Scientist in food safety controversy suspended

The scientist who claimed his research had raised questions about the safety of genetically-modified (GM) food for consumption by humans has been suspended for issuing "misleading information" based on incomplete research. The Rowett Research Institute in Scotland said yesterday that Dr Arpad Pusztai would no longer have responsibility for any of its GM food research. The scientist would be retiring from the institute, it added.

Granada TV's World in Action programme on Monday featured Dr Pusztai's claims that rats had suffered damage to their immune systems and had their growth stunted due to consumption of GM potatoes.

The institute said that before agreeing to Dr Pusztai's appearance on the programme it had been decided that only "previously published concepts should be discussed" and that it would be "improper to present data which had not been publicly scrutinised by a variety of international experts and published".

It added: "It is therefore regrettable that discussions with the media at other times led to the presentation of information which misled everybody concerned."

The institute's directors yesterday received a preliminary outline of the laboratory data from Dr Eva Gelencser, a member of the team which carried out the studies on immune responsiveness under the supervision of Dr Pusztai.

It has emerged that the data provided by Dr Pusztai referred not to experimental studies on potatoes with transgenic Con A (from the American jack bean), but to GNA transgenic potatoes, which contain snowdrop genes.

Detailed analysis of the transgenic GNA studies were due to be completed later this week and were not data, as originally suggested, which had been discussed extensively at scientific meetings involving UK collaborators and the Scottish Office, the institute said.

Dr Patrick O'Reilly, Irish manager for Monsanto, the American biotechnology company, said he was pleased that the institute had "regretted the tremendous harm caused by the misleading publicity generated by such inaccurate information presented in the name of science".

He added: "It is now clear the alleged study did not involve GM potatoes, but used normal potatoes mixed with a well-known highly toxic chemical. The result was therefore hardly surprising."

Monsanto had not participated in the programme because it had not obtained advance details of this study. "We strongly support informed debate and the provision of better consumer information about genetic engineering", Dr O'Reilly said. "We are doing all we can to achieve these ends."

The incident was "an indictment of some of our elected representatives in the Green Party, who reacted in an irresponsible and hysterical manner to incomplete and misleading information".

The Irish environmental group Genetic Concern accepted that there was confusion between unpublished data relating to both forms of modified potato. Its spokesman, Mr Quentin Gargan, said: "The results were not necessarily the issue of consumer concern. The main argument presented by Dr Pusztai was that such testing had not been carried out at all on other genetically-engineered foods on the market."

Mr Gargan said Dr Pusztai was concerned that foods were being rushed on to the market without the kind of testing the institute was carrying out. He maintained that there was a justified need for a moratorium of at least five years until there had been thorough research into the safety and long-term effects of GM foods.

A Green Party spokesman said Dr Pusztai had made it clear that there was a need for further analysis and evaluation of the test results which were emerging. In any event, other field trials and studies had "proved the negative effects to the environment and to health from genetically-engineered foods", he claimed.