Dear PLOS One staff,

I appreciate your attention to these important aspects. But I am intruigued to notice that as published the paper still has

"The authors have declared that no competing interests exist."
at http://www.plosone.org/ar...

whereas under funding we find:
Funding: The authors have received funding for this and earlier research from CRIIGEN, the Foundation Lea Nature and Malongo, the JMG Foundation and Foundations Charles Léopold Mayer for the Progress of Humankind, Nature Vivante, Denis Guichard, Institute Bio Forschung Austria, and the Sustainable Food Alliance. The laboratory received funding from Sevene Pharma in the last five years to study the detoxifying capacity of plant extracts on Roundup residues, bisphenol A and atrazin. Prof Seralini participated in and received payment for a lecture organized by Sevene Pharma.

This seems contradictory.

Dear PlosOne Staff,

Your initiative to explain why the paper was not published as scheduled is very valuable and much appreciated. It will hopefully assuage unwarranted concerns and limit – lets be realistic, eliminate is not in the cards – wild claims of undue interference in the publication policy and process.

I too have great concerns with the authors declaring, and you accepting, a declaration of absence of conflicting interests.

With respect to this publication, the authors received funding from a series of foundations engaged in, and supporting, activism against GMOs, pesticides, current regulatory processes, etc. And also from commercial entities which, by reason of their involvement in the « organic » sector, have a keen interest in GMOs, etc. being vilified.

If the « funding » box is assumed, as it should be, to be a description of the funding sources for this and earlier papers, then it is a gross misrepresentation of the facts. Mr. Seralini has received substantial funding for his welknown and much criticized rat study from, in particular, two large retailers (Carrefour and Auchan) and other, undisclosed, companies. This funding has been concealed through the creation of a brass plate association (CERES), as Mr. Séralini has himself explained in one of his books. The Carrefour and Auchan funding is thus a matter of common knowledge, including in English-speaking circles. It is similarly a matter of common knowledge that he is/was involved in Greepeace campaigns and received support, in kind and cash, from Greenpeace (acknowledged in one of his papers).

To sum up, whilst your efforts to shed some light into the conflicting interests – which should not be restricted to financial but also to extend to political, philosophical or ideological ones – are acknowledged, the efforts have not been good enough. If you allow the declarations at issue to stand as are, you may contribute to the concealment of interests that are of a much greater magnitude than the involvement in the small company Sevene Pharma.

http://tempsreel.nouvelob...
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.g...


Competing interests declared: I blog about agriculture, food, bioscience, which has included criticising previous work and attitudes of Séralini et al. (At http://imposteurs.over-bl... and lately http://seppi.over-blog.co...)

(I am retired and have no financial conflict of interest. As a grandfather conscious of the challenges of feeding a world of 9 billion + by 2050, I hold strong views on the contribution that science can make to meeting the challenge.

There is an error in the Declaration of Competing Interests included in the article. The declaration currently listed does not reflect the changes requested by the in-house editorial staff. We apologize for this error, and we will ensure the declaration is updated. The correct Declaration of Competing Interests is as below:

The authors have received funding for this and earlier research from CRIIGEN, the Foundation Lea Nature and Malongo, the JMG Foundation and Foundations Charles Léopold Mayer for the Progress of Humankind, Nature Vivante, Denis Guichard, Institute Bio Forschung Austria, and the Sustainable Food Alliance. The laboratory received funding from Sevene Pharma in the last five years to study the detoxifying capacity of plant extracts on Roundup residues, bisphenol A and atrazin. Prof Seralini participated and received payment for a lecture organized by Sevene Pharma.

To PLOS One Staff,

In regards to the first item you list, Data, the paper does not currently contain "raw data" as stipulated by the PLOS One submission guidelines. In the article, the authors state "The sampling in triplicate was precisely performed according to 2002/63/CE guidelines." and "Residues of 262 pesticides (see Table 1 for the detailed list) were measured once by sample..." Yet the supplementary data contains no triplicate values by sample, only what appear to be summary information.

As the authors are implying their work brings all past, and future, animal trials involving controlled feeding into question, it is of the upmost importance that they be forth coming with the base level raw data regarding all responses such that the scientific community can thoroughly evaluate the work. I would hope that they will do so promptly.

Bill Price
Statistician
University of Idaho