SERALINI STUDY REPUBLISHED - CENSORS CONTINUE TO VILIFY IT

Controversial Seralini study linking GM to cancer in rats is republished

Paper on link between GM corn and cancer in lab rats is republished after journal withdrew it – but critics say it is still flawed

Tuesday 24 June 2014 07.18 EDT

Gilles-Eric Seralini, a professor at the University of Caen in Normandy, said rats fed NK603 corn and Roundup weedkiller developed liver and kidney disease and mammary tumours Photograph: Alamy

French scientists who in 2012 wrote a contested study linking pesticide-treated, genetically-modified corn with cancer in lab rats returned to the attack on Tuesday, republishing their work online.

Denying accusations of bad science, the team said the work, which was withdrawn by the journal which first printed it, had been republished in Environmental Sciences Europe, owned by Germany's Springer group.

The raw data has also been placed in the public domain for others to scrutinise, the researchers said.

"Censorship of research into the risks of a technology so intertwined with global food safety undermines the value and credibility of science," the team said in a statement.
The research kicked up a hornet's nest when it was first published in September 2012.
Its authors, led by Gilles-Eric Seralini, a professor at the University of Caen in Normandy, said rats fed NK603 corn and Roundup weedkiller developed liver and kidney disease and mammary tumours.

Many other scientists said at the time that the study was flawed. And commentators on Tuesday said nothing has changed through publishing it again.

NK603, made by the US agribusiness giant Monsanto, has been engineered to be immune to the weedkiller Roundup. As a result, farmers can spray their fields to kill weeds without harming their crops.

The authors stood by their original research on Tuesday and lashed out at the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology for withdrawing it - a great humiliation in the scientific world.
"Roundup formulations and Roundup-tolerant GMOs should be considered as (hormonal) disruptors and their present assessments on health are drastically deficient," they wrote.
Open publication in the Springer journal provides a forum "so that science can reclaim its rights against the pressures of the industry seeking to suppress 'whistle-blowers'," they said.
In defence of their study, the scientists said it was the first to be carried out on lab rodents over their normal lifespan of two years as opposed to the usual 90 days.

They said the study was designed to test toxicity rather than causes of cancer.
Critics faulted the experimental method, saying the number of rats studied was too small and their diet was skewed when compared with their natural food intake.

They also attacked the choice of rat - so-called Sprague-Dawley rats, a standard choice for lab experiments but highly prone to developing cancers, particularly in old age.

In an initial reaction Tuesday, critics said their concerns have still not been answered.
"Republishing data that was faulty in the first place in study design and analysis does not provide redemption. Furthermore, it is now possible to publish almost anything in open access journals," said Tom Sanders, a professor of nutrition and dietetics at King's College London.

Source:  http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jun/24/controversial-seralini-study-gm-cancer-rats-republished

PESTICIDES LINKED AGAIN TO AUTISM - ANOTHER STUDY

Study Links Pesticide Exposure in Pregnancy to Autism

June 23rd, 2014Reuters
by Kathryn Doyle

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – In a new study from California, children with an autism spectrum disorder were more likely to have mothers who lived close to fields treated with certain pesticides during pregnancy.

Proximity to agricultural pesticides in pregnancy was also linked to other types of developmental delay among children.

“Ours is the third study to specifically link autism spectrum disorders to pesticide exposure, whereas more papers have demonstrated links with developmental delay,” said lead author Janie F. Shelton, from the University of California, Davis.

There needs to be more research before scientists can say that pesticides cause autism, she told Reuters Health in an email. But pesticides all affect signaling between cells in the nervous system, she added, so a direct link is plausible.

California is one of only a few states in the U.S. where agricultural pesticide use is rigorously reported and mapped. For the new study, the researchers used those maps to track exposures during pregnancy for the mothers of 970 children.

The children included 486 with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD), 168 with a developmental delay and 316 with typical development.

Developmental delay, in which children take extra time to reach communication, social or motor skills milestones, affects about four percent of U.S. kids, the authors write. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that one in 68 children has an ASD, also marked by deficits in social interaction and language.

In the new study, about a third of mothers had lived within a mile of fields treated with pesticides, most commonly organophosphates.

Children of mothers exposed to organophosphates were 60 percent more likely to have an ASD than children of non-exposed mothers, the authors report in Environmental Health Perspectives.

Autism risk was also increased with exposure to so-called pyrethroid insecticides, as was the risk for developmental delay. Carbamate pesticides were linked to developmental delay but not ASDs.

For some pesticides, exposure seemed to be most important just before conception and in the third trimester, but for others it didn’t seem to matter when during pregnancy women were exposed.

Dr. Philip J. Landrigan speculated that the pesticides probably drifted from crops through the air, and that’s how pregnant women were exposed. The new study did not measure airborne pesticide levels, however.

Landrigan directs the Children’s Environmental Health Center at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York and was not involved in the new study.

“We already knew from animal studies as well as from epidemiologic studies of women and children that prenatal exposure (to pesticides) is associated with lower IQ,” Landrigan told Reuters Health. “This study builds on that, uses the population of a whole state, looks at multiple different pesticides and finds a pattern of wide association between pesticide exposure and developmental disability.”

What’s more, this study almost certainly underestimates the true strength of the association between pesticides and neurological problems, he said, since it did not precisely measure each individual woman’s exposure.

Pesticide registries like the one in California and another in New York are rare, but are critical to public health efforts in this area, Landrigan said. Concerned parents could advocate for registries like them in their own states, he added.

“One lesson or message for parents is to minimize or eliminate use of pesticides in their own homes,” Landrigan said.

In the months before and during pregnancy, it would make sense to avoid using pesticides in the home or on the lawn, he said.

For city-dwelling families, instead of spraying for cockroaches every month, integrated pest management is a better choice. That approach makes chemical pesticides the last resort – first steps are to seal up cracks and crevices in the home, clean up food residue and try relatively non-toxic options, like roach motels.

“If there’s one thing that parents can control it’s what comes into their home,” he said.

“It would be a great first step to stop using organophosphates and pyrethroids inside the home,” Shelton agreed.

Source:  http://www.cornucopia.org/2014/06/study-links-pesticide-exposure-pregnancy-autism/