Bad science in the paper 'Long term toxicity of a Roundup herbicide and a Roundup-tolerant GM maize'

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No, it says 20 per sex.
Ok..I'll have to look at that. I did see that Monsanto referred to guideline 448 in their study (which I linked to earlier via gmoseralini.org) which was 10 of each sex I thought, and that Seralini copied their numbers.
I'm not sure why 453 would be different. I've had a long day and am off to a conference tomorrow until the weekend so probably might not get back to this thread till Monday. Perhaps someone else will find the reason
 
i'll go with wileys phrase of 'random noise'.

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Females are hormonally different which leads to different results. Same for humans I believe . Women are more prone to breast cancer and breast cancer could possibly be linked to glyphosate.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23756170
Abstract
Glyphosate is an active ingredient of the most widely used herbicide and it is believed to be less toxic than other pesticides. However, several recent studies showed its potential adverse health effects to humans as it may be an endocrine disruptor. This study focuses on the effects of pure glyphosate on estrogen receptors (ERs) mediated transcriptional activity and their expressions. Glyphosate exerted proliferative effects only in human hormone-dependent breast cancer, T47D cells, but not in hormone-independent breast cancer
,
 
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If you don't have an hypothesis then how can you design a test?

Hypothesis: Roundup causes an increased incidence of cancer in rats.

Hypothesis: GM maize causes an increased incidence of cancer in rats.

Once those are confirmed you can look for mechanisms. Before they are confirmed suggesting mechanisms is premature.
 
No, we are talking about long-term studies, and you also bolded the "multiple lifetime studies" part. OECD guidelines also prescribe 2 years for carcinogenicity testing.

There were multiple long-term feeding studies. Page 125 begins talking about the carcinogenicity studies.

http://ac.els-cdn.com/S027323009991...t=1436876050_d87c052c50c8071a554ae1cfe42366b3
CD-1 mice were administered glypho- sate in the diet at concentrations of 0, 1000, 5000, or 30,000 ppm for a period of 24 months (Knezevich, 1983). ... Based on a weight-of-evidence evaluation, no treatment-related adenomas occurred. This conclusion was also reached by the U.S. EPA and an independent group of pathologists and biometricians under the aus- pices of U.S. EPA’s Scientific Advisory Panel (SAP) (U.S. EPA, 1992a). The WHO (1994a) has also con- cluded that glyphosate did not produce an oncogenic response in this study.
...
When glyphosate was fed to Sprague– Dawley rats at dietary concentrations of 0, 60, 200, or 600 ppm for 26 months, no treatment-related chronic effects were observed (Lankas, 1981).
...
In a second study with the same strain of rat, glypho- sate was administered at dietary concentrations of 0, 2000, 8000, or 20,000 ppm for two years (Stout and Ruecker, 1990).
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Carcinogenicity can be assessed multiple ways and has been when it comes to RoundUp. The review, in addition to lifetime/2-year/1-year etc. studies, describes results from studies assessing mutagenicity (every mutagen is a carcinogen but not every carcinogen in a mutagen), organ and endocrine damage, and metabolism damage. Damage in any of these categories can give insights into a mechanism for how a substance might be carcinogenic. All of which, however, come up with no significant results. My point here is that Seralini's data does not agree with the existing body of research, further lending to the notion that the paper is bad science.
 
There were multiple long-term feeding studies. Page 125 begins talking about the carcinogenicity studies.
Incidentally, all of them are unpublished and either by Monsanto or hired by Monsanto.

Knezevich, A. L. (1983). A Chronic Feeding Study of Glyphosate
(Roundup Technical) in Mice. Unpublished report, Bio/Dynamics,
Inc., East Millstone, NJ.


Lankas, G. R. (1981). A Lifetime Feeding Study of Glyphosate
(Roundup Technical) in Rats. Unpublished report, Bio/Dynamics,
Inc., East Millstone, NJ.


Stout, L. D., and Ruecker, F. A. (1990). Chronic Study of Glyphosate
Administered in Feed to Albino Rats. Unpublished report, Mon-
santo Environmental Health Laboratory, St. Louis, MO.
 
My point here is that Seralini's data does not agree with the existing body of research, further lending to the notion that the paper is bad science.
You cannot label a study "bad science" based on its results.
Maybe the previous studies were bad science.
Certainly, unpublished studies done or financed by the manufacturer are not to be trusted very much. It has been shown over and over that these tend to be strongly biased.
 
You cannot label a study "bad science" based on its results.
Maybe the previous studies were bad science.
Certainly, unpublished studies done or financed by the manufacturer are not to be trusted very much. It has been shown over and over that these tend to be strongly biased.

You're right, but you can label it bad science based on the interpretation of the results and the methods used to collect them, which have been discussed here.
This is what I originally meant by my question as to whether or not there is anything wrong with the studies. What they did and the results they gathered have been summarized in the review referenced earlier. If you're just assuming that the data was fudged because you don't trust Monsanto then there really isn't anything to discuss. The reports were assessed by multiple third parties.
 
If you're just assuming that the data was fudged because you don't trust Monsanto then there really isn't anything to discuss. The reports were assessed by multiple third parties.
I won't trust an unpublished study for obvious reasons. I don't care what "third parties" have said. They may have been influenced by Monsanto's lobbying power, or may have been deceived themselves. An unpublished study is not a study. It can be pretty much regarded non-existent. If there was nothing to hide, why did they not publish it? I mean come on. Even citing an unpublished report is kinda absurd. How can you rely on that? I would have rejected that review because it cites unpublished studies. Even if a study is published, I won't trust it until it is replicated and confirmed by a number of independent groups. About half of science is junk, and that proportion is even higher if there is conflict of interest.
 
But that is from 2009. The Seralini study was started in 2008.
452 dates back to 1981 - 2009 is the latest revision to it, not a whole new standard -



INTRODUCTION


1. OECD Guidelines for the Testing of Chemicals (TGs) are periodically reviewed in the light of scientific progress, changing assessment practices and animal welfare considerations. The original Guideline 452 was adopted in 1981. Development of a revised TG 452 was considered necessary in order to reflect recent developments in the field of animal welfare and regulatory requirements (1) (2) (3) (4). The updating of TG 452 has been carried out in parallel with revisions of the Test Guidelines 451, Carcinogenicity Studies and 453, Combined Chronic Toxicity/Carcinogenicity studies, with the objective of obtaining additional information from the animals used in the study and providing further detail on dose selection. This Test Guideline is designed to be used in the testing of a broad range of chemicals, including pesticides and industrial chemicals.


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I can't find anything that says whether the number of animals required was part of the revision, but the 4 references given in the para above are:


1. OECD (1995), Report of the Consultation Meeting on Sub-chronic and Chronic Toxicity/Carcinogenicity Testing (Rome, 1995), internal working document, Environment Directorate, OECD, Paris.

2. Combes RD, Gaunt, I, Balls M (2004). A Scientific and Animal Welfare Assessment of the OECD Health Effects Test Guidelines for the Safety Testing of Chemicals under the European Union REACH System. ATLA 32, 163-208.

3. Barlow SM, Greig JB, Bridges JW et al (2002). Hazard identification by methods of animal based toxicology. Food. Chem. Toxicol. 40, 145-191.

4. Chhabra RS, Bucher JR, Wolfe M, Portier C (2003). Toxicity characterization of environmental chemicals by the US National Toxicology Programme: an overview. Int. J. Hyg. Environ. Health 206, 437-445.

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You NEVER listen to me!!! You don't love me!!!! Now you've made me cry, are you happy?!?

;) ^^^ that's a joke. do you get it?
I'm not saying anything :)

anyway the difference between males and females isnt the problem. Look closer.
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Are you taking into account the threshold effect? After a certain dose the effect is much the same. And with only 10 rats per group you wont get the same robustness as with 50 rats per group.
Apologies if I missed something obvious otherwise but I did have a "man look". You might have to spell it out if I missed it
 
If there was nothing to hide, why did they not publish it?

There could be a number of reasons for that. Some projects don't publish because of intellectual property, but a lot of times journals don't publish negative results. If nothing groundbreaking, exciting, or interesting is found in the studies, it's not unusual for them to go unpublished. I don't know what the story is with these reports, but contacting the authors is certainly an option.

I mean come on. Even citing an unpublished report is kinda absurd. How can you rely on that?

Because the reviewers are a third party who acquired the data form the researchers and critically analyzed it along with many many other published papers.

Even if a study is published, I won't trust it until it is replicated and confirmed by a number of independent groups.

At no point along the path for gathering evidence to say that a substance is carcinogenic (in-vitro -> in-vivo -> epidemiology -> mechanism) does RoundUp or GM feed show any significant carcinogenic potential according to various approaches and methods of assessment done by many labs and published studies from all over the world. So is there any reason not to trust the Monsanto studies other than assuming it is biased?
 
The main problem with non-publishing historically has been that papers that do not support the funder's position/product have a habit of not appearing - so never get assessed by regulatory agencies or meta-studies.

Ben Goldacre is especially vocal about this practice and his "Bad Science" blog is a good read for some of the things being done to fix it.

Otherwise whether a paper is published or not is irrelevant to its contents.
 
There could be a number of reasons for that.
I don't care. What has not been published does not exist, period. And no, I won't accept third-party assessments of unpublished reports. This is not how science is done.
Because the reviewers are a third party who acquired the data form the researchers and critically analyzed it along with many many other published papers.
The first thing the reviewers should have done is exclude all unpublished studies. But they didn't do that. That's already enough reason not to trust those reviewers.
So is there any reason not to trust the Monsanto studies other than assuming it is biased?
Yes, there are reasons. For example, they are unpublished. In addition, glyphosate has just been classified as probably carcinogenic to humans by the WHO, based on epidemiologic, animal, and in vitro studies.
 
Bad example. That blog post is about a paper that is available on the internet, so it's essentially published.
No. sorry its a pet peeve of mine when people start changing definitions ..they did that with Pervasive Developmental Disorders and screwed everyone up.

Can we keep (in regards to scientific studies) "Published" means in a Journal. ? please.

and "Peer Reviewed" cannot start meaning every Joe Blow from Idaho can 'decide' on the merits of a study they see on the internet.
 
No. sorry its a pet peeve of mine when people start changing definitions ..they did that with Pervasive Developmental Disorders and screwed everyone up.

Can we keep (in regards to scientific studies) "Published" means in a Journal. ? please.
We didn't use that definition here. The Monsanto reports are unpublished, meaning they are not accessible anywhere.
My problem is not that they are not published in a journal, my problem is that they are not published anywhere, i.e. you cannot read them.
 
We didn't use that definition here. The Monsanto reports are unpublished, meaning they are not accessible anywhere.
My problem is not that they are not published in a journal, my problem is that they are not published anywhere, i.e. you cannot read them.
No i know. but maybe say "they are unpublished and unavailable on the internet". we cant just have random anybodies saying they "published a [scientific] paper" because they stuck it in a blog somewhere :)

edit Or "unpublished and unavailable to the public".
 
Bad example. That blog post is about a paper that is available on the internet, so it's essentially published.

Not so - "published" has a very specific meaning for science papers - it means published in a journal.
 
This is not what we are talking about here, so don't throw in red herrings.

It is certainly what I am talking about, and what "unpublished" means in relation to the Monsanto papers mentioned in this thread. If you have another view perhaps you could start a thread.
 
It is certainly what I am talking about, and what "unpublished" means in relation to the Monsanto papers mentioned in this thread. If you have another view perhaps you could start a thread.
No, it does not. In a list of references, when they write "Author, Title, Unpublished", that means it is not available anywhere. If it was available, then they would provide the source, even if the source is just a URL, and would not write "Unpublished". In a list of references, "Unpublished" means there is no source.
 
No, it does not. In a list of references, when they write "Author, Title, Unpublished", that means it is not available anywhere. If it was available, then they would provide the source, even if the source is just a URL, and would not write "Unpublished". In a list of references, "Unpublished" means there is no source.

And yet that is not correct (public question and anssers)

And not correct - (APA citation styles)

Unpublished refers to any information source that is not officially released by an individual, publishing house, or other company, and can include both paper and electronic sources.
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APA also notes that works can be unpublished and informally published while still being available electronically -


Unpublished Manuscript
Ex. 1: Unpublished manuscript with a university cited. Retrieved from institutional website, no date.

......


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Unpublished Manuscript
Ex. 1: Unpublished manuscript with a university cited. Retrieved from institutional website, no date.
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Yeah, so as you see, if the paper is available then the source is given.
The Monsanto reports are not available. That's the whole point.
And the Williams et al. (2000) review cites lots and lots and lots of "unpublished reports", most of them by Monsanto.
This is a very-very bad practice, and completely unscientific.
At least Seralini published his study, and we can read it and evaluate it. Not so with the Monsanto studies. So in that respect, Seralini is way ahead of Monsanto.
 
In addition, glyphosate has just been classified as probably carcinogenic to humans by the WHO, based on epidemiologic, animal, and in vitro studies.

Not exactly a justified classification, but there is another thread for that.

The Monsanto reports are not available. That's the whole point.
And the Williams et al. (2000) review cites lots and lots and lots of "unpublished reports", most of them by Monsanto.
This is a very-very bad practice, and completely unscientific.

This is getting off topic of the thread. What the Monsanto studies did and the results they gathered are available. Evaluate that. Should they have done something differently? Do you think there should be more studies? Saying you just don't trust them brings nothing to the table. There are many good reasons researchers (especially companies) may not publish their work. We should stick to discussing the science here.
 
What the Monsanto studies did and the results they gathered are available. Evaluate that.
No, we need the original reports. Summaries by others who were allowed to read the reports are not an acceptable substitute.
If there is no openness and transparency in the field, the whole field becomes suspect.
There are many good reasons researchers (especially companies) may not publish their work.
Fine, but I will ignore and dismiss all unpublished research. If you want to be taken seriously, publish. It's that simple. It's the very minimum.
 
I am going to ask a question. Seralini talks about tumors, not cancer. All tumors are not cancer. If they had been cancerous, the Type of cancer would have been listed. I keep seeing just tumors. What types of cancer were those tumors.

I am going to post this, again. This is on pet rats


Tumors In Rats: A Serious Health Issue

The most common rat tumor is the mammary tumor. While most often found in un-spayed females after the age of 1 1/2 years, and therefore hormone dependent, it can also be found in a male. This kind of tumor can be found in the pit of the arm, the abdomen, and groin.

Mammary tumors are mostly non-cancerous, but can grow to be half the body weight of the rat. This can affect the functioning of other organs, make grooming and moving around difficult, and also interfere with feeding. Ultimately, if the tumor impacts other organs it can cause internal problems – and even death.

Other tumors are also common, and again while many are benign other are cancerous.
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http://www.sandyscrittercity.com/allabouttumors.htm


http://www.ratfanclub.org/tumors.html


http://rodentclub.livejournal.com/67495.html


Sorry, darn too sleepy I can't remember how to make it show an outside post
 
Seralini talks about tumors, not cancer. All tumors are not cancer. If they had been cancerous, the Type of cancer would have been listed.

It's unfortunate because it would have been relatively easy to send samples to a pathology lab for easy answers to that question and more.
 
What types of cancer were those tumors.
From the paper:
In female animals, the largest tumors were in total five times more frequent than in males after 2 years, with 93% of these being mammary tumors. Adenomas, fibroadenomas, and carcinomas were deleterious to health due to their very large size (Figure 5A,B,C) rather than the grade of the tumor itself. Large tumor size caused impediments to either breathing or digestion and nutrition because of their thoracic or abdominal location and also resulted in hemorrhaging (Figure 5A,B,C). In addition, one metastatic ovarian cystadenocarcinoma and two skin tumors were identified. Metastases were observed in only two cases; one in a group fed with 11% GM maize and another in the highest dose of R treatment group.
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From the paper:

Metastases were observed in only two cases
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That's about all we get as to which tumors were actually cancerous. No pathology data was provided in the paper about the other tumors.

Table 2 lists the number and types of tumors across all groups (no consistent dose-dependent response) but no pathology reports to confirm benign vs. malignant.
 
The topic, guys, is BAD SCIENCE in this Seralini paper. Not whether its the first study to test long term.
That is true, but in order to expose the bunk in the Myles power video in the OP we need to look at the actual paper, and read it, and understand they repeated what Monsanto had done, albeit for the entire life of the rat to see what happened toxicologically after 90 days.
The health effects of a Roundup-tolerant NK603 genetically modified (GM) maize (from 11% in the diet), cultivated with or without Roundup application and Roundup alone (from 0.1 ppb of the full pesticide containing glyphosate and adjuvants) in drinking water, were evaluated for 2 years in rats. This study constitutes a follow-up investigation of a 90-day feeding study conducted by Monsanto in order to obtain commercial release of this GMO, employing the same rat strain and analyzing biochemical parameters on the same number of animals per group as our investigation. Our research represents the first chronic study on these substances, in which all observations including tumors are reported chronologically. Thus, it was not designed as a carcinogenicity study. We report the major findings with 34 organs observed and 56 parameters analyzed at 11 time points for most organs.
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These facts are fundamental to understanding whether it was good science.
Was it bad science to observe what happened to the liver and kidneys after 90 days? Of course not. Was it bad science to observe and report tumors? Of course not.
There was no actual bad science, just a perception from some that photos of tumors should not have been included. But that is not bad science.
 
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These facts are fundamental to understanding whether it was good science.
exactly.
If you are going to replicate a study, you need to REPLICATE the study.

They didn't. So repeating "they did what Monsanto did" is getting you nowhere. The bottom line is they didnt prove or show gmo or roundup was dangerous. But they marketed the study as if they show that.
 
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