I am intrigued by the manner in which this paper has been given the roughest of rides by PLOS One. First, it was delayed for reasons that are still somewhat mysterious. It should have appeared on 18th June. A press conference was called in Paris for that date, prior to which the authors of the paper rightly asked the press to observe an embargo. Then, at the last moment, PLOS One pulled it, on the grounds that there was a last-minute request for additional information from the authors, which was supplied as requested. Also, there were suggestions that the authors might have had some conflicts of interest. This was patently absurd, as they have no industrial connections and no products or patents to promote -- they have been doing a series of straightforward scientific assessments, and they have simply reported on them. But the "conflict of interest" argument is used frequently by those who work with the GMO / biotechnology industry, as part of their campaigns of vilification directed at independent scientists whose work they just cannot cope with. So the assumption has to be that PLOS One was got at by those who are scared to death by the contents of this paper.

The paper was eventually published on July 2nd, a fortnight late, by which time the media had probably lost interest. Then it attracted a number of thinly-disguised ad hominem comments from those who apparently see it as a mission in life to defame Seralini and his colleagues. And the smokescreen relating to funding sources was so successful that PLOS One then thought it appropriate to ask the authors for revisions so that they could re-publish the article again on 23rd July with a "correction" which was further clarified on 7th August.

It is, I suppose, to the credit of the journal that it did at least publish a rather important article, but the publication was handled in such a confusing way, lost in a cloud of diversionary nonsense, that its impact was successfully minimised.

Contrast that with the extraordinary manner in which another recent article was dealt with by the editors. This was "The Fight Over Transparency: Round Two", by Seife and Thacker (August 13th). The article referred to Kevin Folta and the $25,000 paid to him by Monsanto, and made the perfectly sensible point that Folta's relationship with Monsanto had previously been denied by him and was only revealed after a FOIA request. That was not news, since it had already been made public in an article in "Nature News" written by Keith Kloor.
http://www.nature.com/new...

Of course, following this expose, there was a strong "community reaction" from Folta and his friends -- but it was saddening to see that PLOS One then promptly buckled under the pressure, removed the offending article, and apologised to poor Kevin Folta for any distress caused. Ironically, the article is still freely available for anybody who wants to read it.......
http://blogs.plos.org/bio...

So it is OK for PLOS One to allow pretty blatant personal attacks on the Seralini team for minor breaches of "conflict of interest" protocol, thereby diverting attention from the real issues dealt with in his paper, while actually retracting a paper that had the temerity to question -- albeit very obliquely -- the integrity one of the GM industry's favourite paid proponents.

Shame on you, PLOS One!