Ousted Scientist and the Damning Research into Food Safety

[Guest guest]

Ousted Scientist and the Damning Research Into Food Safety

 

http://www.andyrowell.com/

Guardian Unlimited, Friday February 12, 1999

 

Laurie Flynn, Michael Gillard and Andy Rowell on the tests on rats that raised

serious questions about the effects of genetically modified food on internal

organs.

 

Last week in parliament William Hague asked Tony Blair why the Government was

ignoring advice from its environmental advisers to call a three-year moratorium

on the commercial release of genetically modified (GM) crops until more research

is done.

 

The Prime Minister, wary of mounting public concern, especially in middle

England, replied ebulliently: " It is important that we proceed on the basis of

the scientific evidence. The first stage of meeting public concern is to debate

the information. "

 

Today the Guardian publishes for the first time worrying details of publicly

funded scientific research. The authors, two eminent British scientists, demand

that the Government honours its commitment to transparency on the issue of

biotechnology and initiates an immediate evaluation of the potential health

risks.

 

They are backed by 20 international scientists, who call on the Government to

release further funding for follow-up research and the clearing of one of the

authors who has been maligned. The story begins in October 1995 when the

Scottish Office commissioned a research project from the Aberdeen-based Rowett

Research Institute into the effect of GM crops on animal nutrition and the

environment. This included, for the first time, feeding GM potatoes to rats to

see if they had any harmful effects on their guts, bodies, metabolism and

health.

 

A former senior Scottish Office official involved in commissioning the project

told the Guardian there was " little regard " at the time for research into the

human nutritional and environmental consequences of GM foods. The £1.6m research

grant was allocated to redress this imbalance. Dr Arpad Pusztai, a senior

research scientist at the Rowett, beat off 28 other tenders to coordinate the

project. He has always kept an open mind about GM foods and conditionally

supported their release as long as there were rigorous and independent trials.

 

The other members of the project were the Dundee-based Scottish Crop Research

Institute (SCRI) and Durham University biology department who grew the GM potato

used in the feeding trials. All three bodies had links with the biotech industry

through the pursuit of commercial research contracts. There was no reason to

believe that the research project would produce the controversial findings that

could threaten the scientific foundations of the biotech industry they sought to

embrace. In December 1996, Dr Pusztai suddenly became aware of the inadequate

level of existing scientific trials on GM maize when a member of the

Government's Advisory Committee on Novel Food Production (ACNFP) asked him to

assess the validity of a licensing application from one of the industry's

leading companies.

 

He faxed his two-page assessment to the Ministry of Agriculture warning that

tests into nutritional performance, toxicology or allergenicity were

insufficient and inadequate. In his final paragraph he asked for " proper

experiment " with the GM plants and added: " Do not leave it to chance. "

 

There was no legal requirement for further tests to be carried out and approval

for licensing was granted.

 

His own project, now a year old, was also presenting difficulties. Rows had

broken out after preliminary findings emerged from Dr Pusztai's team and the

SCRI and Durham University's biology department showed growing discomfort

sources told the Guardian about the validity of some of his methodology and the

implication of the results.

 

A Scottish Office immunologist was called in. She approved the methodology used

by Dr Pusztai's team.

 

The preliminary results of Dr Pusztai's work had begun to show unexpected and

worrying changes in the size and weight of the rats' bodily organs. The team

found liver and heart sizes were decreasing worse still, the brain was getting

smaller. There were also indications of a weakening of the immune system.

 

With so many unanswered questions, far more public money would be needed, Dr

Pusztai concluded. But the Guardian understands that the Scottish Office and the

Rowett Institute declined his funding requests.

 

For Dr Pusztai, the funding crisis and the prospect of his unexpected results

not being published led him to reconsider his attitude to the media.

 

In January last year he appeared, with the Rowett Institute's permission, on

BBC2's Newsnight and voiced his concerns in measured terms about weakening of

the immune system in the rats fed GM potatoes.

 

In April, Granada TV's World in Action approached Dr Pusztai and again with the

institute's consent he gave an interview which was broadcast in the documentary

that August.

 

Dr Pusztai told ITV viewers that he would not eat GM food. He found it " very,

very unfair to use our fellow citizens as guinea pigs. We have to find [them] in

the laboratory, " he insisted. Two days later Dr Pusztai was summarily suspended

and forced to retire by the Rowett Institute's director, Professor Philip James,

who had personally cleared the interview with Granada and put his name to

official press releases supporting the programme.

 

Dr Pusztai was denied access to his research data and an internal investigation

by the Rowett's senior management was launched after unsourced allegations of

scientific fraud against Dr Pusztai appeared in a scientific journal.

 

Six months later, the truth about what happened in those two days is still

shrouded in mystery. The Pusztai camp claim there was industry and political

pressure on the institute to silence him but a press release at he time stated

that Dr Pusztai had presented provisional data in public without peer review.

 

This week the institute director declined to discuss the matter or to be

interviewed by the Guardian. The deputy director, David Blair, also refused all

requests for further information. But the institute did complete an audit report

in August last year with the input of two outside scientists. The report

concluded that the research data did not link GM potatoes to any health risks.

 

Dr Pusztai wrote his reply once he was allowed access to his data. He strongly

re-confirmed his findings.

 

In another twist, Professor James gave evidence to the House of Lords Committee

on European regulation of GM in agriculture on the same day last October that

his audit report was published. Asked about events at the institute, Professor

James told the Lords " there is no question of any malpractice [by Dr Pusztai]. "

He apologised for the confusion, saying: " Dr Pusztai has come out of this audit

review exonerated. "

 

As for Dr Pusztai's conclusions, they remained unproven, said the Rowett report.

Dr Pusztai was not called to the committee hearing. But the Guardian understands

that a Liberal Democrat MP, Archy Kirkwood, provided the Lords with a copy of

the scientist's alternative report.

 

By October, Dr Stanley Ewen, a pathologist at Aberdeen University Medical

School, working on Dr Pusztai's team, was finalising his measurements on stomach

sections of rats used in Dr Pusztai's experiments.

 

Dr Ewen believed he had established that something in the GM potato had caused

elongation of a section of the stomach. In addition, after 10 days' feeding, a

section of the stomach wall had increased dramatically.

 

The Guardian has seen evidence of this and also learned that Dr Ewen did not

expect these results. According to a source close to the research, the

differences caused Dr Ewen concern.

 

As a result of the preliminary findings, Dr Ewen and Dr Pusztai are strongly in

favour of more research to further test their controversial results and their

implications for human beings. The scientists are anxious not to repeat the

mistakes of the BSE scandal.

 

They are asking for further funding to examine these problems in a more benign

atmosphere away from the secrecy, intrigue and recriminations of the past six

months.

 

The treatment of Dr Pusztai and the virtual disbandment of his research team led

the international group of 20 scientists to go public. Two of the signatories

have worked for the institute. Both were concerned about the attack on

scientific freedom.

 

Dr Kenneth Lough, aged 71, who was the principal science officer at the Rowett

Institute for 31 years until he retired 12 years ago, attacked the " draconian

position " taken by the institute in suspending Dr Pusztai without the proper

" free exchange " of data.

 

The absence of this free exchange of publicly funded data would be useful to the

GM industry which is unable to convince the British public about the quality of

their product.

 

The 20 scientists want to know why the changes in organ size and weight are

taking place whether the problem was the new gene or the method of

transplanting.

 

Alternatively, was it the " virus promoter " the " light switch " which GM companies

are using to turn on the genes? Increasingly, the Pusztai team began to focus on

the promoter, the so-called cauliflower mosaic virus.

 

Preliminary analysis redoubled their anxieties and with it the possible

implications for the GM industry. This was the same virus that had already been

used in the modified tomato paste, soya oils and maize that the Government and

the European Union had approved for use in industrial and convenience foods and

which were making their way into hundreds of products on supermarket shelves. Dr

Pusztai's preliminary research also questions the safety testing for the

products the biotech industry is bringing to the supermarket shelves, in some

cases unlabelled. None of the food that has been approved for consumption in the

UK has undergone long-term feeding trials.

 

" One key problem that keeps coming back time and again is that regulation of

food is nothing like as strict as the regulation for drugs, " Professor Jonathan

Rhodes, of Liverpool University, told the Guardian. " And when you start

tinkering around with the genetic structure of food you have to move towards

thinking of them as pharmaceuticals. "

 

Vyvyan Howard, also of Liverpool University, added: " We are saying that we need

a moratorium. " The vast majority of the British support this call, although Blair's government stands by the biotech industry, recently putting another £13

million into the DTI's Biotechnology means Business programme. A Mori poll last

June showed 77 per cent of respondents in favour of a moratorium; 61 per cent

did not wish to eat GM food.

 

A clear sign of the importance attached to the unpublished research was given

last week in private by the Nick Tomlinson, secretary to the Advisory Committee

on Novel Foods.

 

In a letter to Dr Ewen on February 4, he stated: " If there are lessons to be

learned, it is vital that these are taken on board as soon as possible. " He

asked for Dr Ewen's research as " a matter of urgency " .

 

At the weekend, British negotiators will fly to Colombia to negotiate the

Biosafety Protocol in an attempt to set up international regulations governing

GM organisms.

 

The Government is being criticised by many countries pushing for rigorous safety

assessments in the protocol. Tewolde Egziabher, representing the African nations

argues that " the position of the UK delegation is shaped by corporate interest,

probably reinforced by transatlantic pressure. " Michael Meacher, the Environment

Minister, argues: " Our aim is to establish a predictable, science-based and

transparent regime which establishes controls proportionate to the risks. " Will

these new findings force Tony Blair to change Britain's negotiating position to

adopt a stance based on the precautionary principle? Mr Blair's position on GM

organisms is now at odds with public opinion.

 

Labour MP Alan Simpson said: " What on earth would it take to put the people's

government at such a remove from the people that they have a delegation flying

out to Colombia on Sunday that could end up signing the country to an agreement

that prevents interventions to protect human health? " For a government that has

been meticulous in courting middle income, middle England, there has to be a

bigger explanation why they want to side with an industry increasingly heading

towards zero public tolerance.

 

" I think as the Government we have an obligation to identify who frustrated this

research? If Dr Pusztai is right, this could be BSE mark two. " What is at stake

here is the whole scrutiny process affecting human and environmental health. "

 

 

--

 

Laurie Flynn, Michael Gillard and Andy Rowell

_________________

 

JoAnn Guest

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DietaryTipsForHBP

http://www.geocities.com/mrsjoguest

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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