WATCHING DR PUSZTAI - OECD report
Norfolk Genetic Information Network (ngin) website at:
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/
They had to invite Aarpad Pusztai to the OECD conference to give the
event any semblance of credibility in terms of its claims to represent a
range of views, but the way in which he was treated while there rather
exposed the shallow pretence of this very carefully staged event. Here's
an account of a week spent observing what was happening around Dr
Pusztai in Edinburgh.
Watching Dr Pusztai
Dr Pusztai gave his eight and a half minute talk on Monday afternoon and
in a sane world his contribution to the conference should not have been
that controversial. Quite deliberately, he said that he was not going
to participate in a sterile debate about whether GM-food is good or bad
but rather would outline a practical scientific protocol for actually
testing the biological health effects of GM-crops. Clearly, Pusztai's
intent was to move the argument forward, but the biotech nasty brigade
were having none of it!
Although nobody at the conference managed to come up with a single
criticism of Pusztai's actual proposals, biotech evangelists like Nigel
Halford (of Institute of Arable Crop Research), Mike Wilson (formerly
Scottish Crop Research Institute and before that John Innes Centre), and
Phil Dale (John Innes Centre), not to mention, of course, Monsanto, took
every opportunity they could throughout the Conference to make personal
attacks on Dr Pusztai based on their version of his past "contribution"
to the GM-debate.
Most of these attacks were openly allowed by the Chair without any
requirement to confine their remarks to what Pusztai had actually
proposed. Dr Pusztai was also granted almost no opportunity to reply to
these personal attacks. On one occasion I even saw a former scientific
adviser to Marks & Spencer on the very verge of physically attacking Dr
Pusztai while telling him he was a disgrace to science who for personal
glory would make millions starve in the Third World!!!
Halford and Wilson presented Pusztai's Lancet article as if it were the
worst thing that had ever been published, implying that all the referees
had rejected it (which is completely untrue - a majority wanted it
published and referee disagreement is hardly unknown). Despite Sir John
Krebbs giving Pusztai no chance to reply to these spurious attacks, no
matter how long Pusztai had his hand in the air, it was a great pleasure
to see Dr Pusztai corner Halford after the meeting and make him eat his
words! Unfortunately, Halford's grovelling response was heard by very
few while the biotech brigade's attacks were made in front of the entire
conference.
By the last day, when most of those such as Steve Druker (of the FDA
documents fame), Patrick Holden 9of the Soil Association) and so on had
long gone, the event had become rather like a pro-GM rally, with just a
few token sceptics present. The biotech brigade used the opportunity to
try and rubbish Pusztai one last time while proclaiming the various
glories that biotech held out for our global future.
The supposed reasons for the hate campaign against Dr Pusztai are pretty
well rehearsed. He was the man who spoke out about the rersults of his
unpublished GM potato research and the true scientist would, of course,
only present sound peer reviewed data open to critical scrutiny etc etc.
(The fact that scientists are forever talking to journalists about their
work in progress, or that Dr Pusztai had permission from the Rowett
Institute to make the comments he did, is of course conveniently ignored.)
How ironic, then, that while Pusztai was repeatedly vilified in
Edinburgh, the Conference darling was Professor Zhangliang Chen, Vice
President of Beijing University, who reported that in testing the health
effects of their GM foods on rats in China no adverse effects had been
found. Chen, needless to say, provided absolutely no details of the
protocols, design, methodology etc - there were just these glorious
results and that apparently was quite sufficient to serve as a glowing
"certificate of worth" to GM-crops, while Pusztai continued to be
lacerated for research published in such little known journals as The
Lancet and The Journal of Nutrition.
People were even coming up to Pusztai to tell him, with no apparent
sense of irony, that Prof Chen had shown that when you do the
experiments right, you get the right results! The fact that these
wonderful results were not open to critical scrutiny or that Prof Chen
divulged not a word about how he had done these experiments, was treated
as a complete irrelevance. Such is sound science.
Dr Pusztai has, of course, also repeatedly been belaboured for making
some of the rats in his experiments eat raw potatoes (in addition to
boiled/baked ones), so it was equally apt that another Conference hero
was Prof. Charles Arntzen of the Boyce Institute USA, who extolled the
virtues of edible vaccines in, wait for it, GM potatoes. Arntzen failed
to mention that, as heat destroys the vaccine, in order to get the
intended benefit these GM potatoes would have to be eaten raw!
Even if Arntzen had made this clear, however, one somehow doubts that it
would have given rise to very much concern. After all, the subtext of
the OECD conference was that it matters little what sort of rubbish you
feed people... as long, that is, as you are pro-GM!
Afterword
It is perhaps not entirely coincidental that most of Dr Pusztai's severest
critics at Edinburgh - ie Drs Halford, Wilson, Dale + Monsanto - have
all come under fire for the highly misleading statements they have made
in the course of their avid promotion of GM crops - see:
False reports and the smears of men
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/false.htm
Pro-GM scientists and the radical right
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/rightwing.htm
and
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/biospin.htm