Alison Van Eenennaam: Why botched Italian GMO soy study never made science sense

Alison Van Eenennaam | January 22, 2016 | Genetic Literacy Project

A series of journal articles published between 2006 and 2015 by an Italian research team led Federico Infascelli, an animal nutrition researcher at the University of Naples, are under fire for allegedly manipulating images and/or fabricating key data, according to Nature magazine. One of the papers published in Food and Nutrition Science, has already been retracted. News reports suggest that three other papers are under review.
The Infrascelli et al. articles have been widely and aggressively promoted by anti-GMO groups. Here are three examples:

• GM soybeans reduce weight of goats’ offspring – new study, GMWatch, March 2, 2015
• GE Soybeans Give Altered Milk and Stunted Offspring, Researchers Find, Independent Science News, October 26, 2015
• Baby goats born to mothers fed GMO soy suffer stunted growth and nutrition deficiencies, study finds, GMO.News, October 29, 2015

What is really mind-boggling to me as a scientist is looking at the slideshow of allegedly manipulated images. They appear to show doctoring of images and, perhaps as troubling, the use of the same image in papers that were published years apart but with captions describing different experiments. I will leave formal judgement on the doctoring of images to the University of Naples, but remain incredulous at the apparent reuse of the same gel in multiple papers......

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