Suppressed report shows cancer link to GM potatoes

[Guest guest]

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health_medical/article2278044.ece

By Colin Brown, Deputy Political Editor

Published: 17 February 2007

Campaigners against genetically modified crops in Britain last are calling for

trials of GM potatoes this spring to be halted after releasing more evidence of

links with cancers in laboratory rats.

 

UK Greenpeace activists said the findings, obtained from Russian trials after an

eight-year court battle with the biotech industry, vindicated research by Dr

Arpad Pusztai, whose work was criticised by the Royal Society and the

Netherlands State Institute for Quality Control.

 

The disclosure last night of the Russian study on the GM Watch website led to

calls for David Miliband, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural

Affairs, to withdraw permission for new trials on GM potatoes to go ahead at

secret sites in the UK this spring. Alan Simpson, a Labour MP and green

campaigner, said: " These trials should be stopped. The research backs up the

work of Arpad Pusztai and it shows that he was the victim of a smear campaign by

the biotech industry. There has been a cover-up over these findings and the

Government should not be a party to that. "

 

Mr Simpson said the findings, which showed that lab rats developed tumours, were

released by anti-GM campaigners in Wales. Dr Pusztai and a colleague used

potatoes that had been genetically modified to produce a protein, lectin. They

found cell damage in the rats' stomachs, and in parts of their intestines.

 

The research is likely to spark a fresh row about GM crops in Britain. Graham

Thompson, a Greenpeace campaigner, said: " It is important because it backs up

the research by Pusztai, which was smeared at the time by the industry. "

 

Brian John of GM Free Cymru, who released the findings, said the research was

conducted in 1998 by the Institute of Nutrition of the Russian Academy of

Medical Sciences and has been suppressed for eight years.

 

It showed that the potatoes did considerable damage to the rats' organs. Those

in the " control groups " that were fed non-GM potatoes suffered ill-effects, but

those fed GM potatoes suffered more serious organ and tissue damage.

 

The potatoes contained an antibiotic resistance marker gene. The institute that

carried out the studies refused to release all the information. However,

Greenpeace and other consumer groups mounted a protracted legal battle campaign

to obtain the report. In May 2004 the Nikulinski District Court in Russia ruled

that information relating to the safety of GM food should be open to the public.

 

The institute, however, refused to release the report. Greenpeace and Russian

activist groups again took the institute to court, and won a ruling that the

report must be released.

 

Irina Ermakova, a consultant for Greenpeace, said she had conducted her own

animal feeding experiments with GM materials. " The GM potatoes were the most

dangerous of the feeds used in the trials ... and on the basis of this evidence

they cannot be used in the nourishment of people. "

 

Greenpeace said the Russian trials were also badly flawed. Half of the rats in

the trial died, and results were taken from those that survived, in breach of

normal scientific practice