Deadly Choices — Junk science costs lives

Most of the time scientists can rely on publications that go through the careful critical review by other scientists. But sometimes papers get rushed through to publication, and there can be hasty, even harmful decisions made by journal editors.
On the hopefully rare occasions were seriously flawed scientific studies have been got through the critical review process, the wheels of scientific due process can turn very slowly, and it can take years for errors in the formal scientific record to be corrected. Meanwhile shoddy published science can get misused and even do considerable harm.
When this happens, there is a need to openly criticise the scientific process.
Perhaps the most damning mistake to occur in due scientific process is the fraudulent science that appeared in the Lancet medical journal in 1998, which described some features of bowel inflammation in autistic children. The lead author of this paper was Andrew Wakefield. It took 12 years for this fraudulent paper to be retracted by the Lancet journal.
Polite scientific discussion didn’t have much impact on the Lancet – it took tough British journalism by Brian Deer to achieve action. Meanwhile infants were dying of preventable diseases.
Wakefield’s Lancet paper was used to promote distrust of vaccines by parents and resulted in low vaccination rates and lowered rates of protection against preventable diseases. The consequences of saying no to vaccination were outbreaks of measles in Europe and America and unnecessary cases of deadly whooping cough, for example in science-averse hippy friendly Byron Bay in Australia. Measles and whooping cough are both vaccine preventable diseases.
The full story of the disastrous consequences of this shoddy science and sloppy journal publishing can be found in two fantastic new books. One has been mentioned previously on this blog —The Panic Virus by Seth Mnookin.
The other has just appeared: Paul Offit’s Deadly Choices: How the Anti-Vaccine Movement Threatens Us All. (available from the Book Depository).
The junk science promoted by Wakefield and the Lancet gave impetus to the wacky anti-vaccine movement in both Britain and North America. Even retraction of the Lancet article seems to have no effect on the anti-vaccine conspiracy theorists. Their beliefs are unshaken by any contrary evidence.
To quote the ACSH, retraction of the Lancet study was not enough to mollify anti-vaccine conspiracy theorists, as evidenced by a rambling, vitriolic essay on Age of Autism, which calls itself the “daily web newspaper of the autism epidemic.

Junk GM science- another Lancet mistake

The field of safety assessment of crops and genetically modified foods has its fair share of junk science. Oddly the Lancet again is responsible for publishing the most prominent example of flawed science relating to GM crop safety— not as a hasty mistake, but as a considered attempt to expose weak experiments to criticism. This paper was by Pusztai and Ewan and is deeply flawed. It which was accompanied by a robust critique in the same journal issue.
The journal failed in its effort to get good debate into the public arena, as the critique it offered is never cited by the people with an axe to grind against genetic modification.
A previous Pundit post, The asymmetry of fear: Junk science coupled with zealotry can cause widespread misery, but good intentions don’t resuscitate the victims pretty much summarises the worst mess created by junk science.
Reading through Paul Offit’s latest book I was amazed to discover further confirmation that American anti-vaccine wackos and the anti-GM crusaders share several common connections.
Deadly Choices mentions Memhet Oz, host of the The Dr Oz Show, as often dispensing anti-vaccine advice. Previously at GMO Pundit we have reported on Dr Oz’s favourable treatment of junk grade anti-GM arguments. Hollywood darling Oz is dabbling in two dangerously dopy movements.
An example of Junky mainstream science on GM safety — and glacial journal response times to serious problems with published science.
Immediately I read a review by Dona and Arvanitoyannis 2009 that appeared in Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition concerning “health risks of genetically modified foods” I wrote to the editors of the journal expressing my dismay at the poor quality of the review.
It took the journal owners Taylor and Francis 18 months to reply to the issues I raised. Numerous prodding letters to a range of editorial executives were needed to get any response. While waiting for a response, I corresponded with colleagues about the tardiness of the editorial process, and in doing so was shocked the disturbing extent of plagiarism present both in the Dona and Arvanitoyannis 2009 review and in many other articles by the author Arvanitoyannis.
An eventual reply (after an 18 month wait) from the journal acknowledged ethical problems with this paper and the corrections that were needed (see below), but even then, the corrections mentioned were not placed in the electronic copies of the journal or the electronic abstract services without even more delays. I was not comforted by the lukewarm effort to solve this serious problem nor by the corrections.
This site has released [click here] an extended explicit illustration of extensive plagiarism by the author Arvanitoyannis in a range of  articles to see if public communication induces a more rapid response from the relevant journal publishers.

Does junky GM analysis matter?

Readers might well ask does all this matter. Does it really matter that a junky scientific review about genetically modified foods appears? The chief problem is that this junk science is being used in a concerted campaign to block the use of beneficial GM crops in developing countries. Because of this campaign, resting on junk science, Indian farmers are being exposed to dangerous insecticides that could be avoided by using GM insect protected food crops such as GM eggplant and cabbages, GM vitamin A fortified rice is making unnecessarily slow progress in reaching rice-growing farmers, where it could reduce diseases such as diarrhoea and measles which are promoted by vitamin A deficiency.
Worse still, the Dona and Arvanitoyannis 2009 junk paper is now also being used in an attempt to block wheat research in Australia. It is cited recently in an open letter reported in an Australian newspaper,  the Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) and it makes claims about safety of wheat that’s nowhere near the marketplace that purport to be based on solid science – but in fact depends on flawed, plagiarised reviews and retracted unpublished data.
Dona and Arvanitoyannis are not the only flawed and misleading evidence cited in this open letter– it also cites a flawed contested study by Velimerov and others which is not an even published in the scientific literature, and is now retracted by its authors because it’s findings are meaningless. Neither the Sydney Morning Heraldnor the open letter mention this.
Because Taylor and Francis were so slow in making corrections to the journal and couldn’t bring themselves to retract plagiarised and shoddy science, it’s made it possible for this plagiarised and sloppy science to be used in the SMH article, and on several other occasions for questionable political purposes and for misleading the public. Let’s not pretend that this biased review is ethical peer-reviewed scientific evidence, and please let’s not use it to delay elimination of harmful pesticide spraying and improvements to nutrition in developing countries.
Examples of the plagiarism in Dona and Arvanitoyannis 2009

Plagiarism, bias and scientific misinterpretation

Repeated plagiarism

Documents relating to the Taylor and Francis question.

• Letter from Dr David Tribe to the journal editor pointing out the scientific bias and plagiarism present in the Dona and Arvanitoyannis 2009 review.
• Critique of Dona and Arvanitoyannis 2009 by Professor Klaus Ammann.
• Letter containing Summary of plagiarism in the Dona and Arvanitoyannis 2009 review identified by Associate Prof Chris Preston of the University of Adelaide.
• Letter about other plagiarism by Ioannis S. Arvanitoyannis.
• Acknowledgement after some 18 months of the ethical problems with the Dona and Arvanitoyannis 2009 review made by the journal publisher.

[Minor typographical errors have been corrected in the below correspondence.]

Letter from Dr David Tribe to the journal editor pointing out the scientific bias and plagiarism present in the Dona and Arvanitoyannis 2009 review

Dr. **** ****** Editor, Critical Reviews of Food Science and Nutrition
Taylor and Francis, Managing editor **** ********
(Dated 6 March 2009)
Dear Editors,
I am an experienced university lecturer giving graduate courses in food safety at the University of Melbourne. Frequently I have referred to reviews in Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition in my teaching and research. I have actively researched the safety of genetically modified foods.
I am surprised and concerned to see the poor quality of a recent review published in the Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition. This is the article “Health risks of genetically modified foods” in volume 49 issue 2 page 164 to 175 by Dona and Arvanitoyannis (2009).
The first section that caught my eye as being misrepresentation of literature was the discussion on page 167 about cauliflower mosaic virus promoter. It mentions a well known flawed non-peer-reviewed opinion piece by Ho (2000) but fails to mention also well known strong rebuttal of the speculations in Ho (2000) provided by R Hull, S Covey and P Dale (2000) Genetically modified plants and the 35S promoter: assessing the risks and enhancing the debate. Microbial Ecology in Health and Disease volume 12 page 1 to 5.
This incompetent omission was made despite the fact that this Hull et al rebuttal is foreshadowed in the news item Hodgson 2000 that is cited by Dona and Arvanitoyannis. Dona and Arvanitoyannis (2009) thus avoid mentioning the most substantial scientifically validated publication of Hull in preference to non-peer-reviewed Ho 2000 and arguably [they] misrepresented science journalism in Hodgson.
This inaccuracy and misrepresentation is immediately followed by an amateurish discussion of antibiotic resistance. There are available several substantial reviews of this issue, for example Bennet P M et al 2004 An assessment of the risks associated with the use of antibiotic resistance genes in genetically modified plants: Report of the Working Party of the British society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy volume 53 page 418 to 431. However no access to this literature on a substantive issue of food safety is provided by Dona and Arvanitoyannis (2009). Instead some inconsequential comments are made about green fluorescent protein, which is not an antibiotic resistance marker gene, and which is unlikely to occur in any commercialised food crop.
It would be pointless for me to continue go right through the paper pointing out where the literature has been glossed over or misrepresented. A quick scan of the references cited should have alerted the editorial staff to the issues that need to be raised about this paper and provides flags for other awful content.
In these references there is repeated citing of inappropriate website material containing non-peer-reviewed scientific evidence. For example Alliance for Biointegrity website, unpublished work by Irina Ermakova (2005), and Strieber W (2002) Unkown [sic] country. Even Pigs Can Survive on GM Corn.
Although the last item is non-peer-reviewed, any well-equipped animal feed specialist, animal scientist or well trained nutritionist should be aware why it is a ridiculous misrepresentation of the mould reduction attributes of BT protected corn. What should have been mentioned is the rather famous work by Gary Munkvold, Florence [Felicia]  Wu and several other specialists on fumonisin reduction from genetically modified maize.
Sadly the authors of the review have also quoted a series of papers from Malatesta’s laboratory. All these papers purport to identify an effect on rodent physiology from genetic manipulation of soybeans. In none of these papers is the source of the soybeans used for comparison documented and none of them show any analysis of the phytoestrogens in the soybean varieties compare. All rodent experimentalists should be aware of papers like Thigpen JE and others (2004). Selecting the appropriate rodent diet for endocrine disruptor research and testing studies. ILAR Journal. 45:401-416, which makes comprehensive chemical analysis of soybeans and use of near isogenic soybean varieties for comparison essential for meaningful assessment of soybean safety with rodent feeding tests. Malatesta repeatedly fails to do this.
If a journal that aspires to a reputation of providing Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition is to retain its credibility it should commission authors to review the food safety topic who would be aware of these essential points about rodent testing.
I could continue with my other misgivings about the paper but I won’t because it is not worthy of a detailed further analysis, as the competence of the authors to provide an authoritative review is clearly compromised.
Perhaps European politics has obscured the editorial judgment about this paper. From outside Europe we watch while political influence from Austria and Greece trumps reason and objectivity in recent policy decisions about food policy relating to genetically modified products. Perhaps that’s the reason why this shoddy review was published. However scientists and journal publishers should resist intrusion of political judgments into the scientific domain because these politics are detrimental to human welfare in the developing world and in unsubsidised agricultural countries such as Australia and Argentina.
In these non-European countries farmers do not have the luxury of massive government support of the same magnitude as Europe’s. It is in these other countries also that the genetically modified crops such as insect protected maize provide better food safety with lower in mycotoxins, better yields and the prospect of greater farm productivity which are being blocked and layed by the same kind of shoddy science that is now appearing and being cited by “Critical Reviews” in Food Science and Nutrition.
Yours sincerely
David Tribe Senior lecturer in food microbiology and food biotechnology, University of Melbourne
Critique of Dona and Arvanitoyannis 2009 by Professor Klauss Ammann (pdf file)

Letter containing Summary of plagiarism in the review identified by Associate Prof Chris Preston of the University of Adelaide

Editorial Manager, Taylor and Francis, Melbourne
Dear *******,
I have mentioned plagiarism concerns about the Health Risks of Genetically Modified Food by A. Dona and I.S. Arvanitoyannis Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition 49:164-175 (2009) paper but I not documented them to you. As documentation for plagiarism I cite considered comments on Dona and Arvanitoyannis 2009 by a  colleague of mine at the University of Adelaide has identified the following plagiarism concerns
Comments of Associate Professor Chris Preston:
A screening of the paper identified 10 clear examples of plagiarism. These are paragraphs or part paragraphs where material has been copied verbatim, or with a small number of word changes, from other published work.  No quotation marks are used by Dona and Arvanitoyannis to show this material is the work of others and in some cases, the original source is not cited. Some examples are provided below:

The paragraph starting “To evaluate allergenicity of GM foods…” on Page 168 has a substantial section copied directly from De Schrijver et al. (2007) Risk assessment of GM stacked events obtained from crosses between GM events Trends in Food Science & Technology 18: 101-109, starting at “Another aspect that is of concern…” and finishing with “…crops described in the literature, are involved.”
The paragraph starting “Recent work with gene transfer research has resulted…” on page 169 is a direct copy from Rasmussen and Morrissey (2007) Biotechnology in aquaculture: transgenics and polyploidy. Comprehensive Reviews in Food Science and Food Safety. 6: 2–16.
The sentence starting “Of particular concern…” on Page 170 is directly copied from Cantani & Micera (2001) Genetically modified foods and children potential health risks, European Review for Medical and Pharmacological Sciences 5: 25-29, without any attribution.
The paragraph starting “Although the potential effect of feeding GM feed to poultry…” on Page 171 contains a large section from Sanden et al. (2004) The fate of transgenic sequences present in genetically modified plant products in fish feed, investigating the survival of GM soybean DNA fragments during feeding trials in Atlantic salmon, Salmo salar L. Aquaculture 237: 391–405. starting with “the fate of selected GM soy DNA fragments…” and going to “…not be traced in fish tissues” with only a few words changed.  The citation for this material is given as (Exadactylos and Arvanitoyannis, 2006) when it is clearly copied from Sanden et al. (2004).
Most of the paragraph starting “The lasting sceptical…” on page 172 is a direct copy of material from Devos et al. (2007) Ethics in the societal debate on genetically modified organisms: a (re)quest for sense and sensibility. Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics. 21: 29–61, with one or two words changed.
The extensive direct copying of material from other sources suggests a pattern of plagiarism rather than a careless use of quotation marks, particularly for those instances where the original source is not referenced.  Plagiarism in all its forms is considered academic misconduct.

I mention these to show that there are ethical problems about this paper in addition to the ones noted in my unanswered letters to Taylor and Francis.
I would be grateful if you forward to Taylor and Francis UK this letter too.
David Tribe

Letter to T & F about other plagiarism by Ioannis S. Arvanitoyannis

Dear Prof. *********,
Thank you for your note.  I do own to being disappointed that it was not more informative, but understand that you may not be responsible for handling this issue.  Is there anyone at Taylor & Francis with whom I can discuss my concerns?
In light of the obvious plagiarism in the review, I took the opportunity of checking on other papers by the same authors.  A search of the ISI database identified Ioannis S. Arvanitoyannis as a frequent contributor to Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition.  ISI identified 20 reviews in the past six years at a rate of over 3 reviews per year.
My experience with plagiarism among undergraduate students is that plagiarism is rarely an isolated event.  As a result, I sampled three other reviews published by Arvanitoyannis in Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition over the past few years.  In each of these reviews I was able to identify with some simple searching multiple examples of plagiarised material.  A few examples from each review are set out below. I would suggest that this pattern of plagiarism is likely to be repeated in each of the other 16 reviews Arvanitoyannis has published in Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition, and probably in material published elsewhere.
I am sure you will agree that this is an extremely serious charge I have made and one that I can back with solid evidence.  As you will note, this is not just a case of failing to put material in quotation marks, but also a failure to adequately attribute material to sources.  In my opinion prompt and appropriate action needs to be taken to avoid further embarrassment to Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition.  I trust you are able to put me in touch with the appropriate person at the Publisher in order for me to relay my concerns.
Yours sincerely,
Dr. Christopher Preston

Additional evidence of plagiarism

• Functional Foods: A Survey of Health Claims, Pros and Cons, and Current Legislation. By I.S. Arvanitoyannis and M. van Houwelingen-Koukaliaroglou.  Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition, 45:385–404 (2005).
• Page 386.  First Paragraph.  Starting with “Some products…” and finishing with “…21st Century quackery.”  Is taken, with one word changed, directly from the CSPI report Functional Foods: Public Health Boon or 21st Century Quackery without attribution.  You can read the original passage here.
• Some earlier material in this paragraph is also taken directly from this document.
• Page 386.  The paragraph starting “In addition to the probiotic approach of directly introducing live bacteria…” is taken directly without change from Mattila-Sandholm et al. (2002) Technological challenges for future probiotic foods, International Dairy Journal 12: 173-182, with the exception of the last sentence.
• Page 387.  The paragraph starting “The term functional foods…” is taken from: Functional Foods: Their Role in Disease Prevention and Health Promotion by Claire M. Hesler a report from Institute of Food Technologists published in 1998.
• A Review on Tomato Authenticity: Quality Control Methods in Conjunction with Multivariate Analysis (Chemometrics) by I.S. Arvanitoyannis and O.B. Vaitsi, Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition, 47:675–699 (2007)
• The paragraph starting “Species identification …” on Page 675 is a copy of a paragraph in a previous paper by one of the authors on a different topic: Arvanitoyannis et al. (2005) Implementation of quality control methods (physico-chemical, microbiological and sensory) in conjunction with multivariate analysis towards fish authenticity, International Journal of Food Science & Technology 40: 237-263.
• On Page 676, the paragraph starting “MVA includes all statistical methods …” and the next paragraph are copied, with a few word changes, from a book: Handbook of food and bioprocess modeling techniques by Sablani, Datta, Rahman, and Mujumdar, Page 324, without attribution.
• On Page 676, The paragraph starting “Ion chromatography (IC) is an analytical technique …” Is copied from the website: http://www.forumsci.co.il/HPLC/ion_chrm.html, as is most of the next paragraph.
• The section headed Separation Mechanisms in HPLC on Page 677 has considerable material copied from the Lab Alliance website.
• Olive Oil Waste Treatment: A Comparative and Critical Presentation of Methods, Advantages & Disadvantages, by I.S. Arvanitoyannis, A. Kassaveti and S. Stefanatos, Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition, 47:187–229 (2007)
• On page 187, the first half of the first paragraph is copied from the website: iHug website.
• On Page 188, the first half of the paragraph starting “The direct impact that vegetable water…” is copied from the Aegean website.
• On Page 189, the first half of the paragraph starting “Bioremediation is a technology …” is copied from Watanabe (2001) Microorganisms relevant to bioremediation, Current Opinion in Biotechnology 12: 237-241.
• On Page 190, the paragraph starting “Biosparging involves the injection of air under pressure …” is a copy of a paragraph in Vidali (2001) Bioremediation. An overview, Pure Appl. Chem. 73: 1163–1172.

Dr. Christopher Preston
Associate Professor, Weed Management
School of Agriculture, Food & Wine

From David Tribe to Taylor and Francis

On 8 July 2010 05:07
Dear Ms ******,
On numerous times since March 19 2009 I have written to Taylor and Francis and to the Editor, Dr ******* of Taylor and Francis’ Journal Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition about a plagiarism-related issue. Never in the subsequent one and a half years and after writing multiple emails to Mr ***** ******** have I received any reply from Taylor and Francis or any indication that my concerns (outlined below) are being evaluated. As you appear today in the journal *****‘s article about plagiarism, I am forwarding my first letter (added below) in the expectation of getting some timely acknowledgement that Taylor and Francis take action to address the issues I have repeatedly raise. I do not request or expect any specific details, but I do expect some indication that ethical and journal integrity issues are considered when they are raised by experienced scientists.
Sincerely,
David Tribe Ph.D.
19 September 2010 09:58
Subject: Re: Concern about review quality in Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition
To: ********@tandf.co.uk
Dear Ms ********,
In the approximately one and a half year since I raised this ethical matter (see below) through several different channels, there has never been any  reply from any representative of Taylor and Francis. No acknowledgement of any of my emails. No indication of any effort to address the serious issues I raise.
In the Masters courses I teach and particularly in my Bayesian statistics research I use several textbooks published by Taylor and Francis. Assignments by my Masters students in my food safety courses are littered with references citing Dr Arvanitoyannis.
My dialogue with students about these publications would be enhanced by some clarification that due process carried out by Taylor and Francis.
David Tribe
Finally, after some 18 months, acknowledgement of the ethical problems with the Dona and Arvanitoyannis 2009 review made by the journal publisher.
From: “Gallagher, Beth”
To: David Tribe
Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2010 08:49:08 -0400
Subject: RE: Concern about review quality in Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition
Dear Dr. Tribe,
We have received your many inquiries regarding your concerns about the article “Health Risks of Genetically Modified Foods,” published in Critical Reviews in Food Science & Nutrition in 2009. We received numerous alerts from members of the food science community regarding this article after its publication. These pointed out that Dona and  Arvanitoyannis had not properly cited all of the material they used from other sources – a serious ethics breach — and also raised concerns about the same types of issues you have raised below.
We, along with the journal’s Editor, Fergus Clydesdale, undertook a thorough investigation at that time and consulted with numerous food science experts. Ultimately, we addressed the issues via two routes:

• We published a corrigendum in Critical Reviews In Food Science & Nutrition 49(10) P. 914 in which Dona and Arvanitoyannis gave due credit to the reference material in the review. [Note this corrigendum is absent from the Open letter cited by the SMH]
• We also published an extensive Letter to the Editor by Craig Rickard, Director of Advocacy and Regulatory Affairs, Biotechnology, for CropLife International, addressing his misgivings with the quality and coverage of the article. Dona and Arvanitoyannis also were allowed to offer a response to the items raised by Rickard. This letter and the authors’ response were published in Critical Reviews in Food Science & Nutrition 501(1) pp. 85-95. [Note this rebuttal is absent from the Open letter cited by the SMH]

I would invite you to review the corrigendum and the letters to the editor. I hope that you will agree that these actions adequately addressed the ethical issues raised by Dona and Arvanitoyannis’s review.
If you should have any further concerns, please address them to me. Please do not call or e-mail ***** in our Australian office, ********* in our ScholarOne team, or other T&F staffers because they do not manage this journal and cannot help you. I do apologize if you feel your concerns were neglected when they were first raised last year. **********, to whom you raised these concerns, works on my team here in the Philadelphia office. I discussed the case with him and he recalls that he did respond to your initial e-mails assuring you that we and Dr. Clydesdale were investigating and had every intention of addressing the issues. [DET note: These did not arrive in the gmail account which retains a full readily searchable record of all incoming mail.] Unquestionably, we should have let you know when the above-mentioned steps were taken so that you would be aware that your concerns had been addressed. If that did not occur, I apologize and assure you that it was an oversight. As I said, we received so many e-mails about this matter, it was difficult to respond to all. However, the concerns were taken seriously and addressed.
Again, please do not hesitate to contact me with any further concerns you may have.
Best wishes,
Beth Gallagher
Publisher, U.S. Science & Technology Journals
Taylor & Francis Group LLC

The response from Dr Tribe:
Dear Ms Gallagher,
Thank you for your advice, which is the first response from Taylor and Francis that I have received. Regrettably, my gmail search function shows that no response from ***** ****** ever appeared in my email inbox.
I will go to the hardcopy version of the journal to review the corrigendum with interest, and look forward to seeing evidence of it appear as a Pubmed item, which currently does not occur.
Regretfully the items in your journal do not redress all the many faults of the review. For instance, Dona and Arvanitoyannis still no not reveal that the statistical inferences in Seralini et al 2007 have been demolished in the literature, by the EFSA for instance. Dona and Arvanitoyannis’ discussion of antibiotic resistance issues, and gene movement in the gut remains inadequate.
In their response to Rickards criticisms Dona and Arvanitoyannis say:
“The authors (A. Dona and I.S. Arvanitoyannis) were very puzzled and amazed why they were the recipients of such a detailed and targeted aggressive criticism since their review article
entitled “Health Risks of GM foods” was well-supported by numerous scientific references. The authors made no unsubstantiated claims because all their claims were supported by scientific citations.”
while originally citing the following non-evidence (!):

• Alliance for Biointegrity website (1998), including Calgene FLAVR SAVRTM tomato report, pp. 1-604; International Research and Development Corp. first test report, pp. 1736–1738; Conclusions of the expert panel regarding the safety of the FLAVR SAVR TM tomato, ENVIRON, Arlington VA, USA pp. 2355–2382; Four week oral (intubation) toxicity study in rats by IRDC, pp. 2895–3000.
• Ermakova, I. (2005). Genetically modified soy affects posterity: Results of Russian scientists’ studies.
• Strieber W. (2002). Unkown country. Even Pigs Can’t Survive on GM Corn.

Such chutzpah may be their only defence, but it does not remedy the citation inadequacies in the original article. I look forward to reading how they do this in their corrigendum, and seeing why they do not cite their corrigendum in their own defence.
Sincerely,
David Tribe