Guardian 16 Feb 99
Revealed: Lord Sainsbury's interest in key gene patent
By Laurie Flynn and Michael Sean Gillard
Tuesday February 16, 1999
The Guardian
Lord Sainsbury of Turville, the billionaire supermarket tycoon
and science minister, owned for 11 years the company
which controls the worldwide patent rights over a key gene
currently used in the genetic modification process, the Guardian
can reveal. The holding was switched into a blind trust last
July, three days after he joined the Government.
The same gene is at the centre of the food scandal revealed last
week in the Guardian which has split the Government and
has led to calls for a moratorium on the release of genetically
modified foods and provoked demands for an independent
ethics commission to look at the whole issue. The controversy is
focused on the suspension last year of Dr Arpad Pusztai, an
eminent scientist, whose publicly funded research was terminated
after he spoke out about the potential risk to human health from
GM foods.
Dr Pusztai's suppressed preliminary research - funded by a £1.6
million Scottish Office grant - showed that rats fed GM
potatoes suffered damage to their vital organs and a weakened
immune system.
He and his colleagues believe the harm, including shrinkage of
the brain and thickening of the stomach wall, could have
been caused by the cauliflower mosaic virus promoter, a
conclusion which threatens the multi-billion pound GM industry.
It is the cauliflower mosaic promoter which is owned by Lord
Sainsbury's private company. The promoter is vital because it
acts as an "on/off switch" to boost the growth of the
GM product.
Lord Sainsbury's patented gene is used in most GM foods available
worldwide and in the UK such as soya - which is
found in some 60 per cent of processed foodstuffs.
The revelation comes in a week when the Government backed GM food
safety despite mounting public concern and ignored opposition
demands for Lord Sainsbury's resignation.
As Science Minister at the Department for Trade and Industry and
a member of the cabinet biotechnology committee Lord Sainsbury,
aged 58, is accused of having a conflict of interest with his
outspoken support for GM foods and business links to
biotechnology companies.
His appointment to the cabinet committee was made soon after Dr
Pusztai was suspended last August.
The Guardian can reveal that this patent is owned by Diatech Ltd,
a London-based company wholly owned by Lord Sainsbury according
to the 1997 annual return. Diatech director, Christopher Stone,
said that the junior minister 'indirectly
owns' Diatech through his blind trust which was set up when he
was appointed a DTI minister last July. He added: 'It is
important that Lord Sainsbury does not know what Diatech is
doing. The company provides services to Lord Sainsbury and his
immediate family and some of Diatech's work includes plant
biotechnology.'
Diatech applied for the world patent in June 1987, well before he
was enobled by Tony Blair and while he was finance
director of Sainsbury plc. The application was granted in 1990
and has been held by his London-based private company since then.
It has only recently transferred into the blind trust last July
at the same time as he entered the Government.
Lord Sainsbury did not declare his shareholding in Diatech Ltd in
the December 1997 Register of Lords' Interests,
before he was made a minister. But he did declare that he was a
'holder of licensed plant biotechnology patent'. A DTI spokesman
for Lord Sainsbury told the Guardian he would not comment beyond
the information contained in a statement put out last July when
he was appointed Science Minister.
The spokesman would not answer any questions about the nature of
the patent other than to say it went into an
unnamed blind trust when he became a minister. The July 1998
press release goes into detail about his substantial shareholding
in Sainsbury plc, but does not mention Lord Sainsbury's lucrative
private ownership of the patent for cauliflower mosaic promoter.
His blind trust was set up in order to avoid any 'actual or
potential conflict of interests' with his ministerial
responsibilities. The junior minister is also the beneficiary of
offshore trusts in the British Virgin Islands, a well-known tax
haven.
Jack Cunningham, the minister who chairs the cabinet committee on
biotechnology and GM food safety, said: 'David
Sainsbury is a man of complete integrity. He has no financial
interests while he's serving in the Government. He's a very
valuable member of the ministerial team.' The inventor of the
patent is listed as Michael Wilson, who until 1988 worked at the
John Innes Institute which shares facilities with the Sainsbury
plant biology lab in Norwich.
The Guardian has established that Mr Wilson is now working at the
Scottish Crop Research Institute (SCRI) as the deputy director
during Dr Pusztai's research project. The SCRI, which
colloborated in aspects of the Pusztai research programme, was
said to be uncomfortable with Dr Pusztai's preliminary findings.
Lord Sainsbury was reported last month as saying he would stand
aside in the case of a genuine conflict of interest.
He said the cabinet committee on biotechnology had only met once
and GM foods had not come up.
He is also in charge of the Office of Science and Technology,
which monitors all government funding of
research and controls official science policy.
It is likely that today's revelations will increase opposition
pressure on Lord Sainsbury to resign.
© Copyright Guardian
Media Group plc. 1999