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The editor of a scientific journal that last year published a controversial study showing rats fed on a diet of genetically modified grains developed tumours has announced plans to retract the study.

The study showed that rats fed on a diet of GM maize (NK603, produced by Monsanto) and extremely diluted amounts of glyphosate herbicide (Monsanto's Roundup) suffered damage to their kidneys and livers, developed tumours at a higher rate than a control group and had a higher mortality rate.

Although European food safety watchdog EFSA, alongside a number of national academies, reviewed the study and refused to support its conclusions, having identified severe flaws in the study design, the EU Authority conceded that the work, by University of Caen professor Giles Seralini, exposed a serious gap in testing of GM crops.

The study was the first to test the effects of feeding GM organisms (GMOs) to animals for their entire lifetime. The current standard is for studies lasting for three months, conducted by the companies that created the GMO.

Reed Elsevier's Food and Chemical Toxicology journal published the controversial study in September 2012. In a statement, the journal called the peer review process used on the study into question.  

However, the professor himself has said the decision is nothing more than the latest in a line of attempts to discredit him. He singled out the journal's new associate editor, a former Monsanto employee who still has links to the biotech industry, for the move, which he said "violates the guidelines for retractions in scientific publishing set out by the Committee on Publication Ethics."

Though his findings were inconclusive, a large number of widely respected scientists have rallied to Seralini's cause, believing the French professor to be the victim of a smear campaign backed by powerful corporate actors. However, in the weeks following the study's publication hundreds of scientists signed an online petition calling on the professor to release all data relating to the study, which he duly did.

Professor Seralini accused his critics of holding "double standards" when it comes to research on GM crops. In a statement issued on Thursday, Seralini and his team wrote, "all previous studies finding adverse effects of GE crops have been treated by regulators with the attitude [that] only those studies showing adverse effects receive a rigorous evaluation of their experimental and statistical methods, while those that claim proof of safety are taken at face value."