2015 Whistleblower Award

Details

Events

10 October 2015

Prof. Dr. Gilles-Eric Séralini receives Whistleblower Award 2015 for public disclosure of risks to life and health

The Federation of German Scientists (VDW - Federation of German Scientists) and the German Section of the International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms (IALANA) present the 2015 Whistleblower Award equally to the molecular biologists Prof. Dr. Gilles-Eric Séralini from the University of Caen (Normandy, France) and the former US drone pilot Brandon Bryant.

The awards will be presented on
Friday, 16 October 2015, at 7:30 pm
in the Bürgersaal of Karlsrue City Hall.

In 2012, Prof. Dr. Gilles-Eric Séralini and colleagues published a long-term feeding study with rats, showing toxic and carcinogenic effects of the glyphosate-based herbicide Roundup and genetically engineered Roundup tolerant maize, in the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology (Elsevier). Subsequently the publication was highly criticised and attacked and ultimately led Elsevier to withdraw the paper on grounds of "inconclusiveness". This meant that the data was no longer to be cited. According to the Committee on Publication Ethids (COPE) this procedure violates the international publishing ethics: Withdrawing papers and the data they contain is only justifiedin cases of severe offences such as demonstrable falsification or manipulation, "honest error" or plagiarsm. In 2014, another peer-reviewed journal, Environmental Sciences Europe (Springer) re-published the paper.

Details about the Whistleblower Award Presentation 2015 and reasoning of the jury can be found here.