Trust Us, We're Experts PA

by Sheldon Rampton

  “When we started the project in 1995, we ran a search for biological testing papers on genetically modified foods,” Pusztai recalls. “There were none, so we did more searches from time to time.” In 1996, he finally found a study published in the Journal of Nutrition. It was written by B. G. Hammond, a scientist with Monsanto, the company that leads the drive to develop genetically modified foods. After feeding Monsanto’s genetically modified “Roundup Ready” soybeans to rats, catfish, chickens, and cows, Hammond concluded that the modified soya had the same nutritional value as conventional soybeans.3 Methodologically, however, Pusztai thought Hammond’s paper was weak. “The main problem is they were using mature animals which are not forming body tissues and organs,” he said. “Adults only need a small amount of protein because their bodies are in equilibrium, in homeostasis. But a young growing animal needs a great deal more protein because it’s laying down muscle and tissues and forming its organs. Moreover, there was only a small proportion of raw genetically-modified soya in their diet—about seven percent. It was obvious that the study had been designed to avoid finding any problems. Everybody in our consortium knew this. I thought that GNA—the snowdrop lectin—should be much better. If we could show that the snowdrop lectin was safe in genetically modified potatoes, we would be real heroes.”

  At the time Pusztai’s own feeding experiments began, he considered himself a “very enthusiastic supporter” of gene technology. He fully expected to issue a clean bill of health to the genetically modified potatoes that he was testing. The longer the experiments continued, however, the more concerns arose.

  Pusztai’s experiments involved feeding potatoes to four different groups of rats. A control group was fed on regular, unmodified potatoes. Two other groups were fed on different strains of potatoes that had each been genetically engineered to produce the snowdrop lectin. The fourth group was fed potatoes that had not been genetically modified, but which had been spiked with the snowdrop lectin through conventional, non-genetic means. As expected, the rats that ate unmodified potatoes did well, as did the rats in the fourth group that ate lectin-spiked potatoes.

  To Pusztai’s surprise, however, the rats fed on genetically modified potatoes showed a variety of unexpected and troubling changes in the size and weight of their body organs, including smaller livers, hearts, and brains. Pusztai’s research team also found evidence of weakened immune systems. “Feeding transgenic potatoes to rats induced major and in most instances highly significant changes in the weights of some or most of their vital organs,” he concluded. “Particularly worrying was the partial liver atrophy . . . Immune organs, such as the spleen and thymus were also frequently affected.”4

  “I was totally taken aback; no doubt about it,” Pusztai recalled. “I was absolutely confident that I would not find anything, but the longer I spent on the experiment the more uneasy I became. I believe in the technology. But it is too new for us to be absolutely sure that what we are doing is right.”5

  Unmodified potatoes were harmless by themselves. The snowdrop lectin was also harmless by itself, or when added directly to potatoes. In fact, Pusztai’s previous research had shown that rats suffered no harmful effects even when fed 1,000 times the amount of snowdrop lectin that appeared in his genetically modified potatoes. It appeared, therefore, that something about the genetic engineering process had produced the unexpected result. It was a troubling observation that raised more questions than it answered, and Pusztai felt that more research was needed. As his concerns emerged, however, questions began to be raised about Pusztai’s research methodology. A government immunologist was brought in to inspect his work. She found no flaws, but his requests for further government funding were turned down.

  Initially, the Rowett Research Institute agreed with Pusztai that something should be done to drum up funding so that further research could be conducted into the safety of genetically modified (GM) foods. In June 1998, with the Rowett’s approval, Pusztai agreed to the TV interview with World in Action. “My appearance was to highlight the need for a case-by-case program of biological testing of all GM foodstuffs,” he said. The interview was recorded seven weeks prior to broadcast, with the Institute’s public relations officer present as an observer. “If the Rowett had any qualms about the content of the TV program, they had seven weeks to stop it,” Pusztai said. “I kept to our agreement and only talked about the necessity of biological testing of GM foodstuffs before they were accepted into the human food chain. No experimental details or even the identity of the gene used were mentioned by me in the program. It was thought at the time, and the Rowett agreed with me, that our short- and long-term nutritional and immunological work with our two distinct lines of GM potatoes could have been a good starting point for a biological testing program. In the TV program I said that GM science might bring benefits, but only if we got it right and made sure that the GM foodstuffs were safe by testing them thoroughly and handling everything transparently.”

  The interviewer posed a couple of difficult questions. Did Dr. Pusztai feel concerned about the lack of safety testing of GM foods? “I could answer but two things: either yes or no,” Pusztai said. “I am afraid I have never learned to lie, so I said yes.” Would he personally eat his own genetically modified potatoes? Pusztai answered in the negative, noting that it is “very, very unfair to use our fellow citizens as guinea pigs.”

  In the weeks immediately following the taping and even up until the time of the broadcast, the Rowett Research Institute seemed happy with the publicity. Its director, Professor Philip James, even called Pusztai’s wife after the broadcast to express his congratulations on how well he had handled the interview. Then suddenly, two days after the broadcast, everything changed. Pusztai knew he was in trouble when he was called into the director’s office. Professor James was sitting stern-faced, flanked by Rowett’s personnel manager and an attorney. He handed Pusztai a news release, which stated that he had been suspended from work “and he will now retire from the Institute.”6

  “I was suspended for 12 days and then returned to the Rowett to finish off the rest of my year’s contract,” Pusztai said. “When I got to my laboratory I found the computers sealed, the desks locked and all my papers taken away. Worse, no one was speaking to me. All my former colleagues acted as though I didn’t exist. When I went into the coffee room they would turn their backs on me.”7

  “Suspended,” in other words, was a not-so-polite euphemism for being fired. And it wasn’t just Pusztai who was getting the sack. His experiments were abruptly terminated, his data confiscated. His potatoes were seized, his 18-member scientific team was disbanded, and his research designed to shed light on the safety of genetically modified foods was stopped in its tracks.

  Con A

  A persistent error appeared in early news stories about Pusztai’s research. In story after story, journalists claimed that Pusztai’s genetically modified potatoes contained a lectin called Concanavalin A—Con A for short. Derived from the South American jackbean, Con A is completely different from the snowdrop lectin and is known to harm the immune systems of mammals. If he had used Con A, damage to the immune system would not be surprising, but that’s not what he used.

  “I am not sure how the Con A story came about, but I can assure you it did not originate with me,” Pusztai says. “I have been doing experiments with lectins, including Con A, in a gut context for 25 years. I more or less created this field of study, and I do not take very kindly to the idea that I did not know whether I talked about Con A or GNA. I must say I was very surprised when the few reporters I spoke to questioned me about our Con A studies.”8

  One of the first mentions of the Con A lectin seems to have come from Dan Verakis, a spokesman for Monsanto. On the morning of August 10, just prior to the broadcast of the World in Action interview, Pusztai did a separate live interview in which Verakis also participated. “I was surprised when I heard him say that we should not have used the gene of the toxic protein from the South
American jackbean,” Pusztai recalls.

  Later that morning, he returned to the Rowett Research Institute. “By that time all the phones were ringing, and secretaries were logging phone calls,” he says. “I was tired and therefore Professor James kindly suggested that I was not to give more interviews.” Although Pusztai did not realize it at the time, his interview on the morning of August 10 would be the last time he was allowed to speak publicly for six months.

  Over the course of the next two days, the Rowett Institute’s correspondence with journalists came from Professor James himself or from other staff members who inexplicably repeated the Con A confusion. A news release issued by the institute on August 10 stated that Pusztai’s experiments used “the potent insecticidal lectin Concanavalin A.” This official line became the basis for news stories titled “Scientist’s Potato Alert Was False, Laboratory Admits,” and “Doctor’s Monster Mistake.” The Times of London described the situation as follows:The data to which Dr. Pusztai had referred, first in an interview with World in Action and then with the Times and other media, did not involve genetically modified potatoes. Rather, it involved feeding trials in which a protein from the jack bean, a lectin, was added to a potato-based feed. Since this lectin is known to harm the immune system, the damage was not surprising.

  The institute does intend to carry out feeding trials with a potato modified by inserting the gene for this lectin, called Con A, but has yet to start. It said it “regrets the release of misleading information about issues of such importance to the public and the scientific community.” Professor Philip James, the director, had suspended Dr. Pusztai from all responsibility for the studies, and put Dr. Andrew Chesson, head of research, in charge.

  Dr. Colin Merritt of Monsanto, the leading company involved in gene-modified crops, said: “It seems the researcher leading this programme was out of the country . . . Meanwhile, Dr. Pusztai had gone to the media. Basically he has picked up non-genetically modified potato data, in which the naturally occurring poison Con A has been added, and read that as the effect of transgenic modified potatoes. It is an awful mistake and these revelations are absolute dynamite.”9

  The only problem with this explanation is that every important fact in it was false. Pusztai’s experiments had used genetically modified potatoes. The Con A lectin is indeed poisonous, but Pusztai was not experimenting with Con A. He had used the snowdrop lectin, GNA. If Professor James had only shown him the news release before sending it out, Pusztai says, he could have corrected the mistake. The Rowett Research Institute would eventually admit that its news release was wrong, but by then the damage had already been done. Its errors would continue to appear in some news stories for more than a year after they were publicly retracted.

  “We have never done any experiments with GM-potatoes expressing the gene of Concanavalin A,” Pusztai says. “I still do not know and cannot make up my mind whether the Director was telling the world about Con A in his Press Releases on August 10 to discredit me or just did this out of ignorance, but the effect was the same. When I had to say that there were no such experiments I was regarded as a bumbling idiot, a thief or a cheat. The strategy, if I can assume him to be clever enough, was to put something into my mouth that was manifestly wrong and then to shoot me down for it.”10

  The Con A misunderstanding reverberated for months afterward as the basis for all sorts of confused and misleading news stories. “Instead of rodents fed with genetically altered potatoes, Dr. Pusztai had used the results of tests carried out on rats treated with poison,” reported the Scottish Daily Record & Sunday Mail.11

  “Lectins are a known poison; of course if they were in the potatoes you would expect an effect,” wrote Charles Arthur, technology editor of the London Independent.12

  Sir Robert May, the British government’s chief scientist, also echoed the Con A fallacy. “If you mix cyanide with vermouth in a cocktail and find that it is not good for you, I don’t draw sweeping conclusions that you should ban all mixed drinks,” he told a radio interviewer.13

  In addition to misrepresenting Pusztai’s research, Professor James spun out a series of subtle slurs on his competence and character, describing Pusztai as “an outstanding scientist who has done good work but who had got himself in a terrible fix.” James hinted that Pusztai was suffering from senility, describing his thinking as “muddled” and saying that he was “on the verge of collapse,” “gibbering,” and “absolutely mortified. He is holding his hands up and is apologizing,” James said, which was another falsehood. “I am desperate that dear old Arpad Pusztai maintains his scientific credibility,” he would say at another point. “I am desperate to protect him.”14

  Publicly, Pusztai was unable to respond to any of these statements for the simple reason that the Rowett Research Institute had used restrictive clauses in his employment contract to impose a gag order preventing him from speaking out. Like tobacco industry whistle-blower Jeffrey Wigand, he risked forfeiting his pension if he spoke to reporters. Professor James would claim later that the restrictions on Pusztai were justified because “he was exhausted and not used to dealing with the media. He was naïve and overwhelmed and therefore I relieved him of any press relations. I was amazed when I was accused of gagging him.”15 Pusztai, however, has copies of letters from James threatening him with court action if he spoke to the press. His wife, Susan, who was also a scientist at Rowett, was forbidden from speaking with reporters or even being photographed. “All my life I have been afraid of people who said they were helping me. I grew up under a communist regime, and they told me they also had my best intentions at heart,” Pusztai said. “I didn’t believe them and escaped as a political refugee. Unfortunately I couldn’t escape from Professor James. . . . For the first time in my life I was deprived of my right of self-defense. My restrictive contract prevented me saying the things necessary to defend myself.”16

  As public controversy continued to swirl, the Rowett Research Institute established a four-scientist “audit committee” to review Pusztai’s work. Normally an audit of this type is performed only if there is reason to suspect actual scientific fraud. The Rowett’s committee found no such evidence and confirmed that he had indeed been working with potatoes genetically modified to contain the snowdrop lectin. The committee disagreed, however, with the conclusions that Pusztai had drawn from his data. The Rowett gave Pusztai three days to write a reply to the audit committee, while continuing to deny him access to his own data. It then posted the text of its audit report on the Internet, along with Pusztai’s reply, which it described as “unpublishable”—that is, insufficiently rigorous for publication in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. Pusztai agrees, pointing out that this is hardly surprising given the limitations under which he was forced to produce it.17

  Prevented from speaking directly to the media, Pusztai sent a letter to a friend, which was then passed on to journalists. In the letter, he noted that the Rowett Research Institute, during testimony about his work before a government review committee, had provided the conclusions of its own audit report while neglecting to inform the committee of the existence of Pusztai’s rebuttal. By then, two months had passed. Rowett had said it would “consider” his rebuttal, but had made no reply. When he pressed further, he was told to write up his data as scientific papers and submit them to Professor James, who would decide whether they could be submitted for publication in scientific journals. Even if James would give approval—obviously a big if—this process would have taken at least six to eight months. “But for someone like me, with my destroyed scientific reputation, it may take considerably longer. So, I am sure it is another delaying ploy,” Pusztai stated in the letter to his friend.18

  Since Pusztai’s contract with the Rowett Research Institute prevented him from publishing his findings on his own, he passed some of his samples for evaluation on to Dr. Stanley Ewen, a pathologist at Aberdeen University. Ewen carried out his own measurements and agreed with Pusztai’s findings. Finally, in February
1999, a 20-member international scientific panel went on record in support of Pusztai. Only then did the Rowett Institute lift the gag order so that he could begin to speak publicly on his own behalf. Without permission from the Institute, however, he was still unable to publish. As a sort of scientific end run around this restriction, Ewen wrote up his own appraisal, which was eventually published in October with Pusztai as coauthor in the Lancet, England’s leading medical journal.

  As someone who had built a good portion of his career laying the scientific groundwork for the development of genetically modified foods, Pusztai now found himself in a situation where his primary defenders were environmentalists, organic food advocates, and other stalwart opponents of biotech foods. “I have landed up in no-man’s land. It is not a comfortable place to be,” Pusztai stated. “I am in a situation I cannot get out of now. I feel responsible to keep going because I am the only one with data that shows there are problems. I have a choice: apologize for being incorrect or keep going, and I know I am correct.”19

  Big Stakes for Small Potatoes

  The battle between environmentalists and the biotech food industry is shaping up to become one of the most contentious and important political struggles of the twenty-first century. Financially, the stakes are immense. Many of the world’s largest chemical corporations—including Monsanto, Novartis, Hoechst of Germany, Pharmacia, Dow Chemical, and DuPont—have been shifting their investments out of industrial chemicals and into agribusiness, pharmaceuticals, and food. In 1998, the U.S. government gave the green light to genetically modified soybeans, cotton, corn, summer squash, potatoes, canola oil, radicchio, papayas, and tomatoes, opening the floodgates on what until then had been a trickle of biotech crops. In early 1999, the International Seed Trade Federation predicted that the world market for genetically engineered seed would reach $6 billion by the year 2005. “Almost 100 percent of our agricultural exports in the next five years will be genetically modified or combined with bulk commodities that are genetically modified,” Deputy U.S. Treasury Secretary Stuart Eizenstat said in testimony before the U.S. Senate in June of 1999. These projections, however, are threatened by growing consumer unrest in Europe, Japan, and elsewhere raising questions about this altered harvest. In fact, Eizenstat added, “the European Union’s fear of bioengineered foods . . . is the single greatest trade threat that we face.”20