text: The most recent example of the failure of editorial and peer review occurred in a September 2007 article in a U.S. journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The authors claimed to show that pollen from GM corn was injurious to certain insects in a laboratory mock-up of an aquatic ecosystem, but their conclusions are dubious, and their methodology sloppy and inadequately described. More important, the researchers reported elsewhere that they had failed to find these same effects in studies in the field, details they neglected to reveal in the PNAS article. This is a critical omission because laboratory studies are designed to mimic what happens in the real world. In other words, even if the laboratory studies had been performed correctly and carefully, positive results arguably would have been irrelevant because they do not sufficiently mimic what happens in the field.