safety (BVL). 1998. http://earthopensource.org/files/pdfs/Roundup-and-birth-defects/VOLUME3-1_GLYPHOSAT_04.PDF
⁸ Quist D and IH Chapela (2001). Transgenic DNA introgressed into traditional maize landraces in Oaxaca, Mexico. NATURE 414(6863): 541-543.
⁹ Editorial note (2002). Nature. 4 April. Reproduced at: http://www.twnside.org.sg/title/info10.htm
¹⁰ Christou P. (2002). No credible scientific evidence is presented to support claims that transgenic DNA was introgressed into traditional maize landraces in Oaxaca, Mexico. Transgenic Research 11: iii–v.
¹¹ Matthews J (2012) Smelling a corporate rat. Spinwatch. 11 December.
¹² de Logiviere, J. R. and S. Foucart (2013). Science: Industrial poisoning [Science: l'intoxication industrielle]. Le Monde. 21 March. http://gmoseralini.org/science-industrial-poisoning/
¹³ GMWatch (2012). GM lobby wades in on new study. 20 September. http://www.gmwatch.org/latest-listing/51-2012/14211
¹⁴ Matthews J (2012) Smelling a corporate rat. Spinwatch. 11 December. http://www.spinwatch.org/index.php/issues/science/item/164-smelling-a-corporate-rat
¹⁵ Rowell A (2003). “Immoral maize”, in Don’t Worry, It’s Safe to Eat. Earthscan. Reproduced at: http://www.gmwatch.org/latest-listing/1-test/10959
¹⁶ Arjo G, et al. (2013). Plurality of opinion, scientific discourse and pseudoscience: an in depth analysis of the Séralini et al. study claiming that Roundup Ready corn or the herbicide Roundup cause cancer in rats. Transgenic Res. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23430588
¹⁷ PTO Direct (2001). Patent 6288312 - Method of creating transformed rice plant
¹⁸ PTO Direct (2002). Patent 6365807 - Method of creating a transformed rice plant 
¹⁹ PTO Direct (1991). Patent 5015580 – Particle-mediated transformation of soybean plants and lines
²⁰ Paul Christou (2013). Full Curriculum Vitae.
²¹ PTO Direct (2005). Patent 6846970 - Transformation method and transgenic plants produced thereby
²² PTO Direct (1999). Patent 5989915 - Plant transformation with early identification of germ line transformation events
²³ PTO Direct (2000). Patent 6114603 - Genetic engineering of sugarbeet plants
²⁴ Arjo G, et al. (2013). Plurality of opinion, scientific discourse and pseudoscience: an in depth analysis of the Séralini et al. study claiming that Roundup Ready corn or the herbicide Roundup cause cancer in rats. Transgenic Res.