Séralini Affair

Following widespread criticism by scientists, Food and Chemical Toxicology retracted the paper in November 2013 after the authors refused to withdraw it. The editor-in-chief, A. Wallace Hayes, said that the article was retracted because its data were inconclusive and its conclusions unreliable. Later, Le Monde published internal communications showing that Monsanto had drawn up a consulting agreement with Hayes beginning in September 2012. In October 2012, further internal communications demonstrated that he urged his Monsanto contact to have formal letters written to the FCT editor (himself) rather than informal comments, in order to give him a credible reason to retract the article, an account Hayes disputed.

On 1 August 2017, the New York Times reported on documents released as part of a lawsuit against Monsanto. These documents showed, among other things, that the Editor-in-Chief of Food and Chemical Toxicology, Wallace Hayes, a former tobacco industry Vice President, had a contractual relationship with Monsanto. In October 2017, Le Monde published an unsigned copy of a consulting agreement beginning on 7 September 2012. Other internal documents showed that Hayes returned the October 2012 call of his Monsanto contact (David Saltimas) who had expressed Monsanto's concern about the Séralini paper. Hayes urged Saltimas to have letters written to the editor (that is to say, to Hayes himself) calling for the study's retraction. Hayes denied having a contract with Monsanto when he retracted Seralini's paper, and said that his retraction decision was not influenced by Monsanto: "It was based on input that I got from some very well-respected people, and also my own evaluation."