Are Science and the Biotech Industry Sleeping in the Same Bed?

By Jeffrey M. Smith, author of Seeds of Deception

One day in April 1998, Professor Phillip James walked into the office of Arpad
Pusztai and placed a large stack of documents on his desk . The documents were
submissions from biotech companies seeking approval of their GM soy, corn, and
tomatoes. He called in Arpad’s wife Susan from the adjoining office. James was
the director of the Rowett Institute in Aberdeen, Scotland, Europe’s leading
nutritional research facility.

He told the Pusztais, both senior scientists there, that the British
agriculture minister was meeting with European ministers in Brussels to vote
on genetically modified (GM) foods, and he wanted a scientific opinion on
them.

Arpad Pusztai looked at the stack-nearly 700 pages-then back at James. He was
confident that his director and the other eleven scientists on the committee
that approves GM foods for the UK were far too busy to actually read these
studies.

The Pusztais, however, had worked for more than two years on a UK government
grant, leading a 20-member research team to design the ideal testing protocol
for evaluating GM foods. They also conducted safety tests on a new variety of
GM potatoes intended for commercialization.

The Pusztais were therefore among the most qualified scientists in the world
to evaluate the papers James had just given them. Arpad asked how much time
they had. “Two and a half hours,” said James. They quickly got to work,
focusing on the design and the data.

Arpad was shocked at what he discovered. The research was incredibly poor. He
described it as superficial, flimsy, and just plain bad science. Reading those
studies was a turning point in the life of this very pro-biotech scientist.

Arpad was the leading researcher in his field, with more than 300 articles and
12 books to his credit. Based on his reputation and experience, the government
had awarded him the GM research grant over 27 competing applicants.

As a man of integrity, accustomed to thorough and rigorous science, Arpad
expected the same from others. But he realized that the approach taken by
biotech industry scientists was diametrically opposed to his own. “I was doing
safety studies,” he said. “They were doing as little as possible to get their
products to market as quickly as possible.”

Abominable Scientific Methods Ignored

Pusztai called the minister and told him that although he wasn’t expecting to
have such a strong opinion after only two and a half hours, there was
definitely not enough information to declare the foods safe for humans.

But the minister responded, “I don’t know why you are telling me this,
Professor James has already accepted it.” It had already been on the market
for two years.

Months later, Arpad had another shock. Young rats fed a genetically engineered
potato developed extensive health problems. Some had smaller, less developed
brains, livers, and testicles, and also partial atrophy of the liver. Some
suffered damaged immune systems and organ damage. And there was excessive cell
growth in the stomach and intestines.

The potato was engineered to produce its own insecticide, but the insecticide
itself was not the cause of these problems. In fact, other rats that had eaten
natural potatoes that were spiked with the insecticide fared much better.

Thus, since the insecticide was not the cause of the poor health of the GM-fed
rats, it was almost certainly the process of genetically modifying the
potatoes that was the culprit.

Arpad realized that if his potatoes had been subjected to the same superficial
industry studies he had reviewed, the potatoes would have been approved. The
organ damage, cell growth, immune functions, and so on, would be undetected.

More worrisome was the fact that the soy, corn, and tomatoes that were
approved were not tested for these potential problems. And they were created
with the same process that Arpad used to engineer his potatoes.

The Cost of Speaking Out

With permission from his director, Arpad accepted an invitation to be
interviewed on television and express his concerns about GM food. For two days
he was a hero at his institute.

Then, on a Tuesday afternoon, two phone calls from the prime minister’s office
were allegedly forwarded through the institute’s receptionist to the director.
On Wednesday morning, Phillip James fired Arpad after 35 years and silenced
him with threats of a lawsuit. His 20-member research team was dismantled and
the UK government abandoned its plans for long-term safety study requirements
for GM foods. The Rowett Institute then issued several statements trashing
Arpad and his research in an apparent attempt to protect the biotech
industry.

Eventually Arpad was invited to speak before Parliament, his gag order lifted,
and his research published in the prestigious Lancet.

Despite his work being cut off in the middle, his rat study remains the most
in-depth animal feeding safety study ever published on GM foods. Tragically,
no similar studies have yet been applied to the GM foods on the market. No one
is monitoring to see if the organs, immune system, and cells of humans eating
GM foods are being similarly influenced.

Arpad has since been commissioned to review all published animal feeding
studies on GM foods. There are only about a dozen. In his paper, published as
a chapter in the book Food Safety, he reported consistent shortcomings in
industry-sponsored research. Their poor designs allow significant problems to
go unnoticed. When problems were identified, they were not followed up.

Arpad and his wife have made presentations on GM foods around the world. In
2001, they appeared before New Zealand’s Royal Commission of Inquiry on
Genetic Modification, where the sentiments and experience of several other
presenters echoed their own.

Are Science and Commerce ‘Sleeping in the Same Bed’?

Parliament member Sue Kedgley testified: “Personally I have been contacted by
telephone and e-mail by a number of scientists who have serious concerns about
aspects of the research that is taking place… and the increasingly close
ties that are developing between science and commerce, but who are convinced
that if they express these fears publicly, even at such a Commission… or
even if they asked the awkward and difficult questions, they will be eased out
of their institution.”

Mae-Wan Ho, a biophysicist and geneticist, told the Commission that the
scientific evidence on GM foods “simply did not support the claims… that the
technology is precise and safe.” Ho has endured numerous attacks for her
opinions, including being hounded out of her position at the UK’s Open
University.

Epidemiologist Judy Carman testified that the few animal feeding studies on GM
foods are too short to adequately test for cancer or for problems in
offspring. Further, they are not evaluating “biochemistry, immunology, tissue
pathology, gut function, liver function, and kidney function.” Carman, who has
investigated outbreaks of disease, said that health problems associated with
GM foods might be impossible to track in the human population, or take decades
to discover.

Carman is repeatedly attacked for her critical stance. One pro-GM scientist
threatened disciplinary action through her Vice-Chancellor. Another circulated
a defamatory letter to government and university officials in October 2004,
alleging that Carman was unethical and that her work was similar to
“inaccurate
anti-vaccine scaremongering [that] kills people.”

Geneticist Michael Antoniou, who works on human gene therapy, told the New
Zealand Commission, “genetic engineering technology, as it’s being applied in
agriculture now, [is] based on the understanding of genetics we had 15 years
ago, about genes being isolated little units that work independently of each
other.” He explained that genes actually “work as an integrated whole of
families.”

Falling on (More) Deaf Ears in the UK and Around the World

In 2003, Antoniou represented non-governmental organizations on the UK’s
supposedly balanced GM Science Review Panel that was part of the nationwide
“GM Nation?” public debate. He was shocked to find scientists there still
supporting obsolete theories of gene independence. Some even claimed that the
order of genes in the DNA was entirely irrelevant. Antoniou was outnumbered by
eleven scientists representing either the biotech industry or appointed by the
pro-biotech UK government. His well-supported arguments fell on deaf ears.
Since the debate, new studies have further verified Antoniou’s position by
showing that genes are not randomly located along the DNA, but clustered into
groups with related functions.

Virologist Terje Traavik testified that GM crops “might be the basis for real
ecological and health catastrophes.” Three years later, in a February 2004
meeting with delegates to the UN biosafety protocol conference, Traavik
presented preliminary evidence from three studies which might fulfill his
earlier prediction.

a.. Philippinos living next to a GM cornfield developed serious symptoms
while the corn was pollinating.

b.. Promoters-genetic material routinely inserted into GM crops-were found
to transfer to rat organs after a single transgenic meal. Key safety
assumptions about genetically engineered viruses were overturned, calling into
question the safety of using these viruses as vaccines.

Traavik, naturally, was attacked.

Biologist Phil Regal told the Commission, “I think the people who boost
genetic engineering are going to have to do a mea culpa and ask for
forgiveness, like the Pope did on the inquisition; you know, ‘we made a
mistake, let’s start over.'”

Sue Kedgley had another idea. She said, “I would recommend that perhaps we
could set up human clinical trials using volunteers of genetically engineered
scientists and their families, because. they are so convinced of the safety of
the products that they are creating. they would very readily volunteer to
become part of a human clinical trial.”

(C) Jeffrey Smith, 2004

Not eager to eat GM foods? At least 70% of all prepared foods in the US have GM components. Organic foods, on the other hand, do not. Eat organic. It’s cheap compared to disease.